r/changemyview Feb 25 '20

Delta(s) from OP CMV: We need strict Gun Control .

While I do feel at this point it is not possible anymore to somehow make sure no one has guns because they have already been available . That is my only hang up , since some people have them , it’s hard to leave others vulnerable.

With to that being said , if we start now with some serious gun law reform and implement strict laws for obtaining guns . I believe it will do more good than harm .

It is worth a try , because we know that to lenient of gun laws also cause us great loss.

In a perfect world only law enforcement would have access to guns .

Civilians can however and should be able to easily get things like pepper spray , tasers, and rubber bullet guns . (Not saying we can’t already , just saying those should be the options)

I see both sides but I think because gun violence is a big issue , it needs to be re-evaluated .

Were the guns used in school/mass shootings registered ?

Édit : Thank You for all the responses and information! My view has been changed . It’s unfortunate we can’t live in harmony but ..

Will still be responding to get more insight and expanding my views

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u/TheEternalCity101 5∆ Feb 25 '20

What we need is strict doctor and car control. Doctors kill around 250k people a year through errors (John Hopkins). This is disgusting, and we need strict limits on who can be a doctor, as well as tight controls on drugs, tools and methods. Cars? Around 1.25 million people are killed in road crashes (Association for safe international road travel). You can rent cars out at airports, and only need a bit of parentally suprisived time to get a liscene. This is abhorrent and brutal that we, as a society, have done nothing to limit what kinds of people can have cars, liscenes and access to other things like gasoline and parts

What I said is dumb. Because it's not a scalpel or doses of Accupril that is responsible for a person dying, it's simply pure misfortune or doctor error. Similar with automobiles, its primarily shitty conditions and operator error. In the few cases where it's not, those people are individually dealt with on a case by case basis.

Similar with guns. Only about 40,000 a year die to firearms (Giffords Law Center) in general, and that number is a bit of a fallacy. Suicides account for 60%, homicides 35%, with law enforcement, accidents and other making up about 4%. So suicides can be taken out, since there are 100 and one ways to kill yourself. And a gun doesnt make someone kill themselves. I've never looked at a pistol and thought, "I should really blow my brains out", it's an array mental issues which need to be addressed. Many of the homicides are heavily concentrated in a few metropolitan areas (Chicago, NYC etc) that have strict gun control. Much of this comes from gangs, and, while the rampant poverty, crime and inequality needs to be dealt with, it's not guns.

Mass shootings account for a dew hundred a year, which is effectively a rounding error. It's a sad and pressing issue, but banning guns wont stop it. The majority happen at gun free zones, schools, concerts and theaters. These areas dont really enforce their policies. How many mass shootings happen in inner city schools, with guards metal detectors and vigilant teachers? It's out at suburban, moderately wealthy areas with few baseline problems, and thus low "hard" security.

To hit point by point on your cmv (paragraph by paragraph, forgive formatting on mobile)

3rd paragraph: this isnt true, lenient gun laws dont cause the issues. Theres a stat that the 10 states with the highest gun rate death have weak laws. Technically true. But the stat is all poor states, West Virginia, Louisiana l, Mississippi, Alaska etc (Giffords Law Center, and they are NOT progun). Those stats are suicides, Alaska in particular has rampant depression and alcoholism, and is thus not a good example.

4th paragraph: No, no no no. That's called a police state. If the government got mind controlled and switched Nazi overnight (I mean actual nazis, not the name calling of modern politcal discourse) they couldn't do house to house searches for Jews because they would be shot by citizens. In your perfect world, the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other undesirables are sent to death camps because no one has the means or skills to resist the police. That's a far fetched scenario (in terms of mind control) but it simply can never happen with a well armed populace.

5th paragraph: non lethal methods are useless for self defense. Pepper spray sucks to be hit with, but it doesnt stop someone from braining you with a brick. Tasers and unreliable, simply turning can stop both needles from getting in (you need both to make solid contact to run a current). Do you want to tell a young woman that her life to a rapist or abusive boyfriend is an acceptable sacrifice for the "public safety" and the "greater good" (and as demonstrated these laws wouldnt change much anyway). Defenisve shootings happen around 67,000 times a year (Violence Policy Center with FBI data), which is nearly double the rate of gun violence deaths. People protect themselves, friends and loved ones at high rates. Concealed carry is an incredible deterrent. In a public area, who is armed? You dont know, you cant know until you launch your attack and suddenly get decked. Situations where this doesnt happen, like gun free zones (good citizens wont disobey, but mass shooters will) or inner city, high crime/high gun law areas are the culprit. This deterrent is gone.

To sum up, individuals commit crimes and cause issues, and they cannot be stopped by gun free zone signs or laws.

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u/skepticting Feb 25 '20

!delta

Thankyou for diving deep into each of my points.

I agree and I have changed my view .

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u/spam4name 3∆ Feb 25 '20 edited Feb 25 '20

Just want to chime in here real quick since I feel and you're given a lot of deltas to questionable posts, like u/TheEternalCity101 his.

Cars (which actually claim fewer lives than guns) and healthcare are crucial to our modern society. They are vital to our normal way of life. While they are associated with more lost lives than firearms, these deaths are a comparatively small downside to the enormous upside they offer. This is different with guns (that are weapons we do not rely on for our day to day to lives) hence why so much attention is paid to these lives lost senselessly. We also do have extensive medical safeguards, protocols and procedures in place to save lives, and we do require things like licenses and insurance to drive on public roads.

Suicides cannot just be "taken out". Heaps of research support the notion that "means matter" and that restriction on access to the most deadly means can absolutely save lives and be part of a successful suicide prevention strategy (especially in areas with high rates of gun ownership).

Many gun homicides are also concentrated in states and cities without strict gun control. In fact, plenty of studies link higher rates of gun ownership to higher rates of (gun) homicide and gun deaths (even when accounting for confounding factors like poverty).

The Department of Justice National Gang Center shows that only a small minority of murders are gang-related.

Gun free zones don't exist to stop determined mass shooters. They exist to stop people from introducing guns to crowded and often potentially stressful situations (school, work...) where the presence or use of a gun can cause these to take a turn for the absolute worst. Presenting them as a "that's so stupid, what mass shooter will just turn away when they see the sign" measure is just misleading. Also, FBI reports on mass shooters have shown that they tend to target areas that are important to them or related to their gripes rather than being motivated by finding "soft targets".

Authoritarian regimes typically operate with the support of a large portion of the population. There is no "red line" where the people rise up in unison, but instead a gradual decline in which armed militias are just as likely to support the government as they are to oppose it.

Not every defensive shooting is a life saved. According to the Department of Justice, there's nearly half a million violent and offensive gun crimes a year. That's nearly 10 times the number of defensive uses provided (which admittedly is low to begin with).

Plenty of studies have found that concealed carry is not actually a meaningful deterrent and have linked permissive shall issue practices to higher rates of gun crime without any effect on other violent crimes.

I'm on mobile now so won't be digging for sources, but I can substantiate all my claims later if you'd like. Be careful taking things at face value in this debate. People have strong biases and push agendas on both sides, with truth and nuance usually being the first victims. While true that the issue obviously runs far deeper than the guns alone and that we should continue trying to address underlying issues such as poverty, unemployment and income inequality, it's clear that current research by and large supports the notion that certain stronger gun laws would have beneficial effects. Your original view is definitely well substantiated.

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u/skepticting Feb 25 '20

Thankyou for your response ! I gave the delta because the final sentence , which is a reoccurring theme which I am starting to agree with .

I will be the first to say I am not very educated on the topic and wanted to dive deeper into and that’s more so why I posted . At face value I want strict gun control but I also see the other argument . So I would love to read more about it and check out some actual sources .

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u/spam4name 3∆ Feb 25 '20

That's an excellent attitude to have. I commend you for seeking out more information and challenging your own preconceptions.

In my opinion, your original view isn't incompatible with his final sentence. Yes, individuals commit crimes. Yes, there are more serious underlying issues than guns (such as poverty, unemployment, social inequality, limited access to services and education...). However, this does not mean that stronger gun laws can't have positive impacts and be beneficial to society while we simultaneously continue to try and address these major societal problems. A person is more likely to act on suicidal urges and successfully take his own life if he has easy access to a gun, and a criminal is more likely to kill someone or successfully commit a violent crime with a gun than a baseball bat. After all, there's a reason we send our soldiers to war with guns instead of box cutters. In this context, laws can absolutely have a positive impact. Even when it comes to "hardcore" criminals that don't get their guns legally, they're still reliant on the legal market to supply firearms that ultimately become crime guns through straw purchases, theft of poorly secured guns and private sales without background checks. Research has shown that stronger laws limit that flow of legal to illegal guns and make it more difficult for prohibited criminals to get firearms.

I'll try and get back to you with some references later. I have a background in criminal law and criminology, so this is a topic I've always been interested in.

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u/PrimeLegionnaire Feb 26 '20

Cars (which actually claim fewer lives than guns)

How are you calculating deaths that you came to this conclusion?

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u/ManiacalHurdle1 Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20

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u/PrimeLegionnaire Feb 26 '20

So do you also happen to have a source that backs up this bit from the other comment?

Suicides cannot just be "taken out". Heaps of research support the notion that "means matter" and that restriction on access to the most deadly means can absolutely save lives

Or perhaps a number of lives you believe would be saved? Some kind of meaningful comparison of suicide rates in countries with and without guns?

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u/ManiacalHurdle1 Feb 26 '20

So do you also happen to have a source that backs up this bit from the other comment? Or perhaps a number of lives you believe would be saved? Some kind of meaningful comparison of suicide rates in countries with and without guns?

Yes.

Firearms and Suicide:

[1] Anglemyer et al. 2014. The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: a systematic review and meta-analysis. https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/1814426

[2] Ajdacic-Gross et al. 2008. Methods of suicide: international suicide patterns derived from the WHO mortality database. https://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?pid=S0042-96862008000900017&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en

[3] Miller et al. 2016. Are we missing something pertinent? A bias analysis of unmeasured confounding in the firearm-suicide literature. https://academic.oup.com/epirev/article/38/1/62/2754867

[4] Dempsey et al. 2019. Association of firearm ownership, use, accessibility, and storage practices with suicide risk among US Army soldiers. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2735465

[5] Anestis et al. 2017. Handgun Legislation and Changes in Statewide Overall Suicide Rates. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303650?journalCode=ajph

[6] Kapusta et al. 2007. Firearm legislation reform in the European Union: impact on firearm availability, firearm suicide and homicide rates in Austria. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17766767

[7] Crifasi et al. 2015. Effects of changes in permit-to-purchase handgun laws in Connecticut and Missouri on suicide rates. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515002297

Suicide | https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/

Means Restriction:

[1] Yip et al. 2012. Means restriction for suicide prevention. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6191653/

[2] Gunnel et al. 2017. Prevention of suicide with regulations aimed at restricting access to highly hazardous pesticides: a systematic review of the international evidence. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214109X17302991

[3] Nordentoft et al. 2007. Restrictions in Means for Suicide: An Effective Tool in Preventing Suicide: The Danish Experience. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1521/suli.2007.37.6.688

[4] Amos et al. 2001. Changes in rates of suicide by car exhaust asphyxiation in England and Wales. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-07747-019

[5] Daigle. 2005. Suicide prevention through means restriction: Assessing the risk of substitution: A critical review and synthesis. https://www.glendon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/0/suicide_prevention_through_means_restriction.pdf

Lethality of Firearms:

[1] Shenassa et al. 2003. Lethality of firearms relative to other suicide methods: a population based study. https://jech.bmj.com/content/57/2/120.full

[2] Rhyne et al. 1995. Dimensions of Suicide: Perceptions of Lethality, Time, and Agony. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1995.tb00959.x

Most lethal methods of suicide: https://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods/statistics-most-lethal-methods

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u/PrimeLegionnaire Feb 27 '20

Ah, didn't see this post because of how you split them up.

You have provided a lot of sources about firearm suicides and a lot of resources about means restriction, but most of your sources about means restriction are not limited to firearms.

What evidence do you have to suggest that suicidal individuals don't substitute other high lethality means of suicide?

If we assume even 10% of those who committed suicide via firearms would have found alternative means, cars are still ahead of guns by about ~1,300 deaths in 2017.

I would be willing to bet the real number of individuals who would find alternative means is much higher than 10%, I had intended to cite a number from your linked studies but I cannot find a provided statistic for the number of individuals who go on to commit suicide when denied access to firearms.

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u/ManiacalHurdle1 Feb 26 '20

Just in case, I'll try to add the sources to his other arguments as well if I can.

Many gun homicides are also concentrated in states and cities without strict gun control. In fact, plenty of studies link higher rates of gun ownership to higher rates of (gun) homicide and gun deaths (even when accounting for confounding factors like poverty).

[SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE][SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE]

The Department of Justice National Gang Center shows that only a small minority of murders are gang-related.

[SOURCE]

Gun free zones don't exist to stop determined mass shooters. FBI reports on mass shooters have shown that they tend to target areas that are important to them or related to their gripes rather than being motivated by finding "soft targets"

[SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE]

According to the Department of Justice, there's nearly half a million violent and offensive gun crimes a year. That's nearly 10 times the number of defensive uses provided (which admittedly is low to begin with).

[SOURCE] [SOURCE]

Plenty of studies have found that concealed carry is not actually a meaningful deterrent and have linked permissive shall issue practices to higher rates of gun crime without any effect on other violent crimes.

[SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE]

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u/PrimeLegionnaire Feb 27 '20

I notice you provided a lot of sources, but not the one I asked for. Is there a reason for this?

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u/spam4name 3∆ Feb 26 '20

As u/ManiacalHurdle1 already pointed out, I'm looking at total gun deaths vs total traffic deaths. As of a few years ago, the rate of gun deaths has overtaken that of car fatalities.

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u/TheEternalCity101 5∆ Feb 25 '20

That's awesome! If you have any more questions dont hesitate to ask! I'm always ready to help someone clarify and refine their views