Idk I think I'd rather be shot than stabbed or bludgeoned to death.
I've had the opportunity to ask people who have experienced both getting stabbed and shot which was worse and hands down it was getting shot. Nearly everyone says the pain is excruciating.
"Limit the availability, limit the problem" is far too simplistic and simply not true in any case. The problems is violence, not the tools used to commit violent acts. Violence won't stop because there are no guns, a different tool will be used instead. To solve the problem of violence, better mental health care, less poverty and more stability, and a cultural shift away from the violence-glorifying norm of today are needed. Guns are irrelevant to the issue.
What I meant was, having less guns would mean less possible harm in general. Same statement applied to anything. Knives included.
Perhaps, to a certain degree but I don't want to live in a place where I can't have anything that could potentially be used for violence. That's a prison and they still manage weapons just fine. They actually tried to ban long kitchen knives in the UK. Their whole "Save a life, bin your knife" thing is so dumb. Literally everyone has lots of knives in their kitchen. They are readily available in stores. Throwing away a perfectly good knife is saving no one.
German police only killed 8 people in the last 2 years. The US doesn't even keep track, (the public do not benefit by this knowledge being kept inaccurate).
German police officers are armed but don't have to run around with their guns out because every civilian isn't armed to the teeth. Drawing a gun is not the first step. US police officers draw their guns and shoot before their cars even stop.
It's not only British police that don't need to carry around guns at all times most developed nations don't need it or they train their police adequately.
In reference to the 3d printed guns as soon as criminals realise that you can't track these if anyone can get them printed, all violent crimes will be done using 3d printed guns, untraceable and easy to get rid of after your short use. Also I'm assuming they pass through metal detectors.
If you can buy an AK for $50 how much is a home made printed pistol going to cost?
It's completely legal as everyone has the right to bear arms in America.
"Limit the availability, limit the problem" is far too simplistic and simply not true in any case. The problems is violence, not the tools used to commit violent acts. Violence won't stop because there are no guns, a different tool will be used instead. To solve the problem of violence, better mental health care, less poverty and more stability, and a cultural shift away from the violence-glorifying norm of today are needed. Guns are irrelevant to the issue.
There are plenty of countries with more poverty, less stability and worse mental health care who score lower on the violence score card.
What other things make the US so crazy scary to live in?
In reference to the 3d printed guns as soon as criminals realise that you can't track these if anyone can get them printed, all violent crimes will be done using 3d printed guns, untraceable and easy to get rid of after your short use. Also I'm assuming they pass through metal detectors.
Not until we can 3d print in metal, or we make some crazy advances in plastics. And I don't mean that robot that runs a long weld-bead, or the current state of technology which amounts to either sintering or bonding metal powder with a binder. The forces involved with firing a bullet are pretty severe. At the moment, the only printed firearms that can take that are massively bulky, and don't stand up to anything even remotely resembling sustained fire, or even sustained use.
That said, it's not like it's hard to make a gun right now. Even with basic tools, you can assemble a crude firearm. With a decent workshop, even a semi-skilled machinist can knock out a revolver in about a day or so without much trouble, providing they know how it works. Rifles are much simpler, shotguns even simpler again.
Edit - I cannot stress to you enough how much you should not do this.
German police only killed 8 people in the last 2 years. The US doesn't even keep track, (the public do not benefit by this knowledge being kept inaccurate).
German police officers are armed but don't have to run around with their guns out because every civilian isn't armed to the teeth. Drawing a gun is not the first step. US police officers draw their guns and shoot before their cars even stop.
It's not only British police that don't need to carry around guns at all times most developed nations don't need it or they train their police adequately.
You're right about there being major accounting and accountability problems with regards to tracking LEO homicides, but WTF holy shit way to hyperbole.
In reference to the 3d printed guns as soon as criminals realise that you can't track these if anyone can get them printed, all violent crimes will be done using 3d printed guns, untraceable and easy to get rid of after your short use. Also I'm assuming they pass through metal detectors.
If you can buy an AK for $50 how much is a home made printed pistol going to cost?
It's completely legal as everyone has the right to bear arms in America.
Guns are already effectively untraceable, as I said before, any and all attempts at tracking, restricting sales and the like are a joke and will never catch a career criminal. Getting through metal detectors isn't a big worry though, most crimes don't occur in secured buildings, and anyone targeting a secure building is either smart enough to get in or too stupid to succeed regardless of the technology. Home made printed pistols will have 0 market in any case, because the real thing is readily available to real criminals.
There are plenty of countries with more poverty, less stability and worse mental health care who score lower on the violence score card.
What other things make the US so crazy scary to live in?
Which countries are these? How do you know they are reporting anything accurately? Where do you get the idea that the U.S. is "crazy scary" to live in? We have a lot of killings proportional to other Western countries, but overall violence isn't anything to be reasonably scared of. It's worth bearing in mind that it's only been 50 years since the civil rights movement, so a lot of what we're seeing in the news nowadays are regions/populations lagging behind the status quo and getting called out for it. Not too long ago, black leaders were being assassinated in their beds by feds, now it's a big deal if anyone gets shot by the police.
Militarization of the police and excessive force? Obviously these are problems, but they are so visible and talked about right now that stuff is changing rapidly.
EDIT: It's also worth noting that different areas of the US have VASTLY different conditions w/r/t affluence, crime rate, violence, political stability, so comparing on a country vs. country basis with anything except China, India, and Russia is cherry-picking, albeit maybe non-obviously so to a foreigner.
German police only killed 8 people in the last 2 years. The US doesn't even keep track, (the public do not benefit by this knowledge being kept inaccurate).
German police officers are armed but don't have to run around with their guns out because every civilian isn't armed to the teeth. Drawing a gun is not the first step. US police officers draw their guns and shoot before their cars even stop.
It's not only British police that don't need to carry around guns at all times most developed nations don't need it or they train their police adequately.
You're right about there being major accounting and accountability problems with regards to tracking LEO homicides, but WTF holy shit way to hyperbole.
Doesn't this kid Tamir Rice have the right to bear toy arms? Hell even I had a toy gun in my life.
EDIT: It's also worth noting that different areas of the US have VASTLY different conditions w/r/t affluence, crime rate, violence, political stability, so comparing on a country vs. country basis with anything except China, India, and Russia is cherry-picking, albeit maybe non-obviously so to a foreigner.
Well That's the issue, this is my perception as a foreigner who's never visited the US but has travelled and lived in many countries both undeveloped and developed by various standards. I've been to India and I didn't feel in danger at all, I made it a point to go through the poorest areas of the cities plus stop off in the rural areas when going between states. Are you saying I could visit your country as a whole and be completely comfortable without taking any extra precautions? There was that Indian 70 year old grandpa who was going for his morning walk, some woman reported him to the police and a cruiser came past and beat the shit out of him. WTF is that. My brother stayed in New York / Philadelphia / Washington and visited Houston. He said parts of Houston were way more shady than Mumbai (India). Also crossing from Canada to the US customs became ass holes because he stated he was an Australian but was born in India and immigrated to Australia when he was 5 months old. They set him aside and talked to him for 2 hours to work out if he was a terrorist with completely leading questions according to my brother.
There are many countries in the world that are pristine if you only look at the good parts. The US likes to tell the world it is only composed of its good parts and every other country is shitty and scary. The US propaganda machine is insanely good.
I live in the suburbs of Detroit. I am in the city (the part where people actually live, the supposedly scary part with all the abandoned houses, not downtown where all the businesses are) nearly every day and have never felt scared. I've been to many other cities, both ghettos and nice areas, all across the U.S., never felt scared in any of them either. Ciudad Juarez, I felt scared, but that was Mexico.
There are several problems around guns that I can see.
Deaths/ injuries caused by intentful use of guns for violence. Deaths/ injuries caused by guns being misused in crime prevention. Deaths/ injuries caused by accidents/ mishandlings of guns.
Whatever solutions you can think of to tackle the reasons guns are used, that lead to death/ injury, can better be resolved by removing/ reducing/ making more difficult the accessibility of guns.
White middle-class people in the US are super scared of poor neighborhoods for reasons I've never fully worked out.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of violence in poor neighborhoods. Go to LA, or hell, take a walk around inner-city Rochester. You're not guaranteed to die, but it's just an unsafe place.
I think the issue is the response. Rather than treat them like diseased or criminals, we need to help those neighborhoods become safe. It's a minority of people causing trouble, not all poor people.
White middle-class people in the US are super scared of poor neighborhoods for reasons I've never fully worked out.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of violence in poor neighborhoods. Go to LA, or hell, take a walk around inner-city Rochester. You're not guaranteed to die, but it's just an unsafe place.
I think the issue is the response. Rather than treat them like diseased or criminals, we need to help those neighborhoods become safe. It's a minority of people causing trouble, not all poor people.
White middle-class people in the US are super scared of poor neighborhoods for reasons I've never fully worked out.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of violence in poor neighborhoods. Go to LA, or hell, take a walk around inner-city Rochester. You're not guaranteed to die, but it's just an unsafe place.
I think the issue is the response. Rather than treat them like diseased or criminals, we need to help those neighborhoods become safe. It's a minority of people causing trouble, not all poor people.
Have you ever been to a poor neighborhood?
I live next to one of the larger Projects in New York.
You know what? I run through the streets there at night. It's super poor. It's next to an unsubsidized and even poorer neighborhood.
Everyone's just trying to get by. They don't want the crime in their neighborhood. But, they're between several rocks, a hard place, and prison.
If they call the police, they're either ignored or get hassled. Even if the police come, they rarely put any effort into the mid-level crime for which they're called. Theft, assault, gangs: the cops don't give one shit unless it's a murder.
If they don't call the police, the crime that is there goes unpunished and continues.
If they convince the police to actually step up their overall presence, said police don't actually help, but instead just start up their usual "broken windows" strategy and harass petty crime (jaywalking, tinted windows, walking while black, loitering) while still ignoring the real stuff.
There aren't jobs. There aren't education opportunities. They're basically one step above completely fucked.
A little help would go a long, long way. How come cops in many other countries are seen as an ally to the poor, yet here they're a faceless adversary.
In the late 1800's and early 1900's a lot of people came over from places to escape the oppressive police and government forces that had them under their thumbs. It seems the cycle of violence and apathy has come full circle. People raised to believe police were evil became evil police.
Which is interesting since DC vs Heller was all about trigger locks, lock boxes and disasembly requierments:
The Supreme Court struck down provisions of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 as unconstitutional, determined that handguns are "arms" for the purposes of the Second Amendment, found that the Regulations Act was an unconstitutional ban, and struck down the portion of the Regulations Act that requires all firearms including rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock."
Since the Heller decision though, the Supreme Court hasn't done much to enforce it. Heller only applies to Federal property (like DC), but it's been interpreted as applying to States as well.
Yeah. They seem to have drawn a line between trigger locks and locked containers. But, the law they just ruled on has a very clear exception that the older trigger-lock-only law did not: an exemption for a weapon personally carried/controlled.
So the restriction that's allowed is:
Trigger lock OR Locked container OR In direct control of a legal owner/user
Comments
Limit the availability, limit the problem. How you would go about doing that, is a pragmatic issue.
Also, I'm sure both are painful, and gunshots even more so. No one should have to experience either. Papercuts are bad enough.
The US doesn't even keep track, (the public do not benefit by this knowledge being kept inaccurate).
German police officers are armed but don't have to run around with their guns out because every civilian isn't armed to the teeth. Drawing a gun is not the first step. US police officers draw their guns and shoot before their cars even stop.
It's not only British police that don't need to carry around guns at all times most developed nations don't need it or they train their police adequately.
In reference to the 3d printed guns as soon as criminals realise that you can't track these if anyone can get them printed, all violent crimes will be done using 3d printed guns, untraceable and easy to get rid of after your short use. Also I'm assuming they pass through metal detectors.
If you can buy an AK for $50 how much is a home made printed pistol going to cost?
It's completely legal as everyone has the right to bear arms in America. There are plenty of countries with more poverty, less stability and worse mental health care who score lower on the violence score card.
What other things make the US so crazy scary to live in?
That said, it's not like it's hard to make a gun right now. Even with basic tools, you can assemble a crude firearm. With a decent workshop, even a semi-skilled machinist can knock out a revolver in about a day or so without much trouble, providing they know how it works. Rifles are much simpler, shotguns even simpler again.
Edit - I cannot stress to you enough how much you should not do this.
Which countries are these? How do you know they are reporting anything accurately? Where do you get the idea that the U.S. is "crazy scary" to live in? We have a lot of killings proportional to other Western countries, but overall violence isn't anything to be reasonably scared of. It's worth bearing in mind that it's only been 50 years since the civil rights movement, so a lot of what we're seeing in the news nowadays are regions/populations lagging behind the status quo and getting called out for it. Not too long ago, black leaders were being assassinated in their beds by feds, now it's a big deal if anyone gets shot by the police.
Militarization of the police and excessive force? Obviously these are problems, but they are so visible and talked about right now that stuff is changing rapidly.
EDIT: It's also worth noting that different areas of the US have VASTLY different conditions w/r/t affluence, crime rate, violence, political stability, so comparing on a country vs. country basis with anything except China, India, and Russia is cherry-picking, albeit maybe non-obviously so to a foreigner.
I was trying to come up with countries that I could holiday at or move to for a job with lower crime rates and police that I could trust. Well That's the issue, this is my perception as a foreigner who's never visited the US but has travelled and lived in many countries both undeveloped and developed by various standards.
I've been to India and I didn't feel in danger at all, I made it a point to go through the poorest areas of the cities plus stop off in the rural areas when going between states.
Are you saying I could visit your country as a whole and be completely comfortable without taking any extra precautions? There was that Indian 70 year old grandpa who was going for his morning walk, some woman reported him to the police and a cruiser came past and beat the shit out of him. WTF is that. My brother stayed in New York / Philadelphia / Washington and visited Houston. He said parts of Houston were way more shady than Mumbai (India). Also crossing from Canada to the US customs became ass holes because he stated he was an Australian but was born in India and immigrated to Australia when he was 5 months old. They set him aside and talked to him for 2 hours to work out if he was a terrorist with completely leading questions according to my brother.
There are many countries in the world that are pristine if you only look at the good parts. The US likes to tell the world it is only composed of its good parts and every other country is shitty and scary. The US propaganda machine is insanely good.
Deaths/ injuries caused by intentful use of guns for violence.
Deaths/ injuries caused by guns being misused in crime prevention.
Deaths/ injuries caused by accidents/ mishandlings of guns.
Whatever solutions you can think of to tackle the reasons guns are used, that lead to death/ injury, can better be resolved by removing/ reducing/ making more difficult the accessibility of guns.
I think this map may be useful for debate.
I think the issue is the response. Rather than treat them like diseased or criminals, we need to help those neighborhoods become safe. It's a minority of people causing trouble, not all poor people.
You know what? I run through the streets there at night. It's super poor. It's next to an unsubsidized and even poorer neighborhood.
Everyone's just trying to get by. They don't want the crime in their neighborhood. But, they're between several rocks, a hard place, and prison.
If they call the police, they're either ignored or get hassled. Even if the police come, they rarely put any effort into the mid-level crime for which they're called. Theft, assault, gangs: the cops don't give one shit unless it's a murder.
If they don't call the police, the crime that is there goes unpunished and continues.
If they convince the police to actually step up their overall presence, said police don't actually help, but instead just start up their usual "broken windows" strategy and harass petty crime (jaywalking, tinted windows, walking while black, loitering) while still ignoring the real stuff.
There aren't jobs. There aren't education opportunities. They're basically one step above completely fucked.
A little help would go a long, long way. How come cops in many other countries are seen as an ally to the poor, yet here they're a faceless adversary.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0608/Supreme-Court-declines-potentially-key-Second-Amendment-case
So the restriction that's allowed is:
Trigger lock
OR
Locked container
OR
In direct control of a legal owner/user