Murder is banned. He committed more than twenty murders. Why do people think that you can ban mental illness? The focus on guns as opposed to the person is similar to the TSA's focus on weapons vs. terrorists.
As for the cause and effect line you draw, hardly so clear cut. Switzerland has assault rifles in every home and a low crime rate. The UK has an effective gun ban and a very high crime rate.
I know that if a Vancouver or London style riot comes to my town, that I want my Glock handy. There were many videos on Youtube of no-go zones with no police and rampant chaos during those riots. 911 will not be there when everyone needs it at once.
"As for the cause and effect line you draw, hardly so clear cut. Switzerland has assault rifles in every home and a low crime rate. The UK has an effective gun ban and a very high crime rate."
Thanks for bringing that up: the Swiss firearm-related murder rate is 10x that of the UK. In a country that overall not only has a much lower crime rate (as you rightly point out), but is generally proverbially peaceful.
(Examples: when my sister moved to Aigle in the south of Switzerland, she noticed that the flower shop had left some very valuable plants outside over the weekend. With price tags, so you knew which ones to take. She thought someone was obviously in trouble, but the owners left those plants outside very weekend. And yes, nobody locked their doors.
I was walking with a friend in Basel, and we saw a key taped to the gate of an apartment building. With a note reading "Only for the owner!!".)
Switzerland is an almost comically peaceful and safe place. Yet 10x the gun murder rate of the much less peaceful and safe UK (I lived in London for 3 years).
So how does this support the idea that having firearms widely available does not have a negative effect?
There isn't any good evidence either way. It's too hard to control the variables. It's possible that banning guns increased homicides from guns and other means. It's possible that it prevented homicides from guns and other means. There is really no way to tell from the evidence. But it is certainly not clear that it helps.
I wonder if the relationship a country has with their military has a role? Having a large number of ex-service men and women trained in efficient use of firearms? Just pondering, as I've been reading around the subject for the last hour and cant find anything.
So the tech community believes that "frictionless sharing" is a thing, but that the converse isn't?
It's fine if guns are legal. But it should be way more inconvenient to kill a lot of people. I want it to require a great deal of skill and/or planning to start a massacre.
It's just too convenient for people to cause mass murder right now.
So where does that leave non-firearms related weapons? Potassium nitrate bombs are easy to make and can result in far more deaths than guns can. You can make napalm by soaking styrofoam in gasoline. Should we control the usage and distribution of packing peanuts? It may sound like a ridiculous argument, but it's the exact one you're making. What about machetes or hunting knives?
If the real focus is to inflict mass casualties, there are tools far more appropriate for that sort of thing than guns and non-automatic rifles that take as much (or as little) planning as getting a hold of a gun and ammo.
As someone else already said on this thread: you can't ban mental illness with legislation.
"It's just too convenient for people to cause mass murder right now."
We've had repeating firearms for more than a century--this is not a new thing to be afraid of.
We've been killing each other on much larger scales much more inefficiently and painfully than that--try millenia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots ).
The problem is not inefficient killing. The Rwandan genocide was performed largely without firearms, but required massive planning and mobilization. It was a collective and political massacre involving the complicity of many.
The problem I have is with the proverbial army of one. It needs to be harder for a single person to murder 30 people in one incident.
> Murder is banned. He committed more than twenty murders. Why do people think that you can ban mental illness? The focus on guns as opposed to the person is similar to the TSA's focus on weapons vs. terrorists.
Of course you can't ban mental illness, however you can make it more difficult for people to access the tools that enable them to kill many people.
Guns are very much are a part of the problem. I'd also think that the culture of gun worship is also a big part of the problem.
The culture of freedom worship is also part of the problem. If we had checkpoints every 1 mile that you had to present papers and submit yourself and your vehicle to a full search, he'd never get anywhere near that school. Do you see where it is getting? As soon as you start treating people's right as means to an end, you come to the conclusion people without rights are much more convenient means to whatever end you seek.
As soon as you start treating people's right as means to an end,
you come to the conclusion people without rights are
much more convenient means to whatever end you seek.
Precisely! And I wonder why none else has made this argument so far. I think it's a strong argument (and well put; thank you).
As for the cause and effect line you draw, hardly so clear cut. Switzerland has assault rifles in every home and a low crime rate. The UK has an effective gun ban and a very high crime rate.
I know that if a Vancouver or London style riot comes to my town, that I want my Glock handy. There were many videos on Youtube of no-go zones with no police and rampant chaos during those riots. 911 will not be there when everyone needs it at once.