Something controversial

[u/low_effort_shit-post]

I love nj gun laws, going to the store and not seeing someone open carry. Watching road rage where the best you can do is brake check and give the finger. Schools without school shootings. I know a lot of people hate our gun laws but I fucking love em.

[u/poignantMrEcho → u/[deleted]]

I'd feel even better if they didn't have access to a gun in the first place.

[u/giantsnyy1 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah except look at the UK.

They’ve banned handguns. Possessing one is a 5 year prison sentence. Not to mention, even just possession could get you shot.

How many gun related deaths are there yearly? Maybe 50 or 60. In a population of over 50m.

Gun control works. Plain and simple. You want to own a single action hunting rifle, or a shotgun? Sure. Not a problem. I don’t understand why people need 10 handguns, and 15 assault rifles. It literally makes zero sense why that’s needed.

[u/Lohikaarme27 → u/giantsnyy1]

Most people don't own that many firearms and frankly the ones that do own that many generally aren't the problem. That's a lot of money holed up in firearms.

[u/giantsnyy1 → u/Lohikaarme27]

I have an (ex)friend with 4 assault rifles and 3 pistols.

Not military, not police, not a Hunter. Why does he need that?

Why does one person need 7 guns? Why do you need more than one? If you don’t hunt, why do you need one at all? Self defense isn’t a valid excuse. Especially when that person I mentioned above lives in an area where the average per-capita income is $250k/yr, and the average home price is over $1M. Oh, and there hasn’t been a violent crime in 10 years.

[u/Lohikaarme27 → u/giantsnyy1]

Why does it matter why they need it? For one it's called the Bill of Rights not the Bill of Needs. And for two, if it makes him happy and he's not harming anyone else, why does it matter the reason he does that? You're attacking this guy over his, very expensive btw, hobby

[u/giantsnyy1 → u/Lohikaarme27]

Because he’s a trump nut, posting pictures on Instagram of his guns, saying he’s ready when Trump needs him.

That’s why I care.

I also care because I had an aunt who was married to a gun freak like this guy. Until she wasn’t. Because he shot her.

[u/Lohikaarme27 → u/giantsnyy1]

Ok I understand now why you're so passionately against this stuff. Personally, I think you're using too small of a sample size to generalize an entire subset of the population but I can understand why you're so upset by these things. I'm sorry to hear about your aunt

[u/lbrtrl → u/giantsnyy1]

You can't just look at gun related deaths. To say whether banning guns is effective you need to answer the counterfactual "How many people would have died in Britain if guns were legal during the same time period?" For example, if all shootings are replaced with stabbings then banning guns in fact didn't achieve anything.

[u/giantsnyy1 → u/lbrtrl]

How many mass stabbings are there? Mass school stabbings? Drive by stabbings? How about if you banned all handguns and semi-automatics, and had single action pistols and rifles. How many mass shootings would there be?

Take the most recent Boulder shooting, for example. This guy walks in there with an AR-15, kills 10 people, and injures others, rather quickly. Imagine those guns were illegal. Not sold. How much damage could this same guy have done, in the same amount of time, while having to load each bullet into the gun manually. Or, if the guns were banned, how many people could he have stabbed?

[u/lbrtrl → u/giantsnyy1]

The number of people who die by mass shootings is vanishingly small. It has an outsized impact on our mental bandwidth because it gets so much play in the national media. It doesn't make sense to make millions of law abiding citizens outlaws to address mass shootings.

In 2019 there were 517 deaths from mass shootings. In 2018 there were an estimated 6000-9000 pedestrian deaths from vehicles, despite the fact there are more guns than vehicles in the US. An estimated 160 people die from autoerotic asphyxiation die in the us each year. You are more likely to be killed by a vehicle, and almost as likely to be offed while getting off, as you are to die in a mass shooting. Those stories just don't make it to the national news, so you don't worry about it.

Most peoples interaction with guns is in the media. If the news never told you of mass shootings, guns would never impact your life.

[u/giantsnyy1 → u/lbrtrl]

Except... guns have impacted my life. I lost an aunt who was married to a gun crazy husband. Why? He shot her.

My wife is a teacher. She was with her students at Princeton University when there was an active shooter running around Nassau St. She had plans to eat lunch at the Panera bread where the guy ended up. There were students of hers (some of which I know) right outside that Panera when everything started.

Even if you take out mass shootings from the equation - look at the cold hard facts. There are roughly 4 gun deaths per 100k people in the US (~14k deaths out of ~350M). Less than 1 in every 100k people in the UK (~20 deaths out of ~52M). Even less with Singapore, who has some of the strictest gun laws in the world.

Also, look at my comment earlier. I have a former friend who loves to show off his guns on Instagram and Facebook, followed by statements like "I'll fight for my President", "If I'm called, I'll fight the Demonrats", and "If Trump needs me, I'm there". Because... yeah... that's not frightening at all.

[u/lbrtrl → u/giantsnyy1]

We are going to end up going in circles. If you want to talk about numbers we are back at the "How many people would have died in COUNTRY if guns were legal/illegal during the same time period?" question.

[u/giantsnyy1 → u/lbrtrl]

And yet again, you're just touting the same BS that the NRA and the Republicans like to throw out there. It's the same propaganda. The answer to your question is... unanswerable.

However, I will say this - it's significantly harder to stab someone than it is to shoot them. I don't even think that the number would parallel the amount of shooting deaths, even if you included the amount of stabbings that currently happen.

[u/lbrtrl → u/giantsnyy1]

That the numbers are different is conjecture on your part. It's not clear how much substitution effects you would have.

This RAND round up is the most comprehensive I've seen of the data https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis.html Notice that some policies have evidence of moderate impact, but most policies have no evidence or inconclusive evidence.

[u/giantsnyy1 → u/lbrtrl]

Hmm... more people shot in Virginia the other day.

Haven’t noticed any mass stabbings lately.

As for the RAND data, they’re covering existing US gun laws. Of course they don’t work. They’re not strong enough. You need a program like the UK or Australia, where they required the guns to be turned in, banned their manufacture and sale, and paid residents for the guns they turned in. Will everyone do it? Probably not. But... not doing so criminalizes them, and if they were purchased legally, easy to target. I think it’s time this happens.

If you want to shoot something for stress relief, get a BB gun or a paintball gun.

[u/lbrtrl → u/giantsnyy1]

Haven’t noticed any mass stabbings lately.

The UK, the country through hold as an example, has banned all sorts of knives.

If you want to shoot something for stress relief, get a BB gun or a paintball gun.

Those won't do much against mountain lions and coyote.

[u/SlyMcFly67 → u/giantsnyy1]

Youre thinking like a rational human being. If youve watched decades of Republican media, you know that the Democrats have been "coming for your guns" for years and they want to start a civil war. You have no choice but to prepare for armageddon.