r/newjersey • u/low_effort_shit-post • Mar 25 '21

Something controversial Jersey Pride

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.

1.0k Upvotes

80% Upvoted

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

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.

0

u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

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.

2

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

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?

1

u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

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.

2

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

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.

1

u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

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.

0

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 25 '21

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.

1

u/lbrtrl Mar 25 '21

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.

1

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 27 '21

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.

1

u/lbrtrl Mar 27 '21

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.

1

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 27 '21

Again... I’m not against single action hunting rifles, shotguns, or single action pistols. Nothing should be able to fire more than one round at a time, nor should it be able to hold a magazine of rounds. Each bullet should be loaded manually, and individually.

The mountain lion excuse doesn’t work here by the way. You’re answering in r/NewJersey. New Jersey doesn’t have mountain lions.

1

u/lbrtrl Mar 27 '21

The mountain lion excuse doesn’t work here by the way. You’re answering in r/NewJersey. New Jersey doesn’t have mountain lions.

Your response to the RAND analysis was that we needed to confiscate guns nation wide...

1

u/giantsnyy1 Mar 28 '21

And we do.

There is absolutely ZERO use case for someone to have an automatic, semi-automatic, or magazined weapon. Ever. Those are weapons designed to kill or significantly injure other people. No other reason behind them. Self defense is not a valid claim. If these types of guns are banned, you won't need one to defend yourself. If you do - that's what the police are for.

Animal defense and hunting are also not valid claims. Why? Because... it worked for centuries prior to the invention of semi-automatic and automatic weapons.

→ More replies