CNN: Ban guns, end shootings? How evidence stacks up around the world

[villager]

<snip>

"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this kind of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency. It is in our power to do something about it."

So far, however, the U.S. has not done "something about it."

The National Rifle Association (NRA), it seems, has so much power over politicians that even when 90% of Americans (including a majority of NRA members) wanted universal background checks to be adopted following the Newtown killings of 2012, no federal action ensued. Certainly, it's unlikely that any useful legislation will emerge in South Carolina.

The NRA stranglehold on appropriate anti-crime measures is only part of the problem, though.

The gun culture's worship of the magical protective capacities of guns and their power to be wielded against perceived enemies -- including the federal government -- is a message that resonates with troubled individuals from the Santa Barbara killer, who was seeking vengeance on women who had failed to perceive his greatness, to the Charleston killer who echoed the Tea Party mantra of taking back our country.

I've been researching gun violence -- and what can be done to prevent it -- in the U.S. for 25 years. The fact is that if NRA claims about the efficacy of guns in reducing crime were true, the U.S. would have the lowest homicide rate among industrialized nations instead of the highest homicide rate (by a wide margin).

The U.S. is by far the world leader in the number of guns in civilian hands. The stricter gun laws of other "advanced countries" have restrained homicidal violence, suicides and gun accidents -- even when, in some cases, laws were introduced over massive protests from their armed citizens.

<snip>

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/opinions/us-guns-evidence/?iid=ob_article_footer_expansion&iref=obnetwork

[pipoman]

1. Justmoreofthesamestupidfeignedincredulity...

Pretending that the NRA is anything more than a constitutional conscience on the ubc issue is ridiculous.They haven't shit to do with UBCs....nothing....there will never be federal UBCs without a constitutional amendment....everyone knows this and have known it since private intrastate sales were first exempted from the Brady Bill in 1994....

[delrem]

2. Guns are just the weapon used.

The problem is a culture that believes violence is a solution, and applies it everywhere, internally and externally.
It's a culture that seems to have no reflective capacity.
No capacity to learn.

Violence has always gotten the USA massive profits.

[Old Crow]

4. Not sure if you're suggesting that guns aren't the problem or not.

But if I'm reading your post correctly, and you're saying that it's more about American culture and not about the guns, consider this: Within the United States, those states that have a higher number of guns per capita have a higher rate of gun homicides per capita. That suggests that it is, indeed, the ubiquity of guns, guns, guns that is the problem.

[delrem]

5. The problem is Billy the Kid, not his six-gun.

This isn't to say that in a culture that reveres Billy the Kid for the violence that he exemplifies, an absolutely unregulated free market in guns isn't part of the problem!

[U of M Dem]

17. I would rather be confronted

by a homicidal individual weilding a knife or a bow and arrow than a gun any day. Billy the kid is not who the public fears, it is the homicidal individual who is taking out his frustrations on others en masse...

Give that person a knife and how many can he or she really "take out."

The violence of this culture is one huge problem, and guns are both a cause and a result of our human culture of tribalism and the dominance of "others..."

Guns are a very influential positive feedback loop / self fulfilling prophecy in the story of human violence.

It is a cycle doomed to repeat itself.

Our narrative can change, but leaving guns in the equation is a good way to, well, shoot ourselves in the foot.

[Doctor_J]

19. The problem is that Billy the kid can get a gun

And yes, the gun market is a big chunk of it

[delrem]

23. Almost unregulated gun market is obviously *part* of the culture of violence.

Did I say otherwise? If I did I would obviously be a fool. However, I didn't, so that counter-factual won't fly.

Consider Black Lives Matter's Campaign zero.
http://www.joincampaignzero.org/#vision

One factor of the campaign is "Demilitarization".
Another related factor is "Limit use of force".
These are two of 10 inter-related factors.
It isn't a simple problem - and nor is the US culture of violence in general.

For example, under "limit use of force", if applied generally to the US problem and not just to the police, would be to end "stand your ground" laws. Laws that tend to give Billy the Kid types impunity -however regulated/deregulated the gun market. Laws that appeal to the ridiculous "American West" mythology, where people believe there's something noble about black hat vs white hat having gunfights on Main St. at high noon.

Anyway, I don't see why I should have to explain this.

[villager]

25. Exactly. Though guns have their own "Climate Deniers," who -- like their weather-borne brethren

...get louder and louder when the facts speak less and less in their favor.

[Live and Learn]

3. Handguns and assault weapons are not guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment.

They should be illegal.

[Eleanors38]

8. Actually, the RKBA IS guaranteed by the Second Amendment...

The government figured this was the best way to fulfill its obligations to call for the militia as described in Article 1. The 2A reference is to arms, not some specific technology.

Curiously, there is a reference to a specific technology in the First Amendment: "Press." No one feels bound by that, right?

[awoke_in_2003]

13. Militias are no longer needed

we have a standing army. A bunch of armed yahoos is not a militia. The same party that bitches about "activist judges" has no problem with the idiotic ruling on the second amendment made by activist judges.

[Eleanors38]

14. Whether or not they are needed doesn't impact the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

It just means the militia, which some folks think has gone obsolete, is a statement of why the feds want the RKBA uninfringed. In any case, there are numerous state and federal laws which still recognize the powers of the state and feds to call for the militia. But reove the militia clause, and tell me what you have left. Maybe you should hope that the militia remains viable.

[hack89]

15. The 2A protects an individual right

it even says that in the Democratic Party platform.

[hack89]

12. Handguns are. Assault weapons are not.

read Heller.

[Live and Learn]

18. Per Wiki, you cited the wrong case:

The decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment extends beyond federal enclaves to the states,[1] which was addressed later by McDonald v. Chicago (2010). It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

The fact remains, the Second Amendment when written was based on firearms of the day not weapons developed later.

[hack89]

21. Heller specifically states you have a right to own a handgun for self defense

McDonald extended Heller from just DC to the entire country.

So the First Admendment does not apply to electronic media?

[Duckhunter935]

29. How is that moveable

Type printing press working for as obviously that is all that is covered by the 1st amendment.

[Doctor_J]

20. Heller was rendered by the same court that gave us citizens United. If you think

that convinces me of anything, you confuse me with a republican.

[hack89]

22. That court also gave us marriage equality

And it is irrelevant whether you are convinced or not. Just like gay marriage it is the law of the land.

[Recursion]

6. This begs the question of whether the US is an "advanced" country

Take Brazil. Its gun laws are much more strict than the US's: all guns must be registered, guns cannot be carried outside of the home, and the minimum age for gun ownership is 25. Brazil's murder rate is 25 per 100,000; more than five times the rate of the US.

I think it is a mistake to simply dismiss the argument that strict gun control is not actually effective at curbing access to guns any more than strict drug control has been effective in curbing access to drugs. At least, it seems to not be effective on its own. Brazil has a gun control regime that is roughly similar to Germany's, but the German population obeys those law and the Brazilian population doesn't (and remember even Canada abandoned their long gun registry because compliance was south of 25%).

Now, ask yourself: which country's population does the US more closely resemble? I have to say Brazil.

The German median age is 46; the American median age is 36; the Brazilian median age is 30.

80% of the German population is the majority race; 60% of the US population is the majority race; Brazil has no majority race, but 47% of the population is of the plurality race. This is not an argument that some races are more violent than others; this is an argument that homogenous societies are less violent.

The adult sex ratio in Germany is 1.04; in the US it is 1.0; in Brazil it is 0.98

For all three of those indicators (which are known to be correlated with violent crime) the US is between Germany and Brazil, and slightly closer to Brazil. It should probably not be surprising that the US murder rate is between Germany and Brazil -- it's good news, I suppose, that we're closer to Germany's murder rate than Brazil's.

We are a country with the economy of a developed nation and the population of a developing nation. The examples of high-violence, strict-gun-control developing nations (Brazil, Russia, South Africa, etc.) lead me to at least be sympathetic to the argument that while it would be socially good to have fewer guns in the US, legislative bans will not achieve that goal any more than they did with drugs.

[Fred Sanders]

7. Fuck the NRA blood letters and the politicians that ride with them.

Screw those with the "concern" that "nothing can done, so please stop talking about it already"....same folks with the same plea about the Dixie Swastika never coming down!

Gloom and doomers are pathetic and amnesiatic, uninformed and irrelevant.

Just pass the same law that the GOP and Democratic gunnut politicians were too cowardly to pass after Sandy Hook...same simple laws...for starters.

And remember Australia....much can be done by men who passed the gun laws....which can be as easily unpassed. And shockingly the same men can pass new laws....what a concept!

Just because the corporate media is studiously avoiding all discussion of gun control is exactly no reason to have a discussion...the debate is over....guns killing and terrorizing Americans, civilian and police, daily if not hourly, is a national emergency...just check out the daily news.

[Eleanors38]

9. ...And the horse you rode in on!

[Fred Sanders]

10. It is a gift. And a useful gift, far more than any gun. Jealous?

P.S. As I said - for folks dropping in for a look at the gun control debate newly ignited, again, in America.

"Screw those with the "concern" that "nothing can done, so please stop talking about it already"....same folks with the same plea about the Dixie Swastika never coming down!"

[Eleanors38]

11. Of the horse? No.

[yurbud]

16. well worth the read. Gun policy like everything else is not settled by argument and evidence but by

If we want to change the law we've got to give bigger bribes than the NRA.

[TexasTowelie]

24. K&R

[truebluegreen]

26. The money quote:

"The fact is that if NRA claims about the efficacy of guns in reducing crime were true, the U.S. would have the lowest homicide rate among industrialized nations instead of the highest homicide rate (by a wide margin)."

[villager]

27. But again, you can't trouble Climate Deniers with facts

The world, after all, is still flat.

[salib]

28. ^^This^^