this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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If we are being honest, for most people, it's emotion over anything else. There are plenty of statistics looking at gun ownership rates and crime and suicide. I don't think many people would disagree with the sentiment that society would be better off if guns had never been invented.
Disagreements arise on two main points, I think. The first is whether or not the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, on guns. There are allegedly 300 million guns in the US. I have no clue if that's accurate, but personally, I think only very invasive government action could measurably reduce gun ownership rates. If the average gun owner owns, for example, 3 guns, passing laws or somehow getting them down to 2 guns doesn't actually change ownership rates. Personally, I don't know anyone who has gone from being a gun owner to not being a gun owner. With the rise in technology like 3d printing and a general rise in home manufacturing capability, the ability to make your own guns is only going to get easier. Automatic rifles were manufactured before widespread belief in the germ theory disease; they aren't high technology. I think that is something that countries without legal gun ownership are going to have to reckon with in the not so distant future.
The second point is whether the right to own guns is worth the harm they cause. As a society, we put up with a bunch of things that do great harm. Cigarettes are a prime example; they kill 15 times more Americans than cars do. Auto manufacturers have more or less forced Americans to buy cars to survive, so we put up with those deaths, but cigarettes arguably provide less "benefit" than guns. Despite this, we've basically decided it's worth allowing tobacco sales. Most people who own guns see the downsides, but think that they are outweighed by the benefits. Many non-owners disagree. This is a philosophical question, so there is not a correct answer.
There's also a class component to this, I believe. For many working class Americans, guns are the only appreciating asset they own. Many working class Americans also see gun ownership as a thumb in the eye of the wealthy; it's seen as one of few things that give power to the working class that they can hold over the wealthy. This is complicated by the fact that politics around gun control are completely flopped around in this country. Gun control is a conservative, right-wing, authoritarian action. Private ownership of firearms by the working class is left wing. Despite this, the political parties in America, who are both right wing, have flopped around on this issue. Your average working class republican voter would not believe that their gun ownership is left-wing solidarity, but it is.
Lastly, the reason I say that it's all based on emotion is that every time you hear someone say "common sense gun control", they are usually making their point on vibes, not evidence. Very little crime in the US is done with "assault weapons", and no crime is done with assault rifles, yet these categories draw the most concern. There are laws aimed at all sorts of cosmetic features. Some laws have even targeted safety features. Suppressors are seen as a necessary courtesy in some countries, but in America, they are difficult or impossible to get.
I live in the sticks. I have a mountain lion living close to my house, I've seen it many times. We also have coyotes all around and I have small children. I keep my guns secured, I also have trigger locks. It's not likely I will need to use violence against these neighbors but if I do, I need a gun to survive. This is not philosophy.
Even in countries with the strongest gun laws farmers/hunters/mountaineers/etc etc can still have their hunting rifles and etc, it's just that there are rules around it you can't buy it from the supermarket with your weekly groceries.
You have no way of knowing the exact threat posed to your kids by that mountain lion. Yeah, you can look up stats on mountain lion attacks, but at the end of the day, those aren't going to make you feel any better about a mountain lion being around your kids. Having guns in your house is also a risk. Again, though, you can only really look at statistics, and you can't know how they apply to your specific situation.
Beyond those risks/benefits, there's even more intangible ones. What's the risk/benefit for someone in Eastern Ukraine, or Gaza, or some other current or future occupied region, or victim of a repressive government?
That's what I mean about it being philosophical: there's just no way to quantitatively determine whether it's good for you to own guns or not. It really just comes down to doing what you think is best
But for the 99% of everyone else who don't deal with mountain lions and coyotes on a frequent basis, children are being killed every day by guns.
Your mountain lions aren't even close to the same level of threat as the millions of people with guns causing thousands of preventable deaths every year. Mountain lions are avoidable. A gun shot isn't.
So are my children less valuable than other kids? Or is there not a one size fits all approach, no black and white solution?
If you look at the stats, a majority of gun deaths are suicide (54% is the number I pulled up just now but it fluctuates, I want to say I've seen it as high as 60%).
Rather than focusing on banning ARs, let's focus on red flag laws. This protects the suicidal as well as the what I think is second biggest category (having a hard time finding stats), victims of domestic violence. Rolling them out in more places, and improving the laws and enforcement where they are.
Also safe storage laws. If you own a gun and you have a child that will be near that gun, you damn better have it secured at all times. This shouldn't be controversial.
Of course that's not what I mean.
But everything you describe are just bandaid solutions that won't solve the problem.
Getting guns, all guns, out of the hands of citizens will help reduce suicides, protect domestic violence victims, and effectively eliminate the deaths resulting from misuse of firearms because they won't have them in the first place.
The exceptions should be certain hunting rifles only if you meet extremely stringent criteria and remain limited to a certain number of round purchases per year. Those requirements could very easily include stipulations about dangerous wildlife in your area.
I don't think this is
There are about 50k deaths a year due to guns. That is a lot and we should try to prevent as many as we can. But consider this. There are about 300 million guns legally owned. That's 0.0167% of guns involved in a death.
Interesting this isnt that different than car statistics ~40k deaths with 260 million cars owned.
Now no cars without special dispensation doesn't sound like the worst thing to me, but it also doesn't sound realistic or all that great without like transporter technology.