Gun Control: Is it really the root of the problem?

2015-12-02T16:44:15-05:00

With the many mass shootings and issues, the usual rhetoric about gun control is already starting to spin up. The liberals are saying that better gun control would stop these things, the conservatives are saying that gun free zones and gun regulation makes it easier to identify soft target regions.

However, is gun control REALLY the problem? Switzerland has virtually no gun control laws and automatic weapons in most homes and has very low crime rates. Likewise, Australia and Japan have lower crime rates than the United States despite VERY tight gun control laws.

However it seems to me that the issue that we have is the desensitization to violence and the legitimization of violent attacks. With the release of American Sniper, there were people that said, "If you don't like this movie, you are un-American and we will murder you in your homes for treason for not supporting our troops." Similarly, I have seen comments from Trump opponents calling for murdering him, and some even saying to rape his wife.

Is gun control really the answer when we have so many people that don't understand the value of life? More responsible gun ownership will stop active shooters, but there are a reasonable number of people that have committed mass shootings that have NEVER risen to the level of having their weapons taken away. Tighter regulations can be used to disarm the public (i.e. veterans with PTSD, those with history of depression), so that's not an excellent answer.

Is gun control really an answer to stop these shootings? How do we combat these issues in a manner that can still enable responsible weapon ownership and still maintain the public safety?

(Disclaimer: This isn't an attempt to push an agenda, simply an attempt to get others' thoughts regarding this issue.)
v/r,
CPT Butler

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 2 at 2015 4:52 PM

2015-12-02T16:52:16-05:00

Such a touchy and tricky question/situation. You have a point with your question though. How is it that those other countries can do what they do with what they have/don't have in place? Perhaps a higher regard for life as a whole in their society? The ability to better track where those weapons are sold/stored? Do they have anything close to HIPPA so that firearms stores have better database of those that have diagnosed and documented mental illnesses? I don't think there could ever be a proper answer to these questions and with our society as it is, there will never be a good, effective solution to these mass shootings.

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Dec 2 at 2015 5:06 PM

2015-12-02T17:06:35-05:00

Ignore "gun" control for a moment. Let's look at this logically.

1) The US has 320M people. We are the 4th largest Country in the world. We cannot compare ourselves to Switzerland, Japan, or Australia. We just run into "Scale" issues.

2) Stop looking at the problem as a "Gun" Violence issue, and start looking at it as a Violence issue. Then ask, do we have a Violence issue? Violence has been on the decline (steadily) for 40~ years. We do not have a Violence issue. Add Guns back in. "Gun" Violence has been on the decline (steadily) for the last 40~ years. We do not have a "Gun" Violence issue.

3) Types of guns. Rifles are used in a "minimal" amount of Homicide. Less than 10%. Most are handguns. 12000~ Gun related Homicides per year. 1000~ with Rifles. Rest with Handguns. Rifles are not the problem. "Scary Black Guns" are not the problem. They're great news though, and saying "assault weapons" sure makes headlines, and it's easily confused with "assault rifles."

4) Population density. Most Violence happens in High Population Density Areas. I can name the specific Cities off the top of my head. Oakland/SF, Atlanta, DC, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, & Los Angeles.. When you remove those cities. The US VIOLENCE problem goes away. More specifically, when you remove the areas within those cities with a higher than 5k/sqmile population density (Chicago has a 3sqmile area that accounts for MOST of their crime).

5) Most "crime" is socio-economic in nature. This is opposed to Terrorism, or Mental-Health. I bring this up because how we treat these subjects is different. Socio-economic is that Population Density piece. Education, standard of living, etc. This is the piece of Violence that is on the steady decline.

6) "Rampage Shooters" aka Mental Health or "Crazy" we are never going to stop. Our legal system is not designed to handle this. Because People have Rights.

7) Terrorism we are never going to stop, because Terrorists keep trying until they succeed.

CC: Maj Richard "Ernie" Rowlette Capt Richard I P.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Dec 2 at 2015 5:33 PM

2015-12-02T17:33:58-05:00

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/sep/30/viral-image/viral-flawed-post-compares-honduras-switzerland-gu/

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Dec 2 at 2015 5:35 PM

2015-12-02T17:35:55-05:00

http://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/switzerland.php

Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy: Switzerland | Law Library of Congress

A report on the firearms-control laws of Switzerland.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Dec 2 at 2015 5:48 PM

2015-12-02T17:48:05-05:00

From Snopes http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/hondswitz.asp

Dare to Compare

Rumor: Image contrasts radically different gun laws and homicide rates in Honduras and Switzerland.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Dec 2 at 2015 5:50 PM

2015-12-02T17:50:03-05:00

From Myth Debunk. http://www.mythdebunk.com/are-these-claims-about-switzerlands-gun-ownership-true/

Should America Follow Switzerland's Gun Rules?

Switzerland does have a fairly high percent of gun ownership (only the USA, Serbia, and Yemen rank higher), and a fairly low level of crime per capita (0.6 per 100k, compared to the USA which is 4.7 per 100k, Switzerland is the 11th in 218 in murders, and the USA is 108th in 218) Switzerland also has strict gun ownership, registration, carry, and transport rules. Guns must be registered, you need a permit to buy them, you need a permit to...

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Dec 2 at 2015 5:51 PM

2015-12-02T17:51:02-05:00

From Salon. http://www.salon.com/2015/09/14/the_rights_deeply_misleading_new_gun_control_meme_america_should_be_more_like_switzerland/

The right’s deeply misleading new gun-control meme: America should be more like… Switzerland?

In response to renewed calls for gun control in America, right-wing internet trolls are making a fatuous comparison

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 2 at 2015 6:15 PM

2015-12-02T18:15:05-05:00

I could go on and on about this, but in the interest in brevity - if I could boil it down to one factor, it would be the breakdown of the family. How many of these people that do these crimes are the product of broken homes? Mothers abandoned by baby-daddys?
Were the families together, odds are they would be in a much better social-economic place, and less prone to live in a crime-ridden area or contribute to criminality themselves.
Families with engaged parents have far fewer kids spiral out of control. It still happens of course; just not nearly as much.
Some will disagree with me, but the decline of religion is a factor as well. Amoral behavior is a plague tearing at the very fabric of our culture. Now that people think they can do whatever they want, they do whatever they want.

I can't fix society, but I can take care of my corner of it and raise my children right.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Dec 2 at 2015 6:36 PM

2015-12-02T18:36:52-05:00

Depending on your tilt on the issue, people tend to cherry pick concepts and irrelevant data to attempt to be logical. Both sides suffer from it. So for all the supposed connections, the real answer is maybe yes, maybe no. So here's something to chew on. We're a different country than everyone else. Our states are different from each other as well as our cities. So things that work in some places, don't work in others. So the one size fits all notions will have a hard time on implementation mostly everywhere. Our forefathers chose to have a Second Amendment for better or worse. They thought at the time it was for the better. People will say it's a problem because we're a different society now. We are different and in several ways for the worse. I'd suggest more effort be spent on recovering our collective decency vs. blaming everything but ourselves.

Response by Capt Mark Strobl made Dec 2 at 2015 7:50 PM

2015-12-02T19:50:33-05:00

I think mental health is a factor --albeit a very large factor. When I was living on Camp Pendleton, a man stole an M-60 tank from the local National Guard armory and went on one hell of a joy ride. Fortunately, he didn't kill anyone. But, he destroyed a lot of property and endangered a lot of lives. For all the anti-tank laws on the books, it didn't stop him --For in his mental state, he had no regard for the law.

Response by CPT Ahmed Faried made Dec 2 at 2015 8:03 PM

2015-12-02T20:03:52-05:00

wait for it. (also no idea what a Grobanite is. Josh Groban fan?)

Response by SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT made Dec 2 at 2015 9:38 PM

2015-12-02T21:38:52-05:00

Guns are not the issue.

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 3 at 2015 12:58 PM

2015-12-03T12:58:53-05:00

Yes, gun CONTROL is the root cause!!! notice that? not GUN control, is gun CONTROL.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 3 at 2015 11:10 PM

2015-12-03T23:10:15-05:00

So here's my two cents on the issue.

And I want to echo CAPT Kevin B. 's sentiments here. One of the things I study as an academic is causal inference. Is there an actual causal pattern to the arguments being laid out. Not rhetoric, but actual factual causation?

Most of the rhetoric on both sides has a huge issue. They confuse correlation with causation. People look at declining crime rates and rising gun sales say it is because more people are armed that less crime is committed. But frankly, there is no causal evidence for this to be true. In the same vein,

Ultimately, people generally fall into two counterfactuals. A lot of guns will stop this violence from occurring, and eliminating guns will stop this violence from occurring. The fact of the matter is that we actually don't know the result of either case. If we armed and trained every American, would that reduce crime and gun deaths? Who knows? If we got rid of every gun in America, would that reduce crime and homicides? No one knows. It is all conjecture.

Response by PFC James (LURCH) Janota made Apr 20 at 2018 9:28 AM

2018-04-20T09:28:07-04:00

Gun control is a scapegoat for not dealing with a deeper issue. We don't focus on what's pulling the trigger. We have a myriad of psychoses everywhere in the world. All violence is environmentally charged. When someone is bullied in school and is not allowed to defend him/herself but forced to be in that environment, chances are, if they have access to a firearm, they will use it. If they don't have access to firearms, they will improvise to obtain the desired effect. It may not be bullies, it may just be the fact that these shooters feel like they've run out of options. They tell people that are in charge or in the enforcement chain, nothing gets done, and they take matters into their own hands. So the focus shouldn't necessarily be gun control, it should be life options and opportunity management. Cause if you don't get the opportunity to thrive you're going to be taking the opportunity to survive. Sometimes that means negotiating the course the best way you know how. Sometimes people would rather kill the problem rather that negotiate with it.