[quote=CA renter]You’ve just made the “pro-gun” argument, yourself. You can disarm 100% of the people in Town A (the town with gang culture, etc.), and there will still be homicides and other violent crimes; maybe the same number as before any gun ban. You can also arm 100% of the population in Town B (the nicer town), and if all of those people are law-abiding, respectful, considerate people, you can theoretically have ZERO homicides. It’s not the guns that cause homicides, but the people and culture of those people. [/quote]
I’m not sure how you got from what I said to “You can disarm 100% of the people in Town A (the town with gang culture, etc.), and there will still be homicides and other violent crimes; maybe the same number as before any gun ban.” That is not what I said. I said you could ban sales of spray paint (or guns) and increase fines to a still-insignificant amount and Town A would still have a bigger problem than Town B. In other words, you could enact useless measures and not help the problem much. I didn’t say anything about disarming them. Disarming them would obviously bring gun crimes to zero. Banning sales and increasing fines by a piddling amount won’t disarm them. I also said that if you enact serious penalties for possessing spray paint (or guns) that spray paint (or gun) crimes would probably be reduced significantly.
In other words, it’s a combination of culture and gun-control measures. It doesn’t matter that Town B could have zero homicides. It’s not Town B that the measures are for. What matters is Town A. What matters is whether strict gun-control measures would significantly reduce (not eliminate, not reduce to Town B levels, just significantly reduce) gun crimes in Town A. Your argument seems to be that if a bad town is going to have more gun crimes than a good town regardless of gun-control laws, then gun-control laws don’t matter; only culture matters. That is just not true. If a bad town (or country) would have less gun crime with serious gun-control laws than that same country (in that same time period) would without those laws, then gun control does matter. Even if gun crime isn’t reduced to Switzerland levels.
[quote=CA renter]Let’s address your spray paint analogy, now. Assuming that it’s the *graffiti* you want to avoid, why do you think that enacting strict sentences for the possession of spray paint would be more effective than imposing those same strict sentences for vandalism? [/quote]
If possessing spray paint is a felony with a 5-10 year prison sentence, then in order to commit graffiti vandalism, you’ve got to not only make sure you don’t get caught actually in the act of painting something, you’ve got to make sure you don’t get caught with the paint. Think about it. You’ve got to get that paint somewhere. You hope it’s not from an undercover officer. You’ve got to drive it to your house. You’ve got to get it into your house. You’ve got to hide it pretty damn securely while it’s there. You’ve got to get it back out. You’ve got to drive it to the scene of the crime. You’ve got to carry it from your car to the scene of the crime. Any little slip up in any one of those areas, and you could be in prison for 5 years. Clearly that’s a bigger deterrent than just making sure you don’t get caught in the act. Also, it gives law enforcement that much more opportunity to prevent a spray paint (or gun) crime.
[quote=CA renter] There are perfectly good and useful things that people can do with spray paint; why would you make owning the *paint* illegal instead of making vandalism illegal? IOW, why would you impose new restrictions on people who would never vandalize in the first place? Those who vandalize are already doing so even though there are existing laws against it. Making spray paint illegal would only create a larger criminal class because some currently law-abiding citizens would still need/want to use spray paint, and would end up getting it illegally. If you can’t control the smaller group of criminals who actually vandalize, what makes you think that our legal system could control an even larger number of criminals…many of whom would never harm anybody else or their property?
The same goes for guns. There are many perfectly rational reasons for people to own guns. Some hunt, some participate in shooting sports, some use them for self defense, etc. Why would you ban guns and create an even larger criminal class (by turning these law-abiding citizens into criminals via new gun bans) when you can’t even enforce the laws that exist for a much smaller criminal class (those who are committing the crimes)? Just like with the prohibition of alcohol, there are many people who would never commit gun crimes who would still insist on owning a gun for self-defense, etc. With new gun laws, you’ve just created a larger criminal class while not showing that it would lower violent crime rates in any way. If history is any guide, it would very likely cause MORE violent crime as this market goes underground. [/quote]
The spray paint analogy is limited for the purposes of this part of the discussion, so we’ll use actual guns.
There are rational reasons for people to own guns. And I’m not suggesting banning guns. I’m suggesting banning handguns and assault rifles and making the purchase and possession of rifles and shotguns a difficult and rigorous and very selective process.
I think that hunting and sporting are good enough reasons to own guns in a perfect world. But we’re not in a perfect world, and we have to ask ourselves if hunting and sporting are worth the lives we lose to guns.
As for the argument that we shouldn’t try what I suggest because we don’t have enough law enforcement to handle what we already have, I say get more law enforcement. Not let people die because we’re too cheap to save their lives.
[quote=CA renter]The number of people who use guns to commit crimes is a very, very small percentage of gun owners. Think of these criminals as the numerator, and the total population of gun owners as the denominator. There are already laws that prevent felons from owning guns (numerator). There are already laws that make it illegal to commit violent crimes (numerator). If these existing laws are not able to prevent violent crimes, how do you figure that new laws affecting the law-abiding group (percentage of gun owners who never use guns to commit crimes — the majority of gun owners) would somehow reduce the number of crimes committed by the criminals? You’re increasing the ratio of criminal to non-criminal (as some law-abiding citizens are made “criminals” overnight via new gun laws), but not showing how that would reduce crime. [/quote]
No person is going to be made into a criminal overnight. Unless they decided not to turn in their gun in the time allotted, in which case they’d be turning themselves into criminals.
Sure, there are laws that make it illegal to commit violent crimes. But many violent crimes are committed in a passionate moment. With a gun. Usually a handgun. If you have a lot less guns, all of them in the hands of carefully selected people, and none of them handguns, that’s going to happen less often. Common sense tells you that. And, unfortunately, common sense is all we have to go on here. There’s no perfect way to tell what effect such gun laws would have. There are no two cultures exactly alike. Not even the same country in different time periods has the same culture.
I agree that culture is a huge part of the problem. The biggest part. And that we need to address that problem. But to think that we can solve the problem with that effort alone is, I think, unrealistic. I think if we address the culture problem aggressively while also addressing gun control aggressively, we have a shot at significantly reducing gun deaths in the U.S.
