Massive School Shooting at an Elementary School

[Woeler]

I never heard of the rubber bullet argument before, Azdgari, that makes a lot of sense. But anyways, I'm curious to what you tell we should do to stop violence that is possible to pass. I'll admit that banning all guns (and I mean every single one) would stop the crime, but that isn't possible, especially given the political climate of 2013. What laws/measures do you want to see passed?

You won't have to ban guns. You'll have to collect them all, melt them down, and search every square-inch of the entire US to get all guns. Then you will habe to completely lock down all the borders so that no foreign guns get in. You will need to destroy all machine shops...

...And deal with angry citizens who need guns. Explain to the military and police why they suddenly can't have guns...

Don't even try to go down the "ban all guns" route: it's impossible.

That's weird. As far as I remember I happen to live in a country that has banned all guns. Except for soldiers and police.

[DGFone]

That's weird. As far as I remember I happen to live in a country that has banned all guns. Except for soldiers and police.

Yeah, and if I recall correctly, you are also extremely afraid of guns because you got help up by one.

Proving my point that when you ban all guns, the only people with them will be the military, police, and the criminals. And the police and military can't be everywhere, you know.

[TheLionPrince]

TLP: Acknowledging the climate, I think
- Limiting legal clip size to 10 (ideally 5 but I think that would be a tough sell) is reasonable.
- More thorough background checks and waiting periods are reasonable.
- Closing the gun show loopholes is not "reasonable", it's a no-brainer.
- More regulation on transfer of guns is reasonable: Your average citizen, without any sort of permit or authorization, should not be able to sell guns. It destroys the point of background checks and undermines basic security.

Are any of those really contentious?

I have no problems with any of these. I would maybe add something that allows citizens to report mentally ill people to the police, something that apparently was banned about 5 years ago (according to the Senate panel they are showing are CNN at the moment)

[Regulus]

What I would love the most, though, is to not have to point a gun at a person at all.

Which means, if you have to do it, you will hesitate, at least a little bit. If the other person is pointing a gun at you as well, and it's a life-or-death situation, as you seem to think every burglary is, hesitation is not acceptable.

You need to shoot first in a gunfight.

If you have rubber bullets, you know you're probably not going to kill the guy, so you won't hesitate as much. That could, potentially, save your life.

And, before you say that non-lethal weapons won't stop someone with a gun, take a look at this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_bullet

[Rubber bullets] are expected to produce contusions, abrasions, and hematomas.[6] However, they may cause bone fractures, injuries to internal organs, or death. In a study of 90 patients in Northern Ireland, one died, 17 suffered permanent disabilities or deformities and 41 required hospital treatment after being fired upon with rubber bullets.[7]

It'll knock a person down easily, and can still be lethal depending on where you hit them.

[Woeler]

That's weird. As far as I remember I happen to live in a country that has banned all guns. Except for soldiers and police.

Yeah, and if I recall correctly, you are also extremely afraid of guns because you got help up by one.

Proving my point that when you ban all guns, the only people with them will be the military, police, and the criminals. And the police and military can't be everywhere, you know.

Afraid is a strong word. You don't know who I am. You don't know the slightest thing about that event. I oppose guns because it doesn't work and innocent people die because of it. What are you trying to say? My opinion shouldn't be valued because I actually know how stupid it is to supply guns to every idiot that wants them?

Your point is not proven at all. Less than 60 people die because of guns in my country every year. Even if you put it in a relative perspective the number is still 32 times smaller than in the US. And legal guns is 100% the cause of this. It is extremely difficult to get a gun here. There are no huge black markets (about which pro-gun people love to talk), there is no underworld system, there is no secret supplier. 99% of criminals will not have guns because they are so difficult to get. In the US 100% of criminals can own such a thing legally. You value the people that died because they didn't have a gun (very small number) over the people that have been saved because guns are illegal (a great lot of people). We can live in peace without guns. The relatively low number of gun-related deaths is enough evidence that our system is more efficient and protects more lives.

This data is from a peer-reviewed article published in the International Journal of Epidemiology in 1998 (Krug EG. Intl J Epidemiology. 1998; 27:214-22). The authors collected data from 36 countries they identified as “high income” (countries as wealthy as the US) and “upper-middle income” countries with populations of greater than 1 million persons. Total firearm deaths in the US were found to occur at a rate of 14.24 per 100,000 persons, the highest rate of all countries studied, and a rate that was eight-fold higher than the combined rate of firearm deaths in all economically similar countries, and 1.5 times higher than the combined rate for the “upper middle income” countries. The three countries with the next highest firearm death rate after the US were Brazil (12.95 firearm deaths per 100,000 persons), Mexico (12.69 firearm deaths per 100,000 persons), and Estonia (12.26 firearm deaths per 100,000 persons). For all countries studied, the combined death rate due to firearms was 6.9 per 100,000 persons, less than half the death rate due to firearms found in the US. The take-home message here: the US has more killings due to firearms than any other industrialized country in the world.

The CDC collected data from the US and 25 other wealthy, industrialized nations on rates of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearm-related deaths. Pooling the data from all the countries, 86% of all firearm-related fatalities in children under the age of 15 occurred in the US. The overall firearm-related death rate among US children under the age of 15 years was nearly 12 times higher than among the children of the other 25 nations combined. The firearm-related homicide rate among US children was nearly 16 times higher than for children in all other countries combined. The firearm-related suicide rate was over ten times higher for US children than for children in all other countries combined. And the accidental (unintentional) firearm-related death rate for US children was nine times higher for US children than for other children combined. Children here in the US are on average ten times more likely to kill themselves using a gun, and nine times more likely to die by accidental firearm injury than children in other wealthy, industrialized nations.

Owning a gun at home substantially increase the risk of death by firearm to everyone in the home. It turns out that suicide is the leading cause of death for Americans who have purchased a handgun within the previous year. (data published in the New England Journal of Medicine – Wintermute GJ. NEJM. 2008; 358:1421-4). Like cigarette smoke, owning a firearm has deleterious effects on everyone in the home, not just on the one who purchased the gun. Writing in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Wiebe reported on a case-controlled study in which household were matched on a number of demographic factors, and then incidences of gun violence were compared. They found that people who keep a gun in their home are almost twice as likely to die in a gun-related homicide, and that the risk was especially greater for women: women living in a home where there is a gun are almost three times more likely to die in a gun-related homicide than men similarly situated. The risk of killing oneself using a gun was almost 17 times greater for persons who live in a home where there is a gun, compared to those in homes without guns. (Wiebe D. Annals of Emergency Medicine. 2003; 41:771-82).

Gun enthusiasts like to claim that keeping a gun handy protects them and their family from violent intruders. The study by Wiebe shows that having a gun at home is associated with an increased risk of dying by gunfire, so gun ownership does not appear to be protective of violent firearms-related killings. But the Wiebe study was also able to compute the likelihood of dying by violence other than gunfire. They found there was no relationship between owning a gun and homicide by means other than a gun. In other words, having a gun around is not associated with a decreased risk of homicide of any sort. The study could find no empiric evidence that owning a gun confers some protection on a household from homicide.

It's very simple, more innocent people die, that's wrong.

[DGFone]

I'll tell you the very simple reason why less people die in the Netherlands: Because it's the Netherlands, full of Dutch people.

Look, I know what I am about to say is very politically incorrect, very cynical, but in the end, also very true. However, I will put it in a spoiler because I'm afraid that people these days might not accept the answer, because it goes quite against a lot of social movements of the past 50 or so years. What is the main cause of crime?

(And I strongly urge to you consider if you want to open the spoiler or not. I'm not breaking the rules here, but what it says is very extreme.)

Inequality.

And I know that you know that it's true, otherwise you wouldn't tell everyone you can to vote for a political party that tries very hard to ban not guns, but foreigners. When people of different cultures meet, you get trade and the expansion of ideas. You also get war, and the smaller cousin of war is crime.

The difference between the Netherlands and the US is that we are a country of immigrants, while the Dutch are all natives. It's only logical that the US will have more crime, guns or no guns. And considering that crime in the Netherlands is closely tied to immigration, you know what I just said is true.

If you read what was in the spoiler, I hope you have the courage to understand that I am not saying this to get a reaction or to troll you guys, but because it's simply a fact of life.

Edit: I guess I should mention it before any of you guys freak out: I don't like what I said here, and I do wish that it were different. But I cannot change the fact that in the end, what's inside the spoiler. I hate it just as much as you guys do, I just feel like this fact needs to be realized by society more.

[Regulus]

Unbelievable.

Spoiler: show

That is not only incredibly offensive, but astonishingly ignorant as well.

[DGFone]

Unbelievable.
That is not only incredibly offensive, but astonishingly ignorant as well.

Yes it's offensive, but it doesn't make it true. It's cynical as [censored], I'll give you that.

[TheLionPrince]

Regulus: Epic response is epic.

DGFone: That was bad! Let's get back to facts. Please don't get this topic locked.

Woeler: What if I told you the Netherlands has worse violent crime than the US. And in terms of the top ten, the US is not on the list.

[DGFone]

Regulus: Epic response is epic.

DGFone: That was bad! Let's get back to facts. Please don't get this topic locked.

Woeler: What if I told you the Netherlands has worse violent crime than the US. And in terms of the top ten, the US is not on the list.

Look, I know you guys are probably hating me, and I agree with you: It's BAD. But you guys need to learn that it's also true. I'm not saying that I want it to be true, but that that's where the data points to. And seeing as I want to become a future scientist, I need to be flexible enough to admit when the evidence points at one place or another, no matter how much I hate it.