Do guns make us more safe?

[ll74]

WOW.. your ignorance & stereotyping is REALLY showing here. I was raised around handguns and rifles, the correct way, with VERY responsible parents and learned very young the power such a weapon holds. I am a VERY civilized adult debater, who refuses to namecall and act like a child, on this and other topics, but clearly, your mind is already made up, so I will simply wish you a good day and a begging urge to PLEASE open your eyes and don't stereotype ALL of ANY group into one big idiotic bunch. The majority of gun owners I know are quite intelligent actually. And aren't intimidated by rainbow flags or bud light. Most will have a civil debate about it with anybody, trying to educate those who clearly know nothing of the subject matter and wish you a pleasant day, no matter the outcome.

I assure you, if you or another breaks into my home and attempts to harm me or mine, I can, know how and WILL defend to the end. Good day!!!

If you were proven to have developed a diminished mental state and were determined to be a danger to others, would you voluntarily give up your weapons or would you keep them, and why?

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

There in lies the difficulty with gun confiscation. First of all it would be a monumental task if people refused to voluntarily surrender them. Imagine having to send police, or the military, to millions of homes to search for firearms. That would take decades. Secondly, what would you do with the people that refused? Obviously they would be arrested, but where would you house them? Jails are overcrowded now. Perhaps the FEMA camps could be used for them? Who would compensate the firearm owners for their firearms? I don't own any guns worth thousands of dollars but I know people that do. They are going to demand compensation if they surrender their guns.

Add to that this little tidbit, their are thousands, if not millions of guns out their with no registration or record of them at all. Guns legally purchased before records were kept, guns handed down from generation to generation, private sales, and war trophies brought back home are virtually untraceable. Also with computers able to mold gun parts people could just start making their own from scratch.

Confiscation is a pipe dream and a phony worry made up to enflame the masses.

You don’t need to confiscate them all. Have a buy-back program with a generous amnesty period to turn them in. After the amnesty ends, possession carries a prison sentence. All the law-abiding gun owners will comply, then you can concentrate your efforts on the few remaining crooks who are hiding their guns.

 

[goodgirl29]

I would be happy to require every gun owner to carry an insurance policy. If your gun is used in a crime or any act of violence...you pay.

Furthermore, every new gun should have a ballistics test done. That goes into a database. If you have existing guns...you put those guns into the same ballistics database and your insurance rates drops considerably.

Responsibility. If you are adult enough to own a gun...just like a car...or a house...or a boat...you are adult enough to insure it

VERY TRUE and very valid points. But what about all those illegal guns already out there? the ones that criminals purchase, steal, etc etc? MY guns have NEVER harmed a person, nor will they unless that person attempts to break the law to harm me or mine. Same goes for ALL of the gun owners I know (and there are a LOT of them!). IT's not the lawful people to worry about. any laws passed will be obeyed by us, the good ones, but the criminals don't give two shits about the law. Hence why they're criminals. they'll simply smile, knowing it's much less likely that they'll be confronted by a good guy with a legal gun, trying to be a good person.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

I would be happy to require every gun owner to carry an insurance policy. If your gun is used in a crime or any act of violence...you pay.

I get what your saying, but with insurance, you pay a price to have the Insurance company insulate you from financial damages.

Responsibility. If you are adult enough to own a gun...just like a car...or a house...or a boat...you are adult enough to insure it

Maybe, lose the right to "own it" if your not responsible. The "gun nuts" here keep saying why punish the law abiding, and I do agree. So if your not responsible with your firearms, and are convicted, then you lose that 2A right. Period end of story. Now why would any Law Abiding owner disagree???

 

[Dribble]

VERY TRUE and very valid points. But what about all those illegal guns already out there? the ones that criminals purchase, steal, etc etc? MY guns have NEVER harmed a person, nor will they unless that person attempts to break the law to harm me or mine. Same goes for ALL of the gun owners I know (and there are a LOT of them!). IT's not the lawful people to worry about. any laws passed will be obeyed by us, the good ones, but the criminals don't give two shits about the law. Hence why they're criminals. they'll simply smile, knowing it's much less likely that they'll be confronted by a good guy with a legal gun, trying to be a good person.

Stop worrying about illegal guns. Focus on what can be done. Here is a fact. Illegal gun users...do not keep using the same gun over and over and over. They use it...and sell it...or dispose of it. Start today...every NEW gun has a ballistics test done when manufactured. Within 10 years...there will be no illegal guns not in the system...because guns used illegally are replaced.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

With cash of course.

Not that I am advocating for this, but buy backs have been a proven method to remove firearms from owners ( and criminals) world wide.

I take issue with the term "buy back" as one can not buy back what one has never owned, but understanding what you mean, I would agree that "buy back" programs certainly can get old, cheap and/or broken firearms out of circulation. Not that they likely were circulating as long as newer functional units were available.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

Did they take your guns?

No. Why do you ask?

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

VERY TRUE and very valid points. But what about all those illegal guns already out there? the ones that criminals purchase, steal, etc etc? MY guns have NEVER harmed a person, nor will they unless that person attempts to break the law to harm me or mine. Same goes for ALL of the gun owners I know (and there are a LOT of them!). IT's not the lawful people to worry about. any laws passed will be obeyed by us, the good ones, but the criminals don't give two shits about the law. Hence why they're criminals. they'll simply smile, knowing it's much less likely that they'll be confronted by a good guy with a legal gun, trying to be a good person.

If you never use your guns you won’t miss them when they’re gone.

 

[ll74]

No. Why do you ask?

You said they were going to take your guns so you bought more guns.

I was just checking to see if that worked.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

I take issue with the term "buy back" and one can not buy back what one has never owned, but understanding what you mean, I would agree that "buy back" programs certainly can get old, cheap and/or broken firearms out of circulation. Not that they likely were circulating as long as newer functional units were available.

They can also get new and very functional ones as well. Cash is king. It's a proven method, I'm not about to debate what works.

 

[BabyBoomer50s]

You said they were going to take your guns so you bought more guns.

I was just checking to see if that worked.

No, I don’t believe I ever said that. SCOTUS has strongly affirmed the right of individuals to own firearms.

 

[Dribble]

They can also get new and very functional ones as well. Cash is king. It's a proven method, I'm not about to debate what works.

It worked in other countries. But those countries were appalled when a mass murder event occurred in their country. They said...this is not who we are...and asked...what can we do? Well...maybe this will work? They tried it...and it has been successful.

 

[Ramone45]

So there was never any danger of you losing your gun and you buying one had nothing to do with anything but your own delusions.

Got it.

Question for you - if you ended up getting some disease that literally made you go crazy and possibly harm someone, would you use your gun or something else?

So are you saying that you can ignore things that politicians say? I know for sure it is his Communist wet dream to take my rifle away. Or are you saying he respects my right to keep and bear arms? Sorry I can't help you with your question about some mysterious disease.

 

[adrina]

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-guns-make-us-safer-science-suggests-no/

Do guns make us safer? Science suggests no​

Conflicting statistics about guns—such as how many people in the U.S. use guns for self-defense each year, and whether or not the crime rate is tied to how many people own guns—was the subject of a recent podcast featuring David Hemenway, professor of health policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.


Hemenway, an expert on the public health impact of gun violence and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, was interviewed on Science Vs, a podcast that looks at fads, trends, and opinions to uncover what’s actually true.


Hemenway noted that one commonly cited statistic about guns—that 2.5 million people use them each year to defend themselves or their property — is based on faulty analysis from a 1990s study. A more reliable source of information, the National Crime Victimization Survey, pegs the number of people who use guns in this manner at roughly 100,000, according to Science Vs podcast host Wendy Zukerman. Hemenway added that there is no good evidence that using a gun in self-defense reduces the likelihood of injury. There is some evidence that having a gun may reduce property loss, “but the evidence is equally compelling that having another weapon, such as mace or a baseball bat, will also reduce the likelihood of property loss,” he said.


Addressing gun lobby assertions that crime is deterred when more law-abiding citizens carry guns, Hemenway said the evidence says otherwise. He said that even though more and more Americans are carrying concealed guns each year—the result of more states passing ‘right-to-carry’ laws—research has not uncovered a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the prevalence of guns and the U.S. crime rate. However, he noted, the presence of more guns does make crimes more violent. “What guns do is make hostile interactions—robberies, assaults—much more deadly,” he said.

 

[ll74]

So are you saying that you can ignore things that politicians say? I

Do you understand politics?

I know for sure it is his Communist wet dream to take my rifle away. Or are you saying he respects my right to keep and bear arms? Sorry I can't help you with your question about some mysterious disease.

How many communists do you know....(like actual communists, not people you ascribe communism to)?

So if you were shown to be a danger to others,.you'd grip your gun tighter

Got it

 

[Fuzzy1975]

It worked in other countries. But those countries were appalled when a mass murder event occurred in their country. They said...this is not who we are...and asked...what can we do? Well...maybe this will work? They tried it...and it has been successful.

It's worked in the US too, but only at the small scale state and city levels.

Yes there is the "culture" issue to deal with, but if it was part of a compressive revamping of the 2A where the goal is not to end firearm ownership. Just implement rules such as which firearms should be in the hands of the general public, limits on the rates of fire vs the magazine capacity. Training, age of ownership,storage and of course the legal liability an owner must follow.

I think it is a viable option, given over 68% of Americans see a need for some types of changes.

 

[ffdan]

Studies have shown if you have a gun in the house your more likely to die from a gun shot than those without a gun

 

[Rightguide]

There were 17.5 million guns sold i the US in 2022, and about 353 million in circulation. Notwithstanding Adrina's pearl-clutching two things become apparent. Either Americans love guns and shooting guns, or they know they're safer when they carry them:

* In 2013, President Obama ordered the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to “conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it.”[218] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council to “convene a committee of experts to develop a potential research agenda focusing on the public health aspects of firearm-related violence….”[219] This committee studied the issue of defensive gun use and reported:

“Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed….”[220]
“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million….”[221]
“ome scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey,” but this “estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.”[222] [223]
“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies….”[224]

https://www.justfacts.org/guncontrol.asp

 

[Rightguide]

Studies have shown if you have a gun in the house your more likely to die from a gun shot than those without a gun

BS

 

[ffdan]

BS

I know, facts don’t matter to you

 

[Fuzzy1975]

BS

ummm that's not the way it works. According to you, you need to prove him wrong. I can go grab a dozen posts by you where you use that exact wording.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

They can also get new and very functional ones as well. Cash is king. It's a proven method, I'm not about to debate what works.

We agree that Cash is King.

 

[HisArpy]

I know, facts don’t matter to you

What you cite is a lie that was promoted to you by an org with a political agenda against guns and gun ownership.

It doesn't matter how many times you repeat the lie, it's still a lie. All you do when you repeat it is add your name to the list of the gullible and stupid who believe it.

 

[Dribble]

 

[HisArpy]

We agree that Cash is King.

These days Cash identifies as queen.