This is such a stupid argument. I's right up there with "If gun violence goes down, knife violence goes up" Which is actually something I heard people say!
Because if someone has a gun in a fight doesn't make any difference, right?
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I'm okay with that tradeoff for now
Guns and knives can be used by violent people to kill people. But there is a difference:
@josteem
Yes indeed, a woman with a gun can defend herself from a whole gang of rapists, isn't that good? Or should stronger people be able to prey upon the weak?
So while an armed woman in most cases would just point the gun at the rapist to scare them away, the rapists are less likely to hesistate. And in a state where everybody can own a gun, so can the rapists.
They are easy to use, just point and shoot, the rules for gun safety are very simple and American gun owners are more responsible than ever before, despite more guns than ever before, at the same time the number of guns went way up the number of fatal gun accidents went down. The number of accidental fatalities is at an all time low, not just in rate but also in number. In other words we have fewer deadly gun accidents now than we did when the population was half as much.
Nope, she shoots one or two and the rest run for their lives. Women are smart, they can figure these things out. It's sad you are pushing that ugly sexist lie that a woman is likely to be shot with her own gun if she chooses a gun for defense.
If you are being raped you probably won't be very reluctant to kill the rapist. Will you?
Criminals, like rapists, are not allowed guns, try telling them that though, they will have guns whether they are allowed to or not. Disarming their victims won't change that.
Fatalities. What about accidents? I couldn't find any numbers on that, so citations would be welcomed.
It's maybe hard to believe, but we don't live in the world of minority report. Nobody knows beforehand, if you are going to be a rapist or not. Even if rapists aren't allowed guns all across the USA (I'm not going to look it up, so I'll just concede that point), anyone can become a rapists at any time. And until they are, they can legally own a gun in most of the USA.
the number of accidents is irrelevant and confusing, who cares? What is important is how many people die, that is very easy to count and for everyone to agree on the definition. Fatal gun accidents are at an all time low, about 71 times as many people are killed in car accidents annually.
She is prepared, she has a gun. Why would it be better for her not to have a gun?
Your concerns are hypothetical, I read a real story about a young woman who was an adept gun operator but her college forbade guns, so she got raped in a situation where she could have easily defended herself, in a parking garage, and then her rapist killed his next two victims after her. If she was allowed to be armed she could not only have prevented her rape but also saved their lives.
If you were alone in a parking garage and some strange man or men approached you and you were armed you wouldn't put your hand in your purse and grasp your gun?
Of course a rapist does not need a gun, they just need a victim to not have one. And that is what your plan achieves.
Why wouldn't you care how dangerous guns are, if you are talking about gun control? It's the whole point of talking about gun control!
And fewer gun deaths doesn't mean fewer gun shootings. The counts of gun deaths are USELESS without the counts of gun accidents. They could just as well be explained by advantages in medicine.
"She is prepared, she has a gun"
That is a complete non sequitor. How does having a gun equate to being ready to shoot at a living target?
"Why would it be better for her not to have a gun?"
It's not about HER owning the gun. When she is able to legally own a gun, everybody else is too.
"If she was allowed to be armed she could not only have prevented her rape but also saved their lives."
Ok. What you are talking about sounds like, she didn't have a gun, so what you describe what would have happened, actually didn't happen. What is the word I'm looking for again... could it be... hypothetical?
That assumes a) that that is how rapes usually happen (it is most likely not, most rapes are perpetuated by someone you know and even in the cases it is not, I highly doubt it would take place in a parking garage. It's not a smart place to do that. She could just get in her car and then what?) b) That the group doesn't have any guns and c) that the same results can't be accomplished by her carrying a tazer/ pepper spray
What? I'm sorry, I can't follow, that doens't even relate to anything I said.
This is pretty much how everybody outside of the USA and Afghanistan sees it. XD
I have not heard that one, but here is an argument I like to point out. As the number of guns owned by Americans has gone up and the number of places where they can legally carry them has increased from a handful of states to all 50, gun homicide rates have fallen to historical lows. So more guns and more people allowed to carry them has correlated with far fewer gun homicides. What do you think about that?
Corelation does not equate to causation, as I'm sure everybody knows by now, it's one of the most repeated phrases on the internet.
Same goes of course in the other direction, just because America has a problem with gun violence, doens't mean necessarily, that an over abundance of guns is the problem.
Just that having more guns around will make it more easier for people, who want to, to access guns, meaning a spike in gun violence would be expected. Whereas making it easier to attain a gun, when there is already an overabundance of guns around, isn't likely to change anything.
Also the guns in the USA aren't equally distributed. There are some gun collectors for instance. The number of guns gowing up, doesn't mean the number of gun owners does go up.
"Corelation does not equate to causation, as I'm sure everybody knows by now, it's one of the most repeated phrases on the internet."
Gosh, that's probably why I said "correlation" and not "cause" huh? We can't tell from that correlation if the loosening of gun laws caused the reduction in homicides that we see but we can conclude from the nature of the correlation that the reduction in gun laws did not cause gun homicides to increase as anti civil rights people claimed it would.
I don't know that America has a problem with gun violence. you have not demonstrated that.
Exactly, that is your theory, but we can see in real life that the opposite happened. That's why the correlation where as guns go up gun homicides go down is so important. We made it much easier for people to get and carry guns and instead of a spike, like your theory predicts, there was a crash. Therefor your theory is wrong.
Yeah, that's another popular theory of the anti gunners, that fewer and fewer people actually own guns, they just own a lot more each, that could be possible.
But would that explain all the entry level guns being bought and the record numbers of people taking beginner gun safety classes? Are they opening all these gun megastores to cater to a smaller and smaller number of gun buyers?
No, in reality the polls of how many people own guns do not measure how many people own guns, they track how many people ADMIT they own guns to researchers, something which fluctuates relative to the political climate.
25 years ago, when gun homicide rates were at their peak only a handful of states allowed concealed carry, now all 50 states do many without even requiring a permit, and gun homicides are at record lows.
"I don't know that America has a problem with gun violence. you have not demonstrated that."
Really. You didn't provide ANYTHING in terms of prove for all the claims you made. And you expect ME to prove something that is that well known? The charts on gun violence all accross the USA are through the roof compared to any other of the industrialized nations. The only two European nations with a higher homicide rate (homicide, I'm not even talking about gun violence alone) are Lithuana and Russia. The USA is by far the least safe of all the western nations and that's despite that your country is basically a giant no mans land compared to Europe, where the poplation density is a lot higher. 31% of all mass shoutings worldwide happen in the USA.
To debate, IF the USA has a gun violence problem is to put it generously: retarded.
We can debate WHY the USA has a gun violence problem, though.
And I'm not going to give you sources, just google it. It's such a well known thing that it is insulting of you to suggest, I'm in the burden of proof here.
"where as guns go up gun homicides go down is so important"
There. That's exactly what I meant. Where is your citation on that?!
"Yeah, that's another popular theory of the anti gunners, that fewer and fewer people actually own guns"
I never said that though. And can you explain to me what exactly an "anti gunner" is supposed to be in your world view?
"they track how many people ADMIT they own guns to researchers"
The polls are annonymous. They don't really have an incentive to lie. And even if you have a few liers in there, it'd be a stretch to claim, that it's common to lie in this instance.
"25 years ago, when gun homicide rates were at their peak only a handful of states allowed concealed carry, now all 50 states do many without even requiring a permit, and gun homicides are at record lows."
Even if that would be true, which you would have to demonstrate, as you suggested I do with the gun violence in the USA, how the fuck would you be able to derive anything from those numbers? If it's legal to buy a gun in any state, and you don't have any state-to-state borders, everyone can get a gun any time they want.