This is really a thinly veiled attack on the "then we should outlaw cars!" argument.

This lays out the case for "reasonable" safeguards and limitations that should be put in place for guns because "reasonable" rules have made cars so much safer.

While that may be the claim, the NYT blew their cover with the front page editorial last week where they openly admitted to wanting all guns out of everyone's hands, regardless of the legality. What we understand now is that the "reasonable" laws are the wedge to start going for more and eventual outlawing.

The problem is that "gun control advocates" claim that people shouldn't own guns really mean that civilians shouldn't own them. They're still okay with government having guns.

Because "tyranny will never come to America..."

> Because "tyranny will never come to America..."

If I'm not mistaken, the implication here is that tyranny might come to America, and I 100% agree with that. Of course it might, and in fact I think the increasing surveillance state atmosphere makes it seem increasingly likely.

But any implication that civilian gun ownership could make a difference if it happens seems overly hopeful. The US military is the largest in the world by a large margin. If tyranny comes to America then a few civilian shotguns aren't going to help much.

You're making the common assumption that such a situation would be "the standing US military roughly as it exists now" vs "rebel citizens with only small arms". This scenario is unlikely to ever happen.

What would be more likely to happen is something like the Civil War where the army itself was also divided. Even more importantly, it is a lot harder to control an army when the targets are the people the army supposedly exists to protect. In a survey[1] of "300 U.S. Marine Corps soldiers" about unit cohesion when working with the UN, the final question asked:

    46. The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale,
        transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty
        (30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be
        turned over to the local authorities. A the end of this period, a
        number of citizen groups refuse to turn over their firearms.
        Consider the following statement:

        I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of
        firearms banned by the U.S. government.

      (__)               (__)      (__)        (__)           (__)
    Strongly disagree   Disagree   Agree   Strongly agree   No opinion

The results of that question suggests a "citizens vs army" scenario is very unlikely.

          The results [...] with 88.0 percent responding,
    revealed that 61.66 percent said they would refuse to fire on U.S. citizens,
    whereas 26.34 percent indicated they would fire. This particular question,
    unlike the others, elicited form 15.97 percent of the respondents with an
    opinion, either heavier pen or pencil marks on their response or written
    comments in the margin space. [...] The responses to this scenario
    suggests that a complete unit breakdown could occur in a unit tasked to
    execute this mission.

Small groups of people often have some kind of consistency across the group, because the definition of the group self-selects for something. (e.g. the people who choose to attend a chess club tend to like to play chess) As a group grows in size, the makeup of the group tends to become more heterogeneous. Eventually, as the group becomes very large, the makeup of the group tends to resemble the makeup of the general population.

The military is a very large group of people, so the individual attitudes and politics of a soldier tends to resemble the attitudes and politics seen in the country in general. When considering a topic that is obviously politically controversial, you should expect that the people serving in the armed forces will be approximately as divided as the rest of the citizens.

[1] http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a293790.pdf

Thanks, I hadn't seen that survey before.

Your scenario would still present a situation where civilian arms ownership, while the cause of the conflict, is relatively inconsequential in the ensuing conflict itself. The military against itself is still a conflict with military grade arms.

That is possible. My point is mainly that it isn't going to be the lopsided "civilians vs army" scenario. The military isn't a single monolithic entity.

As for the utility of civilian being armed, I think you are underestimating the deterrence factor. Yes, they would lose in some situations and are less important in others.

Consider the situation from the perspective of the attacking army. Fighting an army is hard enough, but that attack is a lot harder if you also have to defend against the population in general. The counter to that problem is a scorched earth policy that doesn't leave a population that could be a threat, but such a policy is risky and can easily turn more people against you.

We see this when our army fights in the middle east: when you want to maintain good PR instead of razing cities, small arms and IEDs can be surprisingly effective.

Good point. It looks like gun violence is down ~30% since the mid 1990's.

Also, how do they define "gun violence"? Does that include accidental shootings? Suicides? From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of all deaths due to guns.

According to the article it includes accidents, homicides and suicides. I have also heard a figure of 50-70% of all gun deaths are suicides.

The argument of the article is that consistent government regulation has helped curve motor vehicle deaths downwards and that consistent gun regulation might be able to do the same.

>From what I remember, suicides account for almost half of all deaths due to guns.

The article says "Today, suicides account for roughly two out of every three gun deaths."

"Due to guns?" Do guns make people suicidal?

It lowers the bar before people succeed. Take some pills and many back out, pull a trigger and your generally out of options.

Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to be stupid[1]. This is kind of the point of having a free society; the people that do helpful things that you approve of don't need to have their activities protected by law and constitution. It's the people that do things you don't approve of that need those protections.

To test if people are actually free, you study how the unpopular people and unwelcome ideas are handled. If they are restricted "for their own good", then any claim of being "free" are jut marketing.

The solution is better education and more communication (and better healthcare, including a lot more funding/availability for mental health services). Going after guns doesn't address the actual problem.

Oh, and "take some pills"? That really depends. You may survive, but hours of hypoxia from an overdose of respiratory depressants can be incredibly damaging, especially to the brain. If the overdose wasn't strong enough to cause that kind of damage, it may not even be a fatal dose. There is going to be a lot of variation, and "backing out" only apples some of the time.

[1] As someone who strongly supports the right to die, suicide is a complicated subject, and is not "stupid" in some cases. However, for the purposes of this thread, that is really off-topic. The "stupid" subset certainly exists and they would be the people who would benefit form the "backing out" you mention.

This seems like the 'one true way' fallacy. If doing Y is vastly more expensive and harder to pull off and nobody is trying to do Y, then it's not an excuse to avoid doing X which is a vastly cheaper partial solution.

When you include external costs guns are massively subsidized. EX: Homeowners insurance generally does not ask about gun ownership even if it increases risks.

PS: The 18th may have allowed the sale of beer, but that does not mean the government can't discourage use though taxation.

Exactly. When Australia changed their gun laws, the suicide rate went down by 65%.

Yet Japan has one of the highest suicide rates and almost no gun ownership!

Also, prior to enacting gun control, Australia's non-firearm suicide rate doubled (1980-1996) while firearm suicide was cut in half.

Not sure there is any correlation.

You may not be sure, but the researchers that study this subject are sure - http://andrewleigh.org/pdf/GunBuyback_Panel.pdf

And for the US - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/1...

It's not just me, it's other researchers as well.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia#Measurin...

"The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."[61]"

"The implemented restrictions may not be responsible for the observed reductions in firearms suicide. Data suggest that a change in social and cultural attitudes could have contributed to the shift in method preference.[60]"

I wouldn't assume that it's settled.

The paper I linked to discussed both of those papers and corrects errors made in them.

Care to point it out?

The table I'm looking at says firearm suicides dropped by 50% prior to the gun buyback.

I'd argue the decrease in overall suicides is a general trend happened to coincide with the gun buyback.

Even if you take that to be true (I gather there's plenty of ways to quickly off yourself at any given hardware store), does that make the guns "responsible" for those deaths? Are those deaths "due" to guns? Or are we using our political biases to slant something to meet our agenda, like this article, which shows gun violence isn't really increasing at all.

There's quite a difference between "guns make people suicidal" and "guns enable impulsive suicide"

Let's drop things down and say there is only ~500 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm per year in the US. That seems reason enough to discourage gun ownership.

By that logic we should get rid of swimming pools...http://www.poolsafely.gov/drowning-deaths-injuries/

Probably ladders as well...

Don't forget buckets! Those have resulted in more than a few drowning deaths over the years.

You've reminded me: The CPSC introduced stop-sale regulation on magnets (remember Buckyballs?) for even fewer deaths than that, and where most of the non-fatal injuries were the result of poor decisions by adolescents. Worse, in my opinion, the relatively small number of deaths that occurred were almost all traceable to irresponsible adults leaving magnets in places where toddlers could pick them up and swallow them.

That's still a sore point for me.

Don't put words in my mouth, discourage != get rid.

Mandating they all be panted in iridescent reflective coatings would discourage ownership, but not actual use.

PS: Ladders are covered in safety warnings (which may be ridiculous). Guns, not so much.

Lets drop things down and say there is only ~500* deaths due to accidental drowning per year in the US. That seems reason enough to discourage pool ownership.

*=http://www.cdc.gov/HomeandRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/wa... There are closer to 3,500 accidental drownings per year.

Your joking, but I actually agree with this. I also almost drowned at my parents pool while really young (under 3).

Note, discourage != prohibit. Regular PSA's about the dangers of pool ownership higher taxes, and or required fencing could all save lives.

> It should really read "Automobiles now immensely safer in the US".

That isn't the main topic of the article though. From the opening sentence: "For the first time in more than 60 years, firearms and automobiles are killing Americans at an identical rate". The headline simply points out the article's main data point of automobile and gun deaths converging.

The article's headline and banner strongly promote this concept that guns are an increasing problem. While the title and opening sentence aren't false, they ARE misleading.

That's purely subjective.