For context, can you clarify if the many you're referring to there are some fellow USA citizens?
If so, I'll note that USA is < 5% of global population, and also note a very fresh Pew paper[0] which indicated more than half of that population was keen on stricter gun controls. So 'many' has some caveats around it.
> They provide you with a reasonably effective defense.
Against what? Other people with guns, or other people with feebler weapons?
If it's the former, then we're back to a basic escalation problem, and it's what most other western nation states have avoided falling prey to by, simply, not playing that game.
If you trust your fellow citizens with arms - who is it that you don't trust and that you need a weapon for 'effective defense'?
As to:
> ... in other words disarming populace is step down a slippery slope.
I really can't speak to what it looks like from within the borders of the USA, but from outside, it feels that the USA is well down that slippery slope (of eroded freedoms, and citizenry exploitation) compared to many other democratic nations - so guns in the hands of private citizens don't appear to be a panacea.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-a...
I grew up rural in US and now live in the city. It may as well be two different countries with respect to views on gun ownership, so nationwide polls won't capture any of the variation (also state to state is massive difference).
> Against what? Other people with guns, or other people with feebler weapons?
Any living threat, which could be a much much larger attacker or mob of attackers. Consider the rattlesnake, it's the same thing- a great deterrent. It's peace of mind, a last resort, something that's better to have and not need than to need and not have.
> who is it that you don't trust and that you need a weapon for 'effective defense'?
Have you ever read about the terrible things people do to eachothers? Or the barbarism of human history?
> It's usually the opposite sentiment for gun owners- I trust my fellow citizens with arms.
And now:
> Have you ever read about the terrible things people do to each others? Or the barbarism of human history?
Those positions aren't precisely orthogonal, but they certainly have some conflicting sentiment behind them.
As to owning a handgun for private use for:
> Any living threat, which could be a much much larger attacker or mob of attackers.
... from a naive perspective (I've never been in that situation, thankfully) it feels like any advantage I may have, via agility, negotiation, ability to out-run, etc, would be negated if everyone involved had a handgun. Certainly if everyone in that scenario is armed, there's no clear advantage to me to be armed.
(I concur that if the other party(ies) were not armed, and I was, then that's advantageous to me. And if they were armed, and I was not, well that's also very bad for me. But that's not the likely scenario in a heavily gun-equipped scenario.)
Anyway, I'm sure you've gone through all this before, with many people smarter / more informed than me.
Precisely why many Americans are convinced gun ownership is an answer to something, despite all the statistical evidence, I'm just not likely to ever understand. Thank you for your patience with my questions.
It probably doesn't change much but Americans ask the opposite question since ownership is already legal.
We ask what you hope to solve by removing gun ownership.
From the perspective of a gun owner who is in favor of better gun control, the biggest issue with gun legislation in the US is that those proposing restrictions either have no idea what they're talking about or are just catering to those who don't.
The pro gun control crowd is too busy inventing a nonsensical category of guns to ban ("assualt weapons") to even acknowledge that the homicide rate comes from poor people killing eachother with cheap, concealable handguns.
Reasonable enough, but many people have access to information about how the world outside those borders operates - which is why free healthcare, minimum wage, and other changes, are now being a bit more actively discussed.
Anyway.
> We ask what you hope to solve by removing gun ownership.
What's on offer is a significant (order of magnitude) reduction in the number of violent gun deaths. [0]
No one's trying to sell this to the USA.
OTOH various agencies within the USA are certainly trying to sell the idea that this is a bad thing. The budget differential of the two groups is enormous - consequently it'll almost definitely never happen.
[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/05/7435796...
I think I wasn't totally clear about the point I was trying to make.
Very very very few politicians in the US (I can't name a prominent one but I'm hedging) are for any sort of firearm prohibition that would put us in line with any of the nations we are often compared with. So, given that, the restrictions being proposed will not and should not be expected to bring us in line with those nations. Therefore, the question I'm asking is, given the proposed restrictions, what benefits should we expect.
The point I wanted to make was that the answer to that question, "what benefits should we expect?", is basically none from the current viable proposals and that's why, while I am for more gun control, I am against most existing and proposed gun control measures as I feel they are either completely ineffective or overly burdensome for their effectiveness.
I find the oft-said quote of "If we can save even one life..." type of argument a massive red flag.
If that's roughly it, then I'd suggest:
a) the cautiousness is a political necessity - and does not preclude the option of pursuing stronger, but similarly sentiment policy changes down the road. First steps, and all that.
b) my understanding is that even very basic, not hugely contentious (almost bipartisan support for) ideas, such as removal of full automatic and ridiculously high calibre from the marketplace, stopping sales at gun shows without background checks, cooling off periods, requiring safe storage gun cabinets, etc - would result in a measurable decrease in deaths (murders, massacres, suicides, accidents).
In any case, it feels like even if (b) wasn't a highly likely, the cost of doing it is relatively low to the potential (but, really almost guaranteed) outcomes.
> I find the oft-said quote of "If we can save even one life..." type of argument a massive red flag.
I don't speak for all non-American citizens, but outside of the country looking in, it feels like (media, social groups, etc) this past year or four we've had an alarming reveal about the attitudes of a surprisingly large portion of American society -- even if something trivially inconvenient is requested of them, that demonstrably will save the lives of other citizens, there's an instinctive and violent push-back.
So, yes indeed - suggesting that some lives could be saved probably isn't a sufficient and satisfactory argument for many people there. But that's a separate problem.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I guess I should add, if you can't find a way to respond to a comment without violating the guidelines, it's better to downvote, or flag if it's called for, and move on. I've discarded quite a number of half-written responses (and hastily deleted a few freshly-posted comments) on that basis.
Aha. See, if you had phrased that as a question, there could be room for curious conversation. Instead, you took the least generous interpretation and ran with that.
If I did something similar, like ran around pointing out that children can actually consent do actually have a working theory of the world in a thread about CP you'd probably question whether or not I have a load of CP on my computer. There is something as too much benefit of the doubt.
So... maybe?
We live in a tiny window of prosperity and safety. WWII was only 76 years ago. Syria is a short plane ride away. Afghanistan is a contemporary product of our own hubris.
Yet people still assume, for reasons that I genuinely cannot fathom, that this tiny window of privilege that we're lucky enough to inhabit will last indefinitely, and never backslide.
Nearly all perpetrated by the armed against the unarmed. The lesson of "might makes right" is to be suspicious of might before it makes right.
No, they don't at all. Just the opposite actually.
I get the 'Guns to defend against Tyranny' argument, that's kind of reasonable.
But as 'personal defence' they don't work nearly as well as having strong gun regulations which keep guns out of the hands of the morons. It's much safer walking down the street in Canada where you can't legally carry a gun, because there are just so few guns the baddies have a harder time getting them, and use them much less.
I do think we ought to be more concerned about authoritarian creep ... but guns are probably not the best solution to that either, as if it gets to that level it's very, very bad. Legislative, civic reform, voting, literacy etc. would be more helpful there.
Supply and Demand applies to the Black Market as much as it does to legal markets.
Again Japan is a great example: there are pretty much no guns allowed, anywhere, and guess what? There is almost zero gun crime.
There's no doubt that anyone with basic resources and need could obtain a gun if they really put their minds to it, but that's part of Supply and Demand, it's just not worth the extended effort in most cases. But if you have them lying around, with easy access, and your whole crew has them, and your rival gang is also easily and well armed, well, then you have a problem.
The argument that guns are good for personal defence just does not add up, it's just irrational at face value that everyone running around with guns (even legal ones) creates safer conditions.
The only place they would be useful is in highly dangerous situations, ironically made dangerous at least in part because historically lax gun regulations. If I lived in Mexico, I may very well own a gun, but in Maine, it would be basically pointless for the purposes of 'self defence' there.
Switzerland has high gun ownership, but they do not really have pistols and they do not carry them for self defence.
Mexico has strict gun laws, but they are not enforced, so the laws don't have much of an effect.
USA -> Can/Aus -> UK/Europe -> Japan form a fairly straight forward examples of ever stricter gun control leading to considerably less gun crime.
Note that some of those places have elevated levels of physical assaults, and knife attacks, but that leads to considerably fewer injuries and fatalities.
The 'stand against tyranny' argument notwithstanding, I think there's some legitimacy there, but that's another can of worms.
I think the relevant counterfactual example you're looking for here is, "If Japan had much more liberal gun laws, would murder rates go up?" I don't think anyone's specifically concerned about gun murders.
Consider that Japan has so effectively kept gun violence out, that we consider their 'no gun deaths' an artifact of their culture.
Reference my comment on this thread for data on Japan, France, US, Canada.
If you add in Korea, which is similar to Japan, you see that guns are not completely restricted but very rare - and guess what - homicide by guns, though still rare - does materially exist above the levels of Japan.
So yes, if you allowed 'some guns' in Japan, there would be some gun crime.
The homocide rate in Japan is about 1/2 that of Norway, which seems about right, it's not like they don't murder people there.
My bet if that gun laws in Japan were the same as Norway, you'd see 1) that more of the homicides would be by guns and 2) the homocide rate would creep up a bit because it's just so easy to reach for a gun.
Of course, if guns were as widespread in Japan as they are in the US there would be much more homicide, but still considerably less than in the US.
Put another way: while culture is obviously an important factor - that culture is driven by gun availability.
And other things as well of course: if everyone has healthcare/welfare, well, that's going to start to limit the very negative situations people get into on the margins. I'm not making an ideological point here, rather than trying to illustrate systematic effects.
I think that's incorrect. You really need to do experiments to get at this sort of causal story, though econometricians think they can sneak their way around said experiments. It's definitely a feedback loop and the availability of guns seems like a very, very small part of what goes into a "culture".
Anyway, what I really came here to say is I think you misinterpreted my comment: I didn't mean japanese people don't really care about gun murders, I meant all of us shouldn't really care about gun murders. From a public policy perspective, the thing we care about is just plain old murders--with what tools people decide to commit them is irrelevant. The relevant counterfactual you need to consider is, "If Japan had more liberal gun laws, would the murder rate go up?" if the claim you're interested in is "Do gun laws influence the murder rate?", NOT "If Japan had more liberal gun laws, would the gun murder rate go up?". It seems likely that the gun murder rate would go up to me, but who cares? What if the overall murder rate went down? What we really care about is the # of people murdered.
It's usually the opposite sentiment for gun owners- I trust my fellow citizens with arms.
Guns are seen as an integral part of self-reliance by many. They provide you with a reasonably effective defense. One way to significantly erode individual's/citizen's power, and in turn give power to government, is take away their ability to defend themselves. People worry that as government becomes more powerful and citizens more reliant there is greater likelihood of oppressive government, in other words disarming populace is step down a slippery slope