That's hardly the problem. There are millions of people who legally carry concealed firearms in the USA without an issue daily. The "gun" violence is not committed by those people; in fact they are something like 10x more likely to use their gun defensively than to intentionally commit crimes.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is the canonical form of this argument. And it’s utterly irrelevant.

Sure, most people with a gun don’t kill anyone. But the fact is, some people will. Prohibiting access is by far the best means of preventing those tragedies before they happen. High price to pay? Sure. But saving lives is worth it.

Guns do save lives when carried by responsible, law-abiding individuals (and almost all are). Lawfully owned and carried firearms are used defensively something like 10x more than in the commission of crimes.

From the CDC: "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, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008."

> Prohibiting access is by far the best means of preventing those tragedies before they happen.

Sure, just like providing food to starving people is the best way of helping them. Unfortunately, things are rarely so simple and black-and-white, right?

> Lawfully owned and carried firearms are used defensively something like 10x more than in the commission of crimes.

That's citing the maximum of the CDC estimate; the low end of that same estimate paints a more sobering picture.

If you take the lower end of the estimate, another way of saying it would be "nearly 40% of the interactions involving this product are used illegally." We strongly regulate things that have a much smaller chance of causing harm than firearms.

> Sure, just like providing food to starving people is the best way of helping them. Unfortunately, things are rarely so simple and black-and-white, right?

Your argument here is, what - it's not "so simple and black-and-white" to provide food to the hungry? I happen to think it is that simple, and black-and-white: there is no good reason that anyone on this planet goes hungry. We have more than enough resources to go around. I find any suggestion to the contrary to be deeply morally abhorrent.

> If you take the lower end of the estimate, another way of saying it would be "nearly 40% of the interactions involving this product are used illegally." We strongly regulate things that have a much smaller chance of causing harm than firearms.

I wouldn't take the lower end of the estimate, because most defensive firearms uses are not reported. Firearms are also already highly regulated, yet a number of illicit use still occurs. By your logic, we need fewer firearms regulations to tip the balance.

I don't understand what you are proposing that hasn't already been tried, done, or is completely impractical. Banning things, especially an empowering technology, has never worked. It is better to decentralize and distribute that power - in this case, it is a political power - fairly and equally among all people.

> I wouldn’t take the lower end of the estimate

Oh, sure. Why not.

> banning things has never worked

I can think of at least one high-profile counter-example to this, specifically with guns, within living memory.

I’m done arguing with you; there’s no sense arguing with people who think that gun violence is just a political football. I pray you are never the victim of your preferred policies.

> I can think of at least one high-profile counter-example to this, specifically with guns, within living memory.

Which genocidal dictatorship are you thinking of which banned guns? Doesn't matter, because the idea is entirely stupid to begin with.

How's banning those assault knives going in London? Assault cars? Guns are far from the only way to kill people.

The tools are the problem, the people wielding the tools are always the problem.

The existence of additional problems and avenues for violence does not mean we shouldn’t address gun violence.

If we take your argument to its logical conclusion - why have any laws or regulations at all? Such arguments are silly.

Guns are used defensively significantly more than offensively.

This simple and obvious fact "disarms" any gun "control" arguments.

Yup. CCW permit holders are considerably less likely to be convicted of felonies than the average person--and a good portion of the crimes they "commit" are improper carry. Either letting it show or carrying where they weren't supposed to (which isn't always obvious. Some states you can't carry in any business that sells alcohol--but when alcohol is a small part of their product line you might not know.)

Fundamentally, if you made it to 21 without messing up badly enough to be denied CCW you're probably not going to be a bad guy later.

In most countries in Europe you don't need any special license as a tourist to shoot guns at a range.

The "different dimension" is the mentality and unaccountability of the police themselves, not that the average citizen is able to carry a gun. ShotSpotter is like crack to police, as it gives them an escalation pretext of "shots fired" before they even show up to a scene.