As a former gun rights advocate who is now in favor of basically eliminating guns except for hunting…
> I think gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little.
From both positions, I’d favor regulation that explicitly aims to limit gun possession as much as legally possible. The problem with “more gun laws the better” is everyone knows it’s bullshit that accomplishes nothing, no one benefits, and every terrible incentive is incentivized.
They should come for the guns and get as many as possible, with as much solid legal theory backing it as they can. They’re never going to convince the fringe, but they’ll convince the vast majority of people who agree with regulation that they mean it and intend to be effective. Anything short of that is political theater.
What leads you do believe "the institutions" in the USA are are failing children at a substantially higher rate than any other country? And what specifically are you even talking about?
We don’t need to control everything to be safe; if anything, that’s a major detriment to our capacity to raise emotionally resilient human beings, and ultimately, makes us all less safe.
This kind of institutional thinking is — in part — why we keep raising these broken children in the first place.
You came to believe that guns create mass murderers?
Either you never really held a belief in the right to self-defense and are arguing in bad faith (which, frankly, is most likely), or if you did change your mind due to such a ridiculous premise, you never had a coherent argument for gun rights in the first place.
> You came to believe that guns create mass murderers?
I came to believe that the institutions which continue to not just protect widespread proliferation of firearms, but to rally around it as a culture war battle, are the ones failing children. I’m not sure how to engage with the phrasing “create mass murderers”. But those institutions are certainly enabling those who would be.
> Either you never really held a belief in the right to self-defense and are arguing in bad faith (which, frankly, is most likely)
Oh I still believe in the right to self-defense. And in all honesty I haven’t moved much philosophically on the subject of firearms specifically. But in terms of the practical reality, I just don’t believe we’re going to solve the problem without addressing our gun culture and significantly reducing availability/access.
> or if you did change your mind due to such a ridiculous premise, you never had a coherent argument for gun rights in the first place.
Oh it was coherent. The shift came at the same time as I shifted away from anarchism towards communism. Can’t really get more coherent than a fundamental question of the role, if any, of the state in dictating what’s permissible. My attitude toward that question has shifted on a great deal of things. Not to serve the ideological shift, but causing it. It hasn’t shifted far, granted.
According to wikipedia, Mexico, Belgium, Czech Republic, Afghanistan and Somalia have basically the same amount of guns per person. Yet some of these are among the safest countries in the world and in some of these you are very likely to get shot basically any time.
Just looking at the number of guns is very shortsighted and makes it sound you're focusing on "punishing sinful people" instead of making reasoned policy decision.
Those are not like cases. The picture in Belgium and the Czech Republic does not seem inconsistent with the thesis that lax gun rights, and mass gun ownership, are heavily related to rates of mass shootings.
Belgium:
"Until 2006, Belgium had surprisingly lax gun control laws. After a man shot two innocent people, however, the nation become increasingly concerned with the illegal flow of firearms. The 2006 legislation requires gun permits to be renewed more frequently and sought to prevent the impulsive purchase of guns by requiring prospective gun owners to go through a three-month process which includes an extensive police screening. Six years later, in 2012, the European Union passed regulation aimed at interrupting the transportation of guns across borders by requiring exporters to obtain a special license.
Today in Belgium, it's not easy to own any type of gun, unless it's a rifle or shotgun. The nation prohibits the private possession of fully automatic weapons, and permits ownership of semi-automatic weapons only in certain case scenarios. Furthermore, the private possession of handguns is only allowed after obtaining special permission from the government. In the country, long guns, such as rifles and shot guns, are the only guns not prohibited by the state. According to GunPolicy.org, these regulations categorize Belgium as a country that has "restrictive" gun control laws."
"The most recent statistics show that on a per-capita basis Czechs own about one-tenth the number of guns Americans.... Still, owning a gun in the Czech Republic isn't so easy. Permits are for 10 years and are reviewed after five years. People have to pass a written and practical test, as well as a medical check that includes mental health, and a clean criminal record...
Mass shootings are rare in the Czech Republic, but not unknown. In 2019, seven people plus the gunman were killed in Ostrava, and in 2015, eight people plus the gunman were killed in Uherský Brod. There was also a case in 2009 with four victims plus the gunman."
The Czech rules don't sound that different from where I live (California). Permits are for 5 years, and require a written test. You have to take the hands-on safety test for every gun you buy. There are checks for mental health and criminal records, although IIRC the mental health check only covers involuntary commitments.
Sorry I meant to add this statistic (updated now):
"The most recent statistics show that on a per-capita basis Czechs own about one-tenth the number of guns Americans."
The Czech Republic has 10% the per capita gun ownership of the US, and some moderate controls on ownership, and suffers from occasional mass shootings. That seems to me consistent with the idea there's a relationship between gun ownership, and its lax regulation, and mass shootings.
The Czech Republic has less ownership, a bit more regulation, so has less mas shootings. But it still has them because those values are not 0.
Czech Republic requires you to pass knowledge exam and health examination. The "go to buy semi automatic and have it in an hour at 18" just does not exists there.
Also, use of gun in self-defense is way less permissive then in USA. The stuff that pass as self defense in USA simply would not in Czech - you truly have to have no other choice.
The requirements for self-defense in the U.S. are very simple and logical[1]:
1. You must be (or believe you are) in imminent danger of harm
2. Your response must be proportional to the threat
3. You must not be initial aggressor
4. Your decisions must be reasonable based on the information you had available to you
A few states also impose what they call a "duty to retreat", which basically means you must have exhausted all safe avenues of retreat before resorting to self-defense. Most states have removed such requirements because determining whether or not that criteria is met is really hard and doesn't really add much to the other four criteria.
Whether a gun was used doesn't really matter: dead is dead. Using a gun doesn't make them more dead. If you were justified to use deadly force, then the means shouldn't really matter.
[1] I am not a lawyer, but my knowledge of self-defense law comes from attorney Andrew Branca and his book Law of Self Defense
The rittenhouse(?) case (which is used over here now to show how crazy Americans really are unfortunately) shows that this is a rather broad concept in the US (maybe depending on the state?).
Rittenhouse was a classic example of justified self-defense. He used the minimal amount of force necessary at the last possible moment, all the while retreating and trying to peacefully disengage from his attackers.
In my experience people who argue it was unjustified usually are lacking some key facts (most of which were available the night of the riot).
Simple, logical and still more permissive. Especially interpretation of them can be quite permissive.
> Whether a gun was used doesn't really matter: dead is dead. Using a gun doesn't make them more dead. If you were justified to use deadly force, then the means shouldn't really matter.
First, gun heightens chance of someone dying. But yes, you can shoot to wound to stop attack. But second, there are special laws that say how and when you can use the gun itself - so legally the gun or not does matter.
A gun is considered deadly force in the US, and thus would only be justified when facing a deadly force threat.
> But yes, you can shoot to wound to stop attack.
That is not really a thing. Often people don't die when they are shot, but you can't realistically have a goal of only shooting to wound. You shoot to stop the attack.
> But second, there are special laws that say how and when you can use the gun itself - so legally the gun or not does matter.
Can you give some examples? It's not obvious to me what such laws would be or why they would be beneficial.
Good point. This is a problem with Anglo culture specifically (note the poster who pointed out that Canada’s gun crime per capita closely tracks the US). Anglo culture is not sufficiently developed to support widespread gun ownership and therefore access to guns here must be curtailed.
I do not think this is an argument you want to make. Following this logic to it's ultimate conclusion is that we should just ban black people in the United States from owning guns, and I suspect neither you nor I want to do something so racist.
"Anglo" culture can support it just fine. The U.K. actually had lower violent crime rates before they banned guns. The fact that they felt the need to ban knives in London has very little to do with "Anglo" behavior.
Likewise, most places in the U.S.have rates of gun violence comparable to Belgium or Switzerland.
> I think gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little.
From both positions, I’d favor regulation that explicitly aims to limit gun possession as much as legally possible. The problem with “more gun laws the better” is everyone knows it’s bullshit that accomplishes nothing, no one benefits, and every terrible incentive is incentivized.
They should come for the guns and get as many as possible, with as much solid legal theory backing it as they can. They’re never going to convince the fringe, but they’ll convince the vast majority of people who agree with regulation that they mean it and intend to be effective. Anything short of that is political theater.