Gun Control

[Ponder This]

It may be a crazy suggestion, but...

Have you tried looking at the mass shooting rates of other countries that either have much stricter gun regulation or an outright ban on all private-held firearms?

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/mass-shootings-by-country/

If you have some data, don't be shy with it.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/mass-shootings-by-country/

If you have some data, don't be shy with it.

Since that article makes absolutely no mention of the laws regarding gun control in any of the countries it lists, it's essentially useless when considering what I asked.

Meanwhile:
Australia's success in curbing gun violence could be a model for the world
How Japan Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths
American police kill more people in one day than Norway cops have in 9 years
Gun violence rare in U.K. compared to U.S.

 

[Ponder This]

Since that article makes absolutely no mention of the laws regarding gun control in any of the countries it lists, it's essentially useless when considering what I asked.

Meanwhile:
Australia's success in curbing gun violence could be a model for the world
How Japan Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths
American police kill more people in one day than Norway cops have in 9 years
Gun violence rare in U.K. compared to U.S.

Okay, although mass shootings are mentioned in those articles, none of those articles actually focus on a comparison of mass shootings between these countries, which also makes them useless for answering your question.

The Australian comparison shows that gun violence was already on the decline when the gun ban was implemented making causality between the gun ban and a reduction in gun violence unclear. What about Mass Shootings?

The Japanese have their gun ban for the purpose of preventing civilian opposition to the government. Is that an acceptable trade-off for their reduced overall gun violence? Not clear. After all, the article clearly states that Japanese are more consenting to police searches and seizures. How will the Japanese culture translate to the US culture (without causing increased violence)? And what about Mass Shootings?

The Norwegian article says that the reason the Norway approach won't work in the US is that the US has 313 million more people and disarming the police is a non-starter. It goes on to explain how an approach of attention to the mental health of police officers in Cincinnati reduced the use of force by police and complaints by of police abuses of force. Was this article supposed to support the idea of firearm restrictions? And what about Mass Shootings?

The Article about the UK seems to be proud that a member of parliament hadn't been killed in the last 26 years (before 2016). Well, the last Congressman of the US killed was in 1983, which is more than 26 years and counting and he was in a passenger plane shot down over the Sea of Japan. However, the article gives an interesting comparison between gun killings in England and Wales (I guess they don't want to include the rest of the UK - huh, why is that?) versus gun homicides in the US, but the problem is that the article doesn't do a good job of explaining why that is. How does this statistic help us understand the problem and potential solutions? And what about Mass Shootings?

The article I linked, on the other hand, was specifically related to mass shootings and indicated that the US is not at the top of the list when it comes to a mass shooting problem. For example, Norway had a death rate of 1.888 per million from mass shootings and the US only had a death rate of 0.089 per million from mass shootings! Your Norway article doesn't address this! And so we have to wonder: if the Norway police were more aggressive, would there be fewer deaths from mass shootings in Norway? Maybe the Norway police need some tips from the US police!

So you've looked at some data on how things are happening in other countries and that's good, but... what do these statistics mean? Are the cultural elements of these countries transferable to the US? What specifically can be used from the way other countries do things and implemented in the US?

For example, let's think about something simple like a total gun ban.
So now we have to compare the US to countries like China, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and Eritrea. I'd be curious to see how you might justify a total gun ban in the US based on the countries of the world that have total gun bans.

So okay, maybe not total gun ban? Maybe something weaker than that. Let's look at countries where the authorities may deny people licenses and/or firearms. Now we are looking at Australia (this one might be interesting to look at), Russia, India, South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Brazil, Spain, UK, Turkey. And these could be very interesting to talk about.

But what if licenses were subject to a fulfillment of legal conditions but the authorities may not deny the license or firearm? Now we are looking at countries like Canada, Pakistan, France, Italy, Finland, and Iraq. Iraq will be interesting to watch.

And of course, there are the most permissive countries: the US and ... Yemen. Yikes!

So I think that a brief overview of countries and the laws associated with firearms suggests that it is best to avoid laws on the total ban end of the spectrum. And that means we should look at some of these countries that are closer in freedoms to the US like France and the United Kingdom. If you think Australia and Japan are good places to examine... then I think you need to show why Australia and Japan are not just exceptions compared to other countries in their same respective categories with regards to firearm law and why you think those laws would carry over well to the US. Of course, you should do that anyway with any country we examine, it's just that you have a special burden of proof on those two cases (is it because Japan and Australia have higher incomes than other countries in those categories?).

Finally, I don't think this would be complete without addressing that the US does have more gun related deaths than other countries (disregarding mass shootings, of course). Well... actually the US doesn't top that list... until you restrict the list according to high income. Then it points to a problem, but it doesn't necessarily point to a solution. It just suggests that we need to do something.

But what specifically? I mean sure, overall we don't really want to reduce freedoms to carry guns. We want specific laws that work. For example, gun-free zones are very bad and that points to a need to have fewer restrictions. But maybe there are some restrictions that the US does need that it doesn't have and that pulls in the opposite direction. What restrictions specifically are going to really work? Also what about the dependence of income on gun related deaths in other countries? Is there an economic factor in the US gun-related deaths?

 

[Ouroboros]

There's more regulation to free speech and a driving license than there's for gun ownership. It is far easier to get a gun than a driver license in California, and we have strictest regulations in the country. We can live with laws regarding hate speech or yelling fire in a theater and still have a working first amendment, so I believe we can have a better background check and a bit more "gun safety" tests for a license without losing the second amendment.