Comprehensive Analysis of the Gun Control Debate and violence in General
http://guncontrol8.b...un-control.html
A lot can be said about the "common sense" nature of gun control. While it may seem intuitive and instinctive for some ,for others who lack an understanding about firearms or what firearms legislation would entail, they simply need cold hard facts to be convinced that many forms of gun control are bad. Even then, many more will need additional information and explanation as well as rigorous debate before they would even consider an alternative option to gun control measures, even if it's proven to be ineffective. Not all gun or weapon control is bad, such as mandatory background checks (which already exist), or the banning of nuclear weapons. But gun control, in general, is not the best idea, and is rarely supported by the facts. Gun control typically refers to laws aimed at restricting currently legal firearms, most of which are still far below what would be considered extremely deadly or dangerous. When it comes to that, very few pieces of legislation seem to have enough substance or target the right issues to do anything meaningful. We should not simply "do something" about gun violence as many politicians say, we should do something good about all forms of violence. And ultimately, stopping violence comes down to understanding and combating variety of different underlying social factors, as well as the raw physical prevent of it such as, the policing of the violence, or self defense to act as a way to stop or deter attacks.
There are far more prevalent factors to violence in any country, including the U.S., than the mere presence of firearms. Social issues, economics, poverty, the effectiveness of law enforcement, the presence of organized crime, and in general a certain element of randomness tend to be more important to determining a country's violent crime rate or murder rate, than the ownership of guns. Take Honduras for example; it has the highest homicide rate of any country in the world, at around 85-90 per year per 100,000 people. This compared to the U.S., at approximately 4-5 per year (depending on the year), despite the U.S. having the most guns in the world. Africa as a continent has some 30 million guns out of a population of 1 billion people, or a gun ownership rate lower than 3%, compared to the U.S.'s 300 million+ guns or more than 1 gun per person, yet the violence is 2-3 times higher on average in Africa than in the U.S., or is 12.5 per 100,000 people. Mexico, literally on the border of the U.S., has approximately 3 times the murder rate or, a murder rate of 15.7, compared to the U.S., and only has 3 million legally registered guns in the entire country, and 15 million guns, with a very low gun ownership rate of around 10%, and yet, has a much higher violent crime and murder rate. While this is according to self reported statistics (as reported by the U.N. [1][2]) as a rough comparison, countries with the least amount of guns, don't have the least amount of homicides, and countries with the most guns, don't have the most homicides. To truly solve the problem of crime, and violence, we have to understand that inherently it's a social issue, dependent on the people involved. Only by focusing on people, and not things, in this case guns, can we solve our problems.
Poverty is very clearly associated with increased crime. Poor people tend to be more desperate, have less ability to defend themselves, and generally can't pay as high taxes, which in turn weakens the government. Poverty exponentially increases crime by not only creating desperation which attracts bad elements of society to do bad things they may not have in a more comfortable environment, but also by weakening the citizen's own ability to respond to that crime. With these two factors conflated with each other, crime can become extremely rampant, going from around 1.0 to 2.0 murders per 100,000 people in the rest of the U.S., compared to 45.0 in detroit. The murder rate increases exponentially whenever gangs can essentially be seeded in to the environment, with the lawlessness essentially creating a breeding ground for large criminal groups. Despite making up less than .5% of the population, gangs and organized crime were responsible for approximately 48% of the violent crime in the U.S. (FBI), making groups of young violent men significantly more dangerous than they would be alone. When these poor environments become so inept at combating crime that entire organizations can form and people are so desperate they are willing to join the organizations for the chance at a decent life, crime inevitability sky rockets. This trend can be found in Mexico, Honduras, Eastern Europe and even Russia, where crime sky rockets after gangs and organized crime seed in to the environment. The Netherlands, Switzerland or other such places have low gang activity, and low crime, but places in Africa with various tribal leaders also have lower crime, despite being incredibly poor and living primitively, primarily due to the lack of a presence of such organizations. Poverty does not always lead to crime, but in many places it can, especially urban environments. Urban areas also tend to have much higher violent crime rates in general, and much higher stranger victimization rates. [1][2] Poor urban areas in the U.S. with heavy gang presences have the highest crime rates and even higher violence rates, and this trend holds true for the world. Making the issue about guns completely ignores the real issues, while wasting resources and needlessly punishing innocent civilians for the crime of owning a gun. What we need to do is focus on the people involved.
Better educations can help give people a better chance at life and a more likely chance to get a job, and thus help reduce poverty. The average gang initiate is 14 [1], and disparaged school systems are practically recruiting grounds for gangs. Kids with bad family lives, in part due to poverty, can see the schools as a safe haven and find a way to progress beyond their means, allowing them to escape the cycle of poverty and the resulting violence. Mental illness and drug abuse are also closely associated with violent crime. Approximately 46.7% of violent criminals are classified as drug dependent, compared to about 9.4% of the population in general. [1][2] The mentally ill are also more likely to commit crimes, with approximately 45-64% of all prisoner having some form of mental illness. [1] Treating mental illness and drug addictions is also beneficial to society as these people are often in desperate need of help; nearly 90% [1][2] of suicides are committed by the mentally ill, and a disproportionate amount of homeless people are drug addicts or mentally ill. Decriminalizing drug use (but not sale or trafficking) and court ordering mandatory rehabilitation for drug use can be a very effective way to reduce drug use, compared to the nearly revolving door of drug addiction our current prison system has. While 40-60% of the time drug rehabilitation is successful, imprisonment is only successful 10-25% of the time. Both for moral and practical reasons, this can be done to help people, and it would also put a sizable dent in our violent crime rate. It's also no secret that drug use fuels organized crime, such as drug cartels, and thus putting a dent in usage also hurts their profits, and subsequently in the long run can make them weaker.
While there are no magic beans that will make crime go away, putting tremendous dents in to the existing crime rate is possible with some very simple steps. Even more so, the money that's spent on incarceration (nearly 25,000 per prisoner a year [1]) can be better spent on rehabilitation and screening programs to catch people who have addictions or are mentally ill earlier before they become out of control, thus not costing us drastically more money than they would have already spent. Rehabilitation won't work on everyone and people will always slip through the cracks, but if mandatory psychological screening was required for all people and rehabilitation was required for all drug addicts instead of, or in concert with imprisonment, a reduction in the impact of one of the most prevalent causes of crime, and violence in general, could be achieved. Instead of spending hundred of billions of dollars on buyback programs and the policing of the mere ownership of a firearm, we could instead target factors that would prevent all violence, for the same or less money, without the removal of anyone's rights. Ignoring the potential backlash in hatred of riots over gun control laws, we still could reduce violence further with more effective means that would also impact suicides, homelessness, and all crimes in general, improving the quality of life of everyone. Better educations and mental health programs, including those directed at drug and alcohol abusers, could very easily lower the murder rate, as well as help with many other problems. There are more reasonable and easily implemented measures than gun control, that would have a superior impact. In a world of finite resources with a limited government budget, the best allocation of these resources, and the manpower needed to achieve the results, has to be considered. Because these measures are ultimately more effective, they should be used, instead of gun control. In Switzerland, nearly every citizen is required to own a fully automatic machine gun giving them a gun ownership rate rivaling the U.S., yet they have one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world, with a murder rate of .5, lower than the UK, Australia or Canada. Yet as every citizen is psychologically screened as a result of a mandatory military draft, their violent crime rate is very low. In Norway and Israel, we see a similar trend, where mandatory military service of all able-bodied and minded people and gun ownership lower crime, in large part because of the psychological screenings of all citizens to prove if they're able-minded for military service in the first place. While it will alway exist, crime can be reduced if targeted properly, which runs perhaps completely counter to the gun control argument all together. Than, the goal needs to shift away from gun control, and instead be placed on education, mental health, and drug addiction.
Focusing on the people, instead of on the tool, will likely yield greater successes on curbing violence and other social issues. However, if we were to continue the mental exercise, scurrying down the rabbit hole to address other gun control arguments, how would that argument go? Well, criminals would still get guns if gun laws were illegal, guns are not needed for murder and are not the deadliest weapons available to civilians, guns are used more defensively than for crimes meaning that you would need to save more than "just 1 life" as many have claimed, and removing rights to save just one life doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense on any issue, let alone with guns. There's no guarantee that criminals would use knives instead of guns, as they could use explosives or cars or other weapons instead, and there's no guarantee that knives are less deadly. Illegal manufacturing of guns, the theft of guns currently in circulation and even smuggling contribute to illegal firearms, and with the absolutely massive wealth of guns in this country, it seems unlikely that guns would suddenly be unavailable to criminals if they're simply illegal for commercial sale in local businesses. Many of the features of the supposed "assault weapons ban" are also easily replicable, such as the adjustable stock or pistol grip, meaning that these so-called assault features can be easily made on the street. A generally ineffective law would have, basically no reason to exist, other than to unnecessarily punish otherwise law-abiding civilians. So, what do we find?
There are weapons just as, if not more deadly than guns
The entire basis of gun control rests on the notion that, if criminals were to use other weapons, less people would die. It's not that criminals won't attack people or the rampant poverty or other social issues won't exist, but that guns are simply more effective at killing. The hope, the dream of gun control advocates is that, criminals will simply switch to less deadly weapons if guns are outlawed; that out of the thousands of weapons available, guns are the most deadly, and banning these will reduce violence. While it may seem a bit weird from the outside to ban one type of gun or one gun in hopes that all other weapons that are more deadly than guns aren't used, this is essentially the argument of gun control advocates. That they'd switch to knives or explosives, and this would kill less people. Not only is it a pretty strange hope that this would occur as there's no guarantee that criminals would use a less deadly weapon than a gun, but it's not even true that guns are more deadly.
While certainly not my favorite topic to discuss, in mass murderers more people have died from explosives, arson, poison and vehicle attacks than from guns. The deadliest single person mass shooting in the world occurred in Norway, and killed 67 people, which was done predominately with a handgun, with a magazine capacity lower than 10 rounds. [1] Automatically, the concept of an "assault weapons ban" is thrown out the window as, a handgun was used to commit the deadliest mass murder of all time. A handgun can kill just as many people as an "assault rifle" in a mass murder, so the type of firearm effectively makes very little difference. When an aggregate comparison is made, assault weapons killed slightly less people than non-assault weapons in mass shootings, making the type of gun virtually irrelevant for shootings. According to a congressional study by the government [2], around 27.3% of mass murderers use an assault weapon in public mass shootings (and 9.7% in all mass shootings) and less than 2% of all murderers use one. [3] It effectively makes no difference if someone uses a so-called "assault weapon", handgun, or other type of firearm. If civilians cannot mount an effective defense against the shooter, it could be a bolt-action hunting rifle, such as the texas tower shooting, or a handgun, such as in the Virginia tech shooting that is the second deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The type of weapon often makes little difference in the impact of the shooting.
So, what about other weapons? As sad as it is to talk about, guns are not the deadliest weapons to be used in mass shootings. To obtain a weapon in the U.S. you have to pass a background check, pay several hundred dollars and generally maintain good legal standing to be able to own one. Anyone with severe mental illnesses, felonies on record, domestic abuse or even just 1 year in prison are effectively barred from owning a gun, unless a judge overturns this decision. This means that few criminals or bad people can even obtain guns in the first place, making it very difficult to do legally (illegally is another matter, of course). Fertilizer, pressure cookers, gasoline, poison or cars on the other hand are extremely widely available, and cars are at least as easy to obtain as guns. Sadly, these can kill far more than guns ever can. The Oklahoma city bombing attack with a fertilizer bomb killed 168 people and injured approximately 680, in one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. soil in history. In India a train bombing killed 209 people and injured 714 people, using a pressure cooker bomb. In Australia, 173 people died and 414 more were injured in an arson attack, set off by a few gallons of gasoline. 87 people died and 434 were injured in the France Nice attack, and they perpetrator used a car. 918 people died in one of the worst mass poisonings in U.S. history, considered by many to be a mass murder as most people drank the poison under duress. The obvious pattern here is that many other forms of killing people, be it by explosives, arson, poison or vehicles not only exist, but are far more deadly than guns could ever be. The worst single person mass shooting killed 67 people in Norway by comparison, and most mass shootings kill far less. The point is that other just as easily available weapons can kill not only just as many people, but more people than guns. How do we stop killers by getting rid of guns if they switch to more deadly weapons? The issue here is not gun violence, but violence in general. There's no guarantee that a killer would use a butter knife or other less deadly weapon instead of a pressure cooker bomb if guns were illegal. For every killer stopped there would be just as many switching to even deadlier weapons, effectively making gun control moot. To truly stop the mass murders and murder in general, you need to go after people, criminals, and not guns. 9/11, perhaps one of the most infamous mass murders in history, was committed by using a box cutter and taking over a plane, which lead to at least 3,000 deaths and 3,000 additional injuries, deadlier than every single mass shooting in the last 10 years in the U.S. combined. If even a single killer switched over to use a weapon other than guns, more people would actually die. While keeping guns legal in the hope that criminals will use them instead of other methods is not exactly a good strategy, it's just as bad a strategy to ban guns in hope of the opposite. Ultimately, the person, not the tool, is the problem. People have been finding creative ways to kill each other since before guns even existed. Nearly every war in history is proof of that.
So, what about a knife? Just for the sake of the argument, let's just say killers switched to knives instead. As previously mentioned there are actually deadlier weapons, so there's no guarantee someone would choose to switch to a knife. But what if they did? Many mass murders have been committed with knives, blunt instruments and other edged weapons such as axes, and their death tolls are nearly as high on average as mass shootings, effectively making the difference in mass murders moot. Notable examples are Cairns child killings which killed 8 in Australia, 5 dead in the Calgary stabbings, 19 dead and 26 injured in the Japanese stabbing attacks, and 33 dead and 143 injured in the Chinese Kunming attack. At least 50 people died in a Chinese knife attack at a coalmine, with the numbers still uncertain. All of these examples illustrate one thing, that mass knifings are no less deadly than mass shootings, and are entirely possible. If everyone switched over to knives instead of guns, there likely wouldn't be less deaths. Most gun murder occur within close proximity to their victim, close enough to where a knife could have been used instead, and gunshot wounds do not tend to be significantly more deadly than knife wounds according to medical date (although based on how you compile it, there are discrepancies between various groups). Nonetheless, the most likely cause of death from a gunshot wound or knife wound is bleed-out or infection, meaning that the injury itself is not as important as the perforation of the vital organs by any means, which opens them up to bleed-out and contagions which can lead to an infection. There is a chance that a killer could put poison or other drugs on their knives, thus combining the effect of the injury with the poison, and effectively eliminating the difference in deadliness in general. Ultimately, the type of the weapon matters less than proximity and target choice, as an area with lots of people will result in more deaths, and an area far away from a hospital will result in the greatest amount of deaths as the wounds will be more difficult to treat. There is a certain randomness to the death toll as a result based on targets chosen, and methods used. But switching from a gun to another weapon, even a knife, would likely save few, if any lives.
Criminals will get gun anyways
Even if guns were somehow more deadly than other weapons, and by making guns illegal no-one would use these other deadly weapons, even more deadly and dangerous than guns, criminals could still get guns by illegal means. Illegal smuggling, illegal gun manufacturing, and simply the raw volume of the number of guns already in circulation, particularly in America, means that stopping the legal production of guns won't stop the illegal production of guns. Interestingly enough, these sorts of firearms already account for the majority of crimes committed by criminals anyways, suggesting that making them illegal won't make them go away. At least 79% of weapon used by criminals were obtained illegally, where as between 89-97% of guns are estimated to be illegally obtained. So, the vast majority of guns are not purchased legally, with a legal background check in the U.S.
Illegal smuggling of firearms is a huge issue, although no exact numbers are known for how many are smuggled in or out of the U.S. annually. Russia, eastern bloc countries and China are the biggest culprit of illegal weapons smuggling, haven given weapons directly or indirectly to Iran, Hezbollah, the cartels, the Taliban, the Russian mafia, and even to some extent their own enemies, such as Chechynians or the Afghanistan people. Their illegal arms trade is so prolific Russia most commonly fights against their own guns in their own wars. With nearly 100 million ak-47's in the worst, most going for 50-100 dollars, they are easily and frequently trafficked across borders of countries, most of which have little if any real means to stop smugglers. Only about 1-5% of land based traffickers are stopped in the U.S., meaning that the majority will get through our borders. Only half will be caught, ever, and that's mostly poor undocumented immigrants, rather than hardcore gun smugglers. [1] Given the ease of travel, the potential for gun smuggling is obviously huge, and already very prevalent. Although exact numbers are unknown, it's not unreasonable to think that the majority of illegal weapons used come from illegal smuggling.
Illegal manufacturing is also fairly easy. While "ghost guns" are a popular idea in the public mind, illegal manufacturing of gun has been occurring for decades, and with relative ease. There are no special machines designed to make guns, guns are made from the same machinery widely used by other industries, such as care manufacturing or machine shops. All that's needed is a mill, lathe or steel stamping device, and a polymer mold or wood carving device to make the accessories. It's actually not uncommon for people to make guns off the books just for fun, rather than any nefarious purpose, and this culture has allowed many darker elements to copy their methods in making their own guns. While home made guns may vary in quality, in general they are good enough to commit a crime, which only requires a handful of rounds and are mostly used at close range and for intimidation, rather than pushed to the limits typical factory made guns are. Criminals generally tend to prefer cheap, disposable guns over expensive guns that will last a lifetime, as evidence of a crime remaining for a lifetime is incriminating, rather than beneficial. Thus these untraceable, off-the-books guns made with no-one the wiser are preferred by criminals, which the statistics tend to show. Whatever percent do use legal guns likely would just switch over to illegal guns. And even if we somehow prevented all of these murders, whatever that small percentage of guns that are legally obtained by criminals, it would need to offset the number of cases where guns are used in self defense, which is nearly as common as violent crimes with guns themselves, or 300,000 cases a year, according to the CDC. [1][2] Saving "just 1 life" doesn't cut it if thousands of more lives are taken. Seatbelts kill a few hundred people everywhere as do vaccines, but this pails in comparison to the thousands saved. Saving "just one life" doesn't cut it if far more lives are taken as a result. Because guns have a purpose for saving lives as well, you'd likely do more harm than good with gun control, assuming it worked to take guns out of the hands of criminals. Guns are used for self defense the majority of the time without anyone even getting killed, as merely brandishing a firearm or pointing it at someone is useful enough to stop a violent crime. So, the amount of defensive uses with guns in this country out numbers the violent crimes, and not every state has loose gun control or widely available guns (such as California or New York). So, guns do more good than harm, which is far more than the percentage of legal guns doing harm in any case.
Edited by Manoka, 28 December 2016 - 12:51 AM.
