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Why Gun Control Doesn't Work In The USA

DebateChallenge

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Here is why the kind of gun control that you find in much of the rest of the developed world doesn't work in the USA. The USA is isolated in its gun culture. Just how some people like to say how Japan is isolated in its suicide culture and that's why its got such a higher rate of suicide than the USA despite having such strict gun control, and as a matter of fact there are other countries that have much higher suicide rates than the USA, developed ones too, but that is a different discussion, the USA is isolated in its number of guns and in its gun culture.

Really strict gun control works in Japan because there are hardly any guns in Japan. It works in most of Europe for much the same reason, there are hardly any guns in Europe. Any other developed country that has strict gun control you can say the same thing, no country, developed or not with perhaps the exception of western Pakistan has a gun culture and the number of privately owned guns that the USA has. In the USA there are roughly 300 million privately owned guns or roughly one gun per person if they were all equally distributed and the number is only going up. In the USA you've got the NRA which aside from the ARP is the strongest grassroots organization there is. I can think of no country that has such a strong gun rights organization and aside from the NRA there is also the GOA, NAGR, and JPFO, other very strong gun rights organizations. So people who want the kind of gun control in the USA that they've got in Japan, Australia, or Cyprus are living in a pipe dream.
 
Here is why the kind of gun control that you find in much of the rest of the developed world doesn't work in the USA. The USA is isolated in its gun culture. Just how some people like to say how Japan is isolated in its suicide culture and that's why its got such a higher rate of suicide than the USA despite having such strict gun control, and as a matter of fact there are other countries that have much higher suicide rates than the USA, developed ones too, but that is a different discussion, the USA is isolated in its number of guns and in its gun culture.

Really strict gun control works in Japan because there are hardly any guns in Japan. It works in most of Europe for much the same reason, there are hardly any guns in Europe. Any other developed country that has strict gun control you can say the same thing, no country, developed or not with perhaps the exception of western Pakistan has a gun culture and the number of privately owned guns that the USA has. In the USA there are roughly 300 million privately owned guns or roughly one gun per person if they were all equally distributed and the number is only going up. In the USA you've got the NRA which aside from the ARP is the strongest grassroots organization there is. I can think of no country that has such a strong gun rights organization and aside from the NRA there is also the GOA, NAGR, and JPFO, other very strong gun rights organizations. So people who want the kind of gun control in the USA that they've got in Japan, Australia, or Cyprus are living in a pipe dream.
I'd argue against the NRA being a completely grass-roots organization (I think there are some corporate influences on it from the gun manufacturers), but I'd agree that the number of guns and people who want to keep them would make gun control like in Europe or Japan almost impossible.
 
Here is why the kind of gun control that you find in much of the rest of the developed world doesn't work in the USA. The USA is isolated in its gun culture. Just how some people like to say how Japan is isolated in its suicide culture and that's why its got such a higher rate of suicide than the USA despite having such strict gun control, and as a matter of fact there are other countries that have much higher suicide rates than the USA, developed ones too, but that is a different discussion, the USA is isolated in its number of guns and in its gun culture.

Really strict gun control works in Japan because there are hardly any guns in Japan. It works in most of Europe for much the same reason, there are hardly any guns in Europe. Any other developed country that has strict gun control you can say the same thing, no country, developed or not with perhaps the exception of western Pakistan has a gun culture and the number of privately owned guns that the USA has. In the USA there are roughly 300 million privately owned guns or roughly one gun per person if they were all equally distributed and the number is only going up. In the USA you've got the NRA which aside from the ARP is the strongest grassroots organization there is. I can think of no country that has such a strong gun rights organization and aside from the NRA there is also the GOA, NAGR, and JPFO, other very strong gun rights organizations. So people who want the kind of gun control in the USA that they've got in Japan, Australia, or Cyprus are living in a pipe dream.

Plus our government is rapidly losing the consent of the governed as it continues the long program of abuse of the citizens even has it wallows in the swamp of corruption, as as the society continues to break down as the result of failed leadership and a failed education system and the failure of the journalists....driving the desire to own a means of protection. The fact that we have in recent decades normalized the black market economy does not help matters. This immoral corrupt abusive incompetent government has neither the right nor the power to remove guns from this society.
 
Why Gun Control Doesn't Work In The USA
  • What, in the context of the thread title, constitutes "working" in your mind?
  • In my mind "working," in the context of the thread's title is this: the incidence of involuntary gun-related deaths and injuries decreases in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree and doesn't subsequently increase in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree.

I don't much care what public policies we enact to realize "working" -- it could as well be gun control, birth control, rubbing Buddha's belly, or anything else -- so long as "working" be what we realize.
 
Last edited:
  • What constitutes "working" in your mind?
  • In my mind "working," in the context of the thread's title is this: the incidence of involuntary gun-related deaths and injuries decreases and doesn't subsequently increase.
"Gun Control" is a vague term which has been applied to everything from outright bans on firearms to an improved background check coverage, or closing loopholes, etc.

In this case the OP is talking a near-complete ban on firearms ownership.
I don't think a ban on firearms is feasibly possible in the USA.
 
  • What, in the context of the thread title, constitutes "working" in your mind?
  • In my mind "working," in the context of the thread's title is this: the incidence of involuntary gun-related deaths and injuries decreases in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree and doesn't subsequently increase in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree.

I don't much care what public policies we enact to realize "working" -- it could as well be gun control, birth control, rubbing Buddha's belly, or anything else -- so long as "working" be what we realize.

"Gun Control" is a vague term which has been applied to everything from outright bans on firearms to an improved background check coverage, or closing loopholes, etc.

In this case the OP is talking a near-complete ban on firearms ownership.
I don't think a ban on firearms is feasibly possible in the USA.

So you're saying, on the OP-er's behalf, that the OP-er's meaning of "work" is "achieving a near complete ban on gun ownership?"

If your depiction of the OP-er's meaning for "work"/"working" is correct, that outcome hasn't been realized because nobody in the US has even attempted to do so. After all, very few outcomes that nobody attempts to effect become manifest.
 
Is it gun control that doesn't work? Or people control?
 
So you're saying, on the OP-er's behalf, that the OP-er's meaning of "work" is "achieving a near complete ban on gun ownership?"

If your depiction of the OP-er's meaning for "work"/"working" is correct, that outcome hasn't been realized because nobody in the US has even attempted to do so. After all, very few outcomes that nobody attempts to effect become manifest.
I'm basing my opinion that a near-complete ban on gun ownership in the USA is nearly impossible on the number of guns and how many people want to keep them.

It might be possible, but it would cost billions and probably kill at minimum hundreds of people who wouldn't give them up without a fight.
 
Here is why the kind of gun control that you find in much of the rest of the developed world doesn't work in the USA. The USA is isolated in its gun culture. Just how some people like to say how Japan is isolated in its suicide culture and that's why its got such a higher rate of suicide than the USA despite having such strict gun control, and as a matter of fact there are other countries that have much higher suicide rates than the USA, developed ones too, but that is a different discussion, the USA is isolated in its number of guns and in its gun culture.

Really strict gun control works in Japan because there are hardly any guns in Japan. It works in most of Europe for much the same reason, there are hardly any guns in Europe. Any other developed country that has strict gun control you can say the same thing, no country, developed or not with perhaps the exception of western Pakistan has a gun culture and the number of privately owned guns that the USA has. In the USA there are roughly 300 million privately owned guns or roughly one gun per person if they were all equally distributed and the number is only going up. In the USA you've got the NRA which aside from the ARP is the strongest grassroots organization there is. I can think of no country that has such a strong gun rights organization and aside from the NRA there is also the GOA, NAGR, and JPFO, other very strong gun rights organizations. So people who want the kind of gun control in the USA that they've got in Japan, Australia, or Cyprus are living in a pipe dream.

"Hardly any guns"? This is a relative term. Hardly any guns compared with America? That would seem to be true, but then America owns HALF THE CIVILIAN-HELD GUNS ON THE PLANET! Somewhat of an anomaly there.
 
"Hardly any guns"? This is a relative term. Hardly any guns compared with America? That would seem to be true, but then America owns HALF THE CIVILIAN-HELD GUNS ON THE PLANET! Somewhat of an anomaly there.
I've seen some blame this in part on the NRA, claiming that organization is paid by the gun manufacturers to sell guns - people buy more guns because they fear they'll be taken away or something.

Don't know how credible that is myself, but it seems at least plausible.
 
I'm basing my opinion that a near-complete ban on gun ownership in the USA is nearly impossible on the number of guns and how many people want to keep them.

It might be possible, but it would cost billions and probably kill at minimum hundreds of people who wouldn't give them up without a fight.

Red:
Really? That's your basis for your inference of what the OP-er means by "work." Surely you're not serious.
 
  • What, in the context of the thread title, constitutes "working" in your mind?
  • In my mind "working," in the context of the thread's title is this: the incidence of involuntary gun-related deaths and injuries decreases in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree and doesn't subsequently increase in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree.

I don't much care what public policies we enact to realize "working" -- it could as well be gun control, birth control, rubbing Buddha's belly, or anything else -- so long as "working" be what we realize.
I suggest you read my entire post not just my title.
 
In this case the OP is talking a near-complete ban on firearms ownership.
I don't think a ban on firearms is feasibly possible in the USA.
Obviously a near-complete ban on firearms like what they've got in Cyprus would never work in the USA but Im also talking about more restrictive gun control like what they've got in the U.K. or much of Europe or even Canada would never work in the USA.
 
I'm basing my opinion that a near-complete ban on gun ownership in the USA is nearly impossible on the number of guns and how many people want to keep them.

It might be possible, but it would cost billions and probably kill at minimum hundreds of people who wouldn't give them up without a fight.

It would lead to a second civil war.
 
  • What, in the context of the thread title, constitutes "working" in your mind?
  • In my mind "working," in the context of the thread's title is this: the incidence of involuntary gun-related deaths and injuries decreases in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree and doesn't subsequently increase in a statistically and pragmatically significant manner/degree.

I don't much care what public policies we enact to realize "working" -- it could as well be gun control, birth control, rubbing Buddha's belly, or anything else -- so long as "working" be what we realize.
I suggest you read my entire post not just my title.

I did read your OP. You repeatedly write "...it works..." (or a variant thereof) and not once do you specify the criteria corresponding to and identifying what precisely "works" means as you used it, which is why I asked you what "works" means. As you can see, for me works is something unequivocal, identifiable and precisely measurable. Do you have an unequivocal, identifiable and precisely measurable definition of what you mean by "works?" If so, what is it?
 
"Hardly any guns"? This is a relative term. Hardly any guns compared with America?

Japan has hardly any guns compared to most countries. In Japan there are about 0.3 guns per 100 people. England and Wales has about 4.6 guns per 100, Scotland has about 5.6 guns per 100 people, Ireland has about 11 guns per 100 people and France and Germany both have about 19.6 guns per 100 people. All these numbers are low when compared to the USA which has about 120.5 guns per 100 people but even if you take the USA out of the equation and just look at Japan vs most other countries you will see that there are hardly any guns in Japan, even when comparing it to countries other than the USA.
 
That would seem to be true, but then America owns HALF THE CIVILIAN-HELD GUNS ON THE PLANET! Somewhat of an anomaly there.
You are right that the USA is an anomaly when it comes to gun ownership and I wouldn't be surprised if half or more of all privately owned guns in the world are owned by US citizens but that just makes my point about why the kind of gun control that they've got in Japan or much of Europe would not work in the USA, the USA is an isolated case when it comes to gun control, gun rights, and gun culture.
 
I did read your OP. You repeatedly write "...it works..." (or a variant thereof) and not once do you specify the criteria corresponding to and identifying what precisely "works" means as you used it, which is why I asked you what "works" means. As you can see, for me works is something unequivocal, identifiable and precisely measurable. Do you have an unequivocal, identifiable and precisely measurable definition of what you mean by "works?" If so, what is it?

What I meant is this, the kind of gun control that works in other developed countries such as Japan or many of the European countries would not work in the USA and I explain why, that's what my thread is all about.
 
Red:
Really? That's your basis for your inference of what the OP-er means by "work." Surely you're not serious.
Perhaps I misunderstood the OP.

My reaction/opinion was based on that, however.
So if it's wrong, then the opinion is inapplicable and needs modified to fit their actual meaning.

I would like clarification from the OP.
 
Is it gun control that doesn't work? Or people control?

left wing gun control plans aren't intended to control crime-despite the claims by its supporters. the purpose of gun control is to harass lawful gun owners and ownership, and in that area, those laws certainly do work
 
Obviously a near-complete ban on firearms like what they've got in Cyprus would never work in the USA but Im also talking about more restrictive gun control like what they've got in the U.K. or much of Europe or even Canada would never work in the USA.

I'm less sure about that.

Certainly it couldn't be pushed as far, but I think we can and should push for things like background checks for every purchase of a firearm, and/or holding the owner accountable if someone else misuses the firearm which they were supposed to maintain control of.
 
What I meant is this, the kind of gun control that works in other developed countries such as Japan or many of the European countries would not work in the USA and I explain why, that's what my thread is all about.

And I repeat, what, by your reckoning, determines whether those kinds of gun control work?

For any undertaking to be declared to have worked or be working, or work in general, there must be basis against which performance is measured and the undertaking thus determined to have worked. I'm simply asking you to identify what be that/those performance measure(s) that show, in your mind, that those types of gun control undertakings work.

I don't even understand why you are unable/reticent to express what be the unequivocal, clear and precise measure of what "works" means as you've used it. I mean really, it's a simple, straightforward question.
 
Here is why the kind of gun control that you find in much of the rest of the developed world doesn't work in the USA. The USA is isolated in its gun culture. Just how some people like to say how Japan is isolated in its suicide culture and that's why its got such a higher rate of suicide than the USA despite having such strict gun control, and as a matter of fact there are other countries that have much higher suicide rates than the USA, developed ones too, but that is a different discussion, the USA is isolated in its number of guns and in its gun culture.

Really strict gun control works in Japan because there are hardly any guns in Japan. It works in most of Europe for much the same reason, there are hardly any guns in Europe. Any other developed country that has strict gun control you can say the same thing, no country, developed or not with perhaps the exception of western Pakistan has a gun culture and the number of privately owned guns that the USA has. In the USA there are roughly 300 million privately owned guns or roughly one gun per person if they were all equally distributed and the number is only going up. In the USA you've got the NRA which aside from the ARP is the strongest grassroots organization there is. I can think of no country that has such a strong gun rights organization and aside from the NRA there is also the GOA, NAGR, and JPFO, other very strong gun rights organizations. So people who want the kind of gun control in the USA that they've got in Japan, Australia, or Cyprus are living in a pipe dream.
Got nothing to do with NRA or those other organizations. They exist to support the constitutional rights of gun owners.

I think you have to consider our history and our society. Our freedom was won with privately owned (and frequently "illegal") guns, during our westward expansion guns were valuable tools for food gathering, protection and law enforcement. Today's problems with gangs and drug epidemics also add to the problems. Amongst all that it's easy to grab on to the "get rid of all guns" solution appeals to many problems.

Facts are that gun murders are going down even as the number of guns in circulation goes up.
 
"Gun Control" is a vague term which has been applied to everything from outright bans on firearms to an improved background check coverage, or closing loopholes, etc.

In this case the OP is talking a near-complete ban on firearms ownership.
I don't think a ban on firearms is feasibly possible in the USA.
If we really want to deal with gun violence, we have to look analytically, rather than emotionally at the roots of gun violence. Is it the possession of a gun? millions of Americans own one or more guns yet less than 0.003% of them participate in a murder. Is it because there are no back ground checks? No, far from it a huge percentage of all gun sales are background checked. The FBI's NCIC processes hundreds of thousands of checks every year. Is it because of some mysterious "loophole" so far the answer, at least for the high profile mass shootings the answer is no; every weapons was legally purchased from a licensed firearms dealer.

Ther
So, if background checks aren't catching these guys what do we do? A background check is only as good as the data it searches. IF a person who's had several run-ins with the law for exhibiting bizarre behavior isn't AT LEAST evaluated for danger to himself or others - he'll never pop on a BC. This is a common theme for most of shooters in these incidents - they past the BC because info was never submitted to NCIC.


So, IMHO, we can either find better ways to get data into NCIC or we can keep pissing into the wind with more "grab the guns" nonsense. Guess which one would work.

Disclosure: There is NO 100% effective law in existence. Another word for criminal is "outlaw". There's a reason for that.
 
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