FBI stats show 5 times more murders by knives than rifles in 2018

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I support legislation which would reduce violent crime.
That wasn't my question. I'll post it here again, with emphasis added, just so it's clear what I'm asking.
If some sort of ban or further restriction were to pass and it actually worked and reduced the overall number of murders committed by civilians in this country, would that change your mind at all?
 
If some sort of ban or further restriction were to pass and it actually worked and reduced the overall number of murders committed by civilians in this country, would that change your mind at all?
Allowing police to search homes without warrant or probable cause, to torture suspects, to imprison suspects for life without trial, to set up ID and X-ray checkpoints on city streets, etc. would probably reduce violent crime by “civilians” as well. But the result would be a state of affairs that would be *worse* than violent crime.

I’m sure China has very little violent crime by civilians...but when you count violent crime by the government, they have almost certainly murdered more people since WW2 than the rest of the planet combined.

The Bill of Rights is there for a reason. Yes, pragmatic arguments are very effective against the stupidest gun control proposals, like banning certain rifle handgrip shapes (“assault weapons”), trying to ban and confiscate magazines with less capacity than a 1777 Girandoni or an 1861 Henry, or limiting carry licensure to the rich and famous. But infringement on protected civil liberties that didn’t fail pragmatic tests would not automatically be ok, because civil liberties are foundational to a just society.

BTW, conflating mass public killings with criminal violence is nonsensical; the per capita homicide rate from mass public killings is already almost zero, and many countries with very harsh laws (France and Norway come to mind) have had worse mass shootings and higher per-capita mass shooting deaths than the United States, even with our media constantly trying to shake loose more of them.
 
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Allowing police to search homes without warrant or probable cause, to torture suspects, to imprison suspects for life without trial, to set up ID and X-ray checkpoints on city streets, etc. would probably reduce violent crime by “civilians” as well. But the result would be a state of affairs that would be *worse* than violent crime.

I’m sure China has very little violent crime by civilians...but when you count violent crime by the government, they have almost certainly murdered more people since WW2 than the rest of the planet combined.

The Bill of Rights is there for a reason. Yes, pragmatic arguments are very effective against the stupidest gun control proposals, like banning certain rifle handgrip shapes (“assault weapons”), trying to ban and confiscate magazines with less capacity than a 1777 Girandoni or an 1861 Henry, or limiting carry licensure to the rich and famous. But infringement on protected civil liberties that didn’t fail pragmatic tests would not automatically be ok, because civil liberties are foundational to a just society.
Exactly. Well put. Just to clarify, my answer, to my own question,
If some sort of ban or further restriction were to pass and it actually worked and reduced the overall number of murders committed by civilians in this country, would that change your mind at all?
, is no, it would not change my mind. The 2A is in place to protect the right of the people to own and train with the tools needed to keep the government in perpetual fear of the people. It's primary purpose is not to prevent or lower violent civilian crime, even though that can be a nice side benefit. Too many "gun people" forget that I think. The number of civilians killed by civilians is a teeny tiny percentage of the number of civilians killed by governments, which is why it doesn't (or shouldn't) matter if civilian gun ownership rates raise or lower civilian violent crime rates.
 
Once the guns are gone, the big man with the big stick is king.

Anyone remember the Simpson's episodes with the Alien invasion and sticks? You can google it.

However, we are wandered away from the OP about knives. We know that the UK knife bans are a prime example of how such would work with questionable efficacy.
 
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