The Pros and Cons of Gun Control

[Kuyong_Chuin]

Sorry I am removing this article from this thread and my blog due to personal reasons. Please keep up your discussions on the pros and cons of gun control.

 

[Art Eatman]

The ostensible reason for gun control laws is to reduce the rate of violent crimes involving firearms.

Okay, all well and good. The question that I have asked for decades--with never an answer--is for somebody to tell me of any specific law which contributes to a reduction in the rate.

Studies by "number crunchers" support my view that the various laws have no effect on the rate.

 

[wally]

I though the purpose of good gun control was faster follow-up shots!

 

[Kuyong_Chuin]

The ostensible reason for gun control laws is to reduce the rate of violent crimes involving firearms.

Okay, all well and good. The question that I have asked for decades--with never an answer--is for somebody to tell me of any specific law which contributes to a reduction in the rate.

Studies by "number crunchers" support my view that the various laws have no effect on the rate.

If they would pass a law that would send violent offenders to prison for life without the possibility of them getting out before they die, and not at theses "country clubs" of some of these so called prisons, but a life of hard labor I would be willing to bet the violent crime rate would drop. Having to have a gun in every home and having everyone over the age of 18 knowing how to use it would also drop the crime rate.

 

[Sam Cade]

If they would pass a law that would send violent offenders to prison for life without the possibility of them getting out before they die, and not at theses "country clubs" of some of these so called prisons, but a life of hard labor I would be willing to bet the violent crime rate would drop.

You do realize that we incarcerate an utterly absurd amount of citizens right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

Having to have a gun in every home and having everyone over the age of 18 knowing how to use it would also drop the crime rate.

Doubtful and facile.
Prevalence of arms has little effect on crime rate.

The two main causative factors for violent crime are:
A. Poverty
B. Youth.

 

[AlexanderA]

Art Eatman wrote:

The ostensible reason for gun control laws is to reduce the rate of violent crimes involving firearms.

That's the ostensible reason but, I'm convinced, not the real reason. The real reason has to do with a cultural conflict in this country. There's a large segment of the population -- centered in big cities, suburbs, and academic centers -- that considers gun owners (and even worse, gun users and carriers) to be rednecks, barbarians, and yahoos. No amount of reasoned argument is going to sway these people. The whole prejudice against guns, and gun owners, is on a very emotional level. The antigunners don't want to merely ban all guns -- they also want to ban the gun culture as well as the people that espouse it. (You can't imagine the vitriol that is poured out against the NRA, for example.)

Of course they don't say it, but in their heart of hearts they feel it.

 

[MtnCreek]

The two main causative factors for violent crime are:
A. Poverty
B. Youth.

Do you have a source for this?

 

[AlexanderA]

Sam Cade wrote:

The two main causative factors for violent crime are:
A. Poverty
B. Youth.

Those are correlative factors, but not causative factors. After all, most poor people and young people don't embark on a life of crime. To find causation, you have to dig deeper. I'm convinced that the root cause of violent crime is a breakdown of values, which results from an absence of a functioning nuclear family. Most children of single mothers end up poor, and a subset of those turn to violent crime, drug dealing, gangs, etc.

 

[Sam Cade]

Do you have a source for this?

Human history, to date.

 

[4v50 Gary]

"A police state is incompatible with an armed populace." - Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury under Ronald Reagan.

 

[george burns]

An exercise in futility

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

One can only hope that not only did you not any college credit for this horribly written piece, but that you were referred to a developmental writing course and warned about plagiarism.

 

[HexHead]

Gun control isn't about guns, just control.

 

[Midwest]

I'd like to address some of these if I may.

2. We need to repeal the second Amendment; guns are the source of crime and getting rid of all the guns, and passing restrictive laws against guns will reduce gun crime.

Like Australia did? Read this long running thread called "Let's see how gun control is working for us" http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/showthread.php?118350-Let-s-see-how-gun-control-is-working-for-us


"Shots fired into house - Bossley Park

Shots fired into house/car - Greenfied Park

Shots fired into house - Bankstown

Man shot dead - Raywood

Man shot at - Elizabeth North

Shots fired - Stuarts Point

Victoria gun crime up 30% in last decade

Goodwood man wounded in shotgun shooting

Three properties targeted in Melbourne drive-by shootings

Sydney man shot execution style"[/I

15. Only, the police and military should have guns because people cannot be trusted with guns, which is why we need a gun ban.

Except the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the police have no duty to protect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0

"WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation. "

19. An arsenal license implemented for owners of more than eight guns would make it harder for criminals. This arsenal license should require an "approved" safe for the firearms, another for ammunition, yearly registration requirements, requirements that all guns be locked in the safe at all times, and a provision for government inspection at any time under the threat of losing the license and firearms.

There was a proposal for that under Brady II , it didn't go anywhere.

http://www.volokh.com/posts/1190402417.shtml

"Arsenal licensing

Any person who owns 20 or more firearms or more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition or primers (e.g. two "bricks" of rimfire ammo) would be required to get an "arsenal" license. To obtain a federal arsenal license, a person would need to be fingerprinted, obtain permission of local zoning authorities, and pay a $300 tax every three years. Her home would be subjected to unannounced, warrantless inspection by the government up to three times a year. "Arsenal" owners would also have to obtain a $100,000 dollar insurance policy.

"Brady II" redefines "firearm" to include magazines and "any part of the action" (such as pins, springs, or screws). Thus, if a person has two Colt pistols, three Remington rifles, and four magazines (of any size) for each gun, then he own an "arsenal." Or if he owned two guns, six magazines, and a box of disassembled gun parts that contained five springs, five pins, and five screws, then he would own 23 "firearms" and would have to obtain an "arsenal" license."

The actual legislation for the "Arsenal License" is called "SEC. 204. FEDERAL ARSENAL LICENSE." under the bill sponsored by Howard Metzenbaum

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/s1882/text

SEC. 204. FEDERAL ARSENAL LICENSE.

(a) OFFENSE- Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 203(a), is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘(x) It shall be unlawful for a person to possess more than 20 firearms or more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition unless the person--

‘(1) is a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer; or

‘(2) has been issued an arsenal license pursuant to section 923(m).’.

(b) ARSENAL LICENSE- Section 923 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 203(b), is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘(m)(1) The Secretary shall issue an arsenal license if--

‘(A) the applicant has--

‘(i) filed a sworn application with the Secretary, stating--

‘(I) the applicant’s name, address, and date of birth;

‘(II) that the applicant is at least 21 years of age; and

‘(III) that the applicant is not prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm under Federal, State, or local law;

‘(ii) filed with the Secretary a certificate, dated within the previous 60 days, from the chief law enforcement officer of the applicant’s State of residence, stating that the applicant has not exhibited such a propensity for violence, instability, or disregard of the law as may render the applicant’s possession of an arsenal a danger to the community; and

‘(iii) paid an arsenal license fee of $300 for a 3-year license period; and

‘(B) the Secretary has determined that the information in the application is accurate, based in part upon name- and fingerprint-based research in all available Federal, State, and local recordkeeping systems.

‘(2) The holder of an arsenal license shall be subject to all obligations and requirements pertaining to licensed dealers under this chapter.’.

(c) PENALTY- Section 924(a)(5) of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 203(c), is amended by striking ‘or (w)’ and inserting ‘(w), or (x)’.

(d) EFFECTIVE DATE- The amendments made by section shall become effective on the date that is 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act.

.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

I realize that plagiarism is a serious accusation and, of course, I am prepared to back it up.

The majority of the piece above seems to be copied from two pages on the site below with zero credit. Making small edits doesn’t change the fact this is plagiarism.

http://hematite.com/dragon/gcviewpoint.html
http://hematite.com/dragon/gcmythexplode.html

"Your" paragraph:

One argument you will hear is that the damage done by firearms outweighs their usefulness in our supposedly modern society. The anti-gun lobby says the price is too high in both monetary terms and in terms of lives lost or shattered by the use of firearms. They focus on the cost in medical care and lost wages that result when a firearm injures someone and the claim is that it runs into the billions of dollars when combined with medical and lost wages cost. This is a steep "cost" hurdle to overcome so the benefits must be high for us to keep guns around.

Paragraph from that site, emphasis mine:

One argument you'll hear is the damage done by firearms outweighs their usefulness in our supposedly modern society. But is that really true? Let's take a look at this question.

The question itself begs for a cost-to-benefits analysis. A fancy way of saying "is something worth the price?". One the one hand, the anti-gun lobby says the price is too high in both monetary terms and in terms of lives lost or shattered by the use of firearms. They focus on the cost in medical care and lost wages that result when someone is injured by a firearm and the claim is that it runs into the billions of dollars (combined medical and lost wages). This is a steep "cost" hurdle to overcome so the benefits must be pretty high for us to keep them around, right?

There are plenty of other examples:

You: The people who advocate gun control also advocate intrusive laws, such as requiring child safety locks, storing guns in safes or strongboxes and some have even advocated the idea of periodic "surprise" searches of gun owner's homes to ensure guns are not available to children.

That site: The people who advocate gun control also advocate intrusive laws, such as requiring child safety locks, storing guns in safes or strong-boxes and some have even advocated the idea of periodic "surprise" searches of gun owner's homes -- in direct violation of the 4th amendment -- to ensure guns are not available to children.

You: In contrast, most gun owners support not only the second amendment, but they support the fourth amendment's restriction on searches along with all the other guarantees in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An individual gun owner may not agree with your "free speech" advocating more gun control, but will defend your right to say it.

That site: In contrast, most gun owners support not only the 2nd amendment, but they support the 4th amendment's restriction on searches along with all the other guarantees in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An individual gun owner may not agree with your "free speech" advocating more gun control, but will defend your right to say it.

Your list of viewpoints is more or less verbatim from that site, with several of his examples being rolled into one numbered item on yours.

Those pages was published between 2000 and 2001. This explains all the references HCI, a group that was renamed to the Brady Campaign 5 years before you supposedly penned this piece.

While there are references at the bottom of the piece, none of them contain the clearly copied work nor do they reference the site where the list of viewpoints is published.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lists multiple revisions of these pages, going back to 2000:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130109220556/http://hematite.com/dragon/gcviewpoint.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20001017122029/http://hematite.com/dragon/gcmythexplode.html

Unless Kuyong_Chuin is claiming to be the author of that site the submission in college, his blog and this post are plagiarized as the majority of his paper was written 6 years before he claims it was. One can not simply alter a bit of text here and there and present it without attribution.

 

[happygeek]

I realize that plagiarism is a serious accusation and, of course, I am prepared to back it up.

I don't know the OP, but his paper may have predated those sites. The OP lists handguncontrol.org as a citation, but of course Handgun Control Inc became the Brady Campaign way back in 2001 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Campaign).

The two sites you posted are dated 2000 and 2002.

 

[george burns]

You aren't going to solve socioeconomic problems on a forum. We don't know enough about what would work, or the endless amount of outcomes that any implementation of theories would even have. But for argument's sake,
We have a lot of people in jail for ridiculous reasons, "like smoking pot", and being swept up in the 3 strike programs" meant for organized crime lords, not candy thieves.
Also in the "old days", they used to give many of these able bodied fellows the option of joining the army, of going to jail. For many it was structure they lacked in their upbringing, that they got in the army. If they are that bad, the one's who have killed people and raped woman and men "for that matter", child abusers etc. then just give them the death penalty, for the rest, take away the cable TV, Air conditioning, health club membership, handball, good food, etc. Make them more like a jail is supposed to be, instead of an apartment, and you will see things change within a year.
You don't see people in South America or Asia, enjoying their stay in jail. Make it a nightmare, no Dental and Medical care. These guys get a choice of any 2 surgery's that want done, "elective".
they get their teeth fixed, surgery's done that they couldn't afford to pay for otherwise. and we wonder why they don't mind going to jail.

 

[Sam Cade]

Make it a nightmare, no Dental and Medical care.

AMENDMENT VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

 

[Art Eatman]

The rate of violent crimes rises and falls with the number of young males in the age range of roughly sixteen to twenty-four. That's historical data, published from several studies.

Color me clueless, but one study I read correlated the overall declining trend of violent crime with the reduction of lead in gasoline. The end of the use of tetraethyl lead in gasoline saw the beginning of the ongoing downward trend. "They reported; you decide." No, I don't have a link.

 

[Sam Cade]

No, I don't have a link.

I do.

It is a good argument.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-americas-violent-crime-epidemic/

In particular, it’s important because this is precisely the kind of problem that people are uncomfortable about believing. It’s hard for us to see the link between cause and effect when there’s a 20+ year gap between one and the other. Additionally, none of us like thinking that our autonomy as human beings can be destroyed by forces beyond our control that we can’t even see.

But such time lags between cause and effect do exist. Invisible molecules like tetraethyl lead can do us great harm. We need to understand this. It’s not enough to know this as an interesting fact. We have to know in our guts that these types of things are possible, because this is far from the only problem like it. And that kind of deep understanding that these problems are possible are what’s necessary to motivate us as people to do something about it.

Word!

 

[Kuyong_Chuin]

I realize that plagiarism is a serious accusation and, of course, I am prepared to back it up.

The majority of the piece above seems to be copied from two pages on the site below with zero credit. Making small edits doesn’t change the fact this is plagiarism.

http://hematite.com/dragon/gcviewpoint.html
http://hematite.com/dragon/gcmythexplode.html

"Your" paragraph:


Paragraph from that site, emphasis mine:


There are plenty of other examples:

You: The people who advocate gun control also advocate intrusive laws, such as requiring child safety locks, storing guns in safes or strongboxes and some have even advocated the idea of periodic "surprise" searches of gun owner's homes to ensure guns are not available to children.

That site: The people who advocate gun control also advocate intrusive laws, such as requiring child safety locks, storing guns in safes or strong-boxes and some have even advocated the idea of periodic "surprise" searches of gun owner's homes -- in direct violation of the 4th amendment -- to ensure guns are not available to children.

You: In contrast, most gun owners support not only the second amendment, but they support the fourth amendment's restriction on searches along with all the other guarantees in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An individual gun owner may not agree with your "free speech" advocating more gun control, but will defend your right to say it.

That site: In contrast, most gun owners support not only the 2nd amendment, but they support the 4th amendment's restriction on searches along with all the other guarantees in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An individual gun owner may not agree with your "free speech" advocating more gun control, but will defend your right to say it.

Your list of viewpoints is more or less verbatim from that site, with several of his examples being rolled into one numbered item on yours.

Those pages was published between 2000 and 2001. This explains all the references HCI, a group that was renamed to the Brady Campaign 5 years before you supposedly penned this piece.

While there are references at the bottom of the piece, none of them contain the clearly copied work nor do they reference the site where the list of viewpoints is published.

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lists multiple revisions of these pages, going back to 2000:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130109220556/http://hematite.com/dragon/gcviewpoint.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20001017122029/http://hematite.com/dragon/gcmythexplode.html

Unless Kuyong_Chuin is claiming to be the author of that site the submission in college, his blog and this post are plagiarized as the majority of his paper was written 6 years before he claims it was. One can not simply alter a bit of text here and there and present it without attribution.

It was sited and if you bothered to look where I posted it on my blog 4 years after it was updated you will see that when I copied and pasted it over I missed part of the post. You will also see it has not been updated since it was posted back in 2010. If you use your precious way back machine you will find out that all of the sites sources were still up and running in 2006 when the article was updated for the class. I did nothing against any of the college's rules because all the sources were sited. I might not be the best writer in any room but I am not a cheat. Also if you look at the link that was sited you we see that the stuff that was used from that site was used with permission by the author.

Attention students: Look for items marked with the check-mark for
reference materials for school essays, papers and debates.

I will correct the copy error.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

It was sited and if you bothered to look where I posted it on my blog 4 years after it was updated you will see that when I copied and pasted it over I missed part of the post. You will also see it has not been updated since it was posted back in 2010.

Yikes. This is awkward. I did check your site before making my post and the cite wasn't there. Google's cache from just a 13 days ago doesn't have that information, yet you claim you haven't edited it since 2010.

Google's cache of the page as it appeared on Jun 10, 2014 22:21:49 GMT.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...trol-by-kuyong.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Your "unedited post".
http://kuyongs-ramblings.blogspot.com/2010/10/pros-and-cons-of-gun-control-by-kuyong.html

Nice try, but you didn't even match the font correctly.

The plagiarism may have been in error. This is out-and-out dishonesty.

 

[Sam Cade]

I should close this thread but Schadenfreude won't let me.

 

[Yo Mama]

Having to have a gun in every home and having everyone over the age of 18 knowing how to use it would also drop the crime rate.

And accidental deaths would go up. Mandating guns in every home is no better than mandating no guns in any home.

 

[Bruno2]

Agreed Yo Mama. I am not in favor of anybody being forced to own a gun. Some people know they are not mentally or physically equipped to deal with such responsibility.

The above logic is why I cant see the any truth in the arguments waged by the antis. The way the law is written now nobody is forced to own a gun. So why would anybody want their way of thinking forced on somebody else? We aren't trying to force people to own guns, but most of us are in favor of a person having the right to choose.