[HideousKojima]

Similarly, you'll see crazy high numbers in support of things like universal background checks, but as soon as you ask questions like "Do you believe a background check should be required to loan your roommate your gun to take to the range/loan your nextdoor neighbor a gun when her ex finds out where she lives/etc." the percentages plummet.

[AnthonyMouse]

This is a common rhetorical technique in politics.

There are a lot of policies that sound good at first glance but are basically useless or harmful on closer inspection.

For example, there are two categories that dominate firearms deaths in the US. The first is gang violence; in this case background checks would have no real effect because gangs have the means to acquire firearms outside of legal channels. The second is suicides; in this case background checks do very little because the purchaser would generally pass the background check.

So you have a policy that sounds good, but doesn't make a real dent in the problem and costs a lot in fees and inconvenience on innocent people.

But it polls well so it's a rhetorically effective attack, because the opponents who have actually done the cost benefit analysis have to register their opposition to a "popular" proposal.

[clairity]

> "For example, the large majority of firearms deaths fall into one of two categories. The first is gang violence..."

that's incorrect. accidental shootings and suicide are major categories, while intentional homicides, of which "gang violence" is a subset, is pretty low on the list.

[AnthonyMouse]

> that's incorrect. accidental shootings and suicide are major categories, while intentional homicides, of which "gang violence" is a subset, is pretty low on the list.

So you're saying that it is correct, because the combination of the two categories constitute the large majority of firearms deaths.

Suicides by themselves are the large majority of firearms deaths, granted. And accidental deaths would generally fall under the same "the purchaser would have passed the background check" issue.

The point was that people would expect the policy to make a difference in homicides. But the large category of homicides where background checks would be expected to be useful, i.e. career criminals, are the place where they don't happen, because career criminals are members of criminal organizations that can provide access outside of legal channels.

[clairity]

to clarify, yes, you're right that background checks are largely useless at reducing firearm deaths, but no, intentional homicides are not a major category of firearm death, and to worry about "career criminals" is a non-sequitur.

your (as in anyone's) chances of successfully defending your property and friends/family from a "career criminal" using a gun is basically zero, both because it's exceedingly rare to encounter such situations and because it's even rarer to have the necessary skill (i.e., intense training and practice) and the necessary presence of mind to mount such a successful defense, so that doesn't matter to the argument at all. it's generally a bugaboo brought up to generate irrational fear.

edit: i should add that while reducing homicides is often used as a justification for background checks, it's a poor policy because it doesn't achieve that aim, as you point out. to have much impact, we need to focus on accidental shootings and suicides principally.

[DuskStar]

I'm pretty sure that gun suicides outnumber gun homicides by ~2:1, and gun homicides outnumber accidents by ~30:1. Estimates for accidents are in the 500/year range, while homicides are closer to 15,000/year.

[clairity]

my apologies, i was confusing/misremembering mass shooting deaths, which are tiny, with gang/homicide gun deaths. indeed, refreshing myself on the stats indicates that homicides are about 1/3 of (american) gun deaths and suicides are ~2/3, while unintentional deaths are estimated at 1-7% (depending on year).

with that said, most people who own guns are still very unlikely to encounter gang violence (because most people with guns are not in a gang), and even less likely to defend themselves successfully with a gun when encountering gun violence of any sort. guns escalate injury and death rather than having a preventative effect. we really should stop glorifying guns as a culture (particularly for self-defense) and soberly understand them as the specialized and limited tools that they are.

[Acrobatic_Road]

Correct. "Universal background checks" just sounds good to people. Problem is many supporters think we don't have background checks at all.