[talmand]

I require a source on your claim that most criminals get guns by stealing them from law-abiding people. I guess this might depend upon where you live but I've never heard this claim in the US. Even if it were true, are we saying a law-abiding citizen shouldn't have access to a legal firearm because a criminal might steal it?

I personally don't like any rules of this nature because the major problem becomes who defines what is a "hacking" tool? It's much like how the definition of burglary tools can be so broad that just having duct tape and a screwdriver in your trunk can be considered possessing burglary tools. Just for the sake of slapping another charge onto somebody during an arrest.

[unimpressive]

>Just for the sake of slapping another charge onto somebody during an arrest.

This hits the nail on the head right here. The way that you get a police state is by making everything illegal and then doing selective enforcement. That way when organizations that control law enforcement decide they don't like you; the police can arrest you with impunity and just find something to charge you with after the fact.

I also find it highly unethical to make things illegal for the sake of being able to slap defendants with another charge at trial. It usually ends up causing collateral damage to legitimate people and services (In the case of general laws like this that put blanket bans on things that shouldn't be blanket banned.), and seems like a lazy excuse to do more legislating. And to say nothing of artificially inflating peoples sentences because somehow the sentencing limits weren't enough.

[wisty]

I saw a very candid statement in the SMH about this:

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton said decriminalising drugs was a "simplistic idea" that the community should be cautious of.

"Dealing with the drug problem is not a 'war' as the American term 'war on drugs' suggests, because it is not a battle to be won or lost,'' he said in a statement. "It is a societal problem that requires constant vigilance and the police role is one of community protection. The police fulfil this role by working to prevent deaths on our roads, prevent family violence in our homes and assaults in our streets."

Moves to decriminalise drugs would make it more difficult for police to prevent road fatalities, domestic violence and assaults, he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/gillard-and-car...

So, how is it that the police use drug laws to stop other crimes? Is it through preventing drug abuse, or giving them a charge to lay if assault is too hard to prove?

[Symmetry]

If you really want to make a difference in "road fatalities, domestic violence and assaults" you ought to legalize marijuana and ban alcohol.

[ktizo]

The logic of his statement doesn't stand up however.

Prohibition laws regarding popular and easily obtainable narcotics do not reduce other crimes, but rather, in several measurable ways increases them, the most obvious one being that it then directly finances a lot of other organised crime.

[wisty]

Police logic doesn't always stand up. They know what makes their job (catching bad guys, getting convictions) easier, not what stops crime at the source.

[ktizo]

So a bit like military intelligence then.

[phillmv]

I think the argument goes, the more weapons out there period the easier it is for people to smuggle them into the hands of criminals.

You can't just build a handgun in your basement; you need a tool and die machine, know-how, etc. In other words, a factory.

If you live in a state where it's relatively easy to buy a handgun and the registration requirements are limited and so on, you're going to find it a lot easier to procure one on the black market than say, here in Canada where you need to take a course and file a report every time you want to take it out of your house.

[Symmetry]

Making a modern semi-automatic requires some expertise, but making a zipgun that can shoot a bullet or two and is accurate enough to hit someone in the same room as you isn't that hard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm

[talmand]

I've always felt the difference in attitudes towards guns in Canada versus the US is more about culture then it is about laws.

[doktrin]

Culture tends to impact laws, but that wasn't the parent's point.

The general availability of a given product in a given area affects said products availability in said area's black market.

In this case, more guns in circulation = more guns on the black market. This isn't to say that all black market guns originated from the legal (market), but supply does trickle down.

[lutorm]

I don't know any source, but it sounds entirely plausible to me that most criminals get guns that entered the US legally. If handguns were outlawed in the US so there was no legal supply chain, where would the criminals get them? They'd need to set up a supply chain from some country with abundant gun supply. Instead, we now have Mexico complaining about rampant assault rifle flux across the border from the US.

If you define the question as "do most criminals get guns by stealing them from another law-abiding person", then maybe you're right. But there are many more sources that transfer legal guns to criminals, like: getting guns before becoming a criminal; stealing them from the supply chain (gun shops, manufacturers, etc); getting them through corruption in the supply chain; convincing a legal owner to lend/sell a gun to you, etc. If you define the question in a broader sense as in "do the guns most criminals possess come from a legal source inside the US" then it seems highly likely that's true, and the only reason that availability exists is because the legal supply exists.

[talmand]

To address one point, it is becoming clear that the reason so many weapons were entering Mexico was because of an ill-guided US government program to allow the weapons to leave the country.

As for the second point, since the primary sources of weapons for criminal acts are legal then we should make weapons themselves illegal? All that does is punish law-abiding citizens since all criminals have one thing in common, they break the law. How about we consider increasing the punishment for using a weapon in the course of committing a crime instead?

One thing to keep in mind, the original intention for having US citizens to be armed is not to protect against criminals. Though this is useful since the police do not have an obligation to protect you from criminals. The original intention was to have an armed populace to protect against a tyrannical government.

[lutorm]

The original intention was to have an armed populace to protect against a tyrannical government.

Well, yes, and IMHO that's a completely and utterly obsolete clause. In the extremely unlikely event that this would actually be justified, do you really think that a bunch of citizens with handguns will make any difference against the largest and most high-tech military in the world?

As for the second point, since the primary sources of weapons for criminal acts are legal then we should make weapons themselves illegal? All that does is punish law-abiding citizens...

If one accepts that the desired outcome is to lower the amount of crime perpetrated against law-abiding citizens and that having guns is a means to that end, rather than an end in and of itself (in which case this particular argument is moot), then it would seem to follow that if it is found that the drawbacks of an increased supply guns trickling down to criminals outweigh the advantages in citizens being able to "defend" themselves, the rational conclusion must be that making guns illegal across the board is not in fact "punishing law-abiding citizens" but rather saving them from unnecessary crime.

A correlation of crime/murder rates and gun ownership across different nations does not give much support to the idea that having more guns make people safer. It seems like "security theater" to me.

[Karunamon]

>do you really think that a bunch of citizens with handguns will make any difference against the largest and most high-tech military in the world?

Considering the difficulty our armed services are having against even less sophisticated resistance in the middle east, i think you seriously underestimate the average american and overestimate the average soldier.

>the rational conclusion must be that making guns illegal across the board is not in fact "punishing law-abiding citizens" but rather saving them from unnecessary crime.

Save for that whole pesky second amendment thing, which affirms the right to keep and bear arms, "rationality" be damned.

[talmand]

>completely and utterly obsolete clause

I heavily disagree that it is a completely and utterly obsolete clause. Events happening around the world right NOW prove this incorrect. I also believe that an armed populace can successfully engage and defeat a government's military. Now, if that government somehow disarmed that populace under the guise of "safety" then you may have a point.

>but rather saving them from unnecessary crime

I see your point but I think you are being a bit naive here. Criminals will always commit crimes, regardless of your stance on the legality of how they go about it. Plus, if owning a weapon is legal one day but then illegal the next due to actions not performed by the person you are disarming, then you are in effect punishing that person to protect them from something that might not even happen.

[sp332]

The federal government isn't the only government. There are also small-town cops and local legislatures to contend with.

[jkn]

Indeed the claim about where criminals get their guns is dubious, but that is not the essence of wisty's comment I think. He's making a good point about an important difference between guns and hacking tools (summarized in the third sentence), showing that a comparison would be flawed.

[wdewind]

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted here. Not only do you make a totally fair point, I'm pretty sure you are correct (at least in NYC).

"[Legal purchases from] Virginia are the number one source for illegal guns entering New York." http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators...

[wisty]

I checked, and he was right. A lot of guns are illegally gained, but not actually stolen. Most of the time, criminals will get someone else to buy it, or bribe the dealer.

But, very few guns are smuggled in from abroad, or stolen from the military. It's only when civilians can easily get guns that gun crime becomes a big problem.

[ktizo]

guns are fine, as long as you ban the bullets ;)

[lutorm]

You're sort of defeating your own point there, in that those guns were originally obtained legally.

[wisty]

Actually, you are right. I checked the stats, and it's only a portion (~20%?) of criminal's guns which were stolen, or stolen then traded.

Most come from "straw sales" (getting a friend to buy it), or corrupt licensed dealers.

However, I don't buy the idea that "criminals will always be able to get guns". In most countries, they can't (unless they really know what they are doing). In the US, you just get a friend to buy one for you.

[cobrausn]

Your average street thug would not be able to get a gun very easily, probably. Then again, neither would your average citizen, so they wouldn't need them. When your victims are unarmed, all you need to be is bigger and stronger than they are. Or bring a knife. Or a friend. Two on one with no guns involved is usually a foregone conclusion.

More relevant, are you honestly saying that organizations such as drug cartels, which have been known to make catapults, submarines, and whatever else they need as they need it, would be incapable of making firearms? The plans for many firearms are openly available and all it requires is some machining equipment (soon probably just 3d printing ability), and a lot are made outside the US. Taurus firearms, for example, are all made in Brazil. Do you think a suddenly growing underground market for weapons in the US would go untapped?

Not only that, the US has approximately 90 guns per 100 people. How long do you think it would take for all those to be 'destroyed'?

In short, you would gladly disarm law-abiding citizens, of which nearly all US gun owners are, so you can feel a bit safer, or perhaps feel as though you live in a country or state that is a bit more 'progressive'? How would you feel when one of those disarmed people is stabbed to death when the cops don't reach them in time? How would you feel when a woman is raped because she had no chance of fending off someone twice her size? Is it worth the tradeoff to you?

To me, the thought of people being forcibly disarmed and then assaulted or murdered with little to no ability to defend themselves is much more egregious than allowing people the freedom to defend themselves with the best tool for the job and dealing with the consequences of having outliers who abuse the right - and make no mistake, they are outliers - violent crime rates have been on the decline in the US for over a decade. But that isn't even the real point of the 2nd amendment, which is a conversation for another time.

[lutorm]

How would you feel when...

If we're going to argue hypotheticals, how would you feel if one of those people instead of just having their wallet taken pulls out a gun and ends up getting shot? Or shoots an innocent bystander by accident? Or the kid who gets his hands on Daddy's gun and accidentally shoots himself or a friend?

You talk about outliers, but it's not obvious to me which are the most common outliers. It seems to me that pretty much every mass shooting (the one this week in Oakland, Congresswoman Giffords, Virginia Tech, Columbine, etc) have one thing in common: they were not perpetrated by people who would be characterized as "criminals" before the act, but by normal/unstable people who flipped and if they had not had easy access to guns the outcome would likely have been very different.

[cobrausn]

In response to your first argument - simple. Punish the crime where applicable and move on. In my examples, you have effectively tied a person's hands by banning the use of firearms, and now they are dead because of it. They had no chance because you wanted to feel safer. In your example, I merely enable people to act rationally and in their best interest by allowing them to own a firearm for their defense and the defense of others - this sometimes goes wrong, as people do not always act rationally. I don't feel bad about that, as they are responsible for their actions, not me, much in the same way I don't feel bad about owning a vehicle when someone drives theirs through a crowded market.

In response to your second argument, we can go on about that all day as to who is capable of evil and who is not (the answer is probably everyone). My point still stands - violent crime is on the decline, and no amount of hyping up the (relatively) few deaths that occur per year due to some 'random crazy guy with a gun' is going to change that fact. Most gun violence is drug related.

In the end, this argument comes down to a principle. Are you willing to try and disarm everyone to make a 'safer' society, even though you know that in doing so you are basically denying people the right to defend themselves, saying that their death is necessary to prevent the death of many more (maybe) and a generally safer society (arguably)? Or are you willing to give people the ability to purchase weapons from a legal (regulated) market to defend their lives, knowing that, in the end, the police can't be everywhere and can't save everyone?

Both have pros and cons, but I find the first option to be a particular form of collective restraint against the freedom of the individual that is morally unacceptable. Your mileage may vary.

[talmand]

If we're going to argue hypotheticals, what would have been the outcome if the lone nut had decided to drop some highly potent poison in to the local water supply?

Also, to point out one common thread with your examples of mass shootings, they took place in areas where it is illegal to have a weapon in your possession. Maybe not the Giffords example since I don't know the local laws about possessing a firearm in the presence of an elected official. But the key is they tend to target an area where they know people are not allowed to possess a firearm for defense, by law.

[lutorm]

... they took place in areas where it is illegal to have a weapon in your possession. Maybe not the Giffords example...

You're right about the Giffords example. In fact, one of the attendees did have a handgun, but that did nothing to help the situation. He (wisely, one would argue) kept it in his pocket since a) he could not figure out who was shooting, and b) even if he had, he would not have been able to do anything without hitting bystanders, and c) if he had pulled the gun out, the likelihood of someone else around with a gun mistaking him for the primary shooter would leave a significant risk of him getting shot by mistake.