It isn't the gun, it is the individual?
I read some responses to tweets today after the mass shooting in a Florida school. The tweet condemned the lack of gun control in America, and many of the tweets defended the state of gun laws.
The two major arguments I saw were: "gun control nuts always blame the guns and not the individual" and "in country X with stricter gun control laws, there are higher levels of violent crime".
These are fairly common rebuttals it seems. So, I want to take a moment to absolutely F***ing destroy them.
The biggest mistake in the first argument is that it seems to assume that you can only blame one or the other. This is, in fact, 100% idiotic. And wrong. Guess what! I can blame BOTH the person for choosing to murder people, and the fact that it was so easy for them to get a MURDER TOOL as powerful and efficient as a gun to help them.
These are NOT mutually exclusive.
You are NOT smart if you make this argument against someone.
It either exposes YOU as an idiot (because you don't understand that they aren't mutually exclusive), or as a person attempting to mislead another (because you know the argument doesn't hold water, but you're hoping the person you're attacking doesn't).
YES, I blame the gun. But I ALSO blame the individual.
A person who has decided to undertake a violent action, especially one like murder, is going to make the attempt. And I, and everyone else blames them. Rightly for that.
But, the extent to which such people are capable of executing on those ambitions on the other hand is directly proportional to the tools they have available to carry out those intentions. The more guns there are around, and the easier they are to get, the more people we will have who are successful and the more lethal the average outcome will become.
If a murderous lunatic attacks a school with a knife... can they kill? Sure. But, an unarmed person can fend them off with a chair, a table, a group of friends, etc... . It is super unlikely that a knife wielding maniac will kill 14 people before they are stopped. If I have a semi-automatic rifle... you're screwed. You can't run at, you can't gang up on me, there is probably very little you can do to defend against me. Even if you have a gun, you've probably never had your life threatened with one. You're not thinking straight.
It isn't really a surprise that in virtually all of the occasions, it is local law enforcement which ends the killings. In the bulk of the remaining incidents? Most times, it is someone EXTREMELY proficient with guns and in many cases who have experienced combat. Maybe on off duty officer, or ex-military. Someone who hunts.
Guns are insanely good at what they are designed to do. And most are designed to kill people. Making them readily available makes killing people a much easier task.
I blame people who kill for what they've done. But, I also acknowledge where others help make that killing possible. A lack of gun control laws is an enabler of gun deaths.
The second argument is pure gold. It focuses on a stat which has no direct relation to guns and provides no science to back up cause and effect. Saying that another country with lower gun control laws has higher rates of violent crime is an utterly ridiculous statement.
If you encounter someone attempting to equate general violent crimes with MASS MURDER, run.
There is insufficient evidence to show that increasing gun control laws promotes violence. America is pretty lax on reporting violent crime. And gun laws are certainly not the only factor (if they are a meaningful one at all) behind the typical violent crimes. Here is a quick bit of statistical data for here in Canada. Look at the section on violent crimes. The first thing you might notice is "Uttering Threats". This is the second largest category! Does every country consider threats a violent crime? So problem #1, not every country classifies crimes the same.
If you don't believe me, here is some information from the FBI on violent crimes. I see JUST 4; murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Virtually EVERY category of assault is considered a violent crime in Canada... including things like uttering threats.
Saying Country X has more violent crime is meaningless unless all countries classify violent crime identically. And they don't. There are also other factors to consider. Americans often don't report many types of abuse, especially ones which might actually fall under violent crimes.
But, let's assume we live in the magical land of fairies and every stat we want to use just magically lines up perfectly so that I don't need to care about semantics like whether or not calling a person too many times counts as a violent crime there and not here would impact the validity of my statement.
The argument STILL fails. VERY few people (if any) are arguing that gun control laws will reduce rates of violent crime.
Killing with a gun may be a violent act. But not all violent acts involve a gun or killing people with them.
The expectation of gun control laws is NOT that they will stop violent crime. And not even that murder altogether will disappear. It is that FEWER. PEOPLE. WILL. DIE. as a result.
And I don't care if this offends your sensibilities. But you WILL NOT find a country with strict gun control laws with more murders per capita than the US, and you definitely won't find one with more gun deaths per capita.
And yes, even if you can prove a causal link between tighter gun control and increased violent crimes in general (which taking the above into consideration I doubt you can), I would still take an increase in death threats or even real injuries over a higher rate of murder.
You make a mistake if you focus on violent crime and not on people ACTUALLY BEING KILLED. People are enraged that people are dying and at the rates at which they are dying. We don't have time to be enraged about general violent crime rates until after we can stop people being needlessly killed.
BTW, favorite case study pro-gun people is Australia who enacted tighter gun control laws after a mass shooting 20+ years ago. They claim Australia's violent crimes increased. I did the leg work... under violent crimes is 4 categories; homicide, sexual assault, robbery and kidnapping. Oddly, physical assault is off in another category. So, yet again a different slice of the criminal data than the US uses. But, what is interesting is, every type of violent crime is low and on a downward trend... EXCEPT, sexual assault. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that an increase in this particular type of violent crime has much to do with gun regulation.
But hey. I know this internet thing is hard. Having TOO much information available to you must make fact checking yourself SOOOOOO overwhelming. It is far easier to make logically broken arguments and false equivalencies based on flawed research/reports.
The two major arguments I saw were: "gun control nuts always blame the guns and not the individual" and "in country X with stricter gun control laws, there are higher levels of violent crime".
These are fairly common rebuttals it seems. So, I want to take a moment to absolutely F***ing destroy them.
The biggest mistake in the first argument is that it seems to assume that you can only blame one or the other. This is, in fact, 100% idiotic. And wrong. Guess what! I can blame BOTH the person for choosing to murder people, and the fact that it was so easy for them to get a MURDER TOOL as powerful and efficient as a gun to help them.
These are NOT mutually exclusive.
You are NOT smart if you make this argument against someone.
It either exposes YOU as an idiot (because you don't understand that they aren't mutually exclusive), or as a person attempting to mislead another (because you know the argument doesn't hold water, but you're hoping the person you're attacking doesn't).
YES, I blame the gun. But I ALSO blame the individual.
A person who has decided to undertake a violent action, especially one like murder, is going to make the attempt. And I, and everyone else blames them. Rightly for that.
But, the extent to which such people are capable of executing on those ambitions on the other hand is directly proportional to the tools they have available to carry out those intentions. The more guns there are around, and the easier they are to get, the more people we will have who are successful and the more lethal the average outcome will become.
If a murderous lunatic attacks a school with a knife... can they kill? Sure. But, an unarmed person can fend them off with a chair, a table, a group of friends, etc... . It is super unlikely that a knife wielding maniac will kill 14 people before they are stopped. If I have a semi-automatic rifle... you're screwed. You can't run at, you can't gang up on me, there is probably very little you can do to defend against me. Even if you have a gun, you've probably never had your life threatened with one. You're not thinking straight.
It isn't really a surprise that in virtually all of the occasions, it is local law enforcement which ends the killings. In the bulk of the remaining incidents? Most times, it is someone EXTREMELY proficient with guns and in many cases who have experienced combat. Maybe on off duty officer, or ex-military. Someone who hunts.
Guns are insanely good at what they are designed to do. And most are designed to kill people. Making them readily available makes killing people a much easier task.
I blame people who kill for what they've done. But, I also acknowledge where others help make that killing possible. A lack of gun control laws is an enabler of gun deaths.
The second argument is pure gold. It focuses on a stat which has no direct relation to guns and provides no science to back up cause and effect. Saying that another country with lower gun control laws has higher rates of violent crime is an utterly ridiculous statement.
If you encounter someone attempting to equate general violent crimes with MASS MURDER, run.
There is insufficient evidence to show that increasing gun control laws promotes violence. America is pretty lax on reporting violent crime. And gun laws are certainly not the only factor (if they are a meaningful one at all) behind the typical violent crimes. Here is a quick bit of statistical data for here in Canada. Look at the section on violent crimes. The first thing you might notice is "Uttering Threats". This is the second largest category! Does every country consider threats a violent crime? So problem #1, not every country classifies crimes the same.
If you don't believe me, here is some information from the FBI on violent crimes. I see JUST 4; murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Virtually EVERY category of assault is considered a violent crime in Canada... including things like uttering threats.
Saying Country X has more violent crime is meaningless unless all countries classify violent crime identically. And they don't. There are also other factors to consider. Americans often don't report many types of abuse, especially ones which might actually fall under violent crimes.
But, let's assume we live in the magical land of fairies and every stat we want to use just magically lines up perfectly so that I don't need to care about semantics like whether or not calling a person too many times counts as a violent crime there and not here would impact the validity of my statement.
The argument STILL fails. VERY few people (if any) are arguing that gun control laws will reduce rates of violent crime.
Killing with a gun may be a violent act. But not all violent acts involve a gun or killing people with them.
The expectation of gun control laws is NOT that they will stop violent crime. And not even that murder altogether will disappear. It is that FEWER. PEOPLE. WILL. DIE. as a result.
And I don't care if this offends your sensibilities. But you WILL NOT find a country with strict gun control laws with more murders per capita than the US, and you definitely won't find one with more gun deaths per capita.
And yes, even if you can prove a causal link between tighter gun control and increased violent crimes in general (which taking the above into consideration I doubt you can), I would still take an increase in death threats or even real injuries over a higher rate of murder.
You make a mistake if you focus on violent crime and not on people ACTUALLY BEING KILLED. People are enraged that people are dying and at the rates at which they are dying. We don't have time to be enraged about general violent crime rates until after we can stop people being needlessly killed.
BTW, favorite case study pro-gun people is Australia who enacted tighter gun control laws after a mass shooting 20+ years ago. They claim Australia's violent crimes increased. I did the leg work... under violent crimes is 4 categories; homicide, sexual assault, robbery and kidnapping. Oddly, physical assault is off in another category. So, yet again a different slice of the criminal data than the US uses. But, what is interesting is, every type of violent crime is low and on a downward trend... EXCEPT, sexual assault. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that an increase in this particular type of violent crime has much to do with gun regulation.
But hey. I know this internet thing is hard. Having TOO much information available to you must make fact checking yourself SOOOOOO overwhelming. It is far easier to make logically broken arguments and false equivalencies based on flawed research/reports.
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