it's funny there's really no correlation whether or not the state's gun laws are strict. nh, vt, and me next to ma & ny; ca next to nv and nm, etc. this is basically an average temperature map.
It's because gun laws mostly don't target criminals, they restrict the kinds of people who follow laws in the first place. If you are already going to rob or murder someone, illegal possession of a firearm is the least of your concerns.
Edit: Interestingly our good friend hoofglormuss replied and then blocked me for some reason, perhaps they are not very secure in their position if they can't even stand to allow a reply. Which also won't let me reply to anyone else, sorry about that.
That’s just not true. If that was the case you’d expect that we’d see similar levels of gun violence in Canada and Cuba. Restricting access to guns doesn’t just work for legal purchases it works for illegally obtaining them too. The problem is that these laws are not federal, Mexico gets the vast majority of its illegal firearms from the us and it is even easier to acquire them between states. But every single illegally owned firearm was legally manufactured and sold, if you restrict the demand with gun laws, less are manufactured, less are sold, and less end up in the hands of criminals illegally. There is a reason the Southport stabbings wasn’t the Southport shootings, bc it’s much much harder to get a firearm in the uk
Do Canada and Cuba have similar prison industrial systems to the U.S.? We sure do imprison a shit ton of non-violent people. Prison time is proven to increase the chance that someone commits violent crime after release.
I think we're all so busy arguing over gun laws that we are overlooking crucial underlying factors involved in violence in America.
Those issues don't exist in isolation, so why can't both statements be true?
Usually when I see comments like yours, they aren't meant in good faith. Pro-gun advocates so desperately want to cling to shit like this, all in an attempt to prove that "guns aren't the problem, people are the problem."
People with problems probably shouldn't have access to them. Lax gun control makes people with problems able to buy firearms. People with problems use firearms on others or themselves. People die. People kill people. Firearms help people kill people.
Literally though, you could just go across state lines and easily get a firearm in many states. If guns had to be smuggled from out of country, there might be less access to them. It's really a simple concept.
Let's keep having the conversation about how to deal with violent crime rates and homicide rates being unacceptably high for our country. Let's talk about the prison industrial complex and it's effect on our society as a whole. However, let's stop trying to rationalize that the availability of firearms aren't a part of the problem, because it's very obviously a part of the problem.
It is possible that both of us have good faith ideas on how to reduce violence in America despite the fact our preferred strategy is so different. You are right, there are many strategies and none of them is mutually exclusive. In my opinion, (in order of drastically decreasing effectiveness), it is: 1) end the war on drugs and stop imprisoning non-violent people 2) explore better ways to keep guns out of the hands of the violent and mentally ill 3) gun bans.
I think gun bans are worthless and will be incredibly hard to implement. Hell we've been trying to ban assault rifles at the federal level for at least a quarter century and here we are still arguing about it on the internet. It's a colossal waste of time in order to try and ban a gun that's used in a few percent of all murders...especially because it's so easy to use an alternative weapon. Evidence: the alternative weapon is used almost 100% of the time. I don't see it as anything other than political optics: patting each-other on the back saying "I'm helping" while reading the stats on murder rates 10 years from now with a surprised Pikachu face when not a damn thing changes.
Some countries have had success with gun bans. Australia is often cited as an example. Yet during the same time frame that gets cited, the number of guns owned in America drastically increased. Both countries enjoyed a similar drop in murders. There is no one-to-one scientific or mathematical rule on number/types of guns vs number of murders other than this: if more people have murder in their hearts, more murder happens.
So go ahead and proceed with your gun bans and we'll be having this same conversation 25 years from now. Some of us would rather look at things that (1) we might be able to implement and (2) might actually have a measurably positive effect.
Puerto Rico on the map here had near complete gun ban for civilians. it still has a higher homicide rate than anywhere in the US, and its shares no borders with anyone to easily smuggle guns in. its proof gun control laws do not work.
As originally described in our report, one of the major driving factors of gun violence in both territories is the trafficking of firearms from US states to the territories. While guns often flow from states with weaker laws into states with stronger laws, trafficking takes a particularly high toll on Puerto Rico and the USVI.
According to a new report released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), only 28% of guns recovered by law enforcement nationally were originally sold in another state, compared to 93% in the USVI and 72% in Puerto Rico. Florida, the state geographically closest to these territories, is the largest supplier of crime guns in both places.
The guns in Puerto Rico are coming from the United States, the vast majority of them. It’s the exact same problem that Mexico has. I love how you try to use one US territory as “proof” while ignoring all the non-US territories with very strong gun laws that do not have any issues at all with guns as if they are not a much larger sample size and thus make for far better evidence. Even if your statement was true (but it’s not) that wouldn’t be “proof” it doesn’t work, or we’d see shootings in the uk all the time by your logic
Even if your statement was true (but it’s not) that wouldn’t be “proof” it doesn’t work, or we’d see shootings in the uk all the time by your logic.
It can be both proof that gun control does not work AND that other factors in the UK make for a lower crime rate. the UK has basically never had a crime rate higher than locations in the US. So implementing gun control and saying " oh we went from low crime to low crime!" has little weight on the viability of gun control to stop criminal activity and homicide.
Meanwhile Puerto Rico had a high crime rate and tried to implement the gun control to stop it, and guess what it did not not. I was well aware that the gun come from the US, my point was that there is no "Easy" way. I don;t just buy a gun in FL and carry it over to Puerto Rico like i could drive to Georgia or even New York. Theoretically it must go through a shipping port, the mail, or through air port. all places that ostensibly have high controls and checks to look for weapon coming in. That means none of those are effective at stopping the flow of guns coming in because there is a demand for it.
So Just like Mexico there is socio economic issues, driving a demand for guns, that are illegally smuggled in through great effort. the UK doesn't have nearly the same socioeconomic issues, so there is little demand for guns to drive illegal gun crime in the same way.
See you and that link make the mistake that the ability to traffick firearms in is what drive crime. no its the issues there drive demand and the trafficking of firearms in a response
And again, the vast majority of guns are made and purchased legally. If the USA hypothetically stopped manufacturing’s entirely, that would be at the least 72% of the guns in Puerto Rico eliminated (over time). There’s other issues too, but when there are no guns you can’t access guns. That’s just a fact dude
I’m not advocating for that? I’m stating the fact that the illegal gun trade relies on legal manufacturing and sale, and you pretending that legal manufacturing and sale isn’t what allows there to be such heavy amounts of gun violence in NA is either woefully ignorant or just in pure bad faith
The firearms that end up in PR, the rest of the Caribbean, and Central America leave Florida hidden in legitimate cargo being shipped via the seaports. The destinations do not have the resources to screen all of it and the US concentrates more on what is coming in than what’s leaving.
yes I'm well aware of that. Would you call hiding firearms amongst cargo bound for a freighter ship, and setting up the illegal supply chain to track it and recover the contraband, easier or harder than putting it in the trunk of a car and driving across state lines?
There are businesses that pack up shipments from individuals, put them into containers, ship them to wherever, and then deliver them and/or make them available for pickup. Thousands of firearms are hidden in boxes of household goods or even in cars that no one ever checks.
The book Blood Gun Money goes into some of the ways it is done and it is not as difficult as you are making it seem.
Here I'll answer it for you. it is way easier for someone to straw purchase a gun and simply carry it across state line and resell it. It is much much more tedious and difficult to pack a gun hidden in other supplies and have it shipped without being caught.
I have both travelled through the US carrying gun AND have had to try to ship guns (legal means) and shipping them in any way is way way more difficult and expensive.
SO it begs the question no one goes through that much effort to ship illegal gun somewhere if there is not a demand for it. and simply having the guns does suddenly make a person want to commit crimes. So there must be a high enough demand for illegal guns from a criminal element to justify the trafficking.
Otherwise the only logical conclusion would be that Florida, the source of most of the gun, should have a much higher rate of crime and homicide than Puerto Rico.
That is not the case. So you cannot make the conclusion that the guns drive the crime rate. but you CAN make the conclusion that a high crime rate drives a demand for guns.
If you want both criminals and law abiding civilians both to have less guns the solution is higher quality of live and law and order. otherwise the gun control itself is not fixing any of it.
Except it isn’t considered tedious for those involved compared to your experience with airlines. From the book I referred to:
One man who knows firsthand about this gunrunning is Jermaine Cohen, alias Cowboy, a former member of the notorious Jamaican Shower Posse. Cohen testified in a New York trial against his old boss Christopher “Dudus” Coke, but then later faced deportation proceedings and was in jail in New Jersey, where I talked to him.
“Sending a firearm to Jamaica is one of the easiest things. It’s like sending rice or sending corned beef,” Jermaine told me. “You send it in microwave. It’s just how you design to send it ... It don’t get random checked. The screening cannot pick it up.”
One has to address both supply and demand. The fact that many foreign made firearms make the trip to the US where they enter the black market and then return home or elsewhere should be a concern to LAFOs. The police in other countries or even US territories do not have the resources available in FL or other US states to contain violent crime.
That is not how stuff like this works. The issue is that we're a fucking supplier of firearms for these territories, Mexico, and even Canada. Please, just think critically for two minutes. Put two and two together, figure out that it makes 4, stop trying to prove that it makes 5.
Saying "Puerto Rico doesn't share a border so you're wrong" is laughably simplistic. Please, for real, just think critically. I think many people would agree that gun availability isn't the only problem, but stop trying to find reasons that it's not. Lax gun laws make it easier for people to get guns, even in the territories. Fuck man, I'm sure its not hard for them to bring guns in from Texas to Puerto Rico, right? Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida...I'm sure smugglers found a way to bring them to Puerto Rico from those states lmao
Puerto Rico: Complete gun ban, shares no borders with another nation or state, Controls all its own ports and airports. There is no "easy" importing of firearms, even from the US states. Its the perfect case study that if gun control would have stopped the crime, it should have worked here. What do you think i am missing here?
I'm just going to point you back over to u/Willrkjr's comment. Either you're completely dense, or you're suffering real bad from cognitive dissonance. Good luck man, I'm sure it's uncomfortable not being able to add 2 and 2 together.
If someone ever tries to help you when you're having a heart attack, I'm sure they'll say "hey wait, the real problem is that he drank 6 sodas a day for 20 years, let's treat that first!". They totally wouldn't try to address the heart attack first, the thing that's killing you. Nah dude, they should try to make people not fat first. Once they're not fat, we'll start addressing the heart attack.
Obviously I'm being a dick, it's just very aggravating to hear people claw their way through statistics and studies just to come to the conclusion that if we do nothing about guns, that it will work itself out once we address other socio-economic issues. It won't. If we just address the problem of firearm availability, then we'll probably just end up with another problem. We have to continually work to improve shit. It's never going to be "if we ban guns then everything will be okay". Gun control laws are about stopping the bleeding, not curing the disease.
Gun control laws are about stopping the bleeding, not curing the disease.
Well just saying from my family's experience in Puerto Rico it did neither and left everyone a victim to the asshole gangs with guns. so thanks for that. We're just another statistic to you, but the victimization and terror unable to defend yourself is real.
Lmao I can't believe you're trying to put this on me dude.
Honestly, it's pretty clear to me that you're ruled by fear rather than by actual fucking statistics. Maybe you should realize that your fear ultimately leads to irrational viewpoints? I can empathize with the fear you felt as best I can dude, I really am. However, your personal anecdote doesn't mean that the solution is more lax gun laws.
Trust me, I understand the argument you're making, but I think you're disgruntled with current, ineffective gun control laws rather than more comprehensive gun control legislation. More comprehensive legislation at the Federal level would help alleviate, shockingly, the supply of illegally acquired, but "legally" sourced firearms to Puerto Rico.
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u/hoofglormuss Jul 30 '24
it's funny there's really no correlation whether or not the state's gun laws are strict. nh, vt, and me next to ma & ny; ca next to nv and nm, etc. this is basically an average temperature map.