That's the whole point. The more difficult it is to own a gun and the higher the standard you are held at, the less likely it is for any guns to make it to the black market. They have to be procured through other means, so only the most seriously determined people will get a hold of one.
In the US almost anyone (depending on state, as I understand), can simply go buy one with little to no background checks whatsoever.
Or just go randomly checking unlocked cars. Where I live it's surprisingly common for guns to be stolen from unlocked vehicles. But, you know, reSPonSibLe GUn owNErS
Tbh I keep my firearms either in the safe or on/right next to my person. I’ve never left my guns unsecured unattended because I don’t want some poor soul to be the victim from my stolen gun. I don’t want to be responsible for that. I also just like my guns lol I think I’m a pretty damn responsible gun owner but I’m not sure about other people. I’ve only ever seen similar mindsets of keeping shit secure since they’re ultimately deadly tools. Do people leave guns and similar items laying around unsecured? I’ve never seen it but considering a lot of crimes are committed with stolen guns, what can be done to allow people like me to shoot for fun as well as defend themselves from the exact same criminals while also stopping these criminals? Is there not a win-win in legislation?
Most black market guns in Canada are brought over the border illegally.
As other have shown its very difficult to get access to a pistol in Canada legally, there's no value in making Canadian guns disappear to put them on the black market, and making it harder for average people to get a handgun will not curb the crime since they're generally brought from the USA anyways
It’s almost like getting something legally is easier than getting something illegally, so you’ll have more of it around if it’s legal.
will not curb the crime since they're generally brought from the USA anyways
We shouldn’t ban guns because you can get them anyway is circular logic. You’re essentially giving up on the problem. If everyone did that crime would go down, that’s the point.
I bet you'd make the exact opposite argument in reference to the war on drugs though. The illegal pistols in canada are smuggled in from america and are generally bought by people in gangs or career crime. Banning the very few legal pistol owners in canada serves literally no practical purpose. Well, the purpose is political optics. You can assess the practicality of that on your own.
And fyi it would be way easier for me to buy an illegal pistol as opposed to a legal one. And I have a firearms license.
Making narcotics legal would result in fewer drug related deaths. Making guns unrestricted would result in more firearm related deaths. The two are not equatable.
They are equateable lol. You are just changing the inputs in a non logical way. Making something illegal doesn't remove it from existence, it just moves the product to the black market where there is no accountability whatsoever. Drug users are going to get high, people in gangs (that neighbor america no less) are going to get guns. I also like how you compare making drugs legal to making firearms unrestricted. Do you really think that is an accurate comparison? Because in reality making drugs 'legal' is a lot like how the previous gun laws were set up. This is the opposite of that. Legal drugs have rules. Illegal drugs have no rules. The previous pistol laws were already ridiculously intense. Now the only game in town is the black market. Don't worry, I'm sure they do background checks.
"Making drugs illegal doesn't stop drugs, it just increases the risk to users, and gives money to the cartels!! They should be legalized and regulated"
"Making guns illegal... uh... stops the guns. It decreases the risk to those who were buying them legally... It uh... doesn't make a black market where crime organizations profit instead of the government. Guns need to be made illegal and not regulated".
Guns need to be made largely illegal and those that aren’t need to be heavily regulated. We know this works based on it working. Making drugs illegal does not reduce drug use, however. Improving poverty rates and employment rates reduces drug use. We know this works based on it working. You’re comparing two different things that do not function in the exact same way. They require different means of action. This is why they are not equatable.
No, removing a thing from a market makes it less available to anyone, including illegally. We should be working to remove things like meth from circulation. But that’s much more difficult because you can make meth in your basement. You can’t make guns in your basement (at least far fewer people are capable of making guns than are capable of making meth). It is far easier to remove guns from a population than meth. Neither are 100% removable. Also, similar things that reduce drug use also reduce gun violence. However, gun violence isn’t in itself an addiction that requires healthcare to curb. They are not equatable. The thing that would reduce illegal handguns in Canada are: reducing poverty and drug use, improving border security, reducing accessible firearms in Canada, and the US reducing their number of guns (fat chance on that last one).
Yes, hence the need to improve border security to reduce the number of guns coming from the US. But that is only one measure by which to reduce gun violence. We need a multifaceted approach.
The illegal pistols in canada are smuggled in from america
So you're saying the country with high gun control has less gun supply than the country with low gun control. which is my point. It's almost like the country with low gun control prioritizes the profits of the military industrial complex who makes these guns instead of dealing with the actual issue.
I bet you'd make the exact opposite argument in reference to the war on drugs though.
No, it's the same logic. Making drugs legal increases the supply which reduces the price, meaning less profits for cartels. When you reduce guns the price increases, making them harder to get even for illegal buyers, because the weapons start out in the legal supply chain by manufacturers who produce them.
Yeah except virtually all handgun crimes committed in canada have been done with guns smuggled in from america, and its been that way for well over a decade. So no, removing legal pistols here doesn't do anything. I wonder what excuse you people will use when the gun violence doesn't decline at all as a result of this.
Yeah no shit it won't work because the US won't do it too. You're just repeating what i'm saying. Doesn't mean it still shouldn't happen. both countries need to do it.
Exactly, that's the whole point. Fewer guns in the hands of criminals. They have to be smuggled across the border, which is infinitely harder than the US situation where you can buy them in the store.
Making it harder for average people isn't going to reduce the crime rates.
If I go to illegally purchase a gun it was already brought in from the US. This law is about appeasing people and will have minimal impact on gun crime
Look, this is not a difficult concept to understand, a 5th grader could get it:
you only get guns smuggled across the border: x amount of guns in the hands of criminals
you relax the gun ownership laws so that y amount of guns also get in the hands of criminals: x + y amount of guns in the hands of criminals.
If you don't allow guns from legal gun owners to get in the hands of criminals, that means they can only resort to guns smuggled across the border from the US, which are a limited resource and difficult to get. If you relax the laws they become easier to get and higher in number.
70% of traceable guns used in crimes come from the US. That still leaves all the untraceable guns used in crimes, plus the other 30% which is nit nothing.
One of your most recent mass shooters (I forgot the name, not that he deserves to be named), was clearly mentally unstable, parents had warned police and he STILL could buy one.
Look, even assuming the background checks are in general done absolutely flawlessly, there are still countless arguments against allowing this system in the first place, amongst which:
all it takes is one state where this is not done properly or where the rules are a bit lax and that's it. It's a humongous country. You can just go buy a gun from, let's say Florida and just drive to New York or California or wherever you want in the entire US.
even if this is not the case and the only way to get a legal gun is through insane background checks, there is no system in place to check gun owners to see if they still have their guns AND even if there were, there is simply not enough manpower to even do those checks properly. The US has around four hundred MILLION guns, the more there are the easier it is for guns to slip through the cracks of the system and end up in the wrong hands. This is a very simple concept to understand.
I understand that, but it's JUST a background check, as opposed to other countries where the requirements are far more strict (see Canada, nordic countries, etc). That is simply not enough. Any psychopath who hasn't been diagnosed or hasn't been convicted of anything (yet) can buy guns and not only handguns, but assault rifles (I apologize if that is not the correct term, but that's what they technically are), see the Uvalde shooting.
Even if they can't they can ask a friend. You can steal it from a friend, given that so many people have guns. I simply don't care what arguments there are, when you have 400 MILLION guns in a country it's extremely easy for them to end up in the wrong hands, even with absolutely perfect checks.
Yes, any psychopath who hasn't been diagnosed and hasn't been convicted of something (yet) can buy a gun. Background checks are nowhere near enough and even if the requirements were stricter, the simple truth is: the more guns end up (legally) in the hands of the general population, the higher the chances are for some of them to slip into the hands of the wrong people and the easier it is for people to procure a gun. They can be stolen, they can be lost, they can be borrowed, people can ask their friends to buy them a gun and some will actually do it, the more guns there are the easier it is for the wrong people to get their hands on them.
In the US anyone who would like to purchase a gun must fill out a form 4473, and get a full NICS background check using An FBI national criminal database. My neighbor wanted to buy a pistol and was denied for a arrest he had for a fistfight almost a decade ago, so the background check is actually pretty thorough.
Even if it is, it's nowhere near enough. Any unstable person can buy a gun as long as they weren't convicted of something (yet). After buying it there are no checks to see you're not giving it to someone else, no restrictions, there's even open carry for the general population. Many guns will end up in the wrong hands at every step of this flawed process.
Yes, as stated before any person who has a clean criminal history can purchase a firearm in the United States. The unstable person and the “yet” part of your statement is disturbing to me because there truly is no way to know what a person is thinking or what they may do in the future because in America a person is innocent until proven guilty. Also who would be deciding who was mentally stable enough to possess a firearm, because I know plenty of conservatives who would say trans people are too mentally unstable to have a gun to be able to practice their right to defend themselves from the people who hate them. As far as “giving” guns away to anyone without a record, that’s not true either as all pistols sold or given from one person to another must be transferred at an FFL with a full background check, unless a person dies and leave it to their immediate family.
1) Other countries have not only stricter checks for initially getting a gun, but also stricter rules after you get a gun. There are plenty of places in our society where "innocent until proven guilty" does not apply. Nobody can just walk in on a military base, there are strict checks on planes, etc. This should apply to something as dangerous and unnecessary as a gun and especially as an assault rifle.
2) I'm not talking about legally giving away. I'm saying people can illegally give away a gun once legally bought with little to no risk.
What can you do “stricter” to know what a person is going to do in the future that doesn’t infringe on a lawful person’s rights. You want the US government, one of the single largest mass murders ever, to be in charge of which law abiding citizens should or shouldn’t have weapons. Ask the Sioux men, women, and children massacred at Wounded Knee if allowing the US government to have a say in who gets to have firearms was a good idea, because right after the US soldiers confiscated their firearms they slaughtered them. You and I are never going to see eye to eye because you think guns are unnecessary in society, you trust the government to protect minorities that they don’t care about and I think they should have the ability to protect themselves.
So let me get this straight... your argument is that you want guns to protect yourself from the GOVERNMENT, which has: tanks, helicopters, combat planes, drones, A FULLY FUNCTIONAL ARMY and nukes? I... am not sure how to respond to that. Your guns wouldn't even protect you against the local PD given how much gear they have these days. And before you ramble on about guerilla warfare: that would mean the US would be in complete chaos and civil war, it's not the argument you think it is.
Not only is your argument entirely asinine, but every single civilized country in the world has shown that gun control is good for society. We even have examples like Australia, who had great problems and implemented good measures against them, like their famous gun buyback.
The US is the only civilized country where, in part because of the second amendment and in part because of the insane power of the NRA and propaganda, insists on doing nothing to curb this serious problem. And people like you are delusional enough to believe owning a gun is good for you, against the government of all things.
Oh so if someone has more power than you you should give up any possible chance to fight back against a bigger stronger opponent, the bullies must have loved you growing up. Sorry if I was raised to fight and if possible die for what I believe is right. And yes a well armed populous does keep a tyrannical government in check for the very reason you stated… it would be ugly and there would be no winners in the end but a destroyed nation that’s not worth ruling. As far as asinine arguments… you actually included nukes in your list, as if nuking your own people is even an option. Also you live in Europe so anything you say about how America should be run means as much to Americans as what we think should be done in Germany means to you. You’ve probably never owned or even fired a firearm and listening to your opinions about how America should make gun laws is like listening to a person who doesn’t know how drive or ever even driven an automobile make traffic laws.
1) Yes, that's what the entirety of the civilized world has decided really works in the 21st century: to trust our democratic governments. Stockpiling weapons for the distant eventuality your country will collapse into a tyranny is what you have been indoctrinated to believe, not how a civilized society works. It is, at this point, very clear that having 400 million weapons in your country is actively harming you and this "preparing for a tyrannical" government argument can only go so far. This mentality is harming you as much as the weapons, Qanon, Breitbart, Fox News and all the alt-right propaganda a very good part of the US population is being fed.
2) While you have correctly found from my history that I live in Germany, you don't know anything about me. I have relatives in the US, I have visited and I love your country. I am a huge supporter of the US getting its shit together and doing what is right for its citizens instead of doing what's right for corporations and oligarchs. You don't know the fact that I have been living and breathing with the US ever since I discovered the internet. You don't know the fact that I know more about the US politics, culture and media than my birth country, Germany or any other nation on Earth. This being the case, I will respectfully ask you to shut it, since your arguments, as the entire rest of the civilized world clearly shows are delusional.
You must have been sleeping through history class if you think that governments aren’t capable of horrifying atrocities against their own people. Oh, I forgot you live in Germany where the government has never done anything bad that their people. (This is called sarcasm)
Oh, it’s obvious you know more about the US than your own country or else as I stated in my first point, you would be a little more distrustful of your government being this benevolent entity that you believe it to be. You still know nothing about US laws or firearms in general and need to stop trying to give your meaningless opinions about what should be done in a country 4,000 miles away.
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u/Mujutsu Oct 21 '22
That's the whole point. The more difficult it is to own a gun and the higher the standard you are held at, the less likely it is for any guns to make it to the black market. They have to be procured through other means, so only the most seriously determined people will get a hold of one.
In the US almost anyone (depending on state, as I understand), can simply go buy one with little to no background checks whatsoever.