27 ms·

> is this pressure from the gun manufacturing lobby Definitely not, it's pressure from the anti-gun lobby that keeps pushing "one more bill that this time will

> is this pressure from the gun manufacturing lobby Definitely not, it's pressure from the anti-gun lobby that keeps pushing "one more bill that this time will actually change violent crime statistics, we promise!" These bills are being introduced in the states that already have the most restrictive gun control already, yet to nobody's surprise, hasn't done much to curb violent crime. But the lobby groups and candidates campaign and fundraise on the issue so they have to keep the boogeyman alive rather than admit that the policies have been a failure.

sellmesoap 7mo ago
Ironically the anti-gun lobby seems to drive a lot of gun sales, perhaps it is not what it says on the tin?
- nostromo 7mo ago
  No conspiracy required. There's a lot of money to be made lobbying against guns - in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year - regardless of efficacy.
- delichon 7mo ago
  I have three guns. One I inherited, two I bought right before California turned up gun restrictions. Possibly the greatest time for gun makers was when Hilary Clinton had a clear lead in the race for president.
  - dylan604 7mo ago
    A democratic governor/president is the greatest salesman for the gun industry. When a Dem is in office, the right wing comes out with all of the "they're coming for your guns" which is followed by a spike in gun sales.
    - tracker1 7mo ago
      The latter doesn't make the former untrue. There are plenty of people that want to eliminate all private gun ownership altogether, even if their public speech is more moderate.
- tracker1 7mo ago
  I bought my three when I saw videos of the ATF under Biden start random "knock and talk" sessions for those who recently bought more than one firearm. They're all in a friend's gun safe as I have had bouts of depression, so I won't keep it in my home... I know it kind of defeats the purpose... but I'm very much a supporter of all of my civil rights, including and especially 2A. I do some range days a couple times a year.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
pear01 7mo ago
It is hard to police guns when there is free travel between the US states, yet only individual states can be relied upon to pass any reform. A broken federal government means guns are easily exported from red states with practically zero gun laws to blue states where they are used to commit crimes. States are often forced to recognize rights granted by other states because such an interstate jurisdictional question naturally bubbles up to the aforementioned dysfunctional federal system. Similarly to how many (most?) guns used criminally in Mexico actually come from the United States. Edit: I'm not surprised by the downvotes, but I am amused. These are objective facts. Any basic research will yield many studies (including from the American government) showing that the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico are traced back to the States. Americans love the boogeyman of dangerous Mexican cartels so much they never seem to ask themselves where these guns come from in the first place. Hint: look in the mirror.
- Gormo 7mo ago
  > These are objective facts. The characterization of the federal government as "broken" (at least in this capacity) and "dysfunctional" is a normative judgment you're making based on your own subjective value preferences. Some -- perhaps most -- Americans regard the federal constitution's ability to restrain states from enacting policies that transgress against generally accepted individual rights as desirable, and working as intended.
  - pear01 7mo ago
    That wasn't the objective fact in question, and I think you know that. A humorous one to contest anyway, given it is well known most Americans take a dim view of federal politics, especially when their favored party is out of power. This is a country where national elections are routinely decided by roughly a percentage point. Are you willing to concede most guns used by criminals in Mexico come from the United States? That would be a question of fact, not characterization. And that, if it is easy enough to smuggle guns from red states into Mexico to commit crimes, it stands to reason it is even easier for red states to do the same to blue states? Or are you going to invent some other strawman to attack in your defense of your "individual rights"?
FireBeyond 7mo ago
> states that already have the most restrictive gun control already, yet to nobody's surprise, hasn't done much to curb violent crime The "most restrictive gun control" states in the US would still be generally by far the least restrictive gun control states in the rest of the developed world (you know, where gun-related deaths are a small fraction of here?). Your answer smacks of "well, they tried and surprise surprise it doesn't work so why are we doing it?", i.e. "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens".
- lyu07282 7mo ago
  Its just a political wedge issue in the US, its not really "about" guns anyway
mullingitover 7mo ago
> hasn't done much to curb violent crime. > they have to keep the boogeyman alive rather than admit that the policies have been a failure. It's a documented, empirical fact that there is a marked correlation between common-sense gun laws and reduced rates of gun deaths.[1] [1] https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/ https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/
- bombcar 7mo ago
  The most common gun death is suicide so that tracks pretty well. But I doubt most people count suicide as “violent crime”.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7mo ago
    They do get included by anti-gun people who want to pump up the numbers. You can't trust anything but the government statistics broken out by type of death.
- mulmen 7mo ago
  “Common sense” is a red flag for me. Obama (who I voted for twice, don’t come at me) pitched revoking second amendment rights for people on the Do Not Fly list as “common sense”. My common sense says we shouldn’t use a secret, extrajudicial government watch list with documented problems with false positives to revoke constitutional rights.
  - 15155 7mo ago
    "Common sense" is an oft-used tactic in this space: if what I am pushing is common sense, whatever you are pushing is senseless.
- MostlyStable 7mo ago
  "documented, empirical fact" I won't try to make as strong a claim as the person you are responding to, but unfortunately, the politicized nature of the topic makes research on gun violence, especially as it relates to gun laws in the US, extremely fraught. The vast majority of research articles are plagued with issues. One should not just blanket trust the research (in either direction, and there are definitely peer reviewed journal articles pointing in different directions). The claim you responded to was too strong, but for similar reasons, yours is also far far too confident.
tadfisher 7mo ago
On the other hand, no one from the pro-gun camp is involved with or wants to involve themselves with drafting common-sense gun regulations to reduce the impact of mass shootings while respecting Constitutional rights. Everything from that side seems to revolve around arming schoolteachers and permitting more guns in more spaces. So of course you're going to have wildly-overreaching proposals making it through committees and put to the vote, because no one from the other side is there to compromise with. Americans prefer to debate on the news circuit instead of the committee floor.
- ottah 7mo ago
  You don't cooperate with abolitionists using compromise. You will never come to an agreement that satisfies both parties. By definition it is impossible. Interests are also not always clear, any movement that wants to restrict activities using the law, is going to attract opportunistic power-seeking individuals. There's always crazy carve out exceptions in these proposals that allow the wealthy and the powerful to use and possess firearms that regular people cannot reasonably expect to have. It's laws to protect the powerful from the everyone else. Billionaires are creating armed doomsday compounds in countries like New Zealand, while supporting legislation that makes it harder to own a gun for self defense. Also mass shootings are statistically the least likely cause of a gun related death. They are in the news because they are novel, not because they are likely to happen to most people.
  - tadfisher 7mo ago
    I have an inalienable right to not be shot in public. So do my kids. The right to live should be paramount, far and above any excuses one might make about billionaires controlling all the guns. Maybe we should enshrine that right in the Constitution as the Zeroth Amendment, because it is seriously being trampled as of late.
    - ottah 7mo ago
      Unfortunately the constitution has never been the reason or means for protecting our rights. It is only an after the fact acknowledgement of them. It doesn't secure them, we do.
kube-system 7mo ago
There are dumb arguments on both sides of this debate, but "one more bill that this time will actually change violent crime statistics, we promise!" is definitely one of the weaker arguments... pretty much all state-level gun control is worthless when there is no border control at state lines.

sellmesoap 7mo ago

Ironically the anti-gun lobby seems to drive a lot of gun sales, perhaps it is not what it says on the tin?

nostromo 7mo ago
No conspiracy required. There's a lot of money to be made lobbying against guns - in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year - regardless of efficacy.
delichon 7mo ago
I have three guns. One I inherited, two I bought right before California turned up gun restrictions. Possibly the greatest time for gun makers was when Hilary Clinton had a clear lead in the race for president.
- dylan604 7mo ago
  A democratic governor/president is the greatest salesman for the gun industry. When a Dem is in office, the right wing comes out with all of the "they're coming for your guns" which is followed by a spike in gun sales.
  - tracker1 7mo ago
    The latter doesn't make the former untrue. There are plenty of people that want to eliminate all private gun ownership altogether, even if their public speech is more moderate.
tracker1 7mo ago
I bought my three when I saw videos of the ATF under Biden start random "knock and talk" sessions for those who recently bought more than one firearm. They're all in a friend's gun safe as I have had bouts of depression, so I won't keep it in my home... I know it kind of defeats the purpose... but I'm very much a supporter of all of my civil rights, including and especially 2A. I do some range days a couple times a year.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

pear01 7mo ago

It is hard to police guns when there is free travel between the US states, yet only individual states can be relied upon to pass any reform. A broken federal government means guns are easily exported from red states with practically zero gun laws to blue states where they are used to commit crimes. States are often forced to recognize rights granted by other states because such an interstate jurisdictional question naturally bubbles up to the aforementioned dysfunctional federal system. Similarly to how many (most?) guns used criminally in Mexico actually come from the United States. Edit: I'm not surprised by the downvotes, but I am amused. These are objective facts. Any basic research will yield many studies (including from the American government) showing that the majority of guns used in crimes in Mexico are traced back to the States. Americans love the boogeyman of dangerous Mexican cartels so much they never seem to ask themselves where these guns come from in the first place. Hint: look in the mirror.

Gormo 7mo ago
> These are objective facts. The characterization of the federal government as "broken" (at least in this capacity) and "dysfunctional" is a normative judgment you're making based on your own subjective value preferences. Some -- perhaps most -- Americans regard the federal constitution's ability to restrain states from enacting policies that transgress against generally accepted individual rights as desirable, and working as intended.
- pear01 7mo ago
  That wasn't the objective fact in question, and I think you know that. A humorous one to contest anyway, given it is well known most Americans take a dim view of federal politics, especially when their favored party is out of power. This is a country where national elections are routinely decided by roughly a percentage point. Are you willing to concede most guns used by criminals in Mexico come from the United States? That would be a question of fact, not characterization. And that, if it is easy enough to smuggle guns from red states into Mexico to commit crimes, it stands to reason it is even easier for red states to do the same to blue states? Or are you going to invent some other strawman to attack in your defense of your "individual rights"?

FireBeyond 7mo ago

> states that already have the most restrictive gun control already, yet to nobody's surprise, hasn't done much to curb violent crime The "most restrictive gun control" states in the US would still be generally by far the least restrictive gun control states in the rest of the developed world (you know, where gun-related deaths are a small fraction of here?). Your answer smacks of "well, they tried and surprise surprise it doesn't work so why are we doing it?", i.e. "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens".

lyu07282 7mo ago
Its just a political wedge issue in the US, its not really "about" guns anyway

mullingitover 7mo ago

> hasn't done much to curb violent crime. > they have to keep the boogeyman alive rather than admit that the policies have been a failure. It's a documented, empirical fact that there is a marked correlation between common-sense gun laws and reduced rates of gun deaths.[1] [1] https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/ https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/

bombcar 7mo ago
The most common gun death is suicide so that tracks pretty well. But I doubt most people count suicide as “violent crime”.
- kevin_thibedeau 7mo ago
  They do get included by anti-gun people who want to pump up the numbers. You can't trust anything but the government statistics broken out by type of death.
mulmen 7mo ago
“Common sense” is a red flag for me. Obama (who I voted for twice, don’t come at me) pitched revoking second amendment rights for people on the Do Not Fly list as “common sense”. My common sense says we shouldn’t use a secret, extrajudicial government watch list with documented problems with false positives to revoke constitutional rights.
- 15155 7mo ago
  "Common sense" is an oft-used tactic in this space: if what I am pushing is common sense, whatever you are pushing is senseless.
MostlyStable 7mo ago
"documented, empirical fact" I won't try to make as strong a claim as the person you are responding to, but unfortunately, the politicized nature of the topic makes research on gun violence, especially as it relates to gun laws in the US, extremely fraught. The vast majority of research articles are plagued with issues. One should not just blanket trust the research (in either direction, and there are definitely peer reviewed journal articles pointing in different directions). The claim you responded to was too strong, but for similar reasons, yours is also far far too confident.

tadfisher 7mo ago

On the other hand, no one from the pro-gun camp is involved with or wants to involve themselves with drafting common-sense gun regulations to reduce the impact of mass shootings while respecting Constitutional rights. Everything from that side seems to revolve around arming schoolteachers and permitting more guns in more spaces. So of course you're going to have wildly-overreaching proposals making it through committees and put to the vote, because no one from the other side is there to compromise with. Americans prefer to debate on the news circuit instead of the committee floor.

ottah 7mo ago
You don't cooperate with abolitionists using compromise. You will never come to an agreement that satisfies both parties. By definition it is impossible. Interests are also not always clear, any movement that wants to restrict activities using the law, is going to attract opportunistic power-seeking individuals. There's always crazy carve out exceptions in these proposals that allow the wealthy and the powerful to use and possess firearms that regular people cannot reasonably expect to have. It's laws to protect the powerful from the everyone else. Billionaires are creating armed doomsday compounds in countries like New Zealand, while supporting legislation that makes it harder to own a gun for self defense. Also mass shootings are statistically the least likely cause of a gun related death. They are in the news because they are novel, not because they are likely to happen to most people.
- tadfisher 7mo ago
  I have an inalienable right to not be shot in public. So do my kids. The right to live should be paramount, far and above any excuses one might make about billionaires controlling all the guns. Maybe we should enshrine that right in the Constitution as the Zeroth Amendment, because it is seriously being trampled as of late.
  - ottah 7mo ago
    Unfortunately the constitution has never been the reason or means for protecting our rights. It is only an after the fact acknowledgement of them. It doesn't secure them, we do.

kube-system 7mo ago

There are dumb arguments on both sides of this debate, but "one more bill that this time will actually change violent crime statistics, we promise!" is definitely one of the weaker arguments... pretty much all state-level gun control is worthless when there is no border control at state lines.