Fixing the income inequality and fixing the education of the country would lower crime of all kinds. If the US fixes all those thing (which they won't for a long time, if ever) I still think registering all guns should be required, closing the gun show loopholes, and requiring a gun safety course to be taken.

Income Inequality? You mean job hiring inequality right?
Education is failing pretty hard.

So your saying you need background checks at gun shows by private sellers?
I agree with the safety classes part.

There is a plethora of reasons the create in income inequality (the gap between the poor and the rich).

Yes, but maybe if you want to buy a gun you could have a card that has your information and such including whether or not you have a criminal record. Then the dealer doesn't have to do the background check, but would still be held accountable for guns sold to someone who shouldn't be allowed to own a weapon. Then once you buy the gun you'd have to register it with the government or something.

Good

That I understand, its called socialism.

Yeah the card idea is awful fraud and identity theft would increase drastically. But I think they're trying to do something similar.

I rather dislike registration due to idiots in the newspapers printing owners names and addresses.

Easier victims? I don't think so.

It's hard to predict what would happen if you implemented different kinds of gun laws. For instance- if you ban guns, you might think that gangsters would be the only one with guns because they're going to break the law anyway to get them. On the other hand, you might think it would be harder for them to get guns and so there will be fewer of them with them.

Fewer guns in the population might encourage criminals to attack people, more confident that their victims will be unarmed.
On the other hand, it may encourage criminals who are going to attack people anyway to do so without deadly weapons.

You might say that the best way to stop another shooting is an armed civilian nearby to take out that gunman.
You might also say that multiple shooters will create confusion and chaos and result in -more- casualties.

When I'm faced with difficult questions, I like to look at the facts.

Fact: Gun violence is lower in states with stronger gun control requirements.
Fact: Gun violence is lower in countries with stronger gun control requirements.

For my 2 cents: if violence is going to happen, let it happen with blunt instruments and fists or nonlethal weapons like tazers and pepper spray.

Because you can stop a gunman with a tazer, too, while making it difficult for your enemy to get his gun.

They've had gun bans before and none ever work.

Van Gogh (the filmmaker) was shot and stabbed in the street in a country that has strict gun laws.

You're a fool if you think gang bangers are going to stop using slam fire Mac-10/11, AK-47s, and Tech 9's or the common handguns Glock 17, and revolvers because no one else has a gun.

I've lived in projects and ghettos that shit is a status symbol and using those make them look cool to there dumbass friends.

There was a gas station in town that got robbed almost once a week until some Pakistanis bought it and they openly carry AK-47s and they haven't been robbed since.

And a friend damn near got scalped with a shovel and no one would help because the attackers had a gun and no one else did.

You're going to need more than saying "fact" my friend to make me believe that.

Believe what you want. I like to believe statistical, empirical facts.

You haven't past evidence of these facts. Plus do honestly think gangs are going to go against each other with bats when they could get guns from the cartels in Mexico?

I don't know. That's why I rely on empirical research to tell me what would happen.

To speculate though, I don't think gun control legislation would stop gangs from shooting one another. I think it would make it harder for them to do so.

More and better well reasoned cops would do better.
Or idk militias? Bounty hunters?

Experience is hard to prove to others but I find experience more valuable than numbers so I guess I'm biased. :P

Actually having relatives as gang members (or wannabe) and growing up around gangbangers that most of their guns are obtained by illegal means, theft, assault, murder, buying from black market dealers usually importing from Mexico that I know of.

Where the guns come from doesn't really concern me.

You don't battle the importation of cocaine and other hard drugs by NOT restricting it.

The point is that by restricting cocaine, you put less cocaine in the system. By restricting firearms, you'll put fewer firearms in the system. If there are fewer firearms in the system, those illegal firearms are going to go up in cost, which means fewer of them on the street, and fewer incidents of gun violence.

I mean.. fewer is fewer is fewer. You can't restrict guns and get MORE guns. That just doesn't make any sense.

If people are REALLY worried about their safety and need a weapon to arm themselves with, tazer guns are a perfectly viable option. It stops a mugger, an armed robber, a crazed gunman, a drunken spouse, a home invader, a rabid animal, the list goes on.

Restricting Legal guns is all you would be doing yet I'm damn sure there are fully automatic weapons with 30 round standard magazines in California despite harsh restrictions on magazines and guns, illegal gun running is a very lucrative business and if people can't get legal firearms to defend themselves they will buy the illegal ones, I would.

Ah yes the taser argument while yes it is viable but most people aren't going to charge a man with a handgun with a taser from say 50ft? Not every situation will deal with you directly. What about certain individuals who are unfazed by tasers? PCP makes some practically a immune to it and crazed.

PCP does not make a man immune to tazers. Gunshots? Yes. Tazers? No. Electricity will contract his muscles and take him down whether he feels it or not.

In any case, the argument is simply unconvincing next to gun restriction statistics. It's simply an empirical fact that states and countries with stronger gun laws have fewer guns and fewer cases of gun violence.

Then you haven't seen them enough times. XD

Reported gun violence you mean. Statistics are often unfinished or flawed as these "tests" are often rushed and evidently not thorough. Gun control will accomplish nothing except give more business to Mafias and Cartels just like the prohibition did.

Honestly who do want disarmed? Gun owners or gangs?
All these school shooters have all been mentally unstable so why not advocate for better healthcare?

Oh, I see.

The people that go out and do research do flawed, rushed, and unthorough job. Whereas you have all the answers, without the need for any evidence at all. I'm sure you've looked into the studies themselves to see how flawed they are, otherwise you wouldn't make such a claim, right?

I'm really -only- convinced by evidence.

Lemme address some of your questions, though.

Honestly who do want disarmed? Gun owners or gangs?
Both. Restricting guns will put fewer guns into both groups.
All these school shooters have all been mentally unstable so why not advocate for better healthcare?
I do advocate for better healthcare.

YouTube. Also my brother had one and was tasered by it and only stunned his left side. You also can only get hand tasers not the air tasers the police use as far as I know.

You have shown no evidence plus the news and recent events disprove your claims. Most of those recent shootings were if I remember correctly gun control states? Besides Aurora, Colorado which shows how much you can obtain illegally.

Besides studies can be falsified or biased just like anything else.

So you don't believe in personal defense? Or are you just afraid of guns?
I could see that.

But this is unconstitutional not that anyone cares seeing how many infringements that have gone on.

Back to restriction of firearms, you do realize that banning guns will hurt the already broken economy and take jobs away from its citizens?

You are playing a fear card and a anti-gun bandwagon. Any country anywhere guns can be bought in mass no matter how many laws or restrictions. There are consequences you don't consider.

And do really think police are infallible or incapable of murder or rape? I wouldn't trust my life in their hands only fools do that.

No evidence: You're right. I haven't done a google search for you. I'll post some links below.
Mass Shootings: Connecting mass shootings to gun violence is like connecting a hot day in summer to global warming. Doesn't work.
Falsifiable studies: Now we're talking conspiracy theories.
Personal Defense: I believe in the right to defend yourself and your property. I believe in the second amendment, and the right to arm yourself and form militias. I also believe we need to be -far- more careful about letting dangerous people get access to guns. I believe that it's perfectly acceptable to require gun owners to be licensed while encouraging the use of alternative, non-lethal defensive weapons.
Unconstitutionality: I believe in the 2nd amendment.
Banning Guns: I do not support a ban.
Fear Card: I'm not playing any card but the evidence card.
Police: Not sure how this is connected to the argument.

Studies: I'll post a few below, though you've already stated that you won't take studies seriously.

1: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/f.....uns-and-death/
2: http://smartgunlaws.org/category/gu.....ce-statistics/
3: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11130511
4: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12453821
5: http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc.....59178903000442
6: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u.....s-1232069.html

I particularly like 3 and 4. They're the most well documented and well sourced. Number 6 is pretty damning evidence against the idea that restricting guns will increase violence.

Ok I got a little ahead of my self, very stressed had almost no food and little sleep. So I apologize.

Now that you more or less explained it I don't have much issue except registration/license. It's the ATF's fault for doing a shit job on background checks. I understand what you mean though. I don't entirely agree because I wouldn't be able to afford registration.

One point in my states laws about that though. It's worse in my state to shoot a thief in my house with non-lethal ammo (beanbag ammo, rubber ammo etc) than it is to shoot them with regular ammo. At least that's what the cops said. My state has loads of loopholes.

I know we have the highest gun crime but we also have the highest stressful lives and poverty that's a world power. Don't push people too hard less mental breaks, less ghettos less gang crimes. It's really the fault of capitalism in a stretch. Reaganomics.

As a gun owner, homeowner, and militia member you can see why this bothers me right? I rather like the Bill of Rights and Constitution not being infringed. Hell I would like FDR's second bill of rights too. Probably the only reason I'm not in the military is because I'm slightly deaf and I like my hair. XD

Can any of those open on mobile? I'm not seeing the statistics and the Harvard link crashed.

See, that's what I'm talking about. I don't want to ban guns or anything, I want to promote legislation that makes it harder for the criminal element to get them.

I want to support better background checks, and background checks at gun shows. I support licensure AND a government gun database so that we can better track where these things are coming from and how they're getting into criminal hands. I want to make it legally safe to shoot a burglar with non-lethal weapons, and I want to levy steeper penalties for -armed- robbery as opposed to other types, to at LEAST encourage burglars and liquor store thieves to keep their guns at home. Not sure if that would work, but it couldn't hurt.

At the same time, I absolutely support better mental health systems, I support legislation that helps pull people out of poverty, etc. etc., because I'm not interested in treating a symptom.

X3 I like that people are free to arm themselves with firearms in this country, but I think we NEED to make sure that people are doing so RESPONSIBLY. I don't see that this country is doing that. At all. It's a battle of extremes here! 'No guns at all' vs 'guns everywhere and open carry in Burger King'. We need to be a bit more mature about the issue and look at the facts.

We can restrict gun ownership in -smart- ways. We can prevent people who are mentally ill, or criminally inclined from getting them through a better system for background checks. We can implement some sort of system that would let us track where the guns are coming from, where they're going, etc. We can restrict carrying automatic assault weapons in public, I think. @_@ There is such a thing as overkill.

I don't know the answers, and I don't claim to know. I don't actually vote either way on this particular issue; it isn't one of my pets. But I KNOW that targeted restrictions do have benefits, and I believe that we can go 1Up on the United Kingdom and achieve what they've achieved, WITHOUT a ban.

I can understand that but it comes down to how define certain things.

Like you said Automatic Assault Weapons anyone which is just media terminology for scary looking gun. Usually black with picitinny rails. And very very few own true full automatic weapons which those require registration and a tax stamp to own. The rest of the legal rifles in the "assault" pattern are just semi-automatic carbines. Police carry more deadly weapons than a average civilian. Hell my small town recently got sent Military APC's (Armored Personnel Carrier) for "urban peace keeping" I sincerely doubt a Browning M2 .50 caliber heavy machine gun is for peacekeeping. :I

Getting ahead of myself again anyway the automatics criminals usually get are stolen or bought by friends or family then broken/machined to slam fire which isn't really full auto and the firing pin eventually breaks. Kinda hard put to stop them getting them by theft or family buying them. Except by bending rights to privacy.

I like a lot of European cops for them carrying sub machine guns but impractical in areas like the Dakotas.

Well as some as the military may say " anything worth doing is worth over doing" xD
I wouldn't mind mandatory training. Places like Russia and Switzerland have mandatory Military and they keep their service rifles but then Russians are nuts.