Countries with strict gun control enjoy far lower rates of firearm accidents, suicides, and murders. IMO it's clearly worth the tradeoff. Very few of us live in a place where only guns can solve our problems.
The fact that occasionally someone goes to great lengths to kill doesn't mean we should make it easier for everyone.
In which case you'd need a strong internal investigatory services in order to root these plots out before they happen by following up on leads and tips.
Well... not to get political, but I think we're hollowing that out too?
Australia seemed to have a deeper relationship with guns previously, that stemmed partially out of necessity (farming etc), but there are also a lot of parallels with US culture here – the American dream, being a colony hundreds of years ago, etc, some focus on personal rights and freedoms, being a federation of states, etc. I don't think it was as deep a relationship as the US, but coming from the UK it seemed that Australia had a very different view than the UK.
Australia turned this all around. The culture shifted, and people realised that for the greater good it was something they needed to get past, and they did.
Maybe there's hope for US gun control yet, although the turning point for Australia was a (single) mass shooting. Maybe the US needs a much bigger turning point. I'm a little surprised that the Las Vegas shooting a while ago didn't provide that.
Who will necessarily be so strong they'll be capable of pulling such things off to serve their own ends.
It's an intractable problem all the way down.
So let’s define what your definition of strict gun control is. Also, if you want people to care more, stop including suicides because it drastically changes the numbers.
In 2024, estimated 16,576 deaths in the US from guns (excluding suicide, which is a very large addition on top of that), and 499 mass shootings.
I'm for a lot more gun control than what we have today, but it's "the right of the people" in the text.
Japan is, famously, a country where the system generally works. Hell, a late train would get you a letter for your boss. It's a bit different in places where the police don't have the resources, or dangerous individuals aren't removed from the public.
[As a necessity for a free state, A well trained and in good working order group of able bodies citizens capable of fight for defense of self and state, is required], the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Militia is just the people. Oxford 1800s has well-regulated to mean “in good working order”.
The Obama CDC study on gun control concluded that guns are used to stop far more crimes than they are used for in crimes. It concluded that a household with a gun saw far less bad outcomes than a household without during home invasions. It concluded a lot of things that didn't sit well with the left, so after all the fanfare to make it, it was downplayed by that admin. Read it, it's quite interesting.
Think through that a bit.
The US populace is vastly larger and better armed and capable than Afghanistan.
The US military requires a massive economy to function. If it tries to attack itself, those little armed people could stop it, the economy would crash, and the US military would crumble without needed support and supplies.
A final issue is the US troops would lose a lot of soldiers if they were told to go attack fellow citizens. The soldiers would quit, would hesitate, would not want to kill people they view as their own people.
So armed citizenry absolutely have major power against the govt.
Finally, if you were in a country where the govt set out to kill its citizens, would you rather have arms or be completely unarmed?
For example, https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...
Congress around 1982 had the Library of Congress issue a study about this in great depth, with millions of citations to historical documents, which give ample evidence and quotes. You may have to dig to find it, but it's a good read to gain more understanding.
Also the second militia act of 1792 actually required all able bodied men to own guns, and this was the law for well over the following century.
The founders had no qualms about everyone having arms.
My point isn't that outlawing guns would stop every possible scenario. Rather it would make killings of all kinds far less likely, which is a win for everyone--even hate-spewing pundits.
Thankfully, whatever they meant then, we live today and can change the constitution and the laws to suit present circumstances. Nothing is sacred.
Citation please. NCVS data puts defensive gun use around 70K instances per year while OJP.gov data puts firearm crimes in the 400K range.
All being said, I am no military guru and I could be wrong
This is the thought process of the morally depraved, upon which every tyrannical government establishes its power.
The purpose of my original comment was that the US dwindles Japan in firearms, but Japanese still manage to kill themselves just fine. So it's not a strong point by the parent I responded to. If Japan maintained that decrease for several more years, I think this would be worth revisiting, but for now it doesn't have much weight.
Note that Montana, the worst state for suicide, is about the same as South Korea at 28/100k.
I say this sadly as having had a friend kill herself in High School via a gun her dad had lying around. And ya, it was a red state (Mississippi).
We had no military objective in Afghanistan.
Our only goal there was to enrich contractors who had stockholders working at the highest levels in the Pentagon and White House. That goal was achieved spectacularly.
It's basically everything, except that which is evil.
Good and evil are even more subjective than how people perceive colors. I hope we can at least agree that murder is wrong, and the tools which facilitate the most murder should be the most heavily regulated.
Yemen is in second place for guns per person. How responsive is their government to the people?
Murder is wrong.
Every citizen worth a damn should own guns and the idea that they should not be regulated by the government is enshrined in the 2nd amendment to the US constitution. Every gun law created since is an abberation that should be abolished.
The debate over guns actually hinges on the extent to which the individual should be empowered to defend themselves, and historically, it hasn't just been about guns, but about all weapons, and even martial arts (which have also been banned at various points in history). Governments don't like to empower the individual, because they want to maintain a monopoly over violence (for many practical reasons), and because empowering individuals often creates its own set of trust problems (which is true for anything -- how many drivers are trustworthy, for example). Defenseless individuals are easier to govern from an administrative perspective, and if a government is good at protecting the populace from threats, it works. In fact, it can be better for the population as a whole, at least while the government is competent. But life is messy, and there are points where individuals need to defend themselves. As systems break down, not only does the need increase, but also the effectiveness of the means, because the threats you have to defend yourself against by definition don't play by the rules.
This, imo, is the real point of the second amendment. The Bill of Rights is essentially a declaration that certain rights are derived from a higher authority than government, which is why they are inalienable. No one needs permission to defend themselves, and it's my belief that the right to bear arms was put in there to ensure that should the system fail or become ineffective, the people would still be able to exercise one of their most fundamental natural rights. It certainly wasn't an accident, because it was the second thing that they added. The verbiage around government and militias makes sense in the context of having just fought a war of independence, but it also makes sense when you consider that it's often well-meaning governments that take this right away.
Shall we say prisoners have the right to bear arms? Felons with a violent past? People with mental illness? Surely there must be limits. Few rights are absolute in every circumstance.
When was the last time that private gun ownership helped overcome a dangerous government?
Whatever the reason for the 2A, in practice, it has contributed to far more death than it prevented.
What exactly is irrational?
The second amendment isn't about safety or preventing death, it's about the right of the individual versus the overall collective. Governments and systems break down, but what doesn't change is the individual's right to defend themselves. Whether or not you think it improves individual safety in practice is irrelevant, because it's not your call (nor even the government's) to make.
If a person shouldn't have firearms, then they shouldn't be on the street. They should be in jail/prison. Period. I don't know that anyone that has argued that prisoners should have guns. You would have to be a fool. If a person shouldn't have access to guns, then they shouldn't have access to any other freedom. The ultimate purpose of owning firearms is to fight a tyrannical government. For that purpose, less limits is better for the people. This right is absolute, and anyone espousing otherwise is a tyrant or a fool.
Regulated has more than one meaning. Read which is which.
The word has many meanings. Learn which one the phrase in the Constitution is using.