Almalieque wrote:
Gbaji wrote:
Ergo, those planning on using their guns for malicious purposes are less likely to be deterred by them
Again, you're focusing on the two extremes and not the population where most people live in. If there were no laws for murder, more people would murder.
Sure. So we pass laws against murder. But if we make it illegal to own a knife, we'll have a much greater impact on the ability of people to cut their steak than we'll have on the murder rate, right? There's a difference between making the harmful thing someone wants to do (rob, rape, kill, etc) illegal, versus making something else which isn't innately harmful illegal because they might use that thing to help them do those other harmful things. We run into a rapidly diminishing rate of return, and a rapidly growing rate of negative side effects (like no one being able to cut their steak) when we do that.
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You're proposing "let's make it easy for everyone to go inside the club and we'll have security to monitor once they are in inside" as opposed to "Let's do a thorough check of everyone at the entrance of the club and THEN have security for those who still break the rules".
Ah. Ok. That's not it at all. I'm saying, let's do both. I'm arguing against folks who are effectively arguing that if only we can make perfect checks at the door, then there would be no need for any security inside, so lets start by eliminating security inside first since they can't actually prevent a violent person from starting a fight, they can only intervene after the fight has begun. Yup. That makes no sense at all.
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Gbaji wrote:
Um... Right. So if you make it harder to buy the gun legally at a gun show, it wont prevent the guy fixated on killing someone from getting one. It'll maybe stop the random guy in the crowd who might have been armed and might have been able to do something about it from getting one.
Unless you believe that we could live in a peaceful world where there is no crime, hatred or violence, then you accept the fact that there will be those who will always fall in those categories. However, for the majority of the people who don't fit in that category, these deterrents will have an effect.
But it wont deter the people you want to deter. That's the problem. You'll deter the guy who wasn't planning on going on a shooting spree from owning/carrying a firearm, but you will *not* deter the guy who is. Thus, the net effect is to make it easier for people who want to go on shooting sprees to both do so *and* increase the effectiveness (ie: bodycount) when they do.
That's why it's a stupid approach to this problem.
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This goes back to the fact these laws are designed to deter violence, not remove all violence from existence.
Its just strange that you say that, but then still appear to come down on the side of increased gun control. If we acknowledge that we can't remove all violence from existence, then shouldn't we try to level the playing field by allowing everyone the means to respond to that violence? At the very least, let's not tilt the playing field so far in favor of the malevolent people? Just a crazy thought.
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People were willing to pay more and wait more to obtain marijuana just to be on the right side of the law, because the current laws were deterring their actions.
It deterred the actions of those who placed the risk of breaking the law above the benefits of smoking pot. Similarly, laws which make it harder/illegal to obtain a firearm will deter the firearm ownerships of those who place the risk of breaking the law (or difficulty of complying with it) above the benefits of owning a firearm. Assuming we agree that the guy planning to commit a mass killing is more motivated to obtain a firearm, and less concerned with the difficulty and/or consequences than someone just idly considering it as a means of protecting his home against a theoretical intruder, then we're still left with the same "you're helping the bad guys" situation.
Marijuana being illegal didn't deter the hard core pot smokers from obtaining it, right? Again, which person do you think is going to be more motivated to obtain a gun? I'll give you a hint: It's the guy with visions of gloriously blowing away large numbers of people in some public place. He'll do whatever it takes to get the weapons he needs to fulfill that fantasy. There's a very low rate of return in terms of firearm restrictions versus gun ownership for people in that group. So maybe we should look at other ways of dealing with them?
Edited, Apr 4th 2014 7:23pm by gbaji