Correlation isn't causality. Vermont manages to have low rates of firearm related homicides with very permissive gun laws. Vermonters never needed a permit to carry concealed. No bans on firearms except on the Federal level. They are fifth from the bottom in gun violence. New Jersey and New York have more gun death with much tougher gun restrictions.Sangoma wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2017 6:19 amWithout a doubt, crime rate is a multi-factorial phenomenon. However, the availability of weapons plays significant role in crime. States with more guns have more death related deaths: The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010 Correlation between ownership and death rate is pretty much a straight line. Apparently, the relationship is also true for suicides. Add to it the fact that about half a million guns are stolen from the law abiding citizens every year - and the idea of guns and freedom is not as straightforward anymore.
The Japanese and South Koreans have higher suicide rates per capita than the US. Both have very restrictive firearms laws. Most US "gun deaths" are suicides. The relationship in the US might suggest a correlation between gun ownership and suicide. The rest of the world gets it done better without them.
Chicago Ill and Houston Tx have roughly the same populations. Chicago has much tougher gun laws than Houston Tx. Houston has half of Chicago's murders each year. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that "wide open" Houston should have more "gun violence" than Chicago?
The average American will die because of bad dietary and lifestyle choices. Somewhere way down the line, except for African American kids who get enmeshed in the illicit drug trade, are "gun deaths". Take out the suicides and you're left with less than 10,000 deaths a year. Sixty times as many Americans will die of heart attacks than be murdered with firearms..... and if we Americans would stop banning weed and other soft drugs, we would probably have fewer gun deaths.
To me the main rationale for restricting firearms has been to benefit the Administrative State. US Bureaucrats who want to implement shitty policies have to summon the Police. If the object of the regs is armed the bureaucrat has to summon more police or SWAT. The more force required, the more noisy the operation becomes and the more likely people are going to start asking questions about why the police showed up in the first place.
A good regulation? Nobody is going to ask "Why?". A crooked bureaucrat is going to get some investigating. That's going to get them fired or worse.
Big business likes gun control too. They cannot bully rural people out of their land and mineral rights if some "noise" happens. Might even apply to labor relations.
How many little nuisance regulations do you live with each day? How often are people's lives impacted by crooked bureaucrats?
You once lived in Russia, perhaps the USSR. How did you like having petty bureaucrats tell you what to do? You accepted it because you had no choice. I've read of people in the USSR being bullied for the most petty reasons - they were a Jew, the bureaucrat didn't like their looks, they weren't "accommodating enough". You could complain to a local party member, sure, but what if they don't like you either?
Over here bureaucrats can push us but it's more expensive if they go outside of acceptable behavior. They have to justify the resources to do it. Cause someone, probably not me but someone, just might shoot them. Gun ownership forces them to observe a threshold of action.
Deterrence works. So does self regulation.
