-Gun suicides:
So is this a gun problem, or a mental health problem? Do you really think if some one wants to die they need a gun to do it? Say we disarm everyone but the police and military... ever heard of suicide by cop? There are still plenty of buildings to jump off of, buses to jump in front of, and drugs to OD on without guns in the picture.
"Mental health" is a modern phenomenon, possibly a huge fad, and there's no solid proof that it even exists outside of a society's need to self-correct by correcting individual people's behaviour. There's a lot of good material that could be discussed on mental health: the failure to change minds with involuntary therapy, "you versus the outside world" philosophical issues, commercial incentives leading to iatrogenics, over-prescribing, profiteering from hypochondria and the creation of entirely new mental illnesses that didn't exist before. And, controversially, whether or not suicide constitutes a mental health problem at all -- is enlightened euthanasia a legitimate thing? Is the question even answerable, given that death is an unknown unknown? At least for the living.
Rephrasing: "so is this a gun problem, or a people problem?
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people" has been covered.
Yes, you are right, there is no such thing as insane people. All of those mass shooters were perfectly sane, and they certainly weren't 9 times out of 10 on psychoactive pharmaceutical drugs known to cause suicidal tendencies. People losing their mind and becoming homicidal is nothing but a modern invention. A collapsing economy, world wars, and corrupt government certainly isn't causing people so much stress they are just snapping. Also it certainly has nothing to do with the fact that the majority of Americans are on at least 1 prescription medication. Funny how in Sweden guns are in every household by law, yet they don't have those same problems. I guess it must be the guns and not the psychological state of the people pulling the trigger.
BTW, when you reduce an argument to a cliche, then argue against the cliche that is a fallacy known as a straw man.
-Over-availability:
Do you really think making laws restricting the legal ownership of guns will make criminals stop using them? Illegal weapons are available all over the planet, ESPECIALLY in countries where guns are banned. Banning drugs worked so well, I am sure it will work just as well for guns! Illegal drugs certainly aren't available everywhere are they?
2 completely different issues.
The US is the world's biggest manufacturer and exporter of guns. There's only so much (little) onlookers can do if the US chooses to keep flooding the market. I can see how guns have become a Libertarian 'darling' because without scratching the surface it looks like regulation fails to work. And it's so convenient that criminals don't respond well to being shouted at. But who's shouting at the likes of Lockheed Martin to reduce production? No-one! When it comes to petty consumer-level criminals, the availability is completely unregulated.
As long as gun manufacturers keep making record profits with zero regulation, it's all just pissing in the wind.
Why are they two completely different issues? Because you declare them as such? I find them VERY closely related, because without guns in the hands of law abiding citizens, we are nothing but potential targets for criminals waiting to become victims. BTW, by definition, criminals do not follow regulation. It is not a difficult concept. If you can afford to pay for it, you can get it. The same goes for ANY contraband from drugs to uranium. Pretending regulations will some how prevent criminals from acquiring guns is a fairy tale. The war on drugs worked so well reducing the availability of drugs, I guess we should try regulating guns too!
BTW the idea that the sale of firearms are not regulated in the US is a complete myth.
-Decreased availability causes decreased mortality:
Decreased mortality for whom? Criminals and crazy people? Even if your little utopian idea of banning guns some how magically making them less available worked, literally the only people you have disarmed are those that obey the law. Then you can watch the crime rate go up again along with the mortality and the over all violent crime rates.
Where did I say banning?
Did you read the link? It's the law-abiding citizens that cause the most gun deaths. The criminal side is just a red herring. Change regulations at the consumer level, and suddenly there's less criminals, or more criminals. So what? Did it force Lockheed to supply less guns onto the market?
"Regulations don't work" is complete fallacy. You're not even trying to reduce supply. The main similarity with that and the drug war is that regulators have achieved the same ends by different means. They've castrated themselves by making drugs outright illegal, and therefore also unregulated.
Gun sales in the USA are already regulated. You are arguing for more regulation and reduction of availability of firearms. By default you are arguing for the restriction of supply of firearms by law. Considering that there is a tremendous actual supply of firearms globally, and that won't change any time soon, so what you are arguing for then is the removal of guns from the hands of law abiding citizens. Criminals will always find ways around laws and regulations, that's why they are called criminals.
Of course the stats say that law abiding citizens cause the most gun deaths. You know why? Those stats include self defense, police shootings, and suicides, and you parrot it as if they are all murders. After that the most murders using guns are from gang activity, and gangs will always find a way to kill with or without guns.
The criminal side is far from a red herring, because it is real fucking easy to sit outside the country and let us be the victims of violence while you poo poo us about gun ownership. BTW WTF does Lockheed Martin have to do with any of this? Last time I checked they don't make small arms (guns and rifles) for consumer use, only military (like miniguns and rocket launchers). If you have a gripe with the way our military works that is completely another subject.
Also I never said "Regulations don't work", that is all you. BTW that is a nice straw man again attributing a statement to me and then arguing against it. The USA already has plenty of gun regulations, making more is not going to improve the situation as I explained criminals just seem to not care about laws, furthermore most regulations punish people AFTER THE FACT, so it is not
preventing anything anyway. Funny how that works.
-Historical reasons for guns as laid out in the US' constitution, such as defending yourself against government tyranny, lost Conquistadores, or POHMs setting out to bring the US back under British rule, are laughable today:
I don't know what country you are from, but I am fairly confident it is not the USA. I am not sure where you get off making those choices for a country you do not even live in, and pretending you understand our culture intimately from the outside.
Defending ourselves from government tyranny is the NUMBER ONE REASON people are buying guns over the past 10 years. Just watch any time Obama makes some comment about gun control everyone buys a shitload of guns in preparation for the tyranny which is very clearly rooted in the US government. This is the furthest thing from a joke as it has been since the civil war. Of course if you are safely within the borders of another nation, it is still a joke to you.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that... Who am I to say that your culture is paranoiac and delusional? You guys are smoking the "gun dope", but only you have the power to tell yourself to cut down. I can't fix your denial.
Is this even an argument? It looks to me like another fallacy, this time an ad hominem attack. You can believe whatever you like and call us names, it doesn't change the facts or provide substance to your argument. Also, how the fuck would you know anything about our internal politics as an outsider? Do you think they talk about this shit on TV? You are claiming more knowledge than you could possibly have.
-The consumer fire-arms industry (which is what you're really talking about, and has nothing to do with weapons that could realistically hold off the government), is selling a fantasy so that "big boys" can also have their Barbie Doll accessories:
Hmm, I dunno about that. They seem to be doing a pretty good job holding off our modern military with small arms in Afghanistan. This argument is just a fallacy. Modern technology doesn't make you bullet proof.
Because your troops don't want to get killed just because civilians back home are too lazy to make real changes like regulating the weapons manufacturers. It's all US versus Russia proxy fighting, and dragging it out for years is probably the best they can do to avoid massacring the civilians caught in between. But yeah, it's totally those anti-tank pistols that are defeating the troops.
WHAT IN THE FUCK are you talking about? What does this have to do with the availability of firearms in the US? As I said before if you have a gripe with our military that is completely another topic. BTW, not every soldier is issued a tank on arrival to Afganistan, sorry to burst your bubble. Maybe actually talk to
ANY SOLDIER ever deployed to Afganistan and ask them if they were afraid of getting shot with rifles. Modern technology does not make people invincible to bullets.
