Gun Control

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One of the perspectives on gun control is the correlation between gun control and mass extermination. It is the concept that when the government imposes complete gun control it leaves portions of its citizens vulnerable to the threat of mass extermination. Some believe that our founding fathers created the second amendment in order to preclude the government from forcing its will over its citizens. That the government exist for the people rather than the other way around. Anyways I came across this thread today and I think there is some credence to such a perspective.

1929: The Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929-1953, 20 million dissidents rounded up and murdered.
1911: Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5 million Christian Armenians rounded up and exterminated.
1938: Germany established gun control. From 1939-1945, 13 million Jews and others rounded up and exterminated.
1935: China established gun control. From 1948-1952, 20 million political dissidents rounded up and exterminated.
1964: Guatemala established gun control. From 1981-1984, 100,000 Mayan Indians rounded up and exterminated.
1970: Uganda established gun control. From 1971-1979, 300,000 Christians rounded up and exterminated.
1956: Cambodia established gun control. From 1975-1977, 1 million educated people rounded up and exterminated.
In the 20th Century more than 56 million defenseless people were rounded up and exterminated by people using gun control.

Another example of this is the country of Venezuela.

The shocking nature of Venezuela’s economic collapse has been covered ad nauseam. However, one aspect of the Venezuelan crisis that does not receive much coverage is the country’s gun control regime.

Fox News recently published an excellent article highlighting Venezuelan citizens’ regret over the gun control policies the Venezuelan government has implemented since 2012. Naturally, this regret is warranted. The Venezuelan government is among the most tyrannical in the world, with a proven track record of violating basic civil liberties such as free speech, debasing its national currency, confiscating private property, and creating economic controls that destroy the country’s productivity.

Elections have proven to be useless, as they’ve been mired with corruption and charges of government tampering. For many, taking up arms is the only option left for the country to shake off its tyrannical government.

Venezuela began its first attempts to modernize its gun policy. In 1939, the Venezuelan government enacted the Law on Arms and Explosives (Ley de Armas y Explosivos), which established the Venezuelan state’s monopoly on firearm usage. The state was the only entity that could possess “weapons of war,” which include: canons, rifles, mortars, machine guns, sub-machine guns, carbines, pistols, and revolvers. Civilians could only possess .22 rifles and shotguns, and in certain circumstances could possess handguns provided that they obtained a license.

When socialist strongman Hugo Chávez took power, not only was Venezuela’s previous gun control order kept intact, but it was also expanded upon. Article 324 of Venezuela’s current constitution (the 26th in its history) maintained the state’s previous monopoly on firearms and placed the National Armed Forces of Venezuela as the entity in charge of regulating all firearms in Venezuela.

In 2002, the Venezuelan government passed the first version of the Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law, reinforcing the state’s iron grip on firearms in Venezuela. A decade later, the law was modified to enhance the scope of gun control and gave the Venezuelan Armed Forces exclusive power to control, register, and potentially confiscate firearms.

Under the banner of fighting crime, Venezuela implemented a ban on the sale of firearms and ammo in 2012. Like other gun bans, this proved futile in fighting crime. According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory’s statistics, Venezuela’s murder rate increased from 73 murders per 100,000 people in 2012 to 91.8 murders per 100,000 people in 2016.

Firearms bans, confiscation, and registration give the state a virtual monopoly on violence, thus turning its citizens into defenseless subjects. When the rubber meets the road, a disarmed populace has no chance against a well-armed Leviathan.

Source: Gun Control Preceded the Tyranny in Venezuela

My reaction is fear.

If they can take X (guns) from you, then they may be encouraged to take Y (civil rights) from you.

NBC correspondent Kerry Sanders reports on the collapse of Venezuela to NBC's Andrea Mitchell: "You have to understand, in Venezuela gun ownership is not something that's open to everybody. So if the military have the guns, they have the power and as long as Nicolás Maduro controls the military, he controls the country."

The facts that you've put forth, Jimmy, are inarguable. However, in this day and age, I fear the saying 'Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.' is all too real and we can be certain the facts you've put forth are NOT being taught as history. Emotion, emotion...emotion. By design, young minds are taught very little if any logic and instead are groomed to respond to and act on emotion which makes them very easy to dupe and manipulate.

Last edited by Magna on 02 Sep 2019, 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

But we still should have background checks to try to prevent mass shootings by people who want to harm others.

I do see the potential for abuse by governments should the ruling class have exclusive use of guns.

Counterpoint! Camels are adorable!

Yes we still need background checks. The present law 18 USC § 922(g) & (n) seems well written. The problem is that we do not necessarily need more gun laws but rather enforcing the laws already on the books. We need to find a proper balance. Proper implementation of the laws already on the books.

Refer to: QUICK REFERENCE TO FEDERAL FIREARMS LAWS

Why? Near every single mass shooter has passed backgroun checks. These are criminals who are doing the shootings. Anyone could be one , people just snap one day, so it could be anyone. You can’t check that without some kind of machine that sees into the future.

And those who are known felonies and fail don’t get prosecuted, they’re left to go find guns on black market or steal one.
The government don’t do their jobs so more laws won’t be enforced anyone more then the current ones.

I’d scrap the background check law for what it is a failure. Every law should habe w 10 year limit and then studies done on their effectiveness and if nit shown to be effective congress shouldn’t be able to renew it. Instead we get laws that don’t work that people try to twist and deform. Private sales isn’t a loop whole, they never intended private sales to b required in fact they saw that it’s illgeal as it creates a registration which is illegal but they could regulate gun shops.

Like wise the armor piercing ammo ban is for pistol ammo designed to go through soft body armor, but now despite the original senators saying it isn’t what they meant, it’s being used to regulate rifle ammo shot through pistols. Any rifle round will go through soft body armor, soft body armor is solely designed if stop pistol rounds. So another law twisted and deformed to strike at legal gun owners any way they can. Everything becomes loop wholes. Eventually the 2nd amendment will be called a loop whole and removed.

The number of mass shooting victims in the U.S. so far this year is 335.

As of August 31, 2019, 297 mass shootings have occurred in 2019 that fit the inclusion criteria of this article. This averages out to 1.2 shootings per day. In these shootings, 1,219 people were injured and 335 died (for a total of 1,554 victims). Source Wikipedia.

But this number fails in comparison with the number of people killed in the U.S. with guns each year.

In 2017, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 39,773 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC. This figure includes gun murders and gun suicides

Source: What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

So in general the media focuses on mass shootings they neglect to point to those who are primarily affected by gun violence. Because it doesn't fit their narrative. These are generally those people living in poor violent drug infested portions of major cities. Many are minorities. Much is black on black killings. Completely ignored by the press. I believe there were more people killed in Chicago this weekend than those that lost their lives in Odessa/Midland Texas. But it won't even get a footnote in the press.

So I believe background checks will help to reduce the gun violence. It will not end gun violence but reduce it. The problem is broader than just mass killings. And background checks are one of the tools that make sense to use.

Youths ages 15 to 24 experienced a higher rate of homicides with a firearm than any other age group, at about 8.2 per 100,000 people. So what happens to an juvenile who commits a crime (that in adult court would be considered a felony) but because the records are sealed in juvenile court never see the light of day during gun background checks. Is he able to freely buy a gun once he turns 18?

Even cnn has stated that number to be false. That comes from an anti gun group who includes kids shooting each other with BB guns a mass shooting,
Real number is closer to 20.

Background checks don’t do anything to reduce it, the people who fail still get guns cause they aren’t arrested for what is a felony. Imagine if a guy tried to rape a lady, gets caught in act by police, but is just told don’t do it again and let go, then he goes and rapes another woman, did the rape check work? No cause the guy still raped a woman, where as if they arrested him he wouldn’t have. So imagine we had rape checks. People would be like what’s the point if you don’t arrest people who get caught trying to rape someone.

They don’t work. It’s just tax revenue source, that’s all.and a gun registration.

What they don’t tell people is 21000 of those deaths or more are suicides and that even more people kill themselves with out a gun.
43,000 people kill them selves every year but we only care about if they do with a gun?
Officer my cousin killed himself after you took his guns away.
Officer : well thank god he didn’t use a gun they’d been horrible he’d been deader.

Universal background checks are even more a failure. Day one in ,y state two people illgeal transferee a gun in front of police in front of the police station, didn’t get in trouble. Hi will you know if someone sells a gun in the woods, alley, their house, garage, store parking lot? Reality is that most people still do and there’s no way to know, no way to stop them no way to prove they did.
So we get the other horrible end of it. Get caught with a gun that doesn’t have a background check on it and your instant felony. Worries me. I have a gun from pre 1986 it’s never had a background check on it. So how do I prove I didn’t get it this last year and thus illegal transfer it? How does anyone disprove a negative? There’s no records. There’s no proof. So I’d go to prison for buying a gun privately from my brother who bought it privately from someone who bought it pre 1986. Such a great system if your goal is to hurt gun owners and ban all guns anyway you can.
And it’s also a felony for me to go shooting with a friend and let him shoot my gun, since that’s an illegal transfer.
Remember when felonies were only the really bad stuff like armed robbery, rape and murder. Now anything and everything is a felony.

Then there’s red flag laws, how do I prove someone didn’t feel in danger from seeing me with a gun on my side? Even though carrying a gun isn’t illegal. Again can’t disprove a negative. So I lose my gun and rights. Cause someone doesn’t like guns and either feels afraid of just seeing one or used this to get at a gun owner for having something they don’t like. Due process is gone in my state, it’s now guilty until you can’t affoed to try to prove yourself innocent. So yeah they won’t stop at the 2nd , they’ve already destroyed the 4th and 5th, 1st is currently being destroyed, when they’re done we won’t have any rights. It’s nit about gun control it’s people control they want.

This is exactly what I have come to see. Many of you know I am a Quaker married to a veteran. As one might imagine we have discussed this topic frequently. My epiphany moment came when some years ago I was listening to the news about the democracy demonstrations in Iran, I think it was. Because civilians are not permitted to have guns, the military can just come in and shoot them down.

We don't know what works or what could work in reducing gun violence because it has not been adequately studied.

I really believe restricting access to guns for people with known violent records, and being thorough and vigilant about this, might help at least somewhat.

Yes, of course people who desire to perpetuate crime can get a knife---but a knife has far less range than a gun.

We already do that and with due process. Now the democrats are gutting the constitution.
It really is a slippery slope. It’s alswahs “ this is all we want ....... for now” and once they get one law they immediately push for another.
We won’t stop til all guns are banned, as those kids say.

Rape check.

I went to grad school at one of the worst mass shootings in US history. What people don’t know is that there were other shootings, stabbings, and a beheading there within a five year period of the mass shooting. During my second semester one of the guys in our cohort started touching a bunch of us girls and arguing with all the guys AND the teachers. Once he got so irate they moved us all to a secure location and escorted him off campus. We filed an official complaint. The only thing that happened is that WE had to go to sexual assault awareness training. A girl in there (from another cohort) spoke up and said, “Excuse me, can we know why we’re here? So we girls can know who to watch out for?” Laughter in the group. The speaker said, “No, that would violate his privacy.”

Oh and I would have been kicked out if I had carried my firearm on campus. A folding knife also wasn’t allowed but I carried that anyway.

There's a few big problems with this line of reasoning.

Firstly, if we take the argument at face value, there were a lot of genocides in the 20th century. It shouldn't surprise anyone that some of them happened within twenty years of gun control laws being passed.

Secondly, there are a lot of countries that experience genocide but not gun control, or gun control but not genocide. Is there actually a link? There doesn't seem to be.

I also think there are some basic historical errors in your argument. For example, the dates of "gun control" for China and Cambodia are entirely fictional. Germany also made it much easier to own a gun in the run-up to the Holocaust. The Ugandan gun law passed in 1970 again made it easier to own a gun. Armenian Turks were never allowed to own guns except briefly when they were allowed into the military; the law referred to confiscated a small number of weapons from veterans.

Take Guatemala for example. There, while guns might legally have been controlled, in practical terms they weren't especially - armed guerillas patrolled the countryside during the civil war.

Or Germany. In the inter-war period, gun control actually lessened dramatically - the Nazis were in favour of gun ownership. To say that the issue that the Jewish people had was their access to guns is to spectacularly miss the point. By 1938 (when they passed a law which made it easier for everyone except Jews to own guns) the Nazis had a strong grip on power and were not going to be overthrown by a few Jews with guns.

The particular purges you reference in Russia and China also targeted huge numbers of individuals rather than groups, for the most part. If the government decides it is going to arrest you then you're probably getting arrested, regardless of whether you have a gun in your house. In China there was a civil war and a revolution between the "implementation of gun control" and the start of the disappearings. In Russia, the government in power were the rebels with guns; the availability of guns was what made the disappearings, gulags, and engineered famines possible. Guns can't stop famines, which is what killed most of the quoted figure.

I did a quick check to see if anyone had debunked this copy-paste before. It turns out it is over 20 years old, dating from Australia's gun control programme, and originally predicted an imminent genocide in Australia. That obviously didn't happen.

Here is the truth. In summary:

- Many of the numbers quoted in the copy-paste are wrong.
- Many of the countries quoted didn't enact gun control at the time.
- Many of the genocides are mischaracterised.
- While gun confiscation played a role in some of the genocides, there is a difference between "gun control" and "gun confiscation", and no evidence that increased gun ownership would have made any difference.