Gun Control-A Theory

[cnm]

But there’s no need to get rid of it; indeed, doing so would be pointless.

Fair enough, amend it so firearms ownership becomes a privilege rather than a supposed right. That'll reduce the firearms homicide and mass shooting rates in the US.

 

[cnm]

And the Second Amendment has nothing to do with preventing a Federal AWB; there’s no Federal AWB because there’s no political will to enact such a measure.

You'd need to severely restrict handguns, fer shure. Around 50% of all homicides in the US are committed with handguns.

 

[Here and there]

Gun Control is a symptom of the disease known as authoritarian government.

You catch it by believing that whenever there is a problem, government has a solution.

Every time you utter the phrase, "The government needs to do something about _______"
you are spreading that disease.

Government can only address a problem in one of two ways. It can prohibit or it can promote.

If someone sees gun violence as a problem for government to solve, the only choice is prohibit.

The problem is, prohibition doesn't work where it comes in direct conflict with common sense and the will of the people.

However, in the case of gun control there is an additional impediment. You can't prohibit something that the most sacred law of the land, The Constitution, specifically forbids prohibition of guns.

I think you might be exaggerating the authoritarianism thing but it’s quite common for gun owners to say that.

It’s s the continued mass slaughter of little kids which brings the gun lobby into disrepute.

 

[2aguy]

Except the post below is the post to which I replied. Nothing about authoritarianism was mentioned in it.

Too, the rate of police killings in the US demonstrates it is a more authoritarian society than the other developed nations.

Nope...what it shows it that our criminals are more violent than those of other countries......the Japanese, for example, are far more Authoritarian than we are, especially when it comes to cops....



Japan: Gun Control and People Control

Japan's low crime rate has almost nothing to do with gun control, and everything to do with people control. Americans, used to their own traditions of freedom, would not accept Japan's system of people controls and gun controls.



Robbery in Japan is about as rare as murder. Japan's annual robbery rate is 1.8 per 100,000 inhabitants; America's is 205.4. Do the gun banners have the argument won when they point to these statistics? No, they don't. A realistic examination of Japanese culture leads to the conclusion that gun control has little, if anything, to do with Japan's low crime rates. Japan's lack of crime is more the result of the very extensive powers of the Japanese police, and the distinctive relation of the Japanese citizenry to authority. Further, none of the reasons which have made gun control succeed in Japan (in terms of disarming citizens) exist in the U.S.

The Japanese criminal justice system bears more heavily on a suspect than any other system in an industrial democratic nation. One American found this out when he was arrested in Okinawa for possessing marijuana: he was interrogated for days without an attorney, and signed a confession written in Japanese that he could not read. He met his lawyer for the first time at his trial, which took 30 minutes.

Unlike in the United States, where the Miranda rule limits coercive police interrogation techniques, Japanese police and prosecutors may detain a suspect indefinitely until he confesses. (Technically, detentions are only allowed for three days, followed by ten day extensions approved by a judge, but defense attorneys rarely oppose the extension request, for fear of offending the prosecutor.) Bail is denied if it would interfere with interrogation.

Even after interrogation is completed, pretrial detention may continue on a variety of pretexts, such as preventing the defendant from destroying evidence. Criminal defense lawyers are the only people allowed to visit a detained suspect, and those meetings are strictly limited.

Partly as a result of these coercive practices, and partly as a result of the Japanese sense of shame, the confession rate is 95%.

For those few defendants who dare to go to trial, there is no jury. Since judges almost always defer to the prosecutors' judgment, the trial conviction rate for violent crime is 99.5%.
Of those convicted, 98% receive jail time.

In short, once a Japanese suspect is apprehended, the power of the prosecutor makes it very likely the suspect will go to jail. And the power of the policeman makes it quite likely that a criminal will be apprehended.

The police routinely ask "suspicious" characters to show what is in their purse or sack. In effect, the police can search almost anyone, almost anytime, because courts only rarely exclude evidence seized by the police -- even if the police acted illegally.

The most important element of police power, though, is not authority to search, but authority in the community. Like school teachers, Japanese policemen rate high in public esteem, especially in the countryside. Community leaders and role models, the police are trained in calligraphy and Haiku composition. In police per capita, Japan far outranks all other major democracies.

15,000 koban "police boxes" are located throughout the cities. Citizens go to the 24-hour-a-day boxes not only for street directions, but to complain about day-to-day problems, such as noisy neighbors, or to ask advice on how to raise children. Some of the policemen and their families live in the boxes. Police box officers clear 74.6% of all criminal cases cleared. Police box officers also spend time teaching neighborhood youth judo or calligraphy. The officers even hand- write their own newspapers, with information about crime and accidents, "stories about good deeds by children, and opinions of
residents."

The police box system contrasts sharply with the practice in America. Here, most departments adopt a policy of "stranger policing." To prevent corruption, police are frequently rotated from one neighborhood to another. But as federal judge Charles Silberman writes, "the cure is worse than the disease, for officers develop no sense of identification with their beats, hence no emotional stake in improving the quality of life there."

Thus, the U.S. citizenry does not develop a supportive relationship with the police. One poll showed that 60% of police officers believe "it is difficult to persuade people to give patrolmen the information they need."

The Japanese police do not spend all their time in the koban boxes.

As the Japanese government puts it: "Home visit is one of the most important duties of officers assigned to police boxes." Making annual visits to each home in their beat, officers keep track of who lives where, and which family member to contact in case of emergency. The police also check on all gun licensees, to make sure no gun has been stolen or misused, that the gun is securely stored, and that the licensees are emotionally stable.

Gun banners might rejoice at a society where the police keep such a sharp eye on citizens' guns. But the price is that the police keep an eye on everything.

Policemen are apt to tell people reading sexually-oriented magazines to read something more worthwhile. Japan's major official year-end police report includes statistics like "Background and Motives for Girls' Sexual Misconduct." In 1985, the police determined that 37.4% of the girls had been seduced, and the rest had had sex "voluntarily." For the volunteers, 19.6% acted "out of curiosity", while for 18.1%, the motive was "liked particular boy." The year-end police report also includes sections on labor demands, and on anti-nuclear or anti-military demonstrations.

 

[2aguy]

You'd need to severely restrict handguns, fer shure. Around 50% of all homicides in the US are committed with handguns.

No....we need to lock up violent gun criminals and keep the democrat party from releasing them over and over again.....it is the same repeat offenders doing almost all of the gun crime in this country.

 

[Viktor]

Fair enough, amend it so firearms ownership becomes a privilege rather than a supposed right. That'll reduce the firearms homicide and mass shooting rates in the US.

Hogwash. Mexico has a total firearms ban and it's murder rate is much higher than the USA.

 

[Blues Man]

So all US governments for the last few decades have been authoritarian. Isn't the 2nd supposed to prevent that? Why is it failing?

Tell me which government is more authoritarian

Yeah because governments that ban guns aren't authoritarian
Governments that will throw people in jail for saying the "wrong" things or reading the "wrong books" or for being mean on Facebook aren't authoritarian.

 

[Blues Man]

So the 2nd doesn't actually work to prevent authoritarian non democratic governments? I agree.

So you may as well get rid of it and reduce the rates of firearm homicides and mass shootings.

We have never had a government that was not democratically chosen by the people.

 

[Blues Man]

This is a lie.

The necessary, proper, and Constitutional regulation of firearms does not mean citizens are prohibited from carrying guns for lawful self-defense – including a 90 pound woman.

The government absolutely refuses to enforce the gun laws we already have.

THAT is the problem.

 

[Blues Man]

You'd need to severely restrict handguns, fer shure. Around 50% of all homicides in the US are committed with handguns.

Everyone in the US knows where 70-80% of all murders occur but since these murders are young male urban minorities killing other young male urban minorities no one gives a shit.

Oh and I haven't reminded you that Americans don't give a shit what you foreigners think

 

[Hollie]

Gun control is the theory that a 90 pound woman should fistfight with rapists.

An armed, 90 pound woman would have no reason to fistfight a rapist?

Leftist gun control is taking away guns from law-abiding citizens while allowing criminals to possess guns and then refusing to charge those criminals for their crimes using guns.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Except that's wrong as shown by the experience of all the other developed nations.

^^^
Post hoc fallacy

 

[M14 Shooter]

Yet in the US in all/various states the right of the people to keep and bear arms is impinged all the time.

The courts are in the process of overturning laws that violate the rights protected by the 2nd.
Seems to me it is working as intended.