Study on where DC criminals source illegal guns?
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Anonymous
This is more about how I vote in federal elections. I do think DC should both prosecute local criminals and keep violent offenders in jail, but also think it's important to highlight how lax gun laws contribute to crimes everywhere. Given some degree of city exodus to the burbs (will be my family moving in a couple years) after the pandemic and generally more widespread dispersion of population from cities to exurbs with the new world of more virtual or hybrid work, younger generations more likely to vote than in the past and growing up with mass shooting drills/scares, we WILL see better gun laws eventually, but no, not in the near future |
Anonymous
People in Switzerland routinely keep government-issued, fully automatic, actual military assault rifles in their homes along with government issued high capacity magazines and high powered anti-personnel ammunition. Amazingly, these firearms are not misused. I guess it’s the “sensible” laws. Couldn’t be anything else. |
Anonymous
"Currently, Swiss legislation bans the use of automatic weapons, silencers, laser sights, and heavy machine guns. The government demands licensing for the acquisition and carrying of any firearm, and requires registration and licenses for ownership of firearms, with some exceptions made for hunting weapons. Practically everyone in Switzerland is trained to use a gun, yes, but that training, as well as the use, storage, and transportation of guns, is very regulated." https://www.buzzworthy.com/switzerland-gun-laws/ |
Anonymous
They are sensibly regulated, registered, licensed - without "gubmint jackboots kicking doors in and confiscating them." Same is the case in many, many other countries. The deeply fallacious, slippery-slope fearmongering of the far right that keeps getting in the way of sensible regulation NEEDS TO END. |
Anonymous
I see you carefully left out the part of the article that acknowledges that pretty much all adult men in Switzerland are part of the military reserve and that they are authorized to keep their fully automatic machine guns at home, just as described. |
Anonymous
No, that's not at all the point you think it is. For one, conscription comes with assessment of fitness for duty. We don't do that for gun owners, so that already is a form of sensible gun ownership legislation. ”satisfying physical, intellectual and mental requirements for military service or civil protection service and being capable of accomplishing these services without harming oneself or others" Then in addition, those who are actually deemed fit for duty will of course get gun training, something we don't require for all gun owners in the US. |
Anonymous
Actually, it’s precisely the point. There are machine guns at peoples’ fingertips in Switzerland, subject to misuse, theft, and everything else, and people aren’t using them to mow each other down. Nor are they using the vast, vast, vast (did I say “vast?”) majority of the millions of firearms in the US to do that. But you want people who misuse firearms trained to do it better? The fundamental fallacy of so-called “gun control” is that making something unlawful (say, firearm possession by an unvetted person) unlawful will magically make it vanish. That’s obviously not true. |
Anonymous
Nobody with a brain believes anything gun crime would vanish whatsoever. Ugh, those points of "it won't go away" are ridiculous. Nobody is saying there would be an end to gun violence, but less of it, yes. Might knifings go up? Sure but my kid is less likely to get caught in the crossfire. A carjacking isn't as easy with a knife. Statistical and meaningful reduction in homicides? Absolutely. Switzerland does make this point because EVERYONE is subject to mental health screening whether that's because they are conscripted and undergo mental health screening or because the gun dealer can literally not sell to them because of their suspicion of possible mental issues. The gun dealer can literally consult a national database to check whether this person has been denied gun ownership in the past and for what reason. You literally overlook existing data that sensible gun laws actually have made a difference. The entire swiss system is set up to vet who gets guns. The US is a free for all in some states. |
Anonymous
I would like people to be screened better for ownership and if someone passes that screening and is going to own a gun, I want them trained how to use it, store it, etc. Always. |
Anonymous
Yes. And the long-suffering decent people will submit to the screening and sit through training (which for many of them will be inconceivably elementary), because they obey the rules. And the criminal psychopaths who misuse firearms will ignore those requirements (which already exist in Maryland and DC and a host of other places), obtain, possess, conceal, carry and misuse their firearms just as they do now, all in violation of the existing laws that prohibit those behaviors. Laws aren’t magic. If they were nobody would be dying of fentanyl. |
Anonymous
First of all, have you ever seen a knife wound? Try looking up some pictures if you have a strong stomach. Carjacking happens at contact distance. A knife is as easy as a gun to use as a threat. “EVERYONE is subject to mental health screening.” No, EVERYONE is not. The people who choose to break the law obtain and misuse firearms. They’re criminals. That’s what criminals do. “Reduction” implies there was more of something and then less after some intervention. Switzerland has always been low crime. If anything, the overall level of criminal violence is higher now because of population changes that diluted the homogeneity of the population. |
Anonymous
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1. You keep ignoring the actual data and prefer just to rant that gun laws won't work because they won't work even though they already have been shown to work based ln research and data. I can't argue with someone who ignores actual research and data, so this is pointless at this point. Much like a conspiracy theorist, you can't argue with someone who ignores data.
2. I'm a nurse at a city trauma hospital. Knife wounds and gun wounds not the same. Rifle wound(s)? Good luck. Worst of all. Guns scarier than knifes, absolutely. |
Anonymous
Nope. Criminals' guns are continually being taken off the streets. But right now, they just get resupplied because there are far too many loopholes. It gets harder and harder for the criminals to get guns when the loopholes are closed. WHY are you so opposed to closing all of the loopholes? WHY are you so opposed to having better screening of who can get a gun, and keeping track of who has a gun, as they do in Switzerland? Again, the info the PP gave on the Swiss system is pretty compelling as they have one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world, even though a sizeable percentage of Swiss have guns. |
Anonymous
They literally disregard hard actual data. There was an actual study posted earlier from Baltimore police dept and other studies posted on impact of changes to gun laws in the US. Actual data. That's when I give up - it's useless to argue with someone who keeps just posting opinions but they literally do not address research. |
Anonymous
| ^ LOL at the multiple references to research and data. This isn't science, nor is it some kind of linear algebra equation. |