How can you say it and how can you prove it?
General demographics are tracked by some form of census in every developed country.
Ok but there's a thing called deterrent. Banned guns - less gun crime. It doesn't mean no gun crime ... It's not about them fearing to break the law. It is about them putting the extra effort to obtain the gun illegally.
Deterrent against what? Not mass shootings, which are (ostensibly) the topic. The overwhelming majority of these incidents involve weeks or months of planning, and a shooter (or shooters) who plan to die as a result. The "extra effort to obtain the gun illegally" is trivial in comparison.
You're basically saying '' there's no point to ban guns because it's very easy to obtain them anyway''. How does that make sense?
What part of it doesn't make sense? Laws are bad if they restrict people's freedoms without meaningfully preventing or reducing the thing they're trying to prevent.
This is just word play you're trying to use against me.
It's not wordplay, it's just logic. You say we should do something if it saves "even one person." Legal gun ownership has saved at least one person. You're free to make other arguments about gun control, but that particular argument (which is clearly employed because it's simple and morally dramatic, and not because it's intellectually defensible) doesn't make sense.
So how gun is an effective protection, I don't know.
What part of the idea is confusing? If you're attacked, and you have a weapon, that increases your chances of defending yourself.
There are related downsides (the possibility of accidents, as you mention later), but I'm not sure what part of "a gun can be effective protection" is hard to understand.
Saying one person is saved by defending themselves is actually saying the offender is killed. However you look at it, it results in someone losing a life.
Except in one instance the lost life is an innocent person and in the other it's a criminal who forced an innocent person to defend themselves. So unless you want to take the ridiculous position that all actions which result in a loss of life should be seen as morally and legally identical, it's not clear what point you're trying to make.
Of course, there may be cases where the offender only gets injured or disarmed but I would believe these are the rare cases.
This sounds like another argument based on a guess, but okay, let's say this is true: rare compared to what? And are you suggesting that if it were common enough, you'd find the argument persuasive?
Related question: why do you think banning guns will deter criminals (who by definition are already willing to break laws), but the increased likelihood of an armed victim won't? You're simultaneously arguing that criminals will find gun laws to be a deterrent, but won't be deterred by an increased chance of their victims being armed. How does that make sense?
It takes forever for certain laws to be enforced. Some of them can never be enforced (prohibition is a good example).
Out of curiosity: why do you think prohibition can't be enforced, but gun laws can? What would your response be if I started quoting alcohol-related death totals?
It's not like you ban cigarettes on Monday, and Tuesday no one is smoking in public places.
Same with guns. Obviously, innocent people would lose their guns quicker than potential criminals but with strict rules, the latter would have less guns or less opportunities to obtain one.
That might stop petty muggers, but it wouldn't stop mass shooters, terrorists, or anyone particularly determined. Which means the most high-profile attacks (again, the ones that almost invariably spark discussions like this) would continue.
Also, if you admit that innocent people would "lose their guns quicker," doesn't that mean there'll be a prolonged period of time where lots of criminals still have guns, and no law-abiding citizens do? During this time, won't things be even more dangerous for law-abiding citizens than they are now?
Haha, it's an expression, sorry.
It means that what is dangerous for one person, might not be dangerous for another. I may think having a glass of vodka is dangerous whereas someone doesn't see danger in robbing banks.
Thanks for the explanation, but what does that expression have to do with what we were talking about? You said you couldn't imagine why someone would need a gun, and I told you that some people live in dangerous places. IE: places where they feel they may be attacked or robbed. I'm pretty sure any reasonable definition of "dangerous" has to include violent attack.
Well, I lived in a neighborhood where someone was sliced with a machete literally 10 meters from my house. Shop assistant was shot there as well a couple of years ago. I was told by people that the area is dangerous and I did use to see some suspicious looking people around the area. Nothing ever happened to me. I wasn't safe but I was feeling safe.
I'm glad you felt safe (though one incident doesn't really tell us if you've lived in dangerous places or not), but why's that an argument for anything? You may or may not have been safe, however you felt, and even if you were, that has nothing to do with people in completely different places and situations.You live half a world away from the people you're talking about
: why would you feeling safe in a random neighborhood in Lithuania years ago be an argument that somebody in Detroit or Chicago should, too?
It's normally classes as manslaughter which would give you prison time.
This is simply incorrect; killing in self-defense is not inherently a crime, let alone one that results in prison time.
It's possible to engage in "voluntary manslaughter" with what's called "imperfect self-defense," where someone is recognized as having an unreasonable (but honestly held) belief that they had to kill to protect themselves, however. But even that is nowhere near "murder."
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