@Jerykk

i am trying to understand your position.
you state you cant regulate addictive substances.
yet we regulate:cigarettes,alcohol.both of these are addictive and both are regulated.

you also infer that if illegal drugs were decriminalized the situation would become far worse.

in relation to what,exactly?
are you positing that if illegal drugs were made legal,illicit drug use would rise? can you provide some evidence to back that up? because i cannot find any...at all.

you appear to actually agree with @SquidCap in regards to the fact that people are going to do what they are going to do but disagree with the idea of regulating the illicit drug trade.

non-regulation=black market=criminality=violence=waste of resources directed towards non-violent citizens doing something they enjoy in the privacy of their own home,with their own body.

so i agree with @SquidCap,i am just unclear where your disagreement lies.
please clarify.

" At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes."

Per year. You don't cite your source, but this is looks to me to be an underestimate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey there are half about half a million people claiming to be victim of a gun related crime over the course of a year. I remember being a victim of a gun crime in America (the perp was an British-born and educated woman) where the police said that they weren't going to follow things up because they were too busy with more serious crimes and they weren't confident of successful prosecution, they didn't even bother to look at the bullets or interview the perpetrator. I'd be surprised if it was even officially reported for crime statistic purposes.

"So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least."

You didn't discuss the confounding variables.

But nevertheless, nobody is saying that owning guns makes you intrinsically more criminal. The argument here seems to be that criminals or those with criminal intent will find it much easier to acquire firearms when there are hundreds of millions of them distributed in various degrees of security across the US.

And those that have firearms, who are basically normal and moral people, may find themselves in a situation where their firearm is used, even in error, and causes harm - a situation obviously avoided in the absence of firearms and something that isn't necessarily included in crime statistics.

"In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home"

Yes, but here's a fun fact. I've been burgled a few times, all but one of those times I was at home when it happened. You know what the burglar was armed with? Nothing. Do you know what happened when I confronted him with a wooden weapon? He pretended he knew someone that lived there and when that fell through he ran away. When the police apprehended him, there wasn't any consideration that he might be armed with a gun and the police merely put handcuffs on him and he walked to the police car. He swore and made some idle and non-specific threats, according to the police, but that's it. In any event, this isn't extraordinary. There are still too many burglaries that do involve violence, of course.
Many burglaries in Britain are actually vehicle crimes, with opportunity thrown in. That is: The primary purpose of the burglary is to acquire car keys (this is often the easiest way to steal modern vehicles), but they may grab whatever else is valuable and easy too.

"The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings."

What impact did it have on gun prevalence? Not really enough to stop the sentence 'guns are prevalent in the US' from being true....

" So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed."

I missed the part where you provided the reasoning that connects your evidence to this conclusion.

"Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. "

This is silly. Guns don't get manufactured and then 32% of them get stolen from the manufacturers warehouse. They get bought and some get subsequently stolen. If there were less guns made and sold there would be less guns available for felons to acquire them privately, less places to steal them or buy stolen ones on the black market, less opportunity for renting or purchasing from a retailer. Thus - less felons with guns.

If times got tough, and I thought robbing a convenience store was a way out of a situation I was in - I would not be able to acquire a firearm without putting myself in considerable danger that outweighs the benefits to the degree that pretending to have a gun is a better strategy. I have 'black market contacts' so I might be able to work my way to someone with a gun, but I really don't want to get into business with someone that deals guns because they are near universally bad news.

" states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate."

Almost all States have such laws, making the comparison pretty meaningless.

"In fact, it's {number of mass shootings} declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. "

I think 'most dead in one incident' is a poor measure. I think total dead over a reasonable time period is probably better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
The UK appears once. It is approx. 1/5 the population of the US. The US manages to have five incidents in the top 10.

Statistics can be fun, though, huh?

" In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens"

You've done a lot of hard work to show that most gun owners are law-abiding and non-violent. As such, the police won't go door to door, citizens will go to the police.

"How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns?"

The same way they remove contraband from other recalcitrants. I expect most of them will ask, demand, threaten and then use force - but as usual there will be examples where it won't be pretty.

"Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns?"

That's how it typically goes down here in the UK, yes.

"Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else?"

The military has had access to weapons the citizenry is not permitted to for some considerable time. Banning most handguns etc., would just be adding to the list.

"Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?"

No, but on the other hand, can the same unreliable, dishonest, immoral and unvirtuous government ensure that allowing general access to firearms will go exactly as planned?

You see, you talk the talk of sociological examination, but you seem to have neglected any form of critical reflection.

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary"

On the other hand, I've been mugged erm, 6 times? I've been violently assaulted without attempts to rob another half dozen or so. I don't tend to hang around in the sorts of places middle class WASPs would loiter, shall we say. I'm glad most of the people that cross my path are not armed, and have little to no idea how to get a gun.

You don't source this assertion as far as I saw - but you'll have to do better than 'it's interesting' in your analysis, I'm afraid.

No formatting, because too much typing already.

You seem to think that eliminating guns will somehow eliminate mass shootings. However, there is zero correlation to the number of legal gun ownerships with the number of homicides. In fact, here are some statistics for you:

At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes. And, as it happens, where gun ownership per capita increases, violent crime is known to decrease. In other words, Caucasians tend to own more guns than African Americans, middle aged folks own more guns than young people, wealthy people own more guns than poor people, rural families own more guns than urbanites --> But the exact opposite is true for violent behavior (i.e., African Americans tend to be more violent than Caucasians, young people more violent than middle aged people, poor people more violent than wealthy people, and urbanites more violent than rural people). So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least. This is, in large part, due to the cultural divide in the U.S. around gun ownership whereby most gun owners own guns for recreational sports (including the Southern Caucasian rural hunting culture, the likes of which aren't found in Australia or the UK or Europe, etc.); and about half of gun owners own guns for self-defense (usually as the result of living in a dangerous environment). Most of the widespread gun ownership in the U.S. predates any gun control legislation and gun ownership tends to generally rise as a response to an increase in violent crime (not the other way around).

There were about 350,000 crimes in 2009 in which a gun was present (but may not have been used), 24% of robberies, 5% of assaults, and about 66% of homicides. By contrast, guns are used as self-defense as many as 2 and a half million times every year (according to criminologist Gary Kleck at Florida State University), thereby decreasing the potential loss of life or property (i.e., those with guns are less likely to be injured in a violent crime than those who use another defensive strategy or simply comply).

Interestingly, violent crimes tend to decrease in those areas where there have been highly publicized instances of victims arming themselves or defending themselves against violent criminals. (In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home, whereas only 9% of home burglaries in the U.S. occur when people are in the home, presumably as a result of criminals' fear of being shot by the homeowner.) In short, gun ownership reduces the likelihood of harm.

So, for example, Boston has the strictest gun control and the most school shootings. The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings. The worst mass homicide in a school in the U.S. took place in Michigan in 1927, killing 38 children. The perpetrator used (illegal) bombs, not guns in this case.

1/3 of legal gun owners obtain their guns (a total of about 200,000 guns) privately, outside the reach of government regulation. So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed.

Out of a sample of 943 felon handgun owners, 44% had obtained the gun privately, 32% stole it, 9% rented/borrowed it, and 16% bought it from a retailer. (Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. Stricter legislation would likely therefore change the statistics of how felon handgun owners obtain the gun towards less legal, more violent ways.) Less than 3% obtain guns on the 'black market' (probably due, in part, to how many legal guns are already easily obtained).

600,000 guns are stolen every year and millions of guns circulate among criminals (outside the reach of the regulators), so the elimination of all new handgun purchases/sales, the guns would still be in the hands of the criminals (and few others).

The common gun controls have been shown to have no effect on the reduction of violent crime, however, according to the Dept. of Justice, states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate. A 2003 CDC report found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws reduced gun violence. This conclusion was echoed in an exhaustive National Academy of Sciences study a year later.

General gun ownership has no net positive effect on total violence rates.

Of almost 200,000 CCP holders in Florida, only 8 were revoked as a result of a crime.

The high-water mark of mass killings in the U.S. was back in 1929, and has not increased since then. In fact, it's declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. The murder rate and violent crime in the U.S. is less than half of what it was in the late 1980s (the reason for which is most certainly multimodal and multifaceted).

Regarding Gun-Free Zones, many mass shooters select their venues because there are signs there explicitly banning concealed handguns (i.e., where the likelihood is higher that interference will be minimal). "With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns," says John Lott.

In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens, when a study has shown that private owners are convicted of firearms violations at the same rate as police officers? How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns? Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns? Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else? Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?

From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary. Do they really want to deprive those who are culturally acclimatized to gun-ownership, who may be less fortunate than they are, to have the means to protect themselves (e.g., women who carry guns to protect themselves from assault or rape)? Sounds more like a lack of empathy and understanding of those realities to me.

There are many generational issues worth mentioning here. For example, the rise in gun ownership coincided with the war on drugs and the war on poverty. There are also nearly 24 million combat veterans living in the U.S. and they constitute a significant proportion of the U.S.' prison population as a result of sex offenses or violent crime. Male combat veterans are four times as likely to engage violent crime as non-veteran men; and are 4.4 times more likely to have abused a spouse/partner, and 6.4 times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and 2-3 times more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, unemployment, divorce/separation. Vietnam veterans with PTSD tend to have higher rates of childhood abuse (26%) than Vietnam veterans without PTSD (7%). Iraq/Afghanistan vets are 75% more likely to die in car crashes. Sex crimes by active duty soldiers have tripled since 2003. In 2007, 700,000 U.S. children had at least one parent in a warzone. In a July 2010 report, child abuse in Army families was 3 times higher if a parent was deployed in combat. From 2001 - 2011, alcohol use associated with domestic violence in Army families increased by 54%, and child abuse increased by 40%. What effect do you think that's going to have, regardless of "gun controls?"
("The War Comes Home" or as William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies said, "A spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.")

In addition, families in the U.S. continue to break down. Single parent households have a high correlation to violence among children. In 1965, 93% of all American births were to married women. Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women (a rate that rises to 53% for women under the age of 30). By age 30, 1/3 of American women have spent time as a single mother (a rate that is halved in European countries like France, Sweden, & Germany). Less than 9% of married couples are in poverty, but more than 40% of single-parent families are in poverty. Much of child poverty would be ameliorated if parents were marrying at 1970s rates. 85% of incarcerated youth grew up without fathers.

Since the implementation of the war on drugs, there's a drug arrest in the U.S. every 19 seconds, 82% of which were for possession alone (destroying homes and families in the process). The Dept. of Justice says that illegal drug market in the U.S. is dominated by 900,000 criminally active gang members affiliated with 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities, many of which have direct ties to Mexican drug cartels in at least 230 American cities. The drug control spending, however, has grown by 69.7% over the past 9 years. The criminal justice system is so overburdened as a result that nearly four out of every ten murders, and six out of every ten rapes, and nine out of ten burglaries go unsolved (and 90% of the "solved" cases are the result of plea-bargains, resulting in non-definitive guilt). Only 8.5% of federal prisoners have committed violent offenses. 75% of Detroit's state budget can be traced back to the war on drugs.

Point being, a government program is unlikely to solve any issues with regards to guns and the whole notion of gun control legislation is severely misguided in light of all that I've pointed out above. In fact, a lot of the violence is the direct or indirect result of government programs (war on drugs and the war on poverty).

(And, you'll note, I made no mention of the recent spike in the polypharmacy medicating of a significant proportion of American children -- including most of the "school shooters" -- the combinations of which have not been studied, but have -- at least in part -- been correlated to homicidal and/or suicidal behaviors.)

Further data points: Anders Breivik was unable to purchase weapons on the black market, and utilised legally obtainable weapons instead. If he was unable to obtain them legally, he might not have been able to obtain them at all.

Hungerford, 1987 (legally owned weapons)
Monkseaton, 1989 (legally owned gun stolen by family member)
Dunblane, 96 (legally owned)
Further tightening of gun control esp of handguns
Cumbria, 2010 (legally owned weapons)

While it's super cynical, there is truth in this. Human trafficking will never entirely disappear, even when you look at countries with legalised prostitution. Some men like children, some like the thrill of genuine rape, some people are just monsters. It will never completely go away.
However, legalised and monitored prostitution can and will lower the likelyhood that the prostitute going down on that high profile politician we care so much about is actually a sex slave. Unless he's one of the aforementioned monsters, of course.
It certainly won't help to keep it a black market.

Yes, you seem to finally get it. As I wrote but you misunderstood or intentionally ignored, legalization without regulation simply encourages the black market.
The point of legalization is that it fosters regulation. If there is no enforcement, that's the government's failing. Here in the USA, we have some legal brothels that are regulated fairly tightly, and as far as I can tell there's never once been a claim that they used slaves in either one. They would not do so because they would likely be caught and lose their money factory.
And I think you are completely wrong, this video directly accuses legal brothels of being the culprit. It starts off pretending to be a legal brothel, then has a sign that slaves end up "here" (in a legal brothel).
I think they missed the point by using legal brothels in Amsterdam as the setting for the video, they should have pretended to be a black market brothel elsewhere.

Thanks, Procrastination, for the backup. It is a normal problem here that people read or cherry pick one sentence out of context then rant against what they wish it said. Also a problem that people give links to "evidence" and jump to conclusions about it rather than stick to what it actually says. Because a story makes you feel a certain way about an issue, one should read carefully to be sure the facts actually support that feeling, as many writers are willing to obfuscate, fabricate, or outright lie to prove their point.

Dude.

READ.

"What it boils down to is this; the chief benefit of legalizing prostitution is that it gives us a chance to protect the workers and possibly take a bite out of crime in the process. However, legalization is not the end, as criminal abuse of the workers can and will happen if the law isn't properly enforced.

It is perfectly possible, and perhaps even plausible, that trafficking continues to flourish even in countries where prostitution has been legalized, but is that an issue of weak legislation and enforcement, or is it simply an issue that is inherent to prostitution?"

But I guess it's easier to claim that I said the OPPOSITE of what I actually said when you just cut out everything but a single sentence from my original comment.

And when I said that newtboy made good points, I was talking about stuff like;

"Ending a prohibition does not eradicate the huge black market that prohibition created, but it can shrink it to a manageable size. If they legalized brothels in the Netherlands but don't do any regulation, they'll never remove the black market/sex slave trade."

Or...

"My question would be, do the prosecutors believe legalization contributed to their ability to prosecute this case, or is it the consensus that legalization has made it easier for the criminals to make slaves of women? Either could be the case based on this article."

If you cherry-pick specific sentences or cut out most of the text in our messages and then substitute our arguments with your own interpretations of our positions, you are going to make it impossible for us to communicate.

Yes, that is my position.
You are correct, there is way more illegal prostitution in Nevada than legal prostitution, there are only 2 legal brothels that I know of. That leaves a huge black market which fosters crime and abuse. There is 0% slavery in the legal brothels, they make plenty of money without slaves and they don't want to lose their license to print money. If there were enough legal brothels, there would be far less illegal prostitution, an far fewer prostitutes being taken advantage of. It will likely never reach 0%.
I can't speak to the article you quoted/link, I don't have a WSJ account and so can't read the article. I would bet that the truth is that it has curbed (but not completely ended) human trafficking by brothels. (there are many kinds of trafficking, and legal brothels would only serve to make one of them less profitable and/or too dangerous, so the fact that it "failed to stem human trafficking" is meaningless and fallacious.)
Ending a prohibition does not eradicate the huge black market that prohibition created, but it can shrink it to a manageable size. If they legalized brothels in the Netherlands but don't do any regulation, they'll never remove the black market/sex slave trade. If that's what they've done (and I don't know) they may as well have just stopped prosecuting any prostitution. The end game is the same, and simple 'no prosecution' is way cheaper than changing laws.

It seems to me that that's how it works in countries where prostitution is illegal. In countries where the brothels are legal and regulated it's nearly impossible to force sex slavery, at least in a legal brothel like this one. The customers are not criminal, and most would not stand idly by and watch slavery occur in their country, and would likely report it if it seemed their prostitute was being forced. They are also inspected. In countries where it's illegal and immoral, far fewer are willing to admit to using the services in the first place, and so won't ever report the other crimes they see.
You might note that there are certainly not any sex slaves at the bunny ranch, they seem to have a waiting list of prostitutes waiting for the chance to work there.
That is not meant to indicate it can't and doesn't happen at all, just that in this kind of country it should not be the same issue as in countries that make sex a black market, and that fact is diametrically opposed to the message they are sending.

It's sadder to me that they apparently don't understand (or worse, intentionally obfuscate the fact) that the outlawing of a substance makes it MORE available to children, always. Black markets have no scruples and sell to anyone. If you people want to limit the availability to your children and are really worried about it being a gateway drug, it needs to be REGULATED, not outlawed. (I have no children, so I'm not one of you).

When I said "just about any" kind of firearm should be legally obtainable, I should clarify that I mean guns. Explosive ordinance, anti-vehicle weapons, fully-auto vehicle mounted machine guns, etc. is where I see the line between reasonable and unreasonable.

My problem with getting into regulating "assault weapons" is that I see it as a very real slippery-slope hazard -- unlike restrictions like waiting periods, registration, legal obligations to keep guns locked in cabinets when not in use, etc. etc.

Here's an example: my gun-nut friends had in their extensive arsenal 2 rifles, an AR-15 and a Ruger Mini-14. The AR-15 is basically equivalent to a military M-16, except the one they had didn't have selectors for 3-shot burst or full-auto (semi-auto only). The Mini-14 was designed around the M-14, which was the military standard-issue rifle until being replaced by the M-16.

Trying to get the government to regulate those firearms seems like a nightmare to me. Is just the AR-15 (M-16) an "assault weapon"? Are they both? I've fired both and I don't think that there is any reasonable way to say that the AR-15 is "over the line" of what a civilian owner should have with the Mini-14 being "ok". The Mini-14 is a fantastic farm/hunter rifle; safe, reliable, and easy to handle -- but in the event of somebody going off the deep end and shooting people up, it is going to be just as deadly/tragic as if they had an M-16.

Basically I think that the right-wing types have a pretty legitimate beef when they say that gun crimes are committed with illegally obtained weapons, and that therefore most heavy restrictions just affect legitimate, responsible gun owners while doing very little to keep guns out of the hands that you really want them out of. I should look for data about gun crime rates comparing legally purchased guns versus black market sources, and gun-related injury and death rates between gun-nut havens like Texas and my neck of the woods in Kansas compared to more liberal urban areas.

Finally, I guess that I should make it clear that I'm OK with restrictions that require you to prove that you are a responsible owner to have any firearm. Waiting periods, background checks, loss of privileges to anyone with a criminal record, having to register and periodically present your firearms to prove that you aren't re-selling them, etc. I consider all that kind of stuff reasonable limitations on our right/privilege to own firearms. But getting into trying to figure out what does or does not classify as an "assault weapon" goes the wrong direction in my opinion.

Sensationalised BS here. The news about making guns is overly exaggerated right now, but won't be if the vision comes true that working, effective 3D printers are in every household with designs as easy to download as Napster did to fill mp3 players.

You can either print a non-working gun for a few hundred dollars, or laser-sculpt a working inferior gun for a few thousand dollars, or still buy a black market industry-standard gun for an amount in between.

American politics is pigeonholed into a linear spectrum, with points extending to the left and right of the Democrat and Republican goalposts. But it's really a wheel, and Cody & Glenn here don't overlap in between those, but at the other side with their Libertarianism.

So you're saying that banning all firearms in the USA will decrease the murder rate?
You'll still have a huge black market firearms (which are easy to make from tools from Harbor Freight in your Garage), see Assault Shovel:
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY-Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning

Also 2 of the biggest homicides in the USA were done with no guns at all, see Timothy McVay and Andrew Kehoe.

I'm not a gun advocate at all, but just banning firearms won't "fix" the problem of rampage killers or lower the homicide rate.

I'm somewhat disheartened by how little coverage this is getting. It really is big news.

One problem I foresee is that, afaik, there is nothing legal about distributing marijuana in either state. So, you're still dealing with a black market and all the ugliness that entails. The consequences of that could create an unfortunate backlash against the legalization movement.

>> ^deedub81:

They showed where he works, what town he lives in, where his relatives live, what kind of car he drives, his skin color and his build.
Seriously? Why even blur his face at that point?


I think that may have been the point. This was a freaking waypoint for the special forces.