You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: How to Debunk "Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People" [dTube]
I have not heard that one, but here is an argument I like to point out. As the number of guns owned by Americans has gone up and the number of places where they can legally carry them has increased from a handful of states to all 50, gun homicide rates have fallen to historical lows. So more guns and more people allowed to carry them has correlated with far fewer gun homicides. What do you think about that?
Corelation does not equate to causation, as I'm sure everybody knows by now, it's one of the most repeated phrases on the internet.
Same goes of course in the other direction, just because America has a problem with gun violence, doens't mean necessarily, that an over abundance of guns is the problem.
Just that having more guns around will make it more easier for people, who want to, to access guns, meaning a spike in gun violence would be expected. Whereas making it easier to attain a gun, when there is already an overabundance of guns around, isn't likely to change anything.
Also the guns in the USA aren't equally distributed. There are some gun collectors for instance. The number of guns gowing up, doesn't mean the number of gun owners does go up.
"Corelation does not equate to causation, as I'm sure everybody knows by now, it's one of the most repeated phrases on the internet."
Gosh, that's probably why I said "correlation" and not "cause" huh? We can't tell from that correlation if the loosening of gun laws caused the reduction in homicides that we see but we can conclude from the nature of the correlation that the reduction in gun laws did not cause gun homicides to increase as anti civil rights people claimed it would.
I don't know that America has a problem with gun violence. you have not demonstrated that.
Exactly, that is your theory, but we can see in real life that the opposite happened. That's why the correlation where as guns go up gun homicides go down is so important. We made it much easier for people to get and carry guns and instead of a spike, like your theory predicts, there was a crash. Therefor your theory is wrong.
Yeah, that's another popular theory of the anti gunners, that fewer and fewer people actually own guns, they just own a lot more each, that could be possible.
But would that explain all the entry level guns being bought and the record numbers of people taking beginner gun safety classes? Are they opening all these gun megastores to cater to a smaller and smaller number of gun buyers?
No, in reality the polls of how many people own guns do not measure how many people own guns, they track how many people ADMIT they own guns to researchers, something which fluctuates relative to the political climate.
25 years ago, when gun homicide rates were at their peak only a handful of states allowed concealed carry, now all 50 states do many without even requiring a permit, and gun homicides are at record lows.
"I don't know that America has a problem with gun violence. you have not demonstrated that."
Really. You didn't provide ANYTHING in terms of prove for all the claims you made. And you expect ME to prove something that is that well known? The charts on gun violence all accross the USA are through the roof compared to any other of the industrialized nations. The only two European nations with a higher homicide rate (homicide, I'm not even talking about gun violence alone) are Lithuana and Russia. The USA is by far the least safe of all the western nations and that's despite that your country is basically a giant no mans land compared to Europe, where the poplation density is a lot higher. 31% of all mass shoutings worldwide happen in the USA.
To debate, IF the USA has a gun violence problem is to put it generously: retarded.
We can debate WHY the USA has a gun violence problem, though.
And I'm not going to give you sources, just google it. It's such a well known thing that it is insulting of you to suggest, I'm in the burden of proof here.
"where as guns go up gun homicides go down is so important"
There. That's exactly what I meant. Where is your citation on that?!
"Yeah, that's another popular theory of the anti gunners, that fewer and fewer people actually own guns"
I never said that though. And can you explain to me what exactly an "anti gunner" is supposed to be in your world view?
"they track how many people ADMIT they own guns to researchers"
The polls are annonymous. They don't really have an incentive to lie. And even if you have a few liers in there, it'd be a stretch to claim, that it's common to lie in this instance.
"25 years ago, when gun homicide rates were at their peak only a handful of states allowed concealed carry, now all 50 states do many without even requiring a permit, and gun homicides are at record lows."
Even if that would be true, which you would have to demonstrate, as you suggested I do with the gun violence in the USA, how the fuck would you be able to derive anything from those numbers? If it's legal to buy a gun in any state, and you don't have any state-to-state borders, everyone can get a gun any time they want.