How are the statistics meaningless?
You don't get a zillion deaths from knife accidents, you do with guns. The scale of difference is important. It doesn't matter I *could* kill you with a pencil, the fact of the matter is that it is so rare, you'll hardly ever see it happen and thus a ban on pencils is not likely to reduce the death rate much.
On the other hand, if the rate of gun accidents is so high as to offset any potential benefits of gun ownership, then it defeats the point of them. You could try to make a fallacious argument about "why don't we ban knives" except knives don't cause a rate of accidental deaths as high as guns, thus the benefits of legal and mostly unrestricted knife ownership outweighs the consequences.
That argument never works because a car has a thousand more non violent uses essential to our culture than a gun does.
Can you transport goods with a gun? Can you drop off your child to school with a gun? Can you visit your grandparents in another city with a gun?
A gun has ONE use and only one. To kill something.
Even a knife has non violent uses like cooking.
edited 9th Apr '12 9:06:12 PM by Thorn14
Okay, so now it's not a numbers game but about intended use instead.
Guns can also be used for enjoyment; no one complains about the cans/paper that thousands of people shoot at on a daily basis for perfectly legitimate pleasure or to hone a skill. Want to ban knives, axes, bows, baseball bats etc. just because they can be used to kill?
So? Use of a car is selfish. It harms the environment, it's obviously dangerous, it contributes to half a hundred societal problems...yet we all hop behind the wheel without giving the matter much thought. But guns? Now, that's a problem.
edited 9th Apr '12 9:09:39 PM by drunkscriblerian
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~Yeah, and despite all that negativity, it's still superior to have the car than not.
All the countries with massive and highly restrictive bans on guns... are generally better places to live in USA. That may have nothing to do with gun control, it might have a little to do with it, the statistics can't show that, but I can show there to be a lot more death in USA due to guns (just purely from gun accidents) yet I can show absolutely nothing for positive improvement.
I dislike the "Cars kill more people than guns" argument.
Yes, more people die in car accidents than gun accidents, but more people use cars on a daily basis than guns. It's not comparable. Of the... what, 68 million gun owners in the US, most of them didn't shoot theirs at all yesterday.
edited 9th Apr '12 9:17:52 PM by Wulf
They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?I think we're getting away from the topic a bit here; I'm partially to blame, but I think we should wander back to it before the mods make us.
Anyhow...there are thousands of potentially lethal implements in the home already, without adding a firearm. I don't think that owning any sort of purpose-built "weapon" makes one any more or less likely to be a murderer. It might, might, make someone more likely to be successful at murder, but plenty of people die every day from kitchen knives, axes, toxins and bad encounters with a chainsaw.
Death happens. Malice and weaponry need not be present.
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~Well, let me take this to an unreasonable extreme. If everybody had a Level 5 weaponised virus vial in their home, that doesn't necessarily mean they go all terrorist on us and kill half the planet. But it could mean they walk home, trip over the vial stupidly and then kill half the world by accident.
edited 9th Apr '12 9:25:20 PM by breadloaf
I'd take the mights off that second part. Yes, if you really want to kill someone, you'll find a way to do it with a kitchen knife, but if you want to kill people quickly and effectively, you'll do it with something made to do it with.
Then again, I could certainly be wrong. What's the murder rate in Britain compared to that of the US?
They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?Thorn: Any weapon can give someone that feeling. It is not limited to guns. A knife makes it easier to kill someone to any object used as a weapon makes it easier to kill someone. Guns also are used for hobbies and competitions as well gaining people food. It has more uses then killing people.
The only thing that separates a killer from a non-killer is the intent to do harm and them acting on it. Scale and tools used is ultimately irrelevant.
edited 9th Apr '12 10:08:06 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?And a gun makes it easier to kill people than with a knife. Its an evolution of uh...killability.
And using it as a hobby is the only non violent thing you can do with a gun is my point. Even hunting is using violence. A car can have many many non violent uses.
I understand people in this country adore guns, and I know they wont ever be taken away but I really dislike guns because of how easily they can snuff out a life. I once held one and it just felt wrong.
@Drunk- Culture certainly enters into it, sure, but it'd be interesting to look at.
@Tuefel- I have to disagree. Yes, you can kill someone with a pipe, or a pen, or your bare hands or hell, stuffed bear hands. And yes, people who want to kill people will kill people, but it is far easier to do so with something specifically designed to kill things.
Actually... what's the most common murder weapon? Just realized I'm basing this on gut feeling.
They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?I've been silent for a while, but I have a question. I am a black belt three times over, including on in swordsmanship. Does anyone object to my having this training? Should I have to have a license because I could kill someone?
And, in response to the OP, the only way to kill a person is with a weapon or one's own hands. Yes, having a weapon makes you more likely to kill a person. But legally owning one doesn't considerably increase the chance. Most people who kill other people are criminals, I think we can all agree on that.
Not sure about this. somebody mention before that gun is often used in crime of passion. a lot of people who are not criminal before, kill other people with gun, if they did not have access to gun, it might ended up with just assault&battery.
Guns used for competition and gaining food is very specific type of gun. It is possible to ban a lot gun without affecting gun competition and hunting uses.
Scale is relevant. like Thorn says, guns can kill more people and succeed in kill much more than using fist.
There a lot of activism, article and political petition on mass transit, high-speed rail, busing and biking every year. Many people give thought on this.
Small dip on casualties is enough to make helmet and seatbelt mandatory. And its not that small = gun accident + gun use in crime of passion + use of gun in crime + innocent shot because opponent/police thought they have gun + casualty in raid because police tactic to counter possible use of gun ;its a lot unnecessary death in America.
If you are twenty feet away and using a hand-gun on someone, your first name better be Annie and your second name better be Oakley. Seriously. Unless you are a really good shot, you are going to miss with your first shot at the very least. The best way to kill someone with a hand-gun is to put the muzzle on the skull of your target and empty the magazine. And that is assuming that you have actually remembered to load the magazine, that the firearm is in working condition, that the bullets are ready to use in the first place and that you have disengaged any manual safeties.
And again, unless you have been around firearms a lot, you may screw up any and all of those steps.
Whereas if you want to kill someone with a knife and they are twenty feet away, you have the psychological advantage of having one of the primal weapons we are genetically encoded to fear as humans, which most people on seeing brandished at them freeze in place like rabbits as you rush towards them, and even a blunt knife is quite capable of killing, straight out of whatever cutlery drawer you may have. All you need is luck in wherever you end up stabbing the person.

The potential wide spread damage arguement for guns is a fallacy. There are any number of objects anyone can use to cause widespread harm and damage. Also statistics don't really mean anything. There any number of events that show any one determined individual does not need to use a gun to cause widepread death and damage.
Anyone with the will and the means to do harm will do so regardless of any limits on the items available to them.
Who watches the watchmen?