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Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

wsj.com

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Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#671

Post by beerandt »

ahtihn wrote: post #442
mmmpop wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were an officer of the law pressed to go door-to-door to say, purely hypothetically, take the oldest child by force to inscribe them in some dystopian military program, you'd probably be a lot more hesitant if you knew that there was a chance you'd get shot in the process right? I believe that's the security that us Americans (I imagine your sneer with that) feel by being armed. Isn't it that the Swiss are all…

Swiss gun culture has nothing to do with American gun culture. Guns are for hunting and sport that's it. Essentially no one even thinks of getting a gun for self defence. There also has never been an idea that guns are for defending yourself against your own government here.

Yet every swiss male citizen does military training and is issued a weapon to keep, to use in staying proficient.

There's no need for a military culture, when the government has already mandated it for you.

Not that it isn't popular:

>On September 22, 2013, a referendum that aimed to abolish conscription was held in Switzerland. However, the referendum failed with over 73% of the electorate voting against it, showing strong support for conscription of men in Switzerland.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#672

Post by dntrkv »

thordenmark wrote: post #586

Afghanistan showed that a people with the will and some handguns and rifles can face the greatest superpower the world has ever known, and win. The argument of private ownership of guns as protection from the government is a perfectly valid one.

I think the bigger issue with that argument is that there isn't any one moment where your rights are stripped away and the people rebel. It's a gradual process that most will not notice before it's too late. At least that's how I see it.

I'm very optimistic about the future, and even then, seeing the division in the US and how both sides give zero fucks about the rights of the other shows to me how it can happen even here.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#673

Post by betwixthewires »

panopticon wrote: post #659
Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, i find US fascination with their theoretical ability to fight their government with small arms adorable and misguided. So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight against the Taliban. Who immediately started seizing the people's guns upon capturing Kabul. not even counting accidents and suicides which are also made worse by the high availability of guns for everyone The suicide statistics from…

> So did our Deep State as they lost a twenty year fight against the Taliban. It takes a lot more than a Glock and a few boxes of ammunition from the sporting goods store to befuddle the US military. It takes fuel, food, medicine, training camps, and other infrastructure necessary to survive and fight back. You’re not going to get that in appreciable quantities in the middle of the US without Uncle Sam and several th…

> It takes a lot more than a Glock and a few boxes of ammunition from the sporting goods store to befuddle the US military

Which is exactly why we resist laws that ban rifles.

> You’re not going to get that in appreciable quantities in the middle of the US without Uncle Sam and several three letter agencies noticing.

I don't think you fully grasp the extent to which the US population is armed.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#674

Post by jollybean »

philwelch wrote: post #647
jollybean wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing the US to lawless, poor countries doesn't help make your claim. The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. "Does this mean that France should adopt some aspects of Japanese law, for instance, by readopting the death penalty? Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different countries?" Or mo…

> The more rational 'New World' comparisons would be Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and guess what: very low murder, very low rates of gun ownership. Who could have imagined that British colonies who didn’t violently overthrow the British colonial government would end up being less violent overall? Also, who would have guessed that former British colonies that didn’t have millions of African slaves shipped in for…

This speculative argument falls flat in the face of actual data.

More effective and regulated gun control and less access to guns is 100% consistent with less gun crime.

That there was a revolution in 1777 doesn't change the fact both the UK and US were fairly equally involved in other kinds of political violence, I mean, you do realize the UK have been at war with others and themselves since the dawn of time? That they had their own 'revolution' and a Republic 100 years before the US?

The Japanese have quite a violent history as well and yet have zero gun crime.

Most regions in the US don't directly have a relationship with slavery and even accommodating for elevated levels of crime among those communities - gun violence is still very high.

Guns are widespread and available to almost anyone in the US, and there's a huge amount of gun crime.

Canada/Australia - more restrictions, less gun crime.

Europe - quite heavily restricted, a small amount of gun crime.

Japan - effectively totally banned, and almost 0 gun crime.

Switzerland has militia training and ownership, but it's generally not pistols, and they definitely don't carry guns for personal defence. Their rifles are locked up in the basement.

Mexico has tight gun laws, but they're not enforced.

While there are concerns about freedoms, the formation of 'tyranny' etc. to contend with, there's no doubt that effective and highly restricted gun control has a significant impact.

To anyone who's lived in Europe, Can/Aus/NZ and the US, it's just blindingly obvious, it's not a rhetorical argument at all, it boils down to trying to understand the reasoning of people who have difficulty conceding the reality of how safe it really is when there aren't that many guns floating around.

Most police in the UK don't even carry guns, that's how real the implications are ... and it's not cause 'they didn't have a revolution'.

EDIT - FYI here are the data points:

USA: 4.5/100K gun homicides, 1.2 guns per/capita

Canada: 0.5/100K gun homicides and 0.4 guns per/capita

France: 0.1/100K gun homicides and 0.2 guns per/capita

Japan: 0.0/100K (!!!) gun homicides and 0.006 guns per/capita

It's crystal clear and unambiguous: for countries that have civil infrastructure, general lawfulness and the means to affect social policy etc. - fewer guns means fewer gun crimes. Obviously, there will be variations (i.e. Scotland has a crazy amount of stabbings) but prevalence of guns is a firs order issue.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#676

Post by betwixthewires »

sofixa wrote: post #133
clon wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, one of the first signs of a society approaching tyranny is the government cracking down on guns. So if nothing else, it serves as a great canary in the mine.

> Still, one of the first signs of a society approaching tyranny is the government cracking down on guns In a dictatorship, yes.

Exactly how do you think you wind up in a dictatorship?

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#677

Post by trompetenaccoun »

tshaddox wrote: post #503
philwelch wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. From your link we see Brazil at 27, Mexico at 29, Argentina at 5, Uruguay at 12, Greenland at 5, Panama at 9, and Costa Rica at 11. Canada is the biggest outlier, but the US still has less homicide than even relatively nice New World countries. If you’re going to tout France’s low homicide rate of 1.2, I’d invite you to observe that Japan’s homicide rate i…

> The US is not that bad compared to other New World countries. > Or does it simply mean that France and Japan are different countries? Huh? Are you implying that simply existing in the “New World” would cause the baseline expected murder rate to be higher for some reason?

Another way of looking at it is proximity to the United States, its massive supply of guns and "war on drugs", which somehow seems to be correlated to an increased homicide rate.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#678

Post by [deleted] »

tantalor wrote: post #137
seneca wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of your post. One small quibble though: > There's something admirable about the idea that a government would not take away all the guns. The whole point is that the government Can Not take away guns, not that they "would not". Inalienable rights preceed government, they are not granted by it. In fact, the government is supposed to exist to safe guard them. I think that's an important philosophical p…

Semantics

[deleted]

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#679

Post by amelius »

betwixthewires wrote: post #667
megablast wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a proud owner of a pair of pants, what are you so proud about?? You went and bought a gun??

As mentioned elsewhere, the pride usually stems from self reliance.

If you want self-reliance, then get a medical degree. This will bring you further than owning a gun, especially in the US.

Re: Women are nearly half of new gun buyers, study finds

#680

Post by jasonladuke0311 »

Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #386
chmod600 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rational person compares risks on an absolute scale first. Out of all the things that could happen on a given day, is getting murdered a real concern? For people in the U.S., it's not really worth worrying about unless you have some other risk factors for murder, like criminal activity. If you are selling lion repellant that makes a lion attack 80% less likely, that's not something I'd be interested in. That being…

Another person who doesn't have fire extinguishers in his home, car or place of work, doesn't buy any insurance unless it's mandated, etc.

No seat belts, either. They drive safely, therefore they won't get in a car accident.
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