What about those who feel guns are, by design, very threatening offensive killing machines? Owning a nuclear bomb or a chemical weapon is threatening. On a much smaller scale, so is a gun. I'd argue tools designed for non-lethal self-defense are even less threatening. The type or property we own does say something about the intentions and mindset of the property owner.
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Except they're not threatening. People threaten others. Inanimate objects are incapable of doing so. Case in point, owning an M1A4 Abrams tank does not constitute a threat until I threaten someone with it. Until then, it's a conveyance with some weaponry on it.
Okay. So if everyone owned an M1A4 tank, do you think violence with them would increase? And if the answer is yes, should we then be okay with everyone owning an M1A4 tank or should we work to discourage mass ownership of such a powerfully destructive machine?
I'm talking at a statistical level here, not in terms of individuals.
Again, the particular implement used isn't the issue. If all handguns were magically destroyed overnight and the means for producing them were forever wiped from the memory of mankind, that wouldn't stop the mass violence problem. This is plainly demonstrated by acts of mass violence in recent years perpetrated in places where firearm ownership is extremely restricted.
If everyone had a baseball bat, would violence with baseball bats increase? Yeah. That's not a meaningful conclusion for addressing the problem.
But if it was a nuke, it clearly would be, right? The ease of access to the weapon and it's destructive power directly influence the well-being of everyone else. If the choice of a madman is a nuke, a gun, or a baseball bat, there's clearly going to be a massive difference in the well-being of everyone else.
I don't know that the mass violence problem can be "solved" but I do think we can make smarter, data-driven decisions on how availability of (and our social attitude towards) various tools useful for destruction impact the outcome of well-being of everyone else.
Violence happening in places where firearms are restricted (I assume you mean cities in the US) is an important data point, but we also don't have checkpoints between states or cities to car-search people, etc. If the US has tons of guns, it's pretty easy to go from one state to another with them. In other countries where within the entire country it's difficult to get guns, that's also an important datapoint.
No. It wouldn't be. Nukes don't do anything until they're used. Same with guns, knives, tanks, or anything else.
Again, the issue is the "madman," not the nuke, gun, or bat. While the particular implement will have an impact on how much damage is accomplished, ultimately these implements are inert and harmless until they're used.
I meant other countries, particularly Germany and France lately here. Your focused entirely to heavily on implementing controls on the weapons themselves, which should be a secondary concern.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. What's the goal you have in mind for addressing your concern about the availability of firearms? Put another way, if we're talking in hypotheticals, what would be a solution you'd be interested in seeing?
That's what I'm talking about. Well-being will be impacted dramatically different based on which tool is used. I'm surprised that's not obviously the point here. If guns were hard to get, yes, people might use cars or bats or knives or whatever. Just as if nukes or chemical weapons were easier to get, they might use those instead of guns. The point is, the tool definitely matters and matters a great deal. If we can compare and contrast how much violence happens using a specific tool and we have a way to lower that violence by changing the stigmas (or creating them) around that tool, then we can change the outcome in terms of well-being for everyone else.
Maybe focusing on individuals who want to harm others is a primary concern we should have. To me, I think that's a bit utopian as we will always have a percentage of the population which is crazy and will harm others. If we can limit the amount of harm they can do, then that's a good step in the right direction.
You and I haven't even gotten to the point of agreeing on the problem. If we can get there and we agree the data shows availability of guns increases the amount of gun-related violence in the world, then we can start thinking about appropriate approaches to solving that problem without making other things worse (such as systemic risk of totalitarian rule over an unarmed population).
For now, the best I can come up with is encouraging people to use defensive weapons for self-defense and stigmatizing weapons which are clearly designed and used for offense. Just as sane people don't go out trying to get their own nukes or chemical weapons, what if sane people also don't try to get deadly killing machines? That might be a start. Then, if we had that shared cultural perspective, those who are trying to obtain firearms would be seen as threats to everyone else who is only interested in purely defensive tools.
Alright, so I was misunderstanding the thrust of the conversation. When I read it the first time and started reading your replies, I found it out of character for someone who shares a similar ideology with me to be calling for sanctions against property. I apologize for the confusion.
So now that we're on the same page - addressing the availability of weapons - what makes a gun an offensive weapon and not a defensive one? For example, I've never used my pistol to kill anyone. Assuming this remains the case for as long as the weapon functions (or I die, whichever is first), how is that not a purely defensive tool?
You don't need a tank to murder a large number of people though. You just need fertilizer and some fuel oil. There's absolutely no way to stop people from making explosives. It is literally impossible.