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Originally Posted by Anh_Minh
Yeah... If to you, "working" means zero crime, then never mind. Nothing works. Nothing short of extinction will ever work.
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Your straw maning is burning.
I've already illustrated in detail what I meant.
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"Worldwide" would mean that every country's got the same kind of gun problem as the US. Which just isn't true.
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Compared to what?
Europe has had its fair share of gun crime as reported by the NY Times back in 2002.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/11/in...pe/11SHOO.html
China has a gun problem:
http://shanghaiist.com/2010/06/25/gu...n_the_rise.php
Russia also has its fair share (this happened today, Jan 9th 2011):
http://www.rferl.org/content/Russia_...e/1950184.html
What about Mexico?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36485196...news-americas/
I'd say the US is pretty peaceful in comparison to many places in the world despite having an armed civilian population.
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But are mass shootings the only thing worth fighting? Yes, I know they grab the imagination and crystalise the gun control debate. But the real point of gun control laws is to have fewer gun-related fatalities. Whether it's because of lone crazies finally snapping, or other crimes. (Which brings up the question - yes, gun control doesn't stop them entirely. Does it make them less frequent? How could we tell?)
We regularly have riots. I don't dare imagine what they'd be like if everyone went there with firearms. Then again, maybe they wouldn't, even if guns were more accessible.
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Riots have nothing to do with the dynamics of gun-crime in the US.
That's a red herring so I won't address it.
The argument isn't how poorly gun-control effects crime, or it's ability to prevent fatalities.
The argument is that gun-control doesn't have any measurable effect at all except to deprive lawful individuals access to the tools that could save their lives in the event of an attack by a criminal.
If gun-control did in fact have a real effect on homicides then Washington DC would be the safest city in the world, and it's not.
Why?
It's because guns don't have anything to do with the motives behind the criminals actions.
I'm not saying that more guns equals less crime, what I'm saying is that guns don't factor into why crimes are committed.
Private ownership may play a role as a deterent in states where lawful owners can use deadly force for self-defense without fear of repercussions, but the exact effect of said ownership is the subject of much heated debate.
The trend has been that in states where gun ownership is widespread and castle doctrines exist, violent crime is down, but that isn't always the case and the statistics fluctuate over decades of time.