Well no, but actually yes.
People should be able to own guns, but shit needs to be regulated hard.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Unpopular Opinion
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Fucking this. It is shocking to me that in places in the U.S., you just need some kind of ID and address and you can buy a gun. How the hell is there no training or licences for guns?
Dude. We have 120 guns per 100 people, the next highest is fucking 62. Nobody else has these problems, fucking nobody.
Like I said, after World War One, a lot of people had guns and incidents of people being killed without any reason did not occur back then. Therefore, it's not a problem with guns. You can never blame guns for something since they are just physical objects.
You dont know jack shit about guns in Europe during the interwar period, almost the entirety of Europe had stronger gun control laws at the time than the United States has ever had.
What I do know is that a lot of people had guns, and the senseless killing of people for no reason was not common back then.
Actually I'm a lot of places it was. If you look at what happened in Germany in the early 20s with the rise of Freikorps and other ex soldiers roaming the streets and looking for trouble that is exactly what ex soldiers were doing at that time.
Assuming an unfiltered view 100 years into the past is a poor foundation for an argument.
It is a gun problem.
How? It is a mental health problem
If it's a mental health problem surely you support making sure those people can't access guns right? Or is it the same stupid disingenuois argument you people have been regurgitating for decades without thought at this point?
Like I said, after World War One, a lot of people had guns. However, random acts of violence resulting in deaths didn't occur back then. While restricting access to firearms might prevent such incidents, it is not solely a gun issue. Instead, focusing on improving individuals' mental health can be a more effective solution. You can't solely blame guns for something like this since they are merely physical objects.
So it's the same bullshit disingenuous argument you people have made for decades without thought.
Okay, instead of labeling me as an idiot, please present a reasonable argument first.
My argument is crazy unstable people are crazy and unstable and shouldn't have access to firearms, yours is a lie about guns in interwar Europe. Don't bother, you aren't worth orguong with anymore.
East asian countries have really high suicide rates, but no mass shooting problems. Their suicide rates show that they have mental health problems, but since it is hard to get a gun, they don't do mass shootings in their suicide attempts.
A lot of them likely experience a different type of anxiety compared to us, and you can't really put the blame on guns since they're just physical objects.
you can’t really put the blame on guns since they’re just physical objects.
Thats a language issue. Words can mean two similar things. Nobody is putting the blame on the guns as if they could put them on a trial.
Let's imagine you're a suicidal person.
Option A: you live in the US
You try to purchase a gun. You google gun show, here's the first result. You can go through it yourself to see how many gun shows there are near you. You go to one, find a private dealer, and now you can purchase a gun without any background checks.
You can now kill yourself using the gun. If you resent the world in general or hate a religion/race/ethnicity/etc in particular, you can kill a bunch of them in a public area before you suicide.
Option B: you live in any other developed country
You try to purchase a gun. The only way is to go through background checks or do it illegally.
You google how to do it illegally. No criminal ever publishes this because the cops would find them if they did. Do you know any criminals who have guns? Probably not. On the off chance that you do, they would sell it for a really high price since it's illegal and thus harder to obtain. Most suicidal people would find this method to be too much effort and choose a different suicide method.
You try to steal a gun from a licensed gun owner. If there are very few licensed gun holders, this is hard to do. If there are a lot, you might be able to get a small hand gun, but you will still have difficulties getting semi automatic or automatic rifles which could result in larger mass shootings. Also you could get caught while stealing, or if the owner notices their gun is missing, they can report it to the police. Security cameras might catch you stealing it. All these are ways law enforcement can catch you before you actually do the shooting.
In order for that to be true, America must be the only country in the world with a mental health problem. Do you think that's true?
As I mentioned, after World War One, many people owned guns, but random acts of violence, without any apparent reason, were not common during that time. So it is not a gun problem
Wow hard to imagine that after the deadliest war in human history at the time that people would be hesitant to kill others in peacetime.
Also in countries without easy access to guns but with high levels of gun control and thriving black markets (like Mexico) they experience a fraction of school shootings compared to the us. That’s without even taking into account the sheer material differences between the two countries, with Mexico having a significantly higher poverty rate compared to the us.
Not only is this a unpopular opinion, it’s also a fucking stupid one too.
19 Countries with the Most School Shootings (total incidents Jan 2009-May 2018 - CNN):
United States — 288 Mexico — 8
Gun control in Mexico:
Mexico has extremely restrictive laws regarding gun possession. There are only two stores in the entire country, DCAM near the capital, and OTCA, in Apodaca, Nuevo León. It also takes months of paperwork to have a chance at purchasing one legally.
That might be true. Counterpoint, if you take away the guns, no more school shootings.
Do people really need guns all that much?
Won't be long before Americans propose removing the schools to prevent school shootings...
Hhaha. Hey, it does solve the problem!
Sounds like a joke, but that sounds like a more likely scenario than the American government mandating the removal guns
If you take away the guns and do not solve the underlying issue of why people are killing each other, they will switch to other means to kill each other. IEDs work very well.
This is not to say we don’t need to limit access to guns, or that we should make getting guns easier. It is meant to show that the argument of “take away the guns” is a flawed argument in either direction.
We need to figure out WHY people are killing each other. What changed between ww1 and now?
That's absolutely true. Someone else pointed out removing schools also solves the problem of school shootings. However, I knew when saying that that's not solving the underlying problem. It's just that it is very difficult to solve a problem as widespread and vague as "mental health". However, the thing is, while trying to fix that, we may as well save a few people's lives and get a quick fix that'll make it easier to deal with.
Because that's the thing. The difference with "Remove the shootings" and "Remove the schools" to stop school shootings is that schools are essential. We can't take that away. However, guns aren't. At least in my opinion, it shouldn't, and ergo, we can take them away and control them at the very least temporarily to solve the main issue at hand: people's decaying mental state.
Taking germany as an example (prty shitty example) In the usa there were 647 school shootings in 2020, in germany there were 12 SINCE 1999 ofc germany is smaller but a being 4 times as big doesnt excuse having 53 times as many school shootings (thia is btw countet with germany in the last 24 years and with the usa in one year(
So honest question.
Do you actually want to engage in discussion here or is this one of those "any attempt to question this makes you an evil idiot" things?
Because there are multiple reasons this is a bad take.
I just made an argument against his take
So no. Got it.
Thanks for saving me the time
Discussions work like that, somebody says something, i give a argument, another person anwsers that argument etc.
This is true. But that only works if arguments are made in good faith. Otherwise it’s a boondoggle.
Could you explain that better?
Found the "if it's not agreeing with me it's in bad faith" clown.
yeah not even close. More of the "the original point is such a bad take on so many fronts, its hard to really engage if the individual if they arent going to act is good faith". And their last reply shows just that. Which is why I stopped replying. Ive been down the road enough to know when its not worth the effort.
Most people don't argue that the problem is the guns themselves. It's who can get them/how easy they are to get by people who won't or can't use them responsibly. You're taking the verbiage often used a bit too literally. Either through ignorance or bad faith, I don't know.
Moreover, I believe altering gun laws could potentially lead to the establishment of a black market, encouraging individuals to seek illegal firearms
We already have this, and nobody seems to care as it is.
It would definitely get much worse though.
The illegal gun market would get worse if we regulated guns?
Wow, that's crazy.
Would the legal, 90% of gun purchases get, better?
That's a terrible standard to gauge things by.
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