The Impact of Different Forms of Firearms Control

[Jub]

Could you define dgu?

From Wikipedia:

"Defensive gun use (DGU) is the use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others or in some cases, protecting property. The frequency of incidents involving DGU, and their effectiveness in providing safety and reducing crime is a controversial issue in gun politics and criminology, chiefly in the United States.[1]:64 Different authors and studies employ different criteria for what constitutes a defensive gun use which leads to controversy in comparing statistical results."

Though I suspect you're asking if he's defining defensive gun use as discharging a firearm versus merely presenting one and using the threat of force as a defense.

[madd0ct0r]

Could you define dgu?

From Wikipedia:

"Defensive gun use (DGU) is the use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others or in some cases, protecting property. The frequency of incidents involving DGU, and their effectiveness in providing safety and reducing crime is a controversial issue in gun politics and criminology, chiefly in the United States.[1]:64 Different authors and studies employ different criteria for what constitutes a defensive gun use which leads to controversy in comparing statistical results."

Though I suspect you're asking if he's defining defensive gun use as discharging a firearm versus merely presenting one and using the threat of force as a defense.

No. It was a genuine question. Acronyms trip me up.

[Rogue 9]

Could you define dgu?

Defensive gun use.

Edit: Sorry, the thread moved on while I was reading. Disregard.

[PainRack]

Could you define dgu?

From Wikipedia:

"Defensive gun use (DGU) is the use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others or in some cases, protecting property. The frequency of incidents involving DGU, and their effectiveness in providing safety and reducing crime is a controversial issue in gun politics and criminology, chiefly in the United States.[1]:64 Different authors and studies employ different criteria for what constitutes a defensive gun use which leads to controversy in comparing statistical results."

Though I suspect you're asking if he's defining defensive gun use as discharging a firearm versus merely presenting one and using the threat of force as a defense.

No. It was a genuine question. Acronyms trip me up.

Defensive gun use. But as Jun said, how you define it becomes problematic. NCVIS use discharge a firearm and hit someone for their calcs for a low-ball. Hence whey Kleck argue for million to 3 million incidents yearly based on use a gun to scare off an attacker.

Kleck isn't wrong there, especially as he points out that since most of his incidents covered were illegal(concealed carry permits in public in 90s was rare but most DGU occured in public), NCVIS would had undercounted dramatically.

The flip side though is that by using state survey and then extrapolating nationally, small variance get exaggerated into large numbers and that's likely, given that if Kleck account is correct, the US in the 90s was Megacity One level of crime. Higher actually once we consider per capita.

[TimothyC]

300 million guns get manufactured that year.

Google Poly 80, 80 percent, etc.

Should I amend that to also poofing away US firearms manufacturing capacity as well? Or do you simply not want to engage with the though experiment.

Holy shit would that be impossible short of an act of ROB being a continuous thing. We're at the point where plastic printing and electro-chemical plating can produce a (mostly) reliable long arm.

Personally, I think Shep is both right and wrong. He's right in that there would be a surge in production. I think he's wrong on the quantity. I'd put it closer to a billion. Something out there decided we shouldn't have guns, and the hell if we are going to let them tell us what to do.

[Jub]

300 million guns get manufactured that year.

Google Poly 80, 80 percent, etc.

Should I amend that to also poofing away US firearms manufacturing capacity as well? Or do you simply not want to engage with the though experiment.

Holy shit would that be impossible short of an act of ROB being a continuous thing. We're at the point where plastic printing and electro-chemical plating can produce a (mostly) reliable long arm.

Personally, I think Shep is both right and wrong. He's right in that there would be a surge in production. I think he's wrong on the quantity. I'd put it closer to a billion. Something out there decided we shouldn't have guns, and the hell if we are going to let them tell us what to do.

Does this mean you predict a flood of 3D printed guns in places like Japan, the UK and China within the next 10 or so years, or is the US again some special case?

[TimothyC]

Holy shit would that be impossible short of an act of ROB being a continuous thing. We're at the point where plastic printing and electro-chemical plating can produce a (mostly) reliable long arm.

Personally, I think Shep is both right and wrong. He's right in that there would be a surge in production. I think he's wrong on the quantity. I'd put it closer to a billion. Something out there decided we shouldn't have guns, and the hell if we are going to let them tell us what to do.

Does this mean you predict a flood of 3D printed guns in places like Japan, the UK and China within the next 10 or so years, or is the US again some special case?

I think that conventional manufacturing and importation will continue to meet the global demand for firearms. Plastic printed weapons will only be used when the economics of making them locally are better than the economics of importing them, and I don't know when that happens outside of the scenarios that you tried to outline. I also don't think that an act of ROB is going to be directly analogous to a real world event.

Are we going to see some show up in the next decade? Yes. A fair amount of the current work on them is being done in Europe now, not in the US. Do I expect a flood? No.

[Jub]

It's interesting that, thus far, the pro gun control members of the board have only come in to nitpick and that we've yet to see any arguments for how US style rights to bear arms would be beneficial to nations that currently place significant restrictions on private firearms ownership.

This thread isn't supposed to be a nitpick of the specific details of the scenarios, but a look at what different firearms laws actually change.

As such, let's amend the gun poofing question to: What changes in the US if suddenly all civilian guns went poof and by act of ROB any gun that got into civilian hands within the borders of the US suddenly vanished or became irreparably inoperable? Basically, how does the US adapt to suddenly being a magically enforced gun free zone?

[MKSheppard]

Personally, I think Shep is both right and wrong. He's right in that there would be a surge in production. I think he's wrong on the quantity. I'd put it closer to a billion. Something out there decided we shouldn't have guns, and the hell if we are going to let them tell us what to do.

No I mean, 80% stuff is LEGALLY not a firearm. It's legally just metal or plastic. Implications of that I'll leave to you.

[MKSheppard]

Basically, how does the US adapt to suddenly being a magically enforced gun free zone?

Pistol Crossbows take off. We shoot people with crossbow bolts like Tywin Lannister.

[Jub]

Basically, how does the US adapt to suddenly being a magically enforced gun free zone?

Pistol Crossbows take off. We shoot people with crossbow bolts like Tywin Lannister.

So you have nothing to add on the subject. Got it.

[TimothyC]

No I mean, 80% stuff is LEGALLY not a firearm. It's legally just metal or plastic. Implications of that I'll leave to you.

I know what an 80% is Shep. I was ignoring that for the sake of talking about the fact that this is a dumb question that is like asking "what if all of the religious people died?"

[Nicholas]

It's interesting that, thus far, the pro gun control members of the board have only come in to nitpick and that we've yet to see any arguments for how US style rights to bear arms would be beneficial to nations that currently place significant restrictions on private firearms ownership.

This thread isn't supposed to be a nitpick of the specific details of the scenarios, but a look at what different firearms laws actually change.

As such, let's amend the gun poofing question to: What changes in the US if suddenly all civilian guns went poof and by act of ROB any gun that got into civilian hands within the borders of the US suddenly vanished or became irreparably inoperable? Basically, how does the US adapt to suddenly being a magically enforced gun free zone?

I'm going to answer this as if you meant all guns go "poof" because I find the idea of a government with an absolute and unchangeable monopoly on guns to be too horrifying to contemplate.

I'm going to ignore the international implications the elimination of the US as a military power would have because that isn't the question you are asking.

Domestically I expect that the short term effect would be very few. Guns aren't relevant to the vast vast majority of day to day interactions and cultural norms change slowly and will define things for years to come. In the medium to long term I expect it would increase the division between the wealthy and powerful and the poor in America. Guns are a power equalizer because they are extremely expensive to protect yourself against but very cheap to acquire and easy to learn to use. In their absence the US would move slowly toward aristocracy as hereditary wealth collected and well trained and equipped government and private forces became increasingly able to control the poor at a cost the wealthy could affordable and therefor the wealthy and powerful lost any reason to listen them the poor or care about them.

Nicholas

[Nicholas]

To clarify, in my post above by short term I mean one generation or about 30 years.

Nicholas

[Batman]

Um-that's exactly where America has been for decades despite the guns.

[Jub]

I'm going to answer this as if you meant all guns go "poof" because I find the idea of a government with an absolute and unchangeable monopoly on guns to be too horrifying to contemplate.

I hate to tell you this, but the government already has such a monopoly on force to the point that civilian firearms won't meaningfully impact anything they choose to do if things come to force on force clashes.

Domestically I expect that the short term effect would be very few. Guns aren't relevant to the vast vast majority of day to day interactions and cultural norms change slowly and will define things for years to come

This seems logical.

In the medium to long term I expect it would increase the division between the wealthy and powerful and the poor in America. Guns are a power equalizer because they are extremely expensive to protect yourself against but very cheap to acquire and easy to learn to use. In their absence the US would move slowly toward aristocracy as hereditary wealth collected and well trained and equipped government and private forces became increasingly able to control the poor at a cost the wealthy could affordable and therefor the wealthy and powerful lost any reason to listen them the poor or care about them.

Nicholas

The US already has some of the worst inequality in the western world and nations without the US's level of firearms freedoms often rank above the US when it comes to freedom, security, happiness, etc. Can you elaborate on why you feel the US would be disproportionately affected by this change when, for example, the UK hasn't?

[MKSheppard]

So you have nothing to add on the subject. Got it.

I'm actually raising serious legitmitate points.

One; what happens to the enormous supply of spare parts and 80% stuff floating around the US market? By law they're not considered firearms -- only a finished, fully machined receiver is legally the firearm. Does ROB use the same legal definition as the US government?

Second, you think jimmy the crack dealer is going to give up on personal armament? Crossbows in the US are pretty much unregulated; once you're over like 18, you're good to go for buying them, with no background check. Ditto for air rifles and BB guns -- some of those can get up into high velocities and energies, and again, unregulated. Same with machetes and axes.

[Jub]

So you have nothing to add on the subject. Got it.

I'm actually raising serious legitmitate points.

One; what happens to the enormous supply of spare parts and 80% stuff floating around the US market? By law they're not considered firearms -- only a finished, fully machined receiver is legally the firearm. Does ROB use the same legal definition as the US government?

Second, you think jimmy the crack dealer is going to give up on personal armament? Crossbows in the US are pretty much unregulated; once you're over like 18, you're good to go for buying them, with no background check. Ditto for air rifles and BB guns -- some of those can get up into high velocities and energies, and again, unregulated. Same with machetes and axes.

And yet, these things didn't happen at the 1-to-1 rate that you suggest it would in other nations. The UK wasn't suddenly overwhelmed by thugs with crossbows and air rifles who suddenly stepped into a weapons vacuum.

[Nicholas]

I'm going to answer this as if you meant all guns go "poof" because I find the idea of a government with an absolute and unchangeable monopoly on guns to be too horrifying to contemplate.

I hate to tell you this, but the government already has such a monopoly on force to the point that civilian firearms won't meaningfully impact anything they choose to do if things come to force on force clashes.

Yes it does. That is why as others pointed out the US has been moving back towards aristocracy. There are a lot of delays and complications because of human nature, ideology and culture. But over multiple generations political power concentrates in the hands of those with military power. Democracy began to spread (and aristocracy to die) in the modern world when gunpowder made the mass army the most powerful military asset in existence. Now that the small professional capital intensive army has that status power is concentrating in the hands of those with the capital of support such forces.

That said, the last couple of decades in Afghanistan have demonstrated that firearms in civilian hands when combined with popular opposition to the government can make governing a territory impossible. Do you believe the United States would have been equally unsuccessful in Afghanistan if there were no guns in that country? I think the presence of guns leads to the government being more attentive to the desires of the population.

In the medium to long term I expect it would increase the division between the wealthy and powerful and the poor in America. Guns are a power equalizer because they are extremely expensive to protect yourself against but very cheap to acquire and easy to learn to use. In their absence the US would move slowly toward aristocracy as hereditary wealth collected and well trained and equipped government and private forces became increasingly able to control the poor at a cost the wealthy could affordable and therefor the wealthy and powerful lost any reason to listen them the poor or care about them.

Nicholas

The US already has some of the worst inequality in the western world and nations without the US's level of firearms freedoms often rank above the US when it comes to freedom, security, happiness, etc. Can you elaborate on why you feel the US would be disproportionately affected by this change when, for example, the UK hasn't?

First, those other western nations are not in the position you specified in the post I responded to, so they aren't a valid comparison for this question. In the event of sustained popular opposition to the government in one of those nations guns would rapidly become available to the opposition (either brought over with army forces defecting to the opposition or purchased illegally from abroad) so the government still treats the people as if they had access to guns because they do.

Second, the fact that the US already has some of the worst inequality in the western world demonstrates that the US is especially prone to aristocracy so stronger steps are necessary to prevent it in the US then would be elsewhere in the world and the US will move toward it faster then other would if all guns were magically removed. Although since human nature is the same and under this scenario the balance of force would be the same I expect eventually everyone would arrive in about the same place.

Third, we are still in the very earliest stages of the political transition resulting from the end of the mass army as the dominate military force, I would put the change around 1975 myself but you could argue for 30 years on either side. The political transition resulting from the emergence of the mass army as the dominate military force lasted several centuries and only concluded with the fall of the Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs after World War I. The American and European experience of that transition was very very different, at this point in time the differences in equality between the US and other countries result more from those different experiences then from different gun laws.

Nicholas

[madd0ct0r]

Wow. Shep's little red book theory appears to be correct.

Guns are the revolutionary's truth, anything less is recidivism.

I am a bit puzzled by your logic Nicholas - it seems to be that all nations are traveling towards aristocracy. All those nice places in Europe with or without guns are not traveling as fast as USA, and Afghanistan is a desirable end state?
If anything sounds like an argument for collective bargaining, healthcare reform and progressive taxation in a functional representative state to help USA crawl back up the slope away from Afghanistan.

What do you think of the northern Irish troubles? Did guns help keep government in check there?

[Nicholas]

Wow. Shep's little red book theory appears to be correct.

Guns are the revolutionary's truth, anything less is recidivism.

I am a bit puzzled by your logic Nicholas - it seems to be that all nations are traveling towards aristocracy. All those nice places in Europe with or without guns are not traveling as fast as USA, and Afghanistan is a desirable end state?
If anything sounds like an argument for collective bargaining, healthcare reform and progressive taxation in a functional representative state to help USA crawl back up the slope away from Afghanistan.

What do you think of the northern Irish troubles? Did guns help keep government in check there?

You are confused because you think I have a position on gun control and am trying to hide it within my arguments. I actually don't. I have a theory about how changes in military technology cause societies and the ideologies that underlie them to change. I found Jub's hypothetical a good opportunity to talk about that theory and explore its implications.

Yes that theory does imply all societies are moving toward aristocracy. It says that democracy and human rights were a result of the mass army being the most powerful military force and now that the mass army is no longer the dominate military force democracy and human rights will gradually decline. Just as aristocracy gradually declined once the mounted knight was no longer the dominate military force.

As for Afghanistan, I cited it as an example to show that guns in civilian hands can and do frustrate the goals of modern governments despite the governments vast military superiority. I have no idea how you got from that to "Afghanistan is a desirable end state." That certainly is not what I said.

As for the northern Irish troubles I would say that guns, combined with the ideology of human rights which grew out of the ability of large groups of the poor and middle class armed with guns to threaten the aristocracy (before the development of guns mobs generally could not threaten mounted knights), gave the Irish nationalist minority in Northern Ireland a power and influence which it would not have otherwise had. I'm not going to take a position on whether or not that was a good thing.

Nicholas

[Beowulf]

Storage of Non-Restricted Firearms

5 (1) An individual may store a non-restricted firearm only if
(a) it is unloaded;
(b) it is
(i) rendered inoperable by means of a secure locking device,
(ii) rendered inoperable by the removal of the bolt or bolt-carrier, or
(iii) stored in a container, receptacle or room that is kept securely locked and that is constructed so that it cannot readily be broken open or into; and
(c) it is not readily accessible to ammunition, unless the ammunition is stored, together with or separately from the firearm, in a container or receptacle that is kept securely locked and that is constructed so that it cannot readily be broken open or into.
(2) Paragraph (1)(b) does not apply to any individual who stores a non-restricted firearm temporarily if the individual reasonably requires it for the control of predators or other animals in a place where it may be discharged in accordance with all applicable Acts of Parliament and of the legislature of a province, regulations made under such Acts, and municipal by-laws.
(3) Paragraphs (1)(b) and (c) do not apply to an individual who stores a non-restricted firearm in a location that is in a remote wilderness area that is not subject to any visible or otherwise reasonably ascertainable use incompatible with hunting.
<snip>

Those all seem to be pretty similar, so: has to be in a locked container that you can't break into easily, and the ammo has to be in another locked container. Nothing in there means that it you can't readily open it. So you can have two containers mounted to your wall, one with the ammo, and the other with the firearm, and have them open from RFID tags, so you just swipe across both and it's open. Coop, I am reading that right, right?

[Adam Reynolds]

The flip side though is that by using state survey and then extrapolating nationally, small variance get exaggerated into large numbers and that's likely, given that if Kleck account is correct, the US in the 90s was Megacity One level of crime. Higher actually once we consider per capita.

It was stated in the 2012 film that 12 serious crimes are reported every minute, for 6.3 million crimes a year. With a population of 800 million this gives a crime rate of 787.5 crimes per 100,000. In 1991, at the peak of the crime wave, the violent crime rate was 758.2 per 100,000.

If the Megacity One numbers count property crimes, which are several times the rate of violent crime, it was far worse in the United States. Fortunately those numbers have fallen a great deal, to a level of 368.9 per 100,000 in 2018.

[Coop D'etat]

Storage of Non-Restricted Firearms

5 (1) An individual may store a non-restricted firearm only if
(a) it is unloaded;
(b) it is
(i) rendered inoperable by means of a secure locking device,
(ii) rendered inoperable by the removal of the bolt or bolt-carrier, or
(iii) stored in a container, receptacle or room that is kept securely locked and that is constructed so that it cannot readily be broken open or into; and
(c) it is not readily accessible to ammunition, unless the ammunition is stored, together with or separately from the firearm, in a container or receptacle that is kept securely locked and that is constructed so that it cannot readily be broken open or into.
(2) Paragraph (1)(b) does not apply to any individual who stores a non-restricted firearm temporarily if the individual reasonably requires it for the control of predators or other animals in a place where it may be discharged in accordance with all applicable Acts of Parliament and of the legislature of a province, regulations made under such Acts, and municipal by-laws.
(3) Paragraphs (1)(b) and (c) do not apply to an individual who stores a non-restricted firearm in a location that is in a remote wilderness area that is not subject to any visible or otherwise reasonably ascertainable use incompatible with hunting.
<snip>

Those all seem to be pretty similar, so: has to be in a locked container that you can't break into easily, and the ammo has to be in another locked container. Nothing in there means that it you can't readily open it. So you can have two containers mounted to your wall, one with the ammo, and the other with the firearm, and have them open from RFID tags, so you just swipe across both and it's open. Coop, I am reading that right, right?

If its securely locked, you can have the ammo with the firearm under 5(1)(c), you just can't store a firearm made inoperable with ammo. Read relying on b(i) or b(ii) requiring seperate ammo storage, but relying on b(iii) (i.e. a gun safe) allowing ammo and firearm to be stored together. So there's no requirement for two safes. I'm not a gun owner myself so I don't know much about what containers are deemed secure, but in principle what you're proposing sound like it meets the legal requirements

[MKSheppard]

Wow. Shep's little red book theory appears to be correct.

Guns are the revolutionary's truth, anything less is recidivism.

It's not just guns.

Consider. First Amendment. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, etc.

ACLU. Etc.