"In LA, they've done it yearly for three years. In almost every other place they've tried it (including Detroit, and Austin Texas and New York City), there's increasing reports of the money drying up in the middle of the events. They're not funded well enough to buy all the proffered guns, and really, they're not spending enough per gun to make up the initial investment, so what's generally happening is that the people turning them in are poorer people who really need the money for food or whatever."
So your admitting that it failed because of the lack of funding...

"Adding the suicides by gun is dubious at best and is really just padding you stats. Again, was the suicide undertaken with a lawfully owne gun or an unlawfully owned gun? If one has the will to commit suicide do you think a gun ban will stop them? Or, will it just make them choose another method to do the job?"
Actually since Australia banned the gun the suicide rate in Australia has dropped significantly (can't remember the exact number), the reason is because most people attempting suicides by jumping off a building or something end up getting scared and backing off, but with a gun its so easy.

But it's impossible to fund them enough to make them successful. I mean, let's say you make $500 a month. And I come up to you and say, "Your rent is now $600 a month." You'll never be able to pay it. No municipality in the US will, at the very least in the short term, be able to fund a gun buyback program that can be successful.

"I like how over half of fasces's stats refer to suicide by firearm -- why would someone about to kill him/herself give a fuck about a firearm ban? If a government gun ban would make people not use a firearm to kill themselves, then we could end suicide forever by outlawing suicide. We could solve all the world's manmade problems by outlawing the actions which cause them."
The issue is most of the cases in the states, they buy the gun for the specific purpose of shooting themselves. If they can no longer by the gun then they can no longer hurt themselves with it.

"The simple fact is that it doesn't work that way. At best you're just making them choose another means with which to kill themselves. Sure, you cut firearm deaths by more than 50%, but you cut total deaths by... 0. And that's the stat that matters in any discussion about saving lives; not deaths by x, but deaths, period."
http://www.responseability.org/client_images/992250.JPG
here are the statistics, almost every year since 1997, the year after guns were banned the total suicide rate (not just suicides from firearms) has gone down.

"But it's impossible to fund them enough to make them successful. I mean, let's say you make $500 a month. And I come up to you and say, "Your rent is now $600 a month." You'll never be able to pay it. No municipality in the US will, at the very least in the short term, be able to fund a gun buyback program that can be successful."
exactly, now you see a reason that every country to successfully do it didn't have the municipalities do it, but the feds. Feds can have an easier time affording it.

It's very easy to get prescribed sleeping pills that, when you take too many, will punch your ticket. And people get those prescribed to do that. Shall we ban sleeping pills?

um... if making something illegal has no effect, might as well make everything legal - or not. Since it doesn't have any effect.

"You claims that there are 30,000+ deaths (in the US presumably) attributed to firearms."

I underestimated.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6018a1.htm?s_cid=mm6018a1_w

"During 2006--2007, a total of 25,423 firearm homicides and 34,235 firearm suicides occurred among U.S. residents"

So the number is more like 60,000.

This is from the CDC. Your source is Rexano - which is a responsible exotic animal ownership website.

"Now, I agree that guns are not nearly as useful nor as integral to the function of our civilization as a automobile is, but a raw statistic does not tell the whole story."

I agree. The full story of the car stat continually trotted ignores the fact that people use cars a lot more than they use guns, and far more people regularly use guns than they use guns.

"To tell the whole story, one need to look deeper into the numbers and find out (or attempt to extrapolate) the circumstances behind the "firearm" death. Although one cannot say with 100% confidence, I think it is safe to say that the 730 deaths attributed to "firearm discharge" were "accidental" and most were likely at the hands of a "lawful" gun owner. By contrast, it would seem equally as safe to say that of the 11,920 "assaults by firearm" most were likely at the hands of an "unlawful" gun owner; and as such, a whole scale "ban" on firearms might on reduce the number of "accidental" deaths at the hands of "lawful" gun owners and do nothing whatsoever to curb the "assaults by firearm" at the hands of "unlawful" gun owners."

This is yet another argument that we've already gone over.
First of all, I continually hear that all gun violence is done with illegal guns, but I haven't seen a single stat to back that up. Second of all, illegal gun owners are able to hide behind the law. If guns were banned they would not be able to. It'd be very easy to tell what guns are or are not illegal, since they'd all be illegal. Many illegal guns are simply modifications of legally procured guns. It's hard to monitor when the law is as it is. If guns were banned this problem would be eliminated. So your argument doesn't work.

"There is a slogan the "Gun Right" people like to use: When you criminalize gun ownership, ONLY criminals will have guns. After all, criminal are criminal specifically BECAUSE they do not obey the law. In fact, statistics (which I don't have time to look up right now) have shown that when cities, like Chicago (now with the highest murder rate in the nation) ban lawful gun ownership, the murder rate SKYROCKETS. Gun rights advocates attribute this to the fact that the criminals are emboldened by the knowledge that the populace is disarmed. "

Yeah, of course you do. And you conveniently ignore the large number of countries with heavy gun restrictions that have much lower gun violence. You also conveniently ignore the fact that even if a city bans guns in the United States, they are typically surrounded by states which have lax gun laws, so guns are able to flood in. This happens in Massachussets, where people get guns from Vermont. This happens in DC, where people get guns from Maryland and Virginia. You claim that we should get the "full story", why don''t you look at the full context of what happens in these big cities?

Before Chicago's gun ban was struck down, gun violence was down 20%.
http://www.chicagotalks.org/2009/05/21/chicago-community-demonstrators-seek-end-to-gun-violence/

"Anti-gun groups claim that such "self defense" incidents are very few in number, and that even those that admittedly occur, are outweighed by the deaths. Unfortunately, such a stat is nearly impossible to come by."

No, such a stat is not hard to come by. Accidental deaths, homicides, and suicides are far more common than self-defense uses of guns.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use/index.html
http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=160187

"How many more violent crimes would occur in Houston, TX (for example) if criminals didn't have to be mindful of the notorious "gun-loving" populace of Texas?"

And how many less gun deaths would occur in DC if its neighboring states would actually enforce gun laws? We'll never know. But we do know that countries with nationwide gun bans/restrictions have much lower gun violence, and countries in Europe which have more guns (Finland, Switzerland) have more gun violence.
So why don't we stick to what we actually know, since it seems to imply that your hypothetical of deterred crime in Houston isn't true. Lots of gun violence happens between armed gangs. Why would that be the case? Shouldn't armed gangs be afraid of each other?

"When you remove the right of private citizen to defend themselves, you deprive them of a fundamental right, and empower those whose intent it is to take their life, liberty and property by force.

Gun laws do nothing by disarm law-abiding citizen and empower and embolden criminals."

Then once again, explain why we have so many free democracies in Europe (and Canada) don't have American style gun protections.

"Furthermore, one only need to look at the actions of dictators such as Amin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, etc. to see that disarming the populace is a MAJOR step in their consolidation of power -- a disarmed people cannot fight back when tyranny is upon them. The Founder of our Republic knew this, hence the 2nd Amendment -- they LIVED it at the hands of the British. We can continue the constitutional debate about the 2nd Amend. at another time as I would like to get your (et.al.) response/rebuttal to what I have presented above."

This is just nonsense. Hitler loosened gun restrictions in 1938 from the laws which had existed in 1928. I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever that Amin disarmed his population. You anti-communists like to claim countries like East Germany were tyrannical, yet they had large well armed enterprise militias. You're just making up stuff now. And once again I ask, why isn't the UK a totalitarian dictatorship? Why isn't Canada? Why isn't Germany? Why isn't Australia?

I think, honestly, even the feds would have a hard time affording it, given that even a modestly small city like Austin, Texas, had the cops put up 350k, and private individuals another 400k (they were trying to buy the guns before the guys went in to the cops), and still ran out of money. 750k, Austin Texas. And with very small amounts of per gun expenditure.

Well, assuming when they say "2006-2007" they're talking about two full years, it averages out to be 30,000, so I was correct.

", and far more people regularly use guns than they use guns. "

This should say "far more people regularly use cars".

@Putin33, and I would take a different lesson from East Germany - that well armed militias does little to prevent tyranny.

Well I'm assuming most people think East Germany was tyrannical, as I said. I think East Germany was an ideal society, but people here don't. So, based on that, explain the enterprise militia.

" I'm saying your a bitch and I can go through my entire fucking thread and show a hundred non supported statements and your only supported statements don't verify your objective.
"

You're just a foul mouthed clown who claims to only want substantiated claims but then cheerleads for unsubstantiated bullshit point that the pro-gun/pro-pot people trot out. I've substantiated by claims with evidence. You're just going to continue grandstanding with your petulant insults.

East Germany, ideal? When Germany reunified, the East still hadn't fully rebuilt from WWII.

I'm not getting into it here. Not another commie thread.

East Germany was far from ideal. Also from what I know of east germany there were gun restrictions...

@Putin33, the beauty of the East German militia example is that it argues so well both ways against the gun-rights righties. 1) If Communism=tyranny (and therefore not wanted by the people), then militia is apparently ineffective as a check on government, 2) if militia *is* effective, then apparently, Communism was wanted by the people - and was not tyranny, or 3) Communism was wanted by the people and militias are ineffective. It has to be one of the three. The gun-rights righties would never believe the last one - so they are left with giving up one of the two dearly held beliefs - either they concede that militias are ineffective or they concede that Communism can be popular and wanted by the people.

@ Mafialligator

Why should the government take my guns away? I am not hurting anyone. I own and operate the guns with my honestly-earned money.

@ Fasces

I am a bit surprised by your answer. What kind of gun did you fire?

@ Gunfighter - Well that's what we're arguing, and I've made my point.

My point was, you can't use "They're fun." as an argument, because it's no good.

My God, the thread just keeps going and going...

I will PERSONALLY SHOOT the next commenter who prolongs this thread (waht sort of long-winded asshole would write such long passages adn start such blatantly-controversial threads that clearly will go on and on with the same points being hashed out with no resolution in sight?)

I will now stand firm, awaiting your attack. No crazy Matrix maneuvers. It will prove how inefficient guns are in hands of an inexperienced user.

"Why should the government take my guns away? I am not hurting anyone. I own and operate the guns with my honestly-earned money."
You call yourself a law abiding citizen, so if guns were suddenly illegal, would you hand them in? No? that makes you a criminal...

"I am a bit surprised by your answer. What kind of gun did you fire?"
some rifle, don't actually know the name of it, I will ask my dad next time I see him, which is July 2nd. (he took me)

"I will now stand firm, awaiting your attack. No crazy Matrix maneuvers. It will prove how inefficient guns are in hands of an inexperienced user."
give him your address so he actually knows were you are...

Let the commie have the attention. His sort haven't gotten any from the rest of the world in over twenty years.

@ Mafialligator

You're right. I can't use "They're fun". But I can use "I am not hurting anyone with my guns, therefore the government has no right to take them away".

@ Fasces

Under current law, I am a law-abiding citizen.

I don't want to put you to too much trouble (this is a silly webDiplomacy thread after all), but if it is convenient, go ahead and ask your father what type of rifle it was. I really wasn't big into guns until I got semiautomatics and automatics in my hands.

'Under current law, I am a law-abiding citizen. "
but if the law was changed? Would you return your guns like a law-abiding citizen or would you revolt?

" I really wasn't big into guns until I got semiautomatics and automatics in my hands."
well, I was satisfied in beating my twin brother at hitting targets... the competition might have made it more enjoyable...

"but if it is convenient, go ahead and ask your father what type of rifle it was."
if you remind me closer to the date I will, but if this thread is dead it will be irrelevant and I wont bring it back to life just to answer a question...

"give him your address so he actually knows were you are... "

No worries, he'll use the Force!

I encountered some interesting info while researching this topic. Is there some uniform age limit for handling guns in the US? One can handle sporting guns (like .22 long rifles or semi-automatic rifles) from 15 years and hunting guns (like 7x64mm bolt guns) from 16 years in certain circumstances in the Czech Republic. It would be scary if some 15 year old started running around with 30 bullets in the mag. It never happened here though, one can even bring guns to schools or bars. It's also true that concealed carry is allowed only from age of 21.

It's also worth repeating that Finns are really very fond of guns. They could buy hunting guns as early as when they were 15 years old until 2008, EU stopped that practice.

and that is why the Finns have the worst crime rate in Euopre...

@Sayjo: "I fully support the right for someone to hunt and garden to support their diet."

Please explain why guns are necessary for gardening? I am lucky enough to have an allotment garden on which I grow my own vegetables. I can assure you that this activity does not require a gun.


@Gunfighter06: "You're right. I can't use "They're fun". But I can use "I am not hurting anyone with my guns, therefore the government has no right to take them away"."

No you can't. Society doesn't have the luxury of waiting to see if you kill someone, and then taking your gun away, because by then, it's too late - someone's already dead.