Banning all Muslims vs. Banning all guns: an examination

[Shankapotomus]

I use the phrase "banning all guns" for balance in this examination, obviously real gun control would not ban all guns.

So let's proceed.

Some say the key to stopping mass killings is to ban all Muslims entry to the country.

Others say the key to stopping mass killings is to ban guns.

Let's quickly look at the roles each of these two variables play in mass killings.

All mass killings require both a combination of a perpetrator and a weapon to be carried out.

Perpetrator = In some mass killings in the United States, the perpetrator(s) has been Muslim, but not all mass killings. Some mass killings have had non-Muslim perpetrators.

Weapon = In virtually all mass killings in the United States the weapon used has been a firearm. Some contend other weapons can be used, and to a limited extent, things like hatchets and knives make up a small percentage of mass killing weapons. But they tend not to be as efficient as firearms and therefore are usually serve as a second choice. An example of an attempt at a mass killing using a knife outside of the United States involves a knife-wielding perpetrator in China who stabbed 20 school children of which all survived.

Note: (9/11 while it created mass casualties and didn't involve forearms, is not as common an occurrence as mass killing by firearm and therefore does not constitute an ongoing problem. )

So based on the above, if we look for the most common denominator to decide which one we want to ban to control mass killings, the most obvious answer is guns. It's guns and not Muslims because guns are the most common denominator involved in mass killings, not Muslims. It's not Muslims because we know that in some cases the perpetrator is non-Muslim. But the weapon is seldom non-gun.

The most common denominator in mass killings is guns because we know in most cases of mass killings a gun is used as a weapon but a Muslim is not always the perpetrator.

So wouldn't you want to ban the most common denominator in mass killings?

Now some will object to banning guns by saying criminals intent on killing lots of people won't care about guns laws and get guns anyway.

However, if guns were made illegal for civilians (specifically assault weapons) potential mass killers would first have to commit a crime to obtain a gun to use in a mass killing. It follows that if guns were illegal a potential perpetrator of a mass killing could be caught in the act of trying to obtain an illegal firearm before a mass killing and thus be thwarted in performing that future mass killing.

But with guns legal, a potential mass killer criminal can obtain a gun legally without committing a crime to obtain that firearm and proceed to perpetrate a mass killing.

At least with guns illegal criminals would have perform that extra criminal act of obtaining an illegal firearm before they commit a mass killing. Criminals would have to risk getting caught first in obtaining an illegal firearm before a mass killing could occur. And that one crime, if detected, could be enough to deter a mass killing

[global1]

1. Logical And Well Put....

Makes perfect sense to me. You should send this rationale to all members of the Senate and House. Although they'll probably be coached by the NRA to say something very convoluted to refute your logic. As they have an bogus answer for everything.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. A question

"...if guns were made illegal for civilians (specifically assault weapons)...)

Are you suggesting banning "assault weapons" or all guns?

[Shankapotomus]

8. Realistically...

Just assault weapons. But only used "all guns" for ease of argument.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. An "assault weapon"...

...is equivalent to the sum of the following combination of functional attributes:
- semi-auto (fires once per trigger pull)
- removable ammo feeding device (clip or magazine)
- gun

All the other flash suppressors, bayonet lugs, folding stock BS is meaningless and functionally irrelevant.

The 3 attributes listed above are likely found on over 30% of all existing guns in the US now in private hands. Maybe about 80,000,000. That's highly unrealistic.

[benEzra]

23. So you ban handgrips that stick out, leaving equally capable firearms without protruding handgrips.

Then what?

[mainstreetonce]

3. Your last paragraph makes an excellent point.

It is an answer to the people who say the criminals will just obtain the guns illegally.

That could be the action that catches someone on the watch list.

Great point.

[Shankapotomus]

9. Thank you (eom)

[Eleanors38]

21. Those who want to commit mass murder will find a satisfactory method...

be it fertilizer & fuel oil (OK City), gasoline (37 people in a New Orleans club, 1967), or black powder stripped from firecrackers (Boston Marathon). I support UBCs, but I am under no illusion that such measures will stop mass murderers. NOTE: Banning "assault weapons" (which were never banned) would send a mass murderer to a semi-auto pistol (the VT killer, 32 dead, using standard magazines).

A better approach may be to make settings for mass murders less attractive. Perhaps aggressive self-defense courses should be offered in the same manner as CPR training. The course could deal with ways to tun Toward the problem instead of away. Most folks would not take such a course, but most patrons/shoppers/students do not need such training, but neither do all folks need CPR training. Perhaps a few could at great risk attack the killer and stop him/her and lessen the damage. You may note that in attempts to debunk the idea that an armed "good guy" can stop a mass killer, some in MSM are only to willing to publish accounts of how someone(s) "tackled" and stopped a killer without a gun. So I am not the only one who believes the phenomenon exists.

No advocacy of firearm-only measures is suggested here.

Deal with the problem where it occurs.

[Shankapotomus]

24. Additionally,

The traditional counter-argument that criminals will just obtain the weapons they want illegally has a weakness.

If criminals will just obtain the more effective killing weapons illegally, why not get a tank? Why not get a fully automatic machine gun?

It seems to me, if I'm a criminal mass killer that can't be stopped by laws, those are the weapons I would be using.

Those are are the more effective weapons and yet we see so few criminal mass killers using them.

I wonder why.

Oh that's right, they're illegal.

[gejohnston]

25. outside of the US, they do use full autos

especially in Europe. Drug gangs hits and drive bys with machine guns isn't unknown in the UK.
In Australia gangs use them because open bolt machine guns are easy to make in the basement.
A tank isn't functional, and tanks are legal to own.

A more effective weapon would be couple of petrol bombs.

[ileus]

4. Why wouldn't real gun control ban all guns?

[Puha Ekapi]

5. Oh yes, just like the illegal act...

... of obtaining heroin deters addicts from the illegal act of using heroin.

[Shankapotomus]

10. There's a difference between drugs and guns

Last edited Wed Jun 22, 2016, 05:45 PM - Edit history (1)

You obtain illegal drugs to use them, mostly, in the privacy of your own home and not bother anyone.

What would be the purpose of obtaining an illegal gun you can't use?

The only reason to obtain an illegal gun would be to use it on someone. So it might not deter criminals bent on committing a mass shooting but it would require them to commit a smaller crime first before they could commit the larger crime. And they might get caught committing the smaller crime first.

Additionally, criminals love legal access to guns for the mere fact that it ensures an underground supply of undocumented guns. Because undocumented guns were first legal, documented guns. If legal guns dry up, so eventually will illegal guns.

[Puha Ekapi]

13. Someone who...

...is planning a mass killing ( which is, amazingly enough, highly illegal) is going to be deterred by the relatively minor crime of illegal weapons purchase.

right...

[Shankapotomus]

16. Not deterred

They could be caught.

It's an extra illegal step they must take before committing a mass killing with the illegally acquired gun.

That extra illegal step could be discovered or prove too difficult to take without being discovered thus thwarting a potential mass killing.

Without guns being illegal, a potential mass killer risks nothing in buying a legal gun over the counter.

[Puha Ekapi]

20. ...just like all those heroin addicts that *could*...

...be caught scoring their illegal drugs. How's that working out?

[Shankapotomus]

17. And, btw

I'm not against guns for hunters. Japan has very strict gun laws and low gun violence but hunters can get guns for hunting.

[gejohnston]

18. yes and Japan is not anywhere as individualistic as we are

and if you want an illegal gun there, it isn't that hard.
They have strict gun laws and also concept called giri. Murder suicides are suicides are are cold cases. IOW, if they counted the murder/suicides the way we do, their murder rate might be closer to ours.
Ours is mostly gang violence in some cities, theirs is a different issue. When I was on Okinawa, we had one shooting, a Yakusa hit.
If you think their gun laws are the reason why their murder rate is lower, your logical fallacy is
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/cumhocfa.html

[Puha Ekapi]

19. I hunt with one of...

...my AR15's. Glad you are ok with that

[Eleanors38]

22. Even felons who turn a new page often seek out a weapon for self-defense...

Not to shoot someone in furtherance of a crime, but for SD; they will usually return to live in the same neighborhood. I don't support felons getting a gun, but in the reality of life today, this practice continues.

[jonno99]

6. Logic fail - the actual common denominator (the 'problem') is a PERSON intent on killing.

Why is it a fail? Because more often than not, the problem person is stopped by - wait for it - another person with a GUN.

If you could magically, right now - make guns, and all knowledge of guns - disappear, the NEED for them would NOT disappear.

Why? because you haven't touched on the real common-denominator - the problem PERSON.

Weapons were invented, and the design of them has evolved for a simple reason: protection

Firearms are now the most popular weapon of choice primarily because they are just about the best force-multiplier yet devised. A diminutive women can now defend herself against multiple attackers with a simple firearm.

Bottom line: the problem is not the gun, the problem is the person. To ban guns is to merely kick the can down the road - trading one form of violence (mass shootings) for a multitude of other problems.

Fix the "problem person", then let's talk about guns...

[Shankapotomus]

11. In a sense you are correct...

...but we can't ban people.

We can ban guns.

[jonno99]

12. Nobody has suggested "banning people". But as long as there are

violent people, there will be a need for potential victims to seek protection.

Can you protect them? Can the police even protect them? No.

We can ban guns

Sure - but what do you solve other than kicking the can elsewhere?

[Shankapotomus]

14. .

The idea is not to expect to stop all violence, just the efficient forms of violence.

Knives will never be as efficient at killing people as guns. So killers may switch to knives but they'll never be as efficient as guns. A lunatic in China stabbed 20 children in an attempt at a mass killing. All 20 children survived.

They may switch to fertilizer bombs but fertilizer access is more restricted after OK City.

They may switch to hijacking planes but access to planes is more restrictive after 9/11 and spectacular hijackings of such damaging results--- too few and far between.

[TeddyR]

26. As I pointed out in another response to you

The last assault weapon ban had negligible if any impact. Here's an excerpt of that post:

They learned that while assault weapons played a prominent part in many mass shootings, they play only a tiny role in America’s overall gun violence problem. The loophole-ridden 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, produced no clear evidence of reducing gun violence. An in-depth evaluation of the law concluded that the impact of even a more comprehensive ban would be “small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement”.

That was not a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention. In the early 1990s, even some gun control advocates criticized the push for an assault weapon ban as a “distraction” with little crime-fighting benefit. But the ban generated intense, visceral reactions from the public. A former Democratic staffer who helped craft the assault weapon ban said he had hoped passing it would give Democrats the political momentum they needed to pass the drier, more technical gun laws that might actually save more lives.

Instead, the push for a political victory backfired. President Bill Clinton later blamed the assault weapon ban for the 1994 midterm victories that allowed Republicans to take over both houses of Congress. Many prominent gun control groups have since moved away from an assault ban – “through hard, bitter experience”, said Matt Bennett, a gun policy expert who advised Sandy Hook Promise.

Democrats know the research behind the ban. While a ban on high-capacity magazines could help some, the assault weapons ban “does nothing”, a former senior Obama administration official said last year.

The rest is here - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/20/gun-control-orlando-attack-newtown-mass-shooting

While an assault weapon ban certainly might be constitutional it will have little impact on crime and will simply cost Democrats seats in the next election. Handguns are used in vastly more murders and a handgun ban is both unconstitutional and a fantasy of gun-controllers that will never happen.

[jmg257]

7. "Some say the key to stopping mass killings is to ban all Muslims entry to the country."

Some people aren't very bright.


"wouldn't you want to ban the most common denominator in mass killings?"

I guess you would, if you didn't like owning guns.


"Now some will object to banning guns by saying criminals intent on killing lots of people won't care about guns laws and get guns anyway".

And/Or because they liked owning guns.


"if guns were made illegal for civilians (specifically assault weapons)"

Then civilians couldn't own guns (assault weapons) legally.


"It follows that if guns (assault weapons) were illegal "

There is always that option, IF no one liked owning guns (assault weapons).

90 million (25-30 million) people may feel otherwise.

[deathrind]

27. Very good post.

Rational/Sensable/Reasonable...

Unfortunately that is not where we are as a society on this issue. People would much rather ban the former and not the later in your title. An AWB type of action by congress is most likely not going to happen but what should happen and would go a good measure to reducing, perhaps not the events but magnitude of the events is limiting the capacity currently available for ammunition loads.

[Lizzie Poppet]

28. There are two problems with any ban (weapon -or- magazine):

Those two problems are: extant supply and 3D printing.

Tens of millions of "assault weapons" already in distribution mean that there will be a supply of these available for the foreseeable future. Firearms are very durable goods (they have to be to withstand the forces involved) and can last for generations. The experience of those states and other jurisdictions that have banned these weapons clearly demonstrates that compliance with any ban will be very low.

Moreover, we are on the verge of 3D printing becoming commonplace. There are already plans for a number of weapons readily available online. Materials advances aren't far from making completely 3D printed guns quite workable (and some of the trickier parts, like barrels, could be sourced from the massive supply of extant weapons). Magazines would be simple.

It may be the case that banning as a methodology has become obsolete for relatively simple items like these. If so, other approaches have to take center stage.

[deathrind]

29. Valid points...

However volume and methodology are not gaters to taking viable actions to reduce the impact of these items on society.

You are right that outright banning may not be the answer, regulating heavily may be the better answer...but simply not doing anything is not the answer.