CreateDebate is a social debate community built around ideas, discussion and democracy.
If this is your first time checking out a debate, here are some quick tips to help get you started:
Arguments with the highest score are displayed first.
Argument replies (both in favor and in opposition) are displayed below the original argument.
To follow along, you may find it helpful to show and hide the replies displayed below each argument.
To vote for an argument, use these icons:
You have the power to cast exactly one vote (either up or down) for each argument.
Once you vote, the icon will become grayed out and the argument's score will change.
Yes, you can change your vote.
Debate scores, side scores and tag scores are automatically calculated by an algorithm that primarily takes argument scores into account.
All scores are updated in real-time.
To learn more about the CreateDebate scoring system, check out the FAQ.
When you are ready to voice your opinion, use the Add Argument button to create an argument.
If you would like to address an existing argument, use the Support and Dispute link within that argument to create a new reply.
You can share this debate in three different ways:
#1
#2
#3
Paste this URL into an email or IM:
Click here to send this debate via your default email application.
Click here to login and CreateDebate will send an email for you.
350 million guns in America
The number of civilian firearms at 242 million in 1996, 259 million in 2000, and 310 million as of 2009.As of 2013 there is 357 million firearms in the U.S.
The Democrats push the narrative of more gun control measures which is a feel good thing for their voter base.
More gun control measures will never work for the amount of guns already purchased and owned in this country.
How will more gun control measures work for the already purchased and owned guns in this country and do Democrats even have an answer for that.
I agree with Joe Rogan on guns. There is no GUN PROBLEM in America. It's a mental illness problem and people like that getting access to guns. When 9/11 happened, did we say there is now a plane problem? No, it's not the plane problem, it's the people who got access to the plane who were mentally ill.
I do believe there should be stricter or more difficult measures on how to acquire and own a gun, but it's been proven and shown in America that some of the places that have the highest gun presence actually have the lowest gun crimes.
Another argument is that if the "good guys" had guns when those mass shootings happen, you wouldn't have a slaughter of 30 or 50 dead people. The only reason why so many people die in those mass shootings is because nobody else as a gun to defend themselves and shoot back. When someone shoots back, there's a whole lot less killing going on because you aren't going to just stand there anymore and have a free-for-all.
Civilian accuracy rates in emergency situations is horribly bad, mental illness is involved in less than about 5% of all shootings, and we certainly do not have the lowest gun crimes in the places with the most guns. There are far more conditionals involved to make that statement true.
Everyone's accuracy rates in emergency situations are horribly bad. Especially with hand guns.
Gun violence is lower where legal gun ownership is higher. That's not inaccurate. What's missing is that legal gun ownership is higher in more rural populations which have a lot of other reasons for lower rates of gun violence. Even so, the point, I think, is that legal gun ownership is not the source of most of our problems in the US. And illegal gun ownership is already a breach of gun control measures.
I completely agree, I was more bringing that up to argue against the idea that the "good guy with a gun" myth could be the sole cause of decreased crime rates, which as you pointed out is simply not the case.
Additionally, I already agree that legal gun ownership is not the source of most problems, or even most gun related problems, in the United States. I am not a proponent of over-the-top gun control, and am a supporter of the 2nd Amendment.
Nothing is going to stop the gun violence we have here in America with the overwhelming number of guns available. The issue however is not the guns for as we people have been using every excuse we can come up with to keep and maintain the number of guns we have available to us. Our initial focus was on the Second Amendment "Oh the second amendment gives me the right to hunt and/or the Second Amendment gives me the right to shoot my guns whenever I want to at targets, nothing but lies.
Now that America has allowed so many guns in the country the issue now becomes I need guns in order to protect myself and my family from the guns I have already allowed in America.
The routine excuse of the gun problem is criminals, and the mentally ill Well I say that is only part of the list. How is it that people Never Talk about Responsible Citizens Getting Upset Getting a Gun and Killing Their Partner, Their Friend, Their Parent, Their Brother, Their Sister, Their Uncle, and the List Goes on. The Biggest Problem Is Not Mental Illness, the Biggest Problem Is Not Just Criminals Because Nobody Can Tell When a Responsible Gun Owner Just Made Go off!
Nothing is going to stop the gun violence we have here in America with the overwhelming number of guns available. The issue however is not the guns for as we people have been using every excuse we can come up with to keep and maintain the number of guns we have available to us. Our initial focus was on the Second Amendment "Oh the second amendment gives me the right to hunt and/or the Second Amendment gives me the right to shoot my guns whenever I want to at targets, nothing but lies.
Now that America has allowed so many guns in the country the issue now becomes I need guns in order to protect myself and my family from the guns I have already allowed in America.
The routine excuse of the gun problem is criminals, and the mentally ill Well I say that is only part of the list. How is it that people Never Talk about Responsible Citizens Getting Upset Getting a Gun and Killing Their Partner, Their Friend, Their Parent, Their Brother, Their Sister, Their Uncle, and the List Goes on. The Biggest Problem Is Not Mental Illness, the Biggest Problem Is Not Just Criminals Because Nobody Can Tell When a Responsible Gun Owner Just Made Go off!
Let's just go a little ways back in time when a responsible gun owner lady in a I believe shopping center witness A Black person running away from a policeman. Without the slightest indication of what transpired based on what she was seeing this responsible gun owner took out her gun and began firing at the fleeing Black man.
Fortunately she missed this guy a number of times and thankfully she didn't hit innocent bystanders. Let's however change the circumstance even more.
What if the running Black man was a witness in a trial case against a gang member And what if the guy with the police outfit on was not a policeman but rather a gang member? I believe this signifies That Responsible Gun Owners Can Go off!
Your example does not illustrate the actions of a responsible gun owner. If that did happen; 1. She is irresponsible and 2. It's an obscure rarity. An isolated incident that is not indicative of a larger problem. Yes responsible gun owners can make mistakes but they typically don't.
Most of the examples on your list were responsible uses of firearms for self defense with 1 being a woman who shot at someone in Walmart. Looks like a real epidemic.
The absurd hypothetical was the gang banger posing be as a cop.
I'm not sure what self defense you're talking about the shooting at Home Depot had nothing to do with lady who did do time for her actions and the Walmart shot didn't seem to have a problem firing at someone running away. perhaps you haven't heard any of the FBI cases when husband gun down their family.
Responsible gun owners: What is your reaction when you see a list like this one, of reasons that people shot other people in March 2016?
The people may not be responsible gun users but it is clear that guns play an import part in people's lives but not necessarily a positive on.
The list you showed first included the lady who shot at Walmart and multiple cases of gun owners shooting home invaders. The second list didn't show up
Coming from someone born and raised in Canada, I can assure everyone from the U.S. that almost every first world country is concerned with the lust for guns and violence in the U.S.. I'm not saying one shouldn't be able to own a gun (I like shooting myself), but there is no need for anything apart from a single fire long-rifle or a shotgun. No one outside of the U.S. needs a fully automatic rifle or a 50 caliber pistol, so why should Americans? Gun control effectively and completely disarmed Australia so there's no reason why a nationwide ban solely on assault weapons and weapons primarily used for killing as opposed to hunting (No one needs to hunt with a handgun, also why would you want to?) couldn't be placed in effect.
The current gun laws obviously don't work and every law enforcement officer probably sweats just a little bit every time they pull over a car or approach a suspect due to the fear of being shot, and I'm sure law enforcement would absolutely love more restrictions and control over weapons in the hands of the public.
The reason that bans that work elsewhere would not work in the US is because it's an entirely different culture. If you were to pass a gun ban law, let alone try to implement it, there would be such chaos that it would amount to a civil war.
The law enforcement officers I know don't sweat guns in the hands of legal carriers (of which there are a lot in my state). In fact, the cops tend to be very pro-second amendment. I'm sure this varies from region to region.
It is worth noting that an increasing number of police precincts are complaining about open carry laws specifically and how they interfere with their jobs and make them feel unsafe.
I think the possibility for any type of public carrying of firearms would make any police officer nervous. It only takes a split second for someone to decide to stop being a law abiding citizen.
Your intuition is incorrect. Law abiding citizens tell cops right away when they are legally carrying (in my state). Cops will then take the gun for the duration of the interaction ( if need be) and return it to them when police business is concluded.
Cops are more at ease when there is a weapon they know about (legal weapons) as opposed to the weapons they don't know about (criminal carriers).
I have no problem with Americans legally owning guns and have no interest in taking them all away. Like I've said on past debates I even have a license to carry (though I don't).
That said, I also have no problem with efforts to promote public safety, and whether or not the current gun laws are sufficient or wise in doing that it doesn't mean we should simply then have zero safety laws and let everyone do anything with anything anywhere they want.
And I quite firmly believe the fanatical opposition to public safety efforts on this topic will eventually horribly backfire on the pro-gun movement because sooner or later the balance of power will shift enough to get laws or an amendment through and when that does it's going to be a whole lot more overreactive than you want it to be. You'd be better off engaging in reasonable discourse than using the stonewall and then belittle tactic.
There are many parallels between the own any gun insistance and the right to own a pitbull insistance. Whether it's really the fault of the breed or not there are communities that just don't want to allow pitbulls. And pitbull owners are BS about it insisting no one has a right to stop them from owning one. But meanwhile there are several hundred other breeds of dogs they could own instead without many people batting an eye about it. Dogs are super easy to come by, you can walk around with one, you can indeed hurt someone with one but people give you the benefit of the doubt they won't until you show otherwise. Guns and gun owners are like that, too. And technically most places require you to comply with safety about your dog whether it's leash laws, picking up their poo, vaccinations, dog tags, etc. And people with an animal abuse history shouldn't be allowed to own a dog. Heck, all we're asking for the gun owners to do is the same basic thing - cooperate with basic public safety requirements.
Lol. I hope this convinces gun nuts that more guns obviously don't make us more safe.
As a NRA certified gun owner, I think universal background checks and the disqualification of people on the terrorist watch list, the mentally ill and violent criminals from buying guns are sensible reforms. An assault weapons ban would be disappointing, but I will survive without my M&P15;.
So as far as how already purchased guns are handled, the example that is usually presented is that of Australia's gun buyback program. Certain categories of guns were banned. Gun owners were compelled to sell those guns to the government at fair market value. The guns were then destroyed.
Since Hillary's most extreme proposal is to ban assault weapons. That would only be a small fraction of the existing guns, making it a feasible task.
Well crazy loners wouldn't be able to purchase guns and shoot up crowds of people theoretically. It doesn't seem plausible that they would have the resources to illegally buy a gun since they are usually loners.
I am a loner too. Not all of us are insane. But most insane people are alone. When was the last time they said about a shooter: "he had so many friends, I don't know why he did this"? Never.
No, I'm saying you're using something like the fundamental attribution error. it's not that the shooter is a loner, it's that he's less capable of compassion. you can have all the statistical analyses you want, saying that "Oh yeah school shooters are usually loners" But seeing how that isn't necessarily a give,n you're not narrowing down the profile much, and you aren't excluding those who aren't part of the profile. it's a bit like saying "Our perpetrator had at least one leg" almost everyone has that, and you're needlessly implicating a lot of people in the profile.
In my brain I was thinking serial killer. It's been a while since I read whatever that book was on profiling. I agree that most shooter/terrorist types are loners. but I don't think it's correct to say that being a loner is a key trait of the shooter. as a person could likely be thought highly of their entire life, have friends through the Psychopathic "Friends get me places" kind of way, and then go into the job market where he's suddenly fired for something out of his control and the guy goes postal. it's not really unheard of, the problem is that people like that are usually more focused on their bosses or parents, and this focus puts them as murderers not mass murderers.
If you look at California you see that Democrats don't give a flying fuck about giving people a fair market value, so the Australia solution will never be implemented here.
Why come to a debate site to argue? Constantly resorting to swearing and poor word choices makes any statement you make invalid and seemingly from the head of an adolescent boy.
There's a fine line between debating and arguing. If you can't tell the difference, maybe you're not intelligent enough to be giving your personal opinion on any of the topics on this website.
You don't have the history with "DBCooper" to understand it. He is an individual who, over multiple user names, has pissed off a lot of people here. His entire purpose here is to derail debates.
Cartman, on the other hand, is just an angry person :P
I am not a Democrat, and I am against gun control. I am not upset, I am asking you why it takes you so long to figure out that I won't be giving you the reasons why gun control is good.
The gun control debate you Democrats want to bring to the table does not address the guns already owned. Can you tell me how gun control is gonna work.
They control the most populated state in the country. There are no grown ups in Washington. You do know that the people in Washington come from the different states, right?
I don't even understand your argument here. Are you pro gun or anti gun? Are you saying that Democrats in California would oppose a national gun buyback program? Why would they do that? Don't they want to get rid of guns? Do they think they can act unilaterally without the support of other democrats? I don't know what point you are trying to make here.
Buy back involves spending money to actually get guns off the street. California politicians have banned gun related items but will not do a buy back which means no one will actually give up their stuff.
They do not want to get rid of guns. If they got rid of guns they would lose damn near their entire platform for getting elected.
The Democrats in this country only care about passing bullshit laws and don't actually want to accomplish anything. They only care about getting elected.