• Fuyu (edited 8 years ago)
    +3

    Everything history class has told me about prohibition made it sound ineffective and criminalizing. Everything I see on the news about the drug war makes it sound even more pointless than prohibition. The only example of gun-laws being productive that I know of is in Australia, and the US is an entirely different monster from Australia as /u/moe excellently described here.

    It's sad that we hear more arguments for how this can't be done than discussion about how we might solve the problem.

    Those two go hand in hand. If someone suggests a solution (such as banning guns) the "argument" of how it can't be done is a proper discussion response. Unfortunately, no one wants to come up with a different solution other than banning guns so naturally the response is people agreeing or disagreeing with that.

    • spaceghoti
      +6

      So once again, it works everywhere but here. American Exceptionalism rears it's ugly head.

      Comparing gun control to drug prohibition is amazingly dishonest. Taking too many drugs is likely to kill you; playing with too many guns likely to kill you and those around you.

    • Fuyu
      +2
      @spaceghoti -

      As far as I know, the US is the only place in the situation of having an extremely high gun population and gun-per-citizen rate. As far as I know, Australia is the only country that had to even curb back it's gun population. That's not everywhere, and if there are indeed other notable countries that have successfully done the same thing, anti-gun advocates are doing their argument a disservice by not including them in their evidence. Also, it's not American Exceptionalism if the US is the only country in a particular situation, which as I said, as far as I know, it is.

      If you're comparing it morally, yes certainly. But I'm not. Prohibition of any kind is expensive, not particularly effective, and not widely obeyed. If you can find an example of otherwise, I'd love to know.

    • spaceghoti
      +5
      @Fuyu -

      Australia, the UK, Germany and in fact most of the industrialized world have banned or otherwise strictly controlled guns. We may have the most gun ownership, but we also have the largest body of law enforcement; such things tend to scale. Most of the countries that don't ban guns like Switzerland typically don't have as much of a problem because military service is mandatory and they receive comprehensive training on how to use their weapon and respect it. Perhaps that should be our solution if we can't get rid of them?

      Whether or not a law is popular has no bearing on whether or not it's necessary. The US is the only industrialized nation that has a problem with mass shootings. Making excuses for why the problem can't be solved doesn't provoke any sympathy.