Noshtane posted:

Fair enough, you are right in that the US gun debaters love to point at the rest of the world, both as an example of horror or heaven depending on what side you're on. Let me backpedal a bit and elaborate.
Yes, the US gun debate does point to other countries all the time but put it in an American context, something that may lead to wrong people drawing the wrong conclusions.
For instance, civilian gun ownership and marksmanship programs to aid in national defense and resistance. The posters in this thread has made it abundantly clear that they don't believe that this is good or even possible in any way. The defense planners in the Nordic countries disagree. In the context of US gun ownership, you are absolutely right but in a Nordic context, things are different.
Swedish gun laws is another example that US gun debate tend to get wrong. Sweden is neither the gun-hating socialists that NRA would claim or the deer-rifle-only success story gun that control advocates might say. Posters have claimed that our laws are close to ideal but I hava a feeling that they wouldn't work nearly as well in the USA without major rework.

To clarify on that, Swedish gun laws allow private ownership of every type of gun even the most gun happy state in the US would. Pistols, semi-autos including AR-15s , fully automatic SMGs, the works. In short, this works because the Police will review each gun license application and check if the person applying has a reasonable need for the guns applied for. For instance, to own hunting rifles, you need the appropriate hunting license. Having a pistol shooting club vouch for your need is a valid reason to own a pistol. Being afraid of minorities is not a valid reason to own a gun. Competing in SMG shooting thus needing an SMG is a valid reason to own one of those and so on. As the various shooting clubs are very keen on keeping a good relation to the police and the public, they make sure you are properly trained in the use of guns, committed to safety, not a fucknut and so on. It usually takes up to a year of active shooting with a borrowed pistol before they are willing to vouch for you and even longer for the heavier stuff.
A collectors license allows you to get pretty much everything within the scope of your collection but you'd generally need additional permits to fire the guns.
The whole system depends on a) That the gun clubs are doing a good job in weeding out unfitting members from the community, and b), that the police is capable of doing a correct assessment of what guns are appropriate for what use. Note that the assessment is up to the individual policemen who are handling the application with general guidelines from above.

Would you trust the US gun community and US police to handle those things in a satisfactory manner? I wouldn't. I don't see either a) or b) happening in the US any time soon.
What you want when you say Swedish gun laws is that you want Swedish gun culture and Swedish police. I do think that the US would benefit tremendously from both but I don't see how you'd get there.

Then we have the gun crime that does happen in Sweden and why legally owned rifles so rarely end up in them. Sweden as a member of the EU has open borders towards the rest of the members and very little customs checkpoints. While this is good in most regards, it has made it a trivial task for criminal elements to smuggle in military rifles, pistols and grenades.
As a criminal, why go through the risk involved in trying to get one of the legally owned weapons when a former Yugo AK and a box of hand grenades can be yours for $200 equivalent? No I don't know the actual prices but te police say that they are very cheap. This makes legal arms rather unattractive to the criminals.
If the US is in a better or worse geographic situation compared to Sweden vis-a-vis gun smuggling, I don't know but I'd wager it changes things.

The we'd have history, culture, military, healthcare and a whole slew of other aspects that are different, things that has made Sweden relatively safe but would not be 1:1 applicable to make the US safe.

So when the US gun debate use Sweden as an example, without taking the proper context into account, then it's justified to claim that they need to take of their US colored glasses.

Noshtane posted:

LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:

Yeah this is a big pile of horse poo poo you're bringing up to muddy the waters.

Every country that imposes gun laws and enforces them has reduced gun violence. Every single one. The bottom line is that the best way to reduce gun violence is to reduce the number of guns. Talking about swedish gun culture and swedish police is an attempt to obfuscate that very simple fact. Stop doing this.

QuarkJets posted:

"I don't think that US gun control advocates really want the Swedish style of gun control, for instance <lists off a bunch of items that US gun control advocates vocally support>"

LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:

Yeah this is a big pile of horse poo poo you're bringing up to muddy the waters.

Every country that imposes gun laws and enforces them has reduced gun violence. Every single one. The bottom line is that the best way to reduce gun violence is to reduce the number of guns. Talking about swedish gun culture and swedish police is an attempt to obfuscate that very simple fact. Stop doing this.

VitalSigns posted:

Some doubters say that elementary school desks are not impervious to nuclear weapons, but the US defense planners disagree

Noshtane posted:

You'd be willing to leave off the decision of who's a good gun owner and what he'd be allowed own to the local NRA chapter and the local town sheriff? You don't see any way this would fail to achieve the goal you are trying to achieve? Sweden doesn't have any stricter standards on background checks than the US as far as I can tell and the sheriff being elected, I would sooner expect Republican dominated communities to overflow with everything you are trying to ban and already have banned. You'd need stricter gun laws than Sweden, a better police and most importantly a better gun community to reach our levels of crime with legal weapons.

Noshtane posted:

You are missing the point completely. What I'm trying to point out is that different countries have different conditions to when it comes to reducing armed violence in the society. I am of the opinion that the Swedish gun laws are good as is and I can back that statement with Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention statistics. This apparently lumps me with the "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" crowd in the eyes of some and I would say that that is exactly what I mean that people view the entire world through a lens of American context.

zapplez posted:

Every country that imposed stricter gun laws had success?

QuarkJets posted:

I too sometimes have trouble comprehending basic english sentences, resulting in wild misinterpretations like this one. But that's usually only after I do a shitload of drugs or if I'm wearing super dark welding goggles. Is one of those things what happened here?

zapplez posted:

"Every country that imposes gun laws and enforces them has reduced gun violence. Every single one. The bottom line is that the best way to reduce gun violence is to reduce the number of guns."

Did strict gun laws in Mexico or Jamaica 1 - lowered the homicide rate or 2 - lowered the amount of guns in the country being used in crimes?

QuarkJets posted:

According to this site describing Swedish gun laws you've significantly understated the scope of Swedish gun laws:

• Gun owners must be licensed, which requires that the applicant be 18 and be in good standing with the police
  
• License requires that you be a member of a shooting club for 6 months or pass a hunting exam, and you can't use one type of license for another purpose (e.g. you can't be licensed with hunting rifles and then go buy a pistol, you've got to go join a shooting club and become proficient with pistols)
  
• Can only carry firearms for a specific, legal purpose, e.g. you can't just show up at a protest with a rifle strapped to your back or carry around a pistol for "self defense"
  
• Transported firearms must be unloaded and hidden
  
• Collectors with a significant number of guns need vault doors and security glass to make sure their guns aren't easily stolen
  

lol yes this is leaps and bounds ahead of where the US is at and would undoubtedly be better than what we have now, now wave your Scandinavian magic wand and give us those laws please. Gaining any one of these bullet points would be seen as a huge victory for US gun control advocates

Dude why are you assuming that people in the US need to pass a background check? That's only for federally-licensed dealers and whether or not we should even require background checks for all sales is an ongoing point of debate.

Noshtane posted:

To clarify on that, Swedish gun laws allow private ownership of every type of gun even the most gun happy state in the US would. Pistols, semi-autos including AR-15s , fully automatic SMGs, the works. In short, this works because the Police will review each gun license application and check if the person applying has a reasonable need for the guns applied for. For instance, to own hunting rifles, you need the appropriate hunting license. Having a pistol shooting club vouch for your need is a valid reason to own a pistol. Being afraid of minorities is not a valid reason to own a gun. Competing in SMG shooting thus needing an SMG is a valid reason to own one of those and so on. As the various shooting clubs are very keen on keeping a good relation to the police and the public, they make sure you are properly trained in the use of guns, committed to safety, not a fucknut and so on. It usually takes up to a year of active shooting with a borrowed pistol before they are willing to vouch for you and even longer for the heavier stuff.
A collectors license allows you to get pretty much everything within the scope of your collection but you'd generally need additional permits to fire the guns.

Groovelord Neato posted:

sweden's gun laws aren't great (there's a reason they have higher gun violence than similar nations) but they're way way way better than what we got.

QuarkJets posted:

How well-enforced are the gun laws in those countries?

zapplez posted:

Isnt that kind of cheating to say "Gun laws work well everytime, just don't count the countries where they didnt"

zapplez posted:

Isnt that kind of cheating to say "Gun laws work well everytime, just don't count the countries where they didnt"

stone cold posted:

isn’t it kind of cheating for you to constantly gloss over the far more comparable countries to the us that have successfully implemented and enforced gun control laws

zapplez posted:

Gun laws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjvQFtlNQ-M

archangelwar posted:

I just passed the Somethingawful law that states "zapplez will never post again." The moderators are not going to enforce this law, but I am drat sure you will never post again because that is how laws work.

zapplez posted:

Isnt that kind of cheating to say "Gun laws work well everytime, just don't count the countries where they didnt"

zapplez posted:

poo poo.

I know it's super controversial but I still believe the biggest issue behind the violence in America is income inequality and poverty. You are going to have people willing to commit crimes and arm themselves when they don't have many other options for a good life.

Comparing america to a fantastic country like Sweden or even canada is a joke because the poverty is so drastically smaller.

zapplez posted:

I know it's super controversial but I still believe the biggest issue behind the violence in America is income inequality and poverty.

Jaxyon posted:

Well poo poo, nobody figured to control for poverty in crime studies.

You're headed for a PhD, young man!

Turns out guns don't really matter in gun violence.

fishmech posted:

Ah yes all that income inequality drives the largely wealthy mass shooters to go shoot people cuz they just get so angry that other people are in poverty. That's why that millionaire guy in Vegas shot into a crowd, he was trying to teach a message about poverty.