I would rather live in a country were most people........

I fear that you had to reach a long way to find this response. One hopes you didn't pull a hammy or something....

 

How can the obvious be a stretch?

 

How is that working out so far?

 

I voted the opposite. In the USA, it is important for a large majority to share mostly the same political views. Increasingly, you have people who think the US citizenry have too much freedom. Freedom to critique your government, gun rights, free speech. Any sizable number of Americans don't believe in fundamental rights can lead to catastrophe.

 

Anecdotally- quite well. In my little part of the world we have a very high rate of private gun ownership and a very low rate of violent crime. The single shooting incident in my town in the ~15 years that I've lived here was a mentally disturbed illegal immigrant residing in the nearest big city that road-raged on some folks on the freeway and followed them here to shoot them. Instead he died in a shootout with the cops. We also had a knifing some years back, it was between family members, involved alcohol and psych meds and everyone survived. We had a suicide, guy hung himself in his livingroom. Other than that, we have the occasional tussle at the bar. Our property theft has been on the rise, people stealing things that get left out overnight, but its only things that can be carried off quickly. No break-ins that I'm aware of. It seems that criminals know there's a lot of guns here and prefer to avoid committing crimes where they're more likely to get shot. Which makes sense, if you accept that criminals tend to have the same instinct for self preservation that the rest of us have.

But to objectively answer that question on a nationwide scale, we'd need to know objectively how much violence doesnt happen due to criminals fearing being shot by their potential victims. Unfortunately very little research has been done on this. We have lots of research into how much violence occurs, but we have very little research on how much violence would've occurred or why it didn't occur. There's plenty of more anecdotal evidence, like shootings in Florida dropping notably (by 34% in Miami) when Florida started allowing people to conceal firearms without a CCW permit, DOJ studies that show a majority of criminals actively avoid victimizing people they know or suspect are armed, phone surveys that estimate 'Defensive Gun Use' is far higher than the rate of violent crime (this study had problems, it would be nice if we did a new one to eliminate the problems of the original ...but no one has). Contrast these with the objective results of gun control, something we do have lots of information on. Like here in WA we spend $10M/year tracking firearm transfers (Mandatory Background Checks) and since we started doing that, our murder-by-shooting rate has doubled instead of reduced and our transfer of illegal guns rate hasn't demonstrably changed at all. Seems that $10M/year could be much better spent on something else.

I think a better question is- how is gun control working out so far?

 

Don't you find it strange that the countries with the least gun violence have the least guns?

 

No. First off that simply isn't true. The Falkland Islands and Serbia rank 2nd and 5th in highest civilian gun ownership per capita, and both have fabulously low rates of violence of any sort, ranked "Very Safe" to visit. Canada is 7th highest, and considered one of the safest countries in the world.

Some of the countries with the lowest rates of gun onwership per capita are also safe, like Japan and Taiwan, but also in the lower rates of gun ownership are many countries you would not want to visit due to their high rates of violence, Like Central African Republic, Nigeria, Ecuador and Haiti.

I don't find it valuable to distinguish gun violence from other violence. If a nation had zero shootings but people were routinely attacked with machetes instead, would you move or vacation there?

You can't judge the effectiveness of laws in one country by comparing it to other countries that have those laws but have drastically different cultures. Culture matters. In Japan, for example, people follow the law because their culture respects order and conformity. In the US, people have far less respect for order and detest conformity, and follow the law mostly to avoid the consequences of breaking it.

 

Thank you for that load of rationalizations. The Falklands? A country of 3,000, where everybody is somebody's cousin doesn't report gun crime statistics and has half as many guns per capita as the US. Serbia, with 1/3 as many guns per capita as the US, had two recent mass shootings (we lost count here) and they have enacted strict gun control. All unregistered guns to be turned in or a prison sentence, that is about half the guns (in the US 0.25% are registered). Serbian Gun owners will face strict background checks, psychological evaluations and regular drug tests. There is more restrictions here.

The US leads the world in mass shootings and leads the developed world in gun violence. It has 5% the world's population and 46% of the world's civilian held firearms. You want more guns in the hands of citizens. Statistically that will increase the number of guns in the hands of the unstable, suicidal, lawless, those with anger issues, that don't know the law, with poor judgement and the just plain stupid. Logically more people are gonna get hurt.
You seem to put a lot of faith in the judgement of US citizens to use deadly force and yet you say they lack respect for order and only follow the law to avoid the consequences of breaking the law.
Can you shoot a horse thief?

 

I cannot vote that easy.

I consider the spread of Islam as the most dangerous development in the world and a pest for all societies who have to wear the burden of having an Islamic population as a serious disadvantage, because Islam will in every society have the tendency to try to take over and control, which will lead down into a shithole status of the nation. I dont consider Islam as a religion, but rather as a death cult with political-ideological ambitions. There is also no option to live in peace under Islam, I know e.g. men's rights activists who think that if we once convert really devoted to the religion or not it could be a good society because feminism is stopped than, family values, blablabla, thats imo impossible, because Islam will always lead to bloodshed. Inner-Islam bloodshed will even be much worse then inter-religous bloodshed.




"are roughly the same color as I am"

For me in my situation, that could actually work to put Islam down to a minumum, so I would consider it as an option, but its only the specific perspective from a White European in whose country Islam was not native, but invaded recently. If I was e.g. an Indian, I would give a ****, because Islamists would have the same skin colour as e.g. fellow Hindus, it brings the same bloodshed to India, where the skin colour cannot distinguish in between peaceful Hindus, Shikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Islamists who wanna slaughter them.

are generally the same religion that I am ( to many denominations )

Thats an option to prevent Islam from taking over. Technically, as I dont consider Islam as a religion, I dont care about religions. So according to my definition, I dont care about religion, according to the majority of people who romanticize Islam as a religion, thats the most decisive point.

Have most of the same political beliefs as I do

Theoretically yes, that would be nice if we all agree on that. Practically thats only acheivable by constant political purges, so in reality, no.


View sexuality the same way I do

Does that mean, they must all be of the same sexual preference or that they share my opinion about that? As I am not quite sure, what the implications are of this question, I dont know.


There are people of many skin colors.

See above, theoretically I dont care, but as soon as correlations with Islam exist, I dont want that. But its not getting beyond neutral. So e.g. even if all the people of another skin colour a non-Muslims (or of any other violent culture) I dont care, but I dont care doesnt mean I prefer, so I am about to say no there.

Where there are a wide variety of political viewpoints

Difficult, see the eariler point on that. Theoretically no, would be nice if we thought all the same and everything is easy peasy. In practice I am about to say yes, because realistically that means the society is more tolerant.

Where there are a wide variety of political viewpoints

As above, I am not sure what it implicates and how far the variety should go. Accepting gay or lesbian sexuality, yes, definitely, accepting e.g. child rape of course not. So a society in which we accept child rape, or let it be rape in general, nah. Not good. There are also some bizzarre forms of sexuality which I dont accept although I dont find it as disgusting as rape, I dont wanna go out and see my neighbour sodomizing his dog, even if we assume the dog is fine with that. Oh and by the way, even if my neighbours are hot and I do wanna see it, I think its ok that its not acceptable for the society that I go out and see husband and wife in public in action. As freedom ends where it restricts the freedom of others and I dont know how wide the acceptance should go which is asked for, I dont know what to answer.

 

Prolly depends on the state, but generally you can shoot a horse thief if the horse thief is threat to your life.

That's too bad about Serbia. I predict their crime rate is going to skyrocket over the next decade, unless they resist the confiscation.

I put as much faith in the judgement of US citizens as I do in the judgement of the US govt and law enforcement. That is to say, I have far more faith in my own judgement than I do any of them. Thats why I am my first and foremost source of my own defense, and that how it needs to stay.

If restricting everyones rights is the proper response to a small minority abusing those rights, why isnt there a more concerted effort to restrict alcohol? Alcohol abuse and drunk driving are a far bigger source of injury and untimely death than guns, not only in the US but in many other nations.

And ftr, I dont support restricting either of them.