Gun control ... actual question

[KimGordon67]

Out of the 74 countries for which data seems to be available, the US has the 11th highest rate of gun deaths (and the 10 higher countries are not exactly surprising). Of the 64 countries for which data is available, the US is the 12th highest for accidental gun deaths. (Source - yes, it's Wikipedia, but the way they make their tables able to be manipulated works pretty well. If anyone has a more reliable source for these data, I'd be interested to see it.)

Since the Vegas shooting, I've read a lot of stuff here and been thinking a lot about the issue of gun control. I personally don't have a problem with guns as a concept. However, we don't own a gun, and we don't live in a context in which gun ownership is common. We also have an incredibly low rate of gun death.

I've learnt a lot about the Second Amendment in the last few days, and read quite complex arguments about how gun ownership is a 'right' ... I'm not sill convinced that it's a human right, but I get that it's a right under the US constitution. And I have a better understanding (although far from complete) of the history of the US that's created the culture in which that seems to make sense.

So, in the light of all that, I'm thinking most people would still agree the stats in para one above are not great? Given that, what is proposed as the solution? If you don't think greater gun control is the answer, what is?

It would be great if any thoughts along any lines were supported by actual evidence.

*Feel free to hurl whatever insults you want in my general direction in response to anything that's said in this thread, but I won't respond to that. I'm actually genuinely interested in getting an understanding of the situation.

 

[Que]

You have discovered the conflation of various societal ills as some mythical problem called "gun deaths."

Suicide and murder are the problem, not the instrument of choice.

The first thing you have to do when understanding gun deaths in America is to reduce the number you're given by 2/3. That's the amount of people who kill themselves with guns. If you think the number of people who want to kill themselves is going to dramatically drop if in some magical way 300 to 400 million guns disappear out of America then there's really no point in having a conversation with you about suicide by gun.

Of the remaining roughly 10,000 deaths, cut that number by approximately 60% which is the number of black, usually gang members, usually drug-related murders that happened in inner cities. If you think that those murders are not going to happen if law-abiding citizens are deprived of guns given the fact that at least one third of all black males are forbidden to have guns of any sort anyway due to their felony records I don't know what to tell you about what you think gun control is going to accomplish. Those murders are being committed by the third who aren't permitted to have guns of any kind. They have them now. They're not going to turn them in with any sort of gun control legislation. Mexico has a virtual ban on all sorts of firearms and yet they have a tremendous homicide rate using firearms. And no, until the Obama Administration started giving them guns to try to prove they were coming from America, they actually were not gettng them from America. I happen to know a little something about that. They loved that brief window when guns were coming from America because it was a little bit simpler for them but they're back to getting them the way they always did, imported from third world arms bazzars.

Of the five thousand or so murders left in a country of 340 million you got to assume some of those are crimes of passion I think a gun is a little easier to use than other implements to kill somebody in the heat of the moment but it's not that hard to pick up a blunt object and smack somebody upside the head.

Murder in Australia did not statistically reduce at all when guns were virtually eliminated. The only thing that changed was the method of murder. Not the number of homicides.

The biggest problem that you don't understand about life with guns in America is there are plenty of places we're having a gun definitely makes you safer and definitely deters would-be rapists robbers and other enthusists of mayhem. Famously Florida passing concealed carry dramatically reduced carjackings and murder. Nothing about disarming people without homicidal or suicidal intentions is going to reduce the number of homicides.

If you made guns harder to get in America I think you probably could reduce the number of people killed by firearms somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four thousand per year, but I can't imagine that anything less than half to two-thirds of those people would still be killed just using some other means.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Given that, what is proposed as the solution?

The only real solution is to elect a functioning congress and a bunch of governors to all get together and shit can 2A, then send the troops in to confiscate all guns.

Just short of that, you're pissing up a flag pole with a 'gun control' solution. That cat was out of the bag 225 years ago.

If you don't think greater gun control is the answer, what is?

Raising less degenerate shit bags as a society, providing HC for the ones we do.

 

[Que]

The only real solution is to elect a functioning congress and a bunch of governors to all get together and shit can 2A, then send the troops in to confiscate all guns.

Just short of that, you're pissing up a flag pole with a 'gun control' solution. That cat was out of the bag 225 years ago.



Raising less degenerate shit bags as a society, providing HC for the ones we do.

We already provide an awful lot of free healthcare that prevents gun related deaths. We have some of the best trauma surgeons in the world in various innercity locations. If you look at the number of people shot versus the number of people killed you can see that our homicide rate by gun could easily be quadruple what it is.

 

[KimGordon67]

You haven't "learned" anything about deaths in America that happen to involve a gun. What you've done is Google for confirmation bias and found plenty of eager anti-gun nuts conflation of various societal ills as some mythical problem called "gun deaths."

Actually, I didn't Google anything much - I've just been following the debates in here.

Suicide and murder are the problem, not the instrument of choice.

The first thing you have to do when understanding gun deaths in America is to reduce the number you're given by 2/3. That's the amount of people who kill themselves with guns. If you think the number of people who want to kill themselves is going to dramatically drop if in some magical way 300 to 400 million guns disappear out of America then there's really no point in having a conversation with you about suicide by gun.

I hadn't taken the suicide rates into account.

Of the remaining roughly 10,000 deaths, cut that number by approximately 60% which is the number of black, usually gang members, usually drug-related murders that happened in inner cities. If you think that those murders are not going to happen if law-abiding citizens are deprived of guns given the fact that at least one third of all black males are forbidden to have guns of any sort anyway due to their felony records I don't know what to tell you about what you think gun control is going to accomplish. Those murders are being committed by the third who aren't permitted to have guns of any kind. They have them now. They're not going to turn them in with any sort of gun control legislation. Mexico has a virtual ban on all sorts of firearms and yet they have a tremendous homicide rate using firearms. And know until the Obama Administration started giving them guns to try to prove they were coming from America they actually were not gettng them from America. I happen to know a little something about that. They loved that brief window when guns were coming from America because it was a little bit simpler for them but they're back to getting them the way they always did.

So you don't think tighter gun control would reduce illegal ownership? It seems to me that just a lower level of ownership/availability would reduce all ownership, not just the legal ownership. If guns weren't readily available, where would people get the illegal ones from?

Do you have some evidence for that stat? I'd be interested to see it.

Of the five thousand or so murders left in a country of 340 million you got to assume some of those are crimes of passion I think a gun is a little easier to use than other implements to kill somebody in the heat of the moment but it's not that hard to pick up a blunt object and smack somebody upside the head.

Murder in Australia did not statistically reduce at all when guns were virtually eliminated. The only thing that changed was the most of murder. Not the homicides themselves.

I'm not quite sure what you mean with the bolded bit?

The biggest problem that you don't understand about life with guns in America is there are plenty of places we're having a gun definitely makes you safer and definitely deters would-be rapists robbers and other enthusists of mayhem. Famously Florida passing concealed carry dramatically reduced carjackings and murder.

Do you have some analysis of this, or even just stats? I'd be interested to see it.

If you made guns harder to get in America I think you probably could reduce the number of people killed by firearms somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four thousand per year, but I can't imagine that anything less than half to two-thirds of those people would still be killed just using some other means.

OK, interesting points. The attitude probably wasn't necessary, but there's some factors I hadn't taken into account. I'll think about that a bit more.

 

[Que]

OK, interesting points. The attitude probably wasn't necessary, but there's some factors I hadn't taken into account. I'll think about that a bit more.

Ha. I was thinking the same thing and just edited the intro. The ire which you have not yet earned is due to the fact that this topic comes up regularly and we have idiots like SoftRom out of Canada assuring me that his lily-white burg is somehow the equivalent of Detroit because they've got some non-whites (asians and first nations.)

America in general and Black America specifically, has a problem with glorifying violence.

We're getting some extremely violent gangs out of Central America as well, but they are not adding to our "gun problem" because they like to use machettes. We are talking about teenagers beheading each other.

 

[KimGordon67]

We already provide an awful lot of free healthcare that prevents gun related deaths. We have some of the best trauma surgeons in the world in various innercity locations. If you look at the number of people shot versus the number of people killed you can see that our homicide rate by gun could easily be quadruple what it is.

Well, that's an interesting variable I hadn't considered. If you look at the list organised from highest to lowest, most of the ten countries above the US would, I'd guess, have not such good healthcare. So are you saying if US healthcare wasn't so good, the US might be further up the list?

 

[KimGordon67]

Ha. I was thinking the same thing and just edited the intro.

Well thanks ... that makes things a bit more pleasant.

 

[Que]

Well, that's an interesting variable I hadn't considered. If you look at the list organised from highest to lowest, most of the ten countries above the US would, I'd guess, have not such good healthcare. So are you saying if US healthcare wasn't so good, the US might be further up the list?

Far higher.

You look at the crime blotter for any major American city and you'll see that for every death there might be 10 people admitted to the ER with gunshot wounds who are saved.

The other thing is a lot of those people walking around shooting each other possibly because they are prohibited from having firearms because of felony records don't really get a lot of time at the range don't hang around with gun people and don't know anything about balistics.

For some reason 9 mm is really popular. Not to get too down into the weeds on this long debated topic (the FBI for example liked 9mm for quite some time because most of the time even trained people miss their target 60% of the time,) 9mm have smaller bullets so you can fit two rows of them in the handle of the gun which means that you have roughly twice as many bullets. That actually is useful when you're defending yourself, but if you're just going to walk up to somebody and shoot them dead, a larger bullet would make more sense and you don't need more than one maybe two of them. The choice in guns and ammunition actually makes a difference in the survivability of a lot of these gunshots that these trauma centers are dealing with.

Despite all the figures about scary looking black long guns they are literally used in America to kill people less often than hammers are. Vegas was the exception. I sincerely hope that people who have homicidal tendencies don't put spend any time pondering that. We don't need a rash of people actually using rifles. If some of those high velocity rounds had instead been 9 mm rounds from a handgun many of those in Las Vegas would have survived.

 

[KimGordon67]

Ha. I was thinking the same thing and just edited the intro. The ire which you have not yet earned is due to the fact that this topic comes up regularly and we have idiots like SoftRom out of Canada assuring me that his lily-white burg is somehow the equivalent of Detroit because they've got some non-whites (asians and first nations.)

America in general and Black America specifically, has a problem with glorifying violence.

We're getting some extremely violent gangs out of Central America as well, but they are not adding to our "gun problem" because they like to use machettes. We are talking about teenagers beheading each other.

... and I guess that's where there's going to be actual debate, because my solution to that particular problem would be to fix poverty. (OK, that's over-simplifying things a little, but you get my point.) Gangs tend to be a function of social disenfranchisement - policing them seems to be woefully inadequate.

Is there any instance in the US where the level of gang membership or violence has been effectively reduced by any useful means?

 

[KimGordon67]

Far higher.

You look at the crime blotter for any major American city and you'll see that for every death there might be 10 people admitted to the ER with gunshot wounds who are saved.

The other thing is a lot of those people walking around shooting each other possibly because they are prohibited from having firearms because of felony records don't really get a lot of time at the range don't hang around with gun people and don't know anything about balistics.

For some reason 9 mm is really popular. not to get too down into the Weeds on this long debated topic the FBI for example like the idea that 9mm for quite some time because most of the time even trained people miss their target 60% of the time, 9mm or smaller bullets so you can fit two rows of them in the handle of the gun which means that you have roughly twice as many bullets. that actually is useful when you're defending yourself. But if you're actually just going to walk up to somebody and shoot them dead, a larger bullet would make more sense and you don't need more than one maybe two of them. So the choice in guns and ammunition actually makes a difference in the survivability of a lot of these gunshots that these Trauma Centers are dealing with.

Despite all the figures about scary looking black long guns they are literally used in America to kill people less often than hammers are. Vegas was the exception. I sincerely hope that people who have homicidal tendencies don't put spend any time pondering that. We don't need a rash of people actually using rifles.

Do you think all those people would end up in hospital if it weren't for the gun the other guy was holding? It seems like this must put a bit of a drain on the health system, at least in certain areas?

 

[BotanyBoy]

We already provide an awful lot of free healthcare that prevents gun related deaths. We have some of the best trauma surgeons in the world in various innercity locations. If you look at the number of people shot versus the number of people killed you can see that our homicide rate by gun could easily be quadruple what it is.

I meant for the degenerate shit bags...they need mental help, or 3 years in the military for a shot at un-fucking them.

Do you think all those people would end up in hospital if it weren't for the gun the other guy was holding? It seems like this must put a bit of a drain on the health system, at least in certain areas?

Nah. But he was so they do....there are so many they aren't going away anytime soon.

The fact that you keep suggesting they might is fucking laughable.

And we don't really have a health system. It's a total cluster fuck because Obama and the (D)'s sold us the fuck out.

 

[Que]

... and I guess that's where there's going to be actual debate, because my solution to that particular problem would be to fix poverty. (OK, that's over-simplifying things a little, but you get my point.) Gangs tend to be a function of social disenfranchisement - policing them seems to be woefully inadequate.

Is there any instance in the US where the level of gang membership or violence has been effectively reduced by any useful means?

That's a popular deflection but it's completely not true. Poverty has nothing to do with it and culture has everything to do with it.

There are plenty of places in America that are astonishingly impoverished that do not have that level of violence.

Look at our Native American rese4vations, look at Appalachia.

The people that are killing each other over drug wars are not living in poverty in fact they have quite a bit of disposable income from their illicit activities. Arguing that they have no other choice but to engage in those illicit activities because they come from poverty is nonsense. To argue that you have to argue that there's something inferior about them that makes them incapable of taking advantage of free public schools in the Pell Grants that'll get them into virtually any university in this nation if that's what they want to do.

You can look at the quality of Education coming out of these inner-city areas and draw some conclusions but usually the conclusion drawn are completely wrong. The problem are the disengaged parents and the students who don't care. The other problem is that all of these schools get Federal money based on how many butts they have in chairs on any given day. So they do care about truancy and they don't want to kick anyone out because every single student means more Federal money. When really they should just kick the troublemakers out and be done with them. That's also I believe why bullying is so prevalent in American schools as well. I don't think that it's just that we are more aware and talking about it then we were in times past in the 1950s the kind of bullying that goes on now in American schools would will result in expulsion, no questions asked.

 

[KimGordon67]

I meant for the degenerate shit bags...they need mental help, or 3 years in the military for a shot at un-fucking them.



Nah. But he was so they do....there are so many they aren't going away anytime soon.

The fact that you keep suggesting they might is fucking laughable.

And we don't really have a health system. It's a total cluster fuck because Obama and the (D)'s sold us the fuck out.

I haven't suggested they're going away any time soon ... I'm just interested in what might be a viable solution to what seem to be a range of related issues. (Well, initially to the level of gun deaths, but Que's raised some interesting other points.)

 

[Que]

Do you think all those people would end up in hospital if it weren't for the gun the other guy was holding? It seems like this must put a bit of a drain on the health system, at least in certain areas?

Without guns,* would just be blunt force trauma or knife wounds then. The problem is absolutely not that one some guy was holding a gun and just decided to shoot somebody. Somebody decided to actually kill another human being over the fact that they were disrespected or that they were selling drugs on the wrong corner or whatever their reason is for killing another human being. The homicidal tendency is the problem.

*keep in mind these guns are being illegally possessed right now as we speak, and there are probably as many as 500 million guns in America. It's an absolute fantasy that the number of guns could possibly be reduced. Until the Supreme Court told Chicago to knock it off with their unconstitutional Draconian gun laws, there was virtually a ban on guns in Chicago and it didn't have any effect whatsoever.

 

[KimGordon67]

That's a popular deflection but it's completely not true. Poverty has nothing to do with it and culture has everything to do with it.

There are plenty of places in America that are astonishingly impoverished that do not have that level of violence.

Look at our Native American rese4vations, look at Appalachia.

The people that are killing each other over drug wars are not living in poverty in fact they have quite a bit of disposable income from their illicit activities. Arguing that they have no other choice but to engage in those illicit activities because they come from poverty is nonsense. To argue that you have to argue that there's something inferior about them that makes them incapable of taking advantage of free public schools in the Pell Grants that'll get them into virtually any university in this nation if that's what they want to do.

You can look at the quality of Education coming out of these inner-city areas and draw some conclusions but usually the conclusion drawn are completely wrong. The problem are the disengaged parents and the students who don't care. The other problem is that all of these schools get Federal money based on how many butts they have in chairs on any given day. So they do care about truancy and they don't want to kick anyone out because every single student means more Federal money. When really they should just kick the troublemakers out and be done with them. That's also I believe why bullying is so prevalent in American schools as well. I don't think that it's just that we are more aware and talking about it then we were in times past in the 1950s the kind of bullying that goes on now in American schools would will result in expulsion, no questions asked.

Saying that gang culture, for example, is related to poverty is not the same as saying that poverty inevitably causes gang culture.
There's a fairly clear correlation here between gang membership and poverty, and between incarceration and poverty. I'd be surprised if the US is any different.
I'm disinclined to blame parents and/or struggling education systems for systemic problems like this. The education system simply isn't able to correct for everything else. Here's a 10 minute video from an American researcher talking about this. And here's the Wiki entry on the Coleman report, which came to much the same conclusion - basically, education makes a difference, but socio-economic status is far and away the most significant variable in explaining differences in educational outcomes. (This remains one of the largest pieces of social research ever conducted.)

 

[BotanyBoy]

I haven't suggested they're going away any time soon ...

Really?

So you weren't implying that a solution to keeping all "those people" out of the hospital would be to keep the gun out of the shooters hands in the first place with the question in this post?

Do you think all those people would end up in hospital if it weren't for the gun the other guy was holding?

I mean that is your primary stance on the topic is it not?

 

[Que]

When this subject has come up before I have taken the data and aggregated out the deaths that basically don't involve me or anyone like me. I'm not a big fan of the concept of white privilege but let's just use that as the frame with which to have a minor discussion about the safety of gun-toting America. Unless you actually live in one of the inner-city areas America is safer from gun deaths than Europe.

I grew up in an anti-gun not household. My dad an Air Force vet, was opposed to guns of all sorts and believes that God is not going to protect him if he takes it upon himself to protect himself. His actual religion doesn't teach anything of the sort, but it's his own bastardization of those concepts. I don't really think that that nutty idea made our family any less safe. What made our family safe was privilege that comes from having a father that earns enough money to live someplace where people don't shoot each other on a routine basis.

It's not any great secret to know where one's likely to be shot and where one's not likely to be shot.

Except for the isolated islands of violence that we have in America the rest of America is safer than European cities.

Which underscores the point that guns are not the problem. Culture is the problem. Impoverished rural areas have more guns than cars and nobody shoots each other.

 

[BotanyBoy]

I'm disinclined to blame parents and/or struggling education systems for systemic problems like this.

It's NEVER their fault.

Wiki entry on the Coleman report, which came to much the same conclusion - basically, education makes a difference, but socio-economic status is far and away the most significant variable in explaining differences in educational outcomes. (This remains one of the largest pieces of social research ever conducted.)

Last study I saw said having a 2nd parent figure around the house to put a foot up your ass every day was the most significant variable.

That's why poor Asian and Jewish kids kick the ever living piss out of white/black/latino kids rich or otherwise when it comes to educational outcomes.

We don't have special math genes....we have overbearing asian father and tiger mom pressuring us to play violin and go to medical school from first birthday (day you're born).

 

[Que]

Saying that gang culture, for example, is related to poverty is not the same as saying that poverty inevitably causes gang culture.
There's a fairly clear correlation here between gang membership and poverty, and between incarceration and poverty. I'd be surprised if the US is any different.
I'm disinclined to blame parents and/or struggling education systems for systemic problems like this. The education system simply isn't able to correct for everything else. Here's a 10 minute video from an American researcher talking about this. And here's the Wiki entry on the Coleman report, which came to much the same conclusion - basically, education makes a difference, but socio-economic status is far and away the most significant variable in explaining differences in educational outcomes. (This remains one of the largest pieces of social research ever conducted.)

Humans are infinitely variable and have infinitely different capabilities. Smart capable people tend to have more money and they tend to have brighter children who end up being more capable and wealthy. We're breeding a huge underclass and supporting it with a huge social safety net.

The absolute best predictor of poverty is at what age do people start having children. When it's children having children you're guaranteed they're going to live in poverty. Multi-generational families of that and you get what we have.

America has spent roughly 20 trillion dollars on social programs since the war on poverty announced by the Johnson Administration which is essentially my entire lifetime. It has not at all decreased our poverty rates. If anything it's increased them. Although part of the problem with that is we keep redefining what it means to be impoverished. Our poor now are far wealthier than our middle class was under Johnson. A single mother can expect approximately $40,000 per year in benefits. The poor aren't stupid and they know that, so all women on benefits are single whether they are or not. Men are a financial liability to the family as that would reduce benefits. That lack of stability in the family unit certainly hasn't helped. Older gang members are the father figures for most of these young men.

Fun fact 20% of all money spent on food stamps is spent on soda. Liquid diabetes. that probably has a bigger strain on our Healthcare System than gunshots. Our poor are all on some version of Medicaid. In my state it's called Mercy Care. Before that it was called access ACCESS.

 

[DeYaKen]

You have discovered the conflation of various societal ills as some mythical problem called "gun deaths."

If you made guns harder to get in America I think you probably could reduce the number of people killed by firearms somewhere in the neighborhood of three to four thousand per year, but I can't imagine that anything less than half to two-thirds of those people would still be killed just using some other means.

Just curious here, are you saying that the deaths of that one third to a half is a price worth paying for easy access to guns?

 

[KimGordon67]

It's NEVER their fault.



Last study I saw said having a 2nd parent figure around the house to put a foot up your ass every day was the most significant variable.

That's why poor Asian and Jewish kids kick the ever living piss out of white/black/latino kids rich or otherwise when it comes to educational outcomes.

We don't have special math genes....we have overbearing asian father and tiger mom pressuring us to play violin and go to medical school from first birthday (day you're born).

You've got a citation for that?

 

[KimGordon67]

Humans are infinitely variable and have infinitely different capabilities. Smart capable people tend to have more money and they tend to have brighter children who end up being more capable and wealthy. We're breeding a huge underclass and supporting it with a huge social safety net.

The absolute best predictor of poverty is at what age do people start having children. When it's children having children you're guaranteed they're going to live in poverty. Multi-generational families of that and you get what we have.

America has spent roughly 20 trillion dollars on social programs since the war on poverty announced by the Johnson Administration which is essentially my entire lifetime. It has not at all decreased our poverty rates. If anything it's increased them. Although part of the problem with that is we keep redefining what it means to be impoverished. Our poor now are far wealthier than our middle class was under Johnson. A single mother can expect approximately $40,000 per year in benefits. The poor aren't stupid and they know that, so all women on benefits are single whether they are or not. Men are a financial liability to the family as that would reduce benefits. That lack of stability in the family unit certainly hasn't helped. Older gang members are the father figures for most of these young men.

Fun fact 20% of all money spent on food stamps is spent on soda. Liquid diabetes. that probably has a bigger strain on our Healthcare System than gunshots. Our poor are all on some version of Medicaid. In my state it's called Mercy Care. Before that it was called access ACCESS.

Did you look at either of the bits of research I linked to?

I could equally say people who have more money tend to be 'smart' (using cultural capital as the driver here, not innate intelligence) and be more capable (for a whole range of reasons, again largely linked to cultural capital).

I could equally say that the biggest predictor of teenage births is poverty.

I strongly suspect neither of us are likely to shift on this debate. I'm fairly well informed on that particular issue. I appreciate your input on the gun control things - there's some factors in there I hadn't previously considered.

 

[DeYaKen]

It's not any great secret to know where one's likely to be shot and where one's not likely to be shot.

Except for the isolated islands of violence that we have in America the rest of America is safer than European cities.

Which underscores the point that guns are not the problem. Culture is the problem. Impoverished rural areas have more guns than cars and nobody shoots each other.

So what you are saying here is if you discount the places in America where people are most likely to be killed, Then compare it with European cities without eliminating the places where people are most likely to get killed, America is safer. Hmm I've seen some skewed uses of statistics but that really takes the biscuit.

The only real comparison you can make is like for like deaths per head of population. when you do that it is very hard to find an American city which is safer than Europe. If you are trying to make an argument in favour of guns I suggest you compare the US with Switzerland where you can buy guns over the counter. It's not as easy as in the US. I believe it takes a day to get a long gun and two days to buy a handgun. The checks for a handgun take longer. Despite being able to carry guns, incidents of violence are few. Gun ownership is on the decline in Switzerland.

 

[KimGordon67]

So what you are saying here is if you discount the places in America where people are most likely to be killed, Then compare it with European cities without eliminating the places where people are most likely to get killed, America is safer. Hmm I've seen some skewed uses of statistics but that really takes the biscuit.

The only real comparison you can make is like for like deaths per head of population. when you do that it is very hard to find an American city which is safer than Europe. If you are trying to make an argument in favour of guns I suggest you compare the US with Switzerland where you can buy guns over the counter. It's not as easy as in the US. I believe it takes a day to get a long gun and two days to buy a handgun. The checks for a handgun take longer. Despite being able to carry guns, incidents of violence is very low. Gun ownership is on the decline in Switzerland.

So the answer is more cows with bells!
(I'm being a bit flippant ... obviously that's not the answer. But being in Switzerland just cracks me up, because it's so Swiss.)