Why do People Want Guns so Much?

Gun Watch ^ | 14 July, 2016 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Those who demand a disarmed population claim that it is the easy availability of guns that causes people to do bad things with guns.

The core assumption is that guns have no useful function.  The people who wish to disarm the population constantly say that guns are only made and used for one thing - to kill people.  It is implied is that no person actually wants to kill people, and they would not, if there were no guns.

From that follows the idea that people do not really want guns.  If only some barriers were put in place to make it a little harder for them to get guns, people will give them up, and the number of killings would go down.

That is a naive and simplistic view of reality.

It is easy to see how people who have no experience with guns, and no experience with violence, could believe these naive notions.  They have never used a gun in defense of themselves or others; their narrow view of the world is constrained to believing that everyone else is just like them.  We hear the echo of this in a popular song:

 "People are the same all over the world"

Fortunately or not, the song flies in the face of reality and experience.  Everyone is not the same all over the world.  In fact, everyone is not the same across even most cities in the United States.  Many people have pivotal experiences in their lives that make the demand for guns strong, determined, and inflexible.

People who have experienced violence up close and personal have strong desires for firearms.

People who have had military or police training understand that personal power and safety grows out of the barrel of a gun.

People who live in rural areas have many cultural experiences that reinforce the utility of firearms. 

All of these people have something in common.  They are outside of the cultural set of President Obama and those who desire a disarmed population.

Their desires are not soft and squishy desires easily met by a DVD or a new pair of shoes.  Most people in the United States equate firearms with personal safety.  Making firearms a little harder to acquire with more regulations will not deter people who equate them with safety.  It will make them suspicious of the motives of people who wish to disarm them.

A recent study in Chicago reinforced that fact.  It is very difficult for people to obtain firearms in Chicago.  There are no gun stores.  Buying a gun in Chicago carries a risk of arrest and imprisonment. That does not stop people from illegally acquiring firearms. Phillip Cook has studied the availability of guns in Chicago.  He found that firearms were difficult to obtain. From the study JCrimLC 2015 Guns in Chicago.pdf:

In our 2007 article Underground Gun Markets, we found evidence that guns are surprisingly difficult to obtain in the underground gun market in Chicago.20 This evidence includes substantial price markups for guns on the street relative to the purchase price in legal transactions, substantial legal or physical risk and delays for criminals in their attempts to get a gun, and the existence of a system of retail brokers who charge a fee to facilitate exchanges between gun buyers and sellers.21 Yet despite the difficulty for most people in getting guns on the streets, roughly four in five homicides in Chicago are committed with guns.22

President Obama is exactly wrong when he says:

"We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than to get his hands on a computer"

Second Amendment supporters have been correct when they say that Chicago has high levels of homicide with guns in spite of stringent infringements on Second Amendment rights.
Phillip Cook doesn't draw the obvious conclusion that people who strongly desire guns will go to considerable lengths to obtain them.  He thinks strict gun controls on places outside of Chicago (where the crime rate is much lower) could reduce the number of guns that get to Chicago.  It seems unlikely.

Chicago is a text book case of inflexible demand.  Brazil is another.  In spite of extremely strict gun controls and no Second Amendment,  the murder rate, including with guns, is one of the highest in the world.  One of the favorite guns in the Brazilian underworld is the homemade submachine gun.  The demand for guns is so strong that when factory made guns are unavailable, a supply is generated by individuals and small shops. 

People who desire a disarmed population point to Europe.  They fail to note that homicide levels did not drop when strong gun controls were imposed.  They stayed the same.  Guns do not cause crime.  Guns do not cause death. Guns are used to commit crimes or to kill.  They are also used to prevent crimes and to save lives.  People who see their utility will not give them up.  Historicaly, it has not happened.

In the much touted case of Australia, with an incredibly law abiding population, only 20% of banned guns were turned in.  Now, 20 years later, the number of legal guns and gun owners is as high as it was before the ban was put in place. Now, there is a significant black market in illegal guns and homemade guns.

To understand this inflexibility of demand, anti-gunners would have to step outside their comfort zone.  A few do, every day.  The number of people who actively support the Second Amendment has been growing for decades.

That is why Second Amendment rights are slowly being restored, and why pushes for more infringements are defeated again and again.


©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Link to Gun Watch

[archy]

Many thanks to archy [post 76] for the delightful image. To us diehard enthusiasts, few women are so attractive as those carrying a gun. Especially if they know how to use it.

They're Swiss reservists, en route to a local range for practice with their SIG 550/Fass 90/Stgw 90 Army rifles before their record qualification.

[schurmann]

“Okay. If your life is in immediate danger, and there is a gun lying close by, go ahead, don’t use it. If you are set on dying, I supposed an exploding gun or a bullet in your head doesn’t much matter.”

odawg’s phrasing brings with it the aroma of rhetorical finality - like something’s been settled with surety.

If he (she) deems me some sort of Libertarian, hung up on absolutist concepts of ownership, that’s his (her) privilege. I can offer only my unsupported assertion that I find Libertarians too childish to survive in the real world (true of most other absolutists too).

The prudent user adapts to the situation. The more dire the situation, the more urgent one’s search becomes, for a suitable tool for self-defense. Even if it is only GGGGGreat grandpa’s fowling piece(not that I’d volunteer to stand in front of a functioning one).

Short of that, forum members are urged to attend closely to particulars of ownership. And attend equally closely, to what will or won’t work for them, in instances of mortal peril.

Since incidents can arise with little warning and go wrong in a hurry, it’s prudent to think one’s way through tactical scenarios, and accumulate tools in anticipation of ugly happenings that have not yet occurred (with thanks to the late Mel Tappan).

For those set on owning firearms, find out beforehand, what you can handle. And afford. Buy quality as the budget permits. Do not go with older items; they fail in unanticipated ways, often at the least opportune moment. “They don’t make them like they used to” is an adage to be avoided. In practical terms, this means anything predating 1940, of US origin. Foreign items are less certain.

Obtain enough ammunition, and spare parts and support stuff (cleaning tools and supplies). Train with your arms. And above all, stay safe.

Once hostile action begins, there are no sure things. All you can do is improve the odds. I’ve no idea why odawg chose the silly expression “set on dying,” but the objective ought to be to stop the hostile actions of one’s adversaries. By life, death, or any other means necessary.

[odawg]

Please report back to your sanitarium.

[Billthedrill]

In answer to the title question, it's much more satisfying to shoot a gun at people who are trying to harm you than to shoot your mouth or your finger. The premise is that there are people trying to harm you. Which is demonstrably the case.

A second answer is one I reserve for the more obnoxious liberals - what do I *need* a gun for? I don't need a gun. I have a gun. The guy who needs a gun is the one who doesn't.

[schurmann]

“In answer to the title question, it’s much more satisfying to shoot a gun at people who are trying to harm you ...”

With thanks to Billthedrill for reminding the forum of the original point of this thread -

After more than a dozen years in the gun sales & repair business, I will venture to guess that there are more reasons to own a gun than there are people wanting to own guns. Which adds up to hundreds of millions of reasons, in the US alone.

As many noted, a good primary reason is defense of self, family, and community. After that comes food procurement, training (much more broad than simply learning how to handle an arm and shoot properly), sport, recreation, study & research, investment ...

Aside from the top two or three, every new gun buyer brings their own reasons. As a sales staffer, I never ask for a reason - unless the customer is unsure what they want or why, and do not know what might be available, or suitable. Then (and only then) it becomes my professional responsibility to sound them out - to a degree - on their goals and reasons, and give such advice as they might need.

Billthedrill is absolutely right in correcting obnoxious lberals. We must stop them in their tracks, as they pursue their arrogant quest to tell the rest of us how to live. Perhaps we should give thought to how we might alter the culture, to place the query “What do you need it FOR??!” outside the bounds of polite conversation.

---

If odawg and other posters find my responses pedantic or picky, I can ask but one question in response: which gun-ignorant citizen will forgive us, if we (who already know some details about firearms & related stuff) give them sloppy, ill-considered (or just plain erroneous) advice, and on the strength of such they injure themselves or loved ones, because we told them to get the wrong gun, or the wrong ammunition to use in it?