Any proof? There are several countries in Europe with relaxed gun laws and we do...

_delirium · on July 7, 2015

I wonder what that would look like if you looked specifically at handgun ownership rather than overall gun ownership. In the Nordic countries (which overall have quite a lot of guns) the general assumption behind regulation has been that handguns are a problem but rifles are less of one, especially rifles in rural areas. It's a bit puzzling to me that the American debate has focused on "assault rifles", which statistically seem much less of a problem than handguns.

As an example of large differences in ratio, Finland has a fairly high gun ownership rate of around 55 guns per 100 people, but only 5 handguns per 100 people. And while it's common to have a rifle in your truck in rural areas, you can't legally carry around a handgun in the middle of Helsinki.

istvan__ · on July 7, 2015

"A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings"

I just wanted to debunk this myth. As you pointed out there is more to it.

I was thinking a lot and I think any sort of gun ownership should be tied to employment and mental status. This is the easiest to filter out people like most of the mass shooters and criminal elements. I am not sure what is required in Finland to own a gun (any kind) but I am sure that it is not like here (at least in some states). There is an entire industry built on buying guns in states that anybody can get one and smuggling it to states with more strict laws. This just helps the criminals to get armed while exposing civilians to violence.

In Switzerland some of the ex-army people can keep they assault rifles and this drives down the chance of violent crime because the criminals know that there can be a trained soldier in the next house who won't hesitate to use the weapon. I try to dig up the study about this.

Please don't use downvoting for disagreement it is not supposed to be used for that. If you disagree reply and show the points where you disagree with me.

Sideloader · on July 8, 2015

Downvoting a post because you don't agree with the argument is silly. I wonder how many downvoters think they are pro-free speech even as they demonstrate their hypocrisy.

viraptor · on July 7, 2015

This graph says pretty much: if you need a gun in a state with lowest ownership you only need to visit around 10 houses to find one. That's basically "if you want one, you know where to get one". I wouldn't expect the correlation to be very high here.