
Gun laws where guns take the most lives - egusa
https://latinamericareports.com/gun-laws-where-guns-take-the-most-lives
======
jostmey
The debate here has focused on guns as the problem. Guns are not the problem,
they are an expression of the problem. To quote the article: "The Economist
stated that rapid urbanisation and inequalities in wealth distribution were
some of the largest factors in violent crime, and as one of the most unequal
countries on the planet, Brazil backs up this claim." I think this statement
applies to Mexico and other Latin American countries, to varying extents.

Removing guns from the streets may reduce gun deaths, but the violence will
probably remain as long as the underlying social injustices are not addressed.

~~~
baroffoos
Guns are like a megaphone for violence. Violent people will still exist but
their reach is far less with a knife

~~~
giancarlostoro
You are a bit quieter with a knife though. A gun gives you away immedietly to
all around you unless you have a silencer but those arent so easy to get in
the USA (class 3 if I remember correctly).

In England people get knifed and who can know?

And if its not a knife it will be a car, power tools, planes, boats, pushing
someone off of a building. I rather retain my right to protect myself from
crazies and die trying than be disadvantaged compared to criminals who wont
follow the law...

Having gone to the range here in the US I gotta say its not as easy as most
think. You have rules amongst people who handle fire arms you must follow or
get banned from a range. I am convinced after my experience that a bad actor
is already mentally unstable and will kill someone they intend to regardless
of guns or not. How many US serial murderers didnt we have that didnt use guns
anyway?

A gun is a tool. Anybody can use a tool correctly and anybody can use a tool
incorrectly. Any tool can be bought legally and illegally. People who do not
follow laws will have an advantage against those who do in terms of available
tools.

As others in the thread have said people dont think of getting a gun to murder
they think of murder and then consider their options.

Worse yet: Oppresive governments usually take away the rights of citizens to
defend themselves before they begin total oppression of the people. Just ask
Venezuelans who has guns there...

~~~
gotocake
_A gun is a tool. Anybody can use a tool correctly and anybody can use a tool
incorrectly. Any tool can be bought legally and illegally. People who do not
follow laws will have an advantage against those who do in terms of available
tools._

A gun is a tool, but it is a tool with one use; wounding and killing
organisms. A gun when used correctly, as designed and intended, is a ranged
lethal weapon. A knife or a hammer, a car, or even a flamethrower have uses
which don’t involve hurting or killing anything, and your point stands for
them. If you’re killing someone with a car, you’ve misused your tool, but if
you kill with a gun you’ve used it correctly.

~~~
stevenicr
> A gun is a tool, but it is a tool with one use; wounding and killing
> organisms.

This is kind of true, it depends on the ammo used of course.

However I think they have multiple uses, and from what I have seen they are
mostly used as a deterrent and sometimes as a compliance tool.

If it's a pistol on the hip of an armored car runner or security guard, it's
existence is a deterrent - and there is a definite difference when people see
an armed guard and a 'rent-a-cop / mall security with a whistle' -

Cops often use guns to threaten in order to get compliance in their orders. I
suppose it's the same at military bases and prisons - they are used everyday
to deter people not used everyday to kill people.

Of course this tool can be used to deter good things and to force compliance
for nefarious things like armed robbery so it's not a tool that is always used
for good or in good ways.

I would guess if stats could really be made - they are mostly used for target
practice at paper and cans as such when being used, unless you consider them
being on display at various places like courthouses as being in use.

So it's a tool with more than one use imho. Not the best tool for the job they
are often used in sadly.

~~~
gotocake
Police and for that matter anyone in law enforcement are trained to draw and
aim only when they intent to use the gun. Using a gun for anything other than
shooting is how you either escalate a situation or how people are (too often)
shot with their own guns. It is also a felony to use a gun as a threat or
coercive tool, and it’s called ‘Brandishing’. Police don’t threaten with a gun
outside of Hollywood. They offer a verbal warning, and if you don’t comply
(and sometimes if you do) they will fire.

You never draw your gun unless you intend to use it.

You never point your gun at anything you don’t intend to destroy.

Treat all guns as loaded.

Anyone who hasn’t had that drilled into them has no business owning a firearm
of any kind. Such a person is most likely to hurt themselves or someone else,
or have their gun taken from them and used against them.

~~~
stevenicr
Oh how I wish you were right on all this.

> Police and for that matter anyone in law enforcement are trained to draw and
> aim only when they intent to use the gun.

Which police are you describing? I would not mind this being true, but from my
experiences on the east coast I don't think this is true of most law
enforcement, unless you mean to say that drawing it to use as a coercive tool
is the "intent to use" -

It may be a felony to stick a gun to someone's head and threaten them with
violence if they do not comply with what you say - however I think that is not
applied often. Most cops are not charged with that if they do it, and most
criminals at that level are not ratted out either.

> Police don’t threaten with a gun outside of Hollywood.

I have seen just that, many times.

Again I wish you were right, but it's not true, and I'm sorry you believe
that. Maybe things are different in your hometown and you don't worry about
traveling.

I agree with not drawing unless you are prepared to use, and do not point at
things that you would not be okay with destroying, and all guns are loaded.
Those parts of your comment I believe are true.

However I still believe that people having a firearm without shooting it is
still a use. Yes sometimes the appearance of one may be escalating, but often
times one being visible (eg a soldier holding an m16 pointed at the ground, a
bank guard with firearm in holster) does deter other violence from occurring.

edit for formatting - had to hit enter after quote.

------
ouid
> Small Arms Survey reported that in 2017, Mexico had 12.9 guns per 100
> civilians, although of the 16,809,000 guns estimated in circulation in that
> year, only 3,118,592 were legally registered.

>This high level of unregistered firearms has been attributed to Mexico’s
proximity with the United States, as thousands of gun retailers sit just over
the border. A report on gun trafficking between the US and Mexico revealed
that almost 90% of the guns recovered and identified from Mexican crime scenes
can be traced back to firearm dealers in the neighbouring country.

~~~
crowdpleaser
Mexico has a firearm homicide rate of ~6.3 murders / 100k people / yr. The
United States has a lower rate, 4.62 murders / 100k people /yr [0].

If American guns are the problem, why aren't the gun homicide rates higher in
the United States than Mexico?

But at the very least, it sounds like Mexico could benefit from stronger
border security, too many guns are flowing across its porous border with the
US. How many Mexican lives would a wall save from gun violence?

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-
related_death_rate)

~~~
mynegation
> If American guns are the problem, why aren't the gun homicide rates higher
> in the United States than Mexico?

One of the answers is money. USA has more of it - for policing, for prisons,
for making sure corruption and taking bribes from crime is less of an
attractive choice. More poverty and profits of drug trafficking push the
homicide numbers up in Mexico.

Of course American guns are not the whole problem but they are the problem
alright. Here in Canada from 50 to 75% of illegal guns come from south of
border.

~~~
crowdpleaser
>One of the answers is money.

It would be convenient if it were true, but I don't think money is a great
explanation. I come from a rural area in the Midwest, the people are very poor
(even poorer than the urban poor) but have a lot of guns. Despite being poor
and armed, the gun homicide rates are very low (the suicide rates are
unfortunately not that low).

Can you help me understand why poor farmers in the midwest don't commit as
many murders as similarly poor and armed Mexicans?

~~~
Cyph0n
The answer to your question was in the comment:

> for policing, for prisons, for making sure corruption and taking bribes from
> crime is less of an attractive choice

Does this rural Midwest area have an active police presence? How well policed
do you think a rural area in Mexico is?

~~~
crowdpleaser
>Does this rural Midwest area have an active police presence?

Not anything like you'd see in a more developed area. We had a county sheriff
- I recall going months without seeing a law enforcement officer, I think we
had a police to citizen ratio about 1/4th that of the nearest major city. Over
the holidays, even getting emergency services can be really dicey. One time my
neighbors were screaming and yelling at each other, we called the police and
the dispatch told us that unless we heard it get physical, they wouldn't be
able to send an officer out until the next day or the day after.

>How well policed do you think a rural area in Mexico is?

Probably equally as well, but the police in rural mexico are much more likely
to be an extension of the cartels than police in the rural Midwest. If those
cases, increasing patrols would actually increase cartel power. Until Mexico
figures out their corruption issues, it's not clear how things can get better.

------
whiddershins
This article mixes and matches statistical types and conclusions in a
confusing manner.

For example, if most United States firearm deaths are suicides, it is
misleading to then follow with a quote saying “where there are more guns there
is more homicide.”

~~~
updateYourMind
Yet the US has the highest numbers of mass shootings.

~~~
Tyrannosaur
That's not an undisputed fact. [https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-us-
leads-the-worl...](https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-us-leads-the-
world-in-mass-shootings/)

~~~
updateYourMind
From wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States)

> The United States has had more mass shootings than any other country.

~~~
leereeves
Wikipedia as primary source?

If you'll check the references for that statement, they're all news articles
based on a single study.

A study that the link above already discussed. A study that "excluded gang-
related shootings, drive-by shootings, hostage-taking incidents, robberies and
acts of genocide or terrorism."[1]

In other words, it's a custom-designed, cherry-picked statistic designed to
make the US look worse than it is.

1: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/05/does-
us-l...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/05/does-us-lead-
world-mass-shootings/?utm_term=.3df69caec353)

~~~
morpheuskafka
It's not cherry picked, it focuses on the phenomenon of mass shootings
specifically. Gang wars and genocide are certainly tragic, but they are a very
different type of gun violence than what people mean by mass shootings. The
study is asking why in America people are shot by the tens or hundreds at
ordinary, law-abiding venues such as schools or concerts, which is relevant in
its own right.

~~~
leereeves
Actually the study defines "mass" as four or more victims, not tens or
hundreds.

And I've never understood who decides whether a mass killing is an "act of
terrorism" or not.

------
yubiox
>This high level of unregistered firearms has been attributed to Mexico’s
proximity with the United States, as thousands of gun retailers sit just over
the border. A report on gun trafficking between the US and Mexico revealed
that almost 90% of the guns recovered and identified from Mexican crime scenes
can be traced back to firearm dealers in the neighbouring country.

Obama's ATF forced dealers to sell guns to straw purchasers who took them to
Mexico.

------
delhanty
>However, there is a loophole. In a country of nearly 132 million people,
there is only one shop that sells firearms, which is located in Mexico City.
... This high level of unregistered firearms has been attributed to Mexico’s
proximity with the United States, as thousands of gun retailers sit just over
the border.

It sounds like it's the Mexicans that need a wall to protect themselves from
U.S. firearms!

~~~
cascom
Drugs and illegal aliens go north - cash and guns/ammunition go south

~~~
beatgammit
And the former funds the latter. If we legalize popular drugs and make legal
immigration easier, we end much of the flow of guns, as well as the reasons to
use them.

------
zyztem
Reported murders. We mostly do not know what happens in Africa

------
peterwwillis
Nobody seems to point out the obvious fallacy of the "right to protect
yourself". If having that right actually results in being more likely to be
harmed, or harm someone else, having that right is an unacceptable public
safety risk.

A common argument against gun control ("should we ban hammers next?") is
obviously fallacious when you compare it to an even more extreme comparison
("should we ban private ownership of nuclear weapons?"). It's obvious that
some "weapons" are ok because they aren't a big public safety risk, whereas
other "weapons" are a gigantic public safety risk. Guns are quite obviously a
significant risk to public safety, as the murder statistics demonstrate.

~~~
meowface
What you're basically saying is there's a spectrum, but people just disagree
over how to demarcate the spectrum. I agree, and so does the US government.
Right now, automatic rifles and anything more powerful than them are illegal
to privately own. That's just where a large part of the US draws the line
right now: semi-automatic and below are okay, anything above is not okay.
Maybe that line will move in the future, but people are already thinking in
this way, they just disagree with you over what things are on which part of
the spectrum.

~~~
technothrasher
FYI, fully automatic firearms are not actually illegal to privately own in the
US. They are just heavily regulated. Guns that weren't registered by a 1986
cut off date are banned for private ownership, but even that is reasonably
easy to work around with the appropriate Federal Firearms License. Although I
don't own any fully auto guns myself, I know plenty of people who do legally
own them.

~~~
jki275
I wouldn't argue it's very easy to get a SOT. It's not the most difficult
thing in the world, but it's definitely non-trivial.

------
jxramos
There's a YouTube channel called Active Self Protection where the subscribers
have this running joke almost about the next video being from Brazil. Even the
commentator says stuff like "...you guessed it, from Brazil", because there's
just so much content coming out of these Latin American countries for his
show's focus which is analysis and review of crimes captured from surveillance
camera footage, badge cams, and bystander journalism and what not.

It's interesting the ubiquity of these video feeds that we can get a glimpse
into another part of the world and see the problems people have to deal with.
The commentator for the channel often informs his audience about how certain
things pose entirely different risks in other parts of the world. This
includes things like not boxing yourself in with your car in Latin America
where car jackings often play out where you gave yourself no exit by stopping
so close to the car in front, or being oblivious to two men on a motorcycle,
the so called "motochorros", etc.

------
dang
The submitted title broke the site guidelines by editorializing. Please don't!
The relevant guideline says "Please use the original title, unless it is
misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

(Submitted title was "Latin America has 8% of world’s population and 38% of
murders".)

------
fouc
> Topped by Brazil with 42,000 deaths, the macabre list is followed by the
> United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala.

All the countries mentioned aside from United States seem to suffer from gang
warfare, or even civil war. That it is so high for Latin America is perhaps
not surprising. Unfortunately, the US doesn't seem to have that excuse.

Also, are we undercounting murders by other countries by differentiating
between civilian vs non-civilian? That could be affecting the statistics.

~~~
bluedino
The gun homicides in the USA are from smaller-scale gang war fare as well

------
AngryData
That is what happens when a global superpower starts funneling guns and money
to rebel groups to overthrown democratic governments and replace them with
easily bribed authoritarians. This is what happens when you bomb a peaceful
civilian populous so they give into a foreign fruit companies exploitative
demands.

Things would be a lot better if we didn't spend the last 60+ years doing
everything possible to destabilize established and successful political
institutions in the name of corporate profits.

------
abacate
Please stop talking about Brazil as a single reality. Murder rate is
completely different across state lines. And guns play zero role into the
causes, as others have already pointed out.

Any serious analysis on USA is done in a per-state basis, and the same applies
to Brazil.

------
mrhappyunhappy
I never understood how anyone can take another life. To take away the
memories, the experiences, the future potential of another spirit - all for
the sake of what? Hate? Money? Power? How can anything be worth more than the
only thing that allows one to experience this world? Sad.

~~~
AngryData
Starvation, poverty, vengeance. Would you willingly let yourself starve to
death? Would you willingly watch your kids starve to death? Most crime is done
out of desperation, and if you and enough other people around you are
desperate enough it becomes normalized behavior in order to survive. You get
robbed, so instead of dieing a hobo, you rob somebody else, the problem
perpetuates itself because there are so few alternatives available.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"Most crime is done out of desperation"

This is just wrong.

The vast majority of Mexicans don't commit murder, and they are definitely not
starving.

Greed, egoism, pettiness, rage, psychopathy, nihilism are more likely reasons.

------
sonnyblarney
"We look at them individually to see if there is a correlation between loose
gun laws "

Laws are irrelevant if they are not consistently enforced.

------
sergiotapia
Yeah central american in general is a shithole. In Bolivia we are having
trouble with colombians bringing in a ton of violence to the streets. To the
point where hitmen tried to gun down people leaving their apartment complexes
and being killed themselves, left on the sidewalk for everyone to see.

Evo certainly didn't help with narcos coming up big league since his
illegitimate presidency.

These degenerates come to Bolivia and cause mayhem on a scale the people of my
country and the police are not used to.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFQQzV24CE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSFQQzV24CE)

~~~
empath75
I spent three months traveling through Central America and it’s beautiful and
the people are mostly lovely.

The violence is concentrated in a few parts of the country. It’s not like you
walk out of your house and get shot at every day.

~~~
shitgoose
That is pretty much the case everywhere. We better focus our attention on
those parts of our countries and see what is wrong with them, rather than
generalizing over the whole country.

