TG
If we can get them to move away from "more guns equals more crime", then we can indeed start to discuss how violent crime has been with man since Cain and Abel. Also, we can start to talk about how removing guns from civilians hands does not prevent tyrannical governments from killing people, including their own. We witnessed this during Hitler, Stalin, Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, Castro, etc. It then becomes a debate on how humans have always killed each other regardless of the presence of guns. Also, we can introduce such topics as the high suicide rate in Japan where there are virtually no guns in their society. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that more than half of US deaths involving firearms are the result of suicide, not crime. The Japanese have a higher per capita suicide rate than we do. How would they explain that? It couldn't be done with a simple approach stating that Japan has too many guns.
I think for the most part they do believe it. And using a defective logic it rings true. If there were no guns there would be no gun crime. However, as I said the logic is defective because there are guns and there will always be guns in any foreseeable future I can imagine. Same same for violent crime, see Cain and Abel.
If we can get them to move away from "more guns equals more crime", then we can indeed start to discuss how violent crime has been with man since Cain and Abel. Also, we can start to talk about how removing guns from civilians hands does not prevent tyrannical governments from killing people, including their own. We witnessed this during Hitler, Stalin, Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, Castro, etc. It then becomes a debate on how humans have always killed each other regardless of the presence of guns. Also, we can introduce such topics as the high suicide rate in Japan where there are virtually no guns in their society. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that more than half of US deaths involving firearms are the result of suicide, not crime. The Japanese have a higher per capita suicide rate than we do. How would they explain that? It couldn't be done with a simple approach stating that Japan has too many guns.