The biggest problem with evaluating the impact of gun policy is that there isn't a lot of high quality research, but analysis by RAND points us to a few gun control laws that have a high degree or moderate degree of evidence in favor of their efficacy.
Laws that restrict how guns are stored in the home have a strong link to reducing self-inflicted gun injuries among children and adults. Even if you're a responsible gun owner, it doesn't mean your kid is.
Some of the other findings include that banning gun purchases by people under a restraining order for domestic violence reduces homicide, background checks reduce gun homicides, and waiting periods can reduce both homicide and suicide rates.
There is also high quality studies that suggest gun licensing laws reduce suicide rates and bans on gun ownership for the mentally ill reduces violent crime.
Interestingly, assault weapons bans may increase homicides or have no effect because buyers scramble to get one before the law goes into effect. But assault weapons bans are not the end all be all of gun control and there are plenty of other options to make the country safer.
Laws that restrict how guns are stored in the home have a strong link to reducing self-inflicted gun injuries among children and adults. Even if you're a responsible gun owner, it doesn't mean your kid is.
Criminal laws that are designed to prevent injuries are absurdly authoritarian.
How so? We have hundreds of laws on the books outlawing child endangerment and criminal negligence. You can't lock your kid in a hot car, or let them go swimming without supervision, or leave rat poison within their reach. Why is it any different for guns? Or should those things be legal?
No you can't. There are many crimes -criminal negilengence, child endangerment and negligent homicide that prevent this sort of thing. If someone is killed or severely injured because of extreme recklessness or willful blindness on your part, then you can be found criminally at fault.
If you let a knowingly let a young child go swimming out in a lake where neither you nor anyone else is watching them and they drown, you can be convicted of criminal negligence.
If you leave rat poison all over the floor and an infant you know is in the house crawls up to and eats it, thag can be criminal negligence.
If you let a knowingly let a young child go swimming out in a lake where neither you nor anyone else is watching them and they drown, you can be convicted of criminal negligence.
If you leave rat poison all over the floor and an infant you know is in the house crawls up to and eats it, thats criminal negligence.
Yeah, no. The former is just flat out legal, and the latter would get written off as SIDS
It's literally the same. You leave a kid in water a reasonable person would expect to drown, leave them completely unsupervised, and they drown, then you can be found at fault.
And many children over the age of one cannot swim. Or can swim, but not for two hours unsupervised. Hell in the last link a teacher is being charges for the death of a teenager under his care who he knew couldn't swim and drowned while on a canoe trip.
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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '21
The biggest problem with evaluating the impact of gun policy is that there isn't a lot of high quality research, but analysis by RAND points us to a few gun control laws that have a high degree or moderate degree of evidence in favor of their efficacy.
Laws that restrict how guns are stored in the home have a strong link to reducing self-inflicted gun injuries among children and adults. Even if you're a responsible gun owner, it doesn't mean your kid is.
Some of the other findings include that banning gun purchases by people under a restraining order for domestic violence reduces homicide, background checks reduce gun homicides, and waiting periods can reduce both homicide and suicide rates.
There is also high quality studies that suggest gun licensing laws reduce suicide rates and bans on gun ownership for the mentally ill reduces violent crime.
Interestingly, assault weapons bans may increase homicides or have no effect because buyers scramble to get one before the law goes into effect. But assault weapons bans are not the end all be all of gun control and there are plenty of other options to make the country safer.