What if guns and ammo were free?

[cindybubbles]

I'm not looking for a debate, please. This is just to vent.

I myself don't own a gun, and do not intend to do so. In Ontario, you need a firearms license before buying guns and ammo, and since I live in a safe neighbourhood, I don't see any reason to buy one.

I'm worried, though, about our neighbour down south. That's right: I live in Canada, and I'm worried about the U.S. Anytime a gun-control law is born, it is shot down by the NRA and idiots who think the government is trying to take their guns away. No compromises allowed.

I think that the NRA just wants more money in its coffers, not just more guns in people's hands.

So I propose to you this: What if we made all guns and ammo free? What if we put in a law that permanently took away the price tags and we gave guns and ammo to everyone, free of charge? What if we supplied the materials for gun making free as well? We still have to pay the poor employees who make the guns, and of course, pay for electricity, repairs to the machines, etc.

Of course, if we did that in real life, everyone would be dead due to a significant increase in gun violence. However, best case scenario would be that gun shops will close due to having lost money, and the NRA will have lost not just millions of dollars, but if it tries to raise gun prices, also millions of its fans. After all, we like free stuff, right?

What do you think?

[Andara Bledin]

You've already stacked the OP against any opposition being considered reasonable by both tone and word choice. Are you honestly interested in debate or are you more interested in an echo chamber?

You do know that the NRA doesn't actually make weapons, right?

[cindybubbles]

You've already stacked the OP against any opposition being considered reasonable by both tone and word choice. Are you honestly interested in debate or are you more interested in an echo chamber? You do know that the NRA doesn't actually make weapons, right?

Who were you referring to? I'm the OP. And forgive me for being ignorant, please. I'm a Canadian who won't own a gun, so I didn't know that tidbit of the NRA. I wanted to know your thoughts concerning a world where guns were free. Would the gun shops close? Would everyone die or run in fear of their neighbours? I myself don't think it to be feasible, but every time I read reports about banning guns or about the NRA complaining about gun control, this question springs to my mind.

[Andara Bledin]

This is a very sticky issue in the US, as our Constitution quite specifically sets the ownership of weapons as a right protected by the document, right behind Free Speech and Freedom of Religion.

When you add in that the vast majority of everybody is actually incredibly ignorant about guns and everything to do with them, you get a lot of ranting and frothing in most debates and precious little actual information. I'm actually somewhat involved in a thread on that subject that's approaching 20,000 posts, and even being an interested participant, there's still a lot that I don't understand, yet.

As to the OP, first the contention about a safe city: Most people live in safe cities. It's really not a matter of safe or not, though for some it can be. I've lived in both nice and not-nice areas and I've never had a house broken into. I know people who have been broken into, and they've lived in all types of neighborhoods. One of the participants in the aforementioned thread lives in a very much upscale neighborhood, and someone actually tried to break into his house while he was in it a couple months ago. He happens to be a gun owner and it took brandishing before the would-be intruder left. Merely knowing that the occupants of the house were in the house and knew someone was attempting to break in and had called the police wasn't sufficient deterrent.

As for most gun control measures: the vast majority of all of them do nothing to make anyone safer. They're mostly either feel-good measures that politicians push through to make it look like they're "doing something about gun crime" or they're backdoors to actual bans. As regards the whole "trying to take our guns" meme: It's true. California, for example, just legislated a requirement for firearms to have a feature that not only doesn't work but currently doesn't even exist in production. It's so effective, in fact, that police are exempt. They know it's useless for anything other than a backdoor ban, and that's exactly what they want.

And you're on the Internet. If you're going to spark a debate, you could at least make some effort to know what the single major player you call out by name actually does. The NRA is essentially a gun fan club. There is an NRA-related action group that deals with legislation, but while related, they're not the same group. The NRA is mostly concerned with organizing those who share interest in firearms and shooting and safety and education. They actually support most measures that would actually increase safety for those involved, but that doesn't make a good headline, so it gets ignored in favor of the cases where the PAC fights against backdoor bans and overreach by the federal government.

As for violence: The US has a violence problem. It's not because of the guns, either. The availability of guns leads to greater escalation, but we still manage to kill more people with weapons excluding guns at a greater rate than pretty much all other first-world nations as well. Taking away the guns might well reduce the actual death toll, but will likely do little to nothing to reduce the violence. Similarly, throwing more guns into the mix is unlikely to have a substantial affect, especially when you realize that those who wish to do violence already have no appreciable difficulty acquiring guns, the likelihood is that removing barriers entirely will lead to more wide-spread education about gun safety and more cases where active threats are stopped by citizens.

Also, it's interesting to note that many, possibly most, accidental gun deaths are caused by the police and not citizens. Our training requirements are abysmal, and really do need to be made stricter.

[edit to add]
Re: violence. A large part of why we have so much violence and crime is our ridiculous insistence that prohibition of anything actually works. We tried it in the '20s, gave the mob a huge reason to move in, and when we didn't have enough trouble, we doubled down on the same exact thing with drugs. We've got more people in jail on drug possession offenses than all other crimes combined. It's ridiculous.

And, yet, our violence numbers are still going down year over year, so something must be going right, and it's probably not that most of those who get shot are career criminals.

[cindybubbles]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that the NRA supports safety measures.

I wasn't looking for a debate, though. I was looking for scenarios. Basically, an echo chamber for me to vent.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, if it were free guns for everybody, there would likely be mostly more of the same, in both senses of the word. People who want guns would have more and most of the rest of everything else would be mostly unchanged.

Well, except for the fact that the bottom would fall out of the black market, so you'd probably see a reduction in overall violence and crime.

[Greenday]

Of course, if we did that in real life, everyone would be dead due to a significant increase in gun violence.

Prove it.

Prove there would be a significant increase in gun violence, specifically illegal gun violence.

People who already intend to shoot people will get guns regardless of whether the gun they have is free or if guns are completely banned. People who are prone to violence will just switch to other weapons (Look at the UK and their ridiculous rates for stabbings).

Violent people are going to be violent no matter what.

[Kelmon]

I also doubt, that more guns would lead to any increase in violence, or more specifically gun violence, in the US. After all, gun ownership is already at around 98 guns for 100 citizens. (Yes, i'm aware this doesn't take into account people owning many, many guns, and others none - the point is: There's already plenty of guns around, and you can get them easily, if needed).

[Andara Bledin]

After all, gun ownership is already at around 98 guns for 100 citizens. (Yes, i'm aware this doesn't take into account people owning many, many guns, and others none...

The rate is usually tallied at about 50% of all households having guns.

[cindybubbles]

Prove it.

Prove there would be a significant increase in gun violence, specifically illegal gun violence.

People who already intend to shoot people will get guns regardless of whether the gun they have is free or if guns are completely banned. People who are prone to violence will just switch to other weapons (Look at the UK and their ridiculous rates for stabbings).

Violent people are going to be violent no matter what.

Not proving it, because I know that free guns for everyone is not going to happen anyway. This is a "What If", not a "We're all gonna DIE!" thread.

I don't think there will be illegal gun violence if we assume that all guns will also be legal. Mostly just gun-related illegal violence.

But what if everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, sane, law-abiding, US citizen or otherwise, were able to get their hands on a gun? People from 0 to infinity, for example? Would we all be dead, or will there still be a few survivors fighting the zombie apocalypse?

Anyway, that's my worst-case scenario. Nothing to be proven until it happens.

[Greenday]

Everything would continue on as normal and there'd be absolutely no noticeable dip in the human population.

[wolfie]

As regards the whole "trying to take our guns" meme: It's true. California, for example, just legislated a requirement for firearms to have a feature that not only doesn't work but currently doesn't even exist in production. It's so effective, in fact, that police are exempt. They know it's useless for anything other than a backdoor ban, and that's exactly what they want.

Just curious, but what is this feature?

[crashhelmet]

Just curious, but what is this feature?

The only thing I can think of is the ban on semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, but Governor Brown actually vetoed that one.

[HYHYBT]

I don't see any way making guns free would harm the NRA's funding (whichever version). Manufacturers would still have to get paid by *somebody* or they wouldn't bother making their products. Therefore they'd still have incentive to want more demand, and would continue providing the NRA with whatever they do now. Individuals who like guns, especially those susceptible to the scare tactics of fundraising letters, would still cough up what they do now to keep their guns, obtained for free or otherwise, from the nonexistent threat of confiscation. So, no difference to the NRA except for potentially increasing their market (and fundraising audience) by getting guns into the hands of those who'd like them but didn't have the money.

[Andara Bledin]

Microstamping.

The law was passed in 2007, and set to go into effect in 2010, but was on hold for legal reasons, but cleared for being in effect as of May of this year. As it stands now, no semi-automatic firearms that do not have microstamping and are not already approved for sale may be sold in the state.

And, despite being sold as part of a bill about safety, law enforcement is exempt because a) it does nothing to improve safety and b) they wouldn't be able to replace their firearms because nobody is making guns that have this feature. That, of course, leads to an idea going around that selling it as a safety feature and then having a police force that doesn't use the feature opens them up to liability...

Nevermind that the firing pin is a consumable, so the first replacement would remove the feature (which is specifically noted as not defeating an identifying mark in the state, but may be a federal offense should the feds rule the other way on that because of legislation about serial numbers) and that police already don't even use serial numbers on recovered firearms because they do nothing to actually solve crimes.