it's already been researched over and over - ban guns and the suicide rate remains the same, just shifts to suicide by alcohol or prescription pill abuse or cutting wrists, etc This is incorrect. The efficacy of guns turns suicide attempts into suicides.
Link to your proof? This was researched when the UK banned guns, this was researched when AUS banned guns, this has been researched in cities like chicago who impose gun regulation so strict it's supposed to eliminate all gun crime - but it never results in reduced suicide. For example - when AUS banned guns - the suicide rate briefly increased and shifted to hanging and alcohol as the primary tools of choice -- when the UK banned guns - violent crime increased for 3 years, they had to install thousands of extra cctv cameras and hire thousands of peace officers before violent crime started to decrease. Both countries now rely heavily on invasive surveillance.
violent murder using guns is at an all time low in relation to population and number of guns in the country. Gun ownership is down, but there are more guns because people who own guns tend to own tons of guns. So, literally, at I time when we are safer there are fewer people who own guns.
Did you even read this word salad? let me guess, you're basing this on the "norc general social survey" for this data? The same type of survey that said hillary clinton would win by a landslide? lol.
Violent gun crime was highest in the us in 1990 - we now have 60% more guns than we did in 1990 and yet, violent gun crime has dropped to all time lows.
This is a pretty easy argument that more guns = less violent gun crime = criminals are a little more afraid of people defending themselves? criminals are afraid of the penalties? It's certainly not innocent law abiding citizens who are going out, buying guns, and immediately committing wild violent crimes on an increasing rate.. ( it's actually distracted driving that's skyrocketing recently - with no meaningful recent regulation to curtail this increase )
so since more people die because of automobiles than guns - why don't we have a much more rigorous licensing program for automobiles
Excuse me, why don't we have ANY TRAINING AT ALL FOR GUN OWNERSHIP?
There are plenty of training programs, licensing requirements, age restrictions, etc for gun ownership.
But this really comes down to parenting, right? Crime is illegal. Murder is illegal. Assault is illegal. Has been since before guns existed.. Some parents teach their kids to follow laws.. Some do not..
Make guns as illegal or as restrictive as you want - those kids who's parents never taught them right vs wrong / good vs bad will still go out doing illegal shitty things - they will just use knives or gasoline or alcohol or pills or so on as their tool of choice..
The reason so many people die in car accidents is because we are using cars everyday for hours. AND WE TRAIN PEOPLE HOW TO USE THEM AND WE RESTRICT ACCESS TO LICENSES FOR CERTAIN HIGH-RISK PEOPLE AND IF WE DIDN'T THEN THE ROADS WOULD BE MORE DANGEROUS. This is obvious. Meanwhile, the NRA wants to make it easier for people accused of domestic abuse to own guns. Meanwhile, the NRA wants to make it easier for BLIND PEOPLE to own guns. why don't we legislate mandatory field and signal blocking of distracting devices in the drivers seat? We should. why don't traffic cameras tag video footage of drivers who are using distracting devices while driving, tag video of speeding, etc - the technology has been there for years. In some places, THEY DO. We should. But by asking "why" what you really want to say is that the bad people have a hidden agenda. Which a very stupid, paranoid thing to imply.
You seem pretty disingenuous here - but it does sound like you want to save lives on some level - just not the most amount of lives possible - maybe you'll change your mind some day, I certainly hope you do.