Comment by The_White_Ram on 03/12/2024 at 10:50 UTC

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View submission: Guns and protection

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The United States is just like Switzerland in that gun ownership has high and gun homicides are low.

England outlawed, guns and gun homicides are minuscule. The United States has not outlawed, guns and gun homicides are minuscule.

Gun homicides in the US are hyper rare and a large portion of them are clustered and small geographic areas and are very location specific.

Furthermore if your suggestion is that guns should be banned.You have to contend with the issue that the courts have ruled multiple times that police/government do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens. By law your own safety, security and protection in the US are 100% up to you. The police have as much legal obligation to protect you as a pizza delivery driver. Couple this with the fact that in reality the police don't have a realistic or accountable professional duty to protect you either and you come to the realization that if you are ever in danger you are completely on your own.

If someone's position is that they want ban guns purchased for defensive purposes and have police be the only ones with guns then the first step to actually making an argument to accomplish that is to make it a legal responsibility for police to actually protect people.

The courts have ruled 4 times that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens. Your safety, security and protection in the US are 100% up to you. (Warren v. District of Columbia, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, Lozito v. New York City, DeShaney v. Winnebago County)

In Lozito v. New York for instance; Maksim Gelham was on a 28 hour killing spree where 4 people were killed and 5 others were wounded. Gelman started attacking Joseph Lozito with a knife and literally stabbed him in the face. Two police officers who were LITERALLY ASSIGNED TO FIND GELHAMĀ  saw this happening and then WENT AND HID behind the locked door in the subway conductor car. They came out of hiding AFTER Lozito had disarmed Gelman and pinned him to the ground.

Lozito tried suing the officers for their failure to intervene and the lawsuit was dismissed because they argued successfully the police have no "special duty to protect" Lozito or anyone else.

The situation was also highlighted perfectly in Uvalde. The cops have no legal obligation to protect children from being shot but have the authority to stop parents from trying to save their kids. In my opinion those two things are mutually exclusive and must be sorted out before an argument can be made that a blanket ban is the best course.

It is also indicated in the Special Relationship Doctrine. The SRP is a legal principle that makes the state liable for the harm inflicted on the individual by a third party provided that the state has assumed control over the individual which is sufficient to trigger an affirmative duty to provide protection to that individual. This shows that the governments default position is to NOT provide a duty to protect individuals UNLESS they take you into custody. If you are NOT in custody you are owed no protections from the government.

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There's nothing here!