You know what he means, surely? Ownership and carry laws apply as much to criminals as to the law abiding. So in open carry regions someone with criminal intent can walk about with a firearm, openly, and nothing can be done about it as they are not breaking the law. They can carry weapons in their vehicles, legally. They can practice and pose and show their guns, all legally.
That's going to make being a criminal a lot easier than if they risked arrest just for having a gun on their person or in their vehicle or home. They could travel from their home to the scene of the planned crime openly carrying a gun and not be stopped. Try doing that in the UK.
Liberal gun laws make life easier for criminals.
I get what he means, with relaxed laws, then its easy for a legal owner to have a gun in their possession and commit murder. However, the USA is so far beyond fucked with the ridiculous laws they have had in place since Samuel Colt started selling his revolvers, they are totally fucked.
Handguns have been banned in the UK since the late 90's, we had extremely strict laws on possession and carry before the ban - not in view, only to be carried to and from a range, no detours allowed, must be locked away at home unless being cleaned. Criminals found it difficult to get guns, but they still carried and killed.Since the handgun ban, people still get shot and killed with handguns.
(Open carry btw is carrying where it is in view, eg in a hip holster, visible to everyone. Concealed carry is where is it not visible, so that can be under a coat, in the car etc)
Open carry is illegal in Illinois, these are the figures for 2019 for Chicago ALONE
Shot and killed 341
Shot and Wounded 1657
Total Shot 1998
For September
Shot and killed 24
Shot and Wounded 108
Total Shot 132
This Week
Shot and killed 16
Shot and Wounded 57
Total Shot 73
You're obviously one from the school of 'if it wont fix the problem immediately we shouldn't bother doing anything about it' 
No mate, I'm from the school of its not as easy as people seem to think and that things like bans will make fuck all difference now.
Since this thread started, I have seen countless times about how America should just ban guns and its problems will magically go away overnight. I feel this is because they saw how easily the bans worked in the UK and Australia, but America is nothing like either country, the attitudes differ, the stresses and expectations on people differ, life seems to matter less to them. Crimes in the UK involving firearms happened and continue to happen, but they were never the massive problem the USA has, although both Liverpool and Manchester did see periods of very high shootings, dealing with things by shooting wasn't how things were mainly settled.
After the UK ban on handguns, 162,000 pistols and 700 tons of ammunition and related equipment were handed in by an estimated 57,000 people, 0.1% of the population. Everyone had to have a Firearms Certificate, the Police knew where every legally held handgun was and the vast majority of shooters handed over their weapons and associated kit without fuss. I owned 2 handguns when Thomas Hamilton (burn in you hell you c*nt) decided to murder the children and teachers in Dunblane, I got my letter from the Police about 8 months after the ban, attended Southport station to hand in the guns and then a few weeks later, the rest of the stuff, including ammunition, I had to take to Kirkdale. As far as we know, these were then destroyed, although we doubted it, as there we guns such as Glocks that the UK Police and Military could and would use. We have no idea if the Govt did destroy the rest, or if they sold them abroad instead.
The USA doesn't even know how many guns are in circulation. Only 8 states keep a register of owners, it is illegal to actually have a database that directly links a gun to an owner. They have calculated how many guns were made, how many exported and then come up with a rough figure of 393 million. They estimate that 50 million American households have guns. What they have no idea of is how many were smuggled out of the USA and how many have been smuggled in. They have no idea how many of the 393 million have been stolen. In 10 years, 2 million were reported stolen - someone on here pointed out that a lot get sold then reported stolen - and they have no idea how many unreported thefts occurred in the same period, as so many people don't even bother reporting it. If the Police don't know you have the gun, why bother reporting it stolen.
Like every other sane person, I want the school shootings stopped. The reality is, American kids are more at risk of being shot dead at home or on the streets than they ever are while at school. It just seems to me that the highly publicised shootings are the only ones people think happen, mass shootings happen all the time, whether it is a father killing his family and then himself, a robbery where the criminal lets loose with the gun or a gang opens fire on another gang.
The UK ban cost hundreds of millions, a ban in America would cost billions. I'd much rather the US invested that money in getting the illegal guns off the streets and getting registers created of who owns legal guns. By all means ban the sale of guns now, but if they really want to stop the killings, they need to address the areas where the killings are taking place.
