This thread doesn't by any means cover all the grounds on this topic. It certainly has controversial issues, but this was clearly made by someone with an agenda. I mean, the title plus TS's username, plus the source used is called "bearingarms."

That being said, I can see the reasoning for why it is better to keep civilians' rights to keep their arms.

How exactly does that not make it a valid argument?  If guns were hypothetically banned nationwide that would remove the sources for the majority of your chart.  Even the theft/burglary, drug dealer, and fence/black market likely originated before it got circulated among criminals.  Over 1500 guns recovered by police in Chicago over a 5 year period were sold by just one gun shop in a town south of the Chicago city limits.  Just because the guy pulling the trigger isn't the one who bought it doesn't mean it's not a source of guns in Chicago.

I know many socialists who support gun rights just as much as right-libertarians/conservatives. Although, most of them are mutualists/anarchists and not marxists/state socialists so that might be the distinction. 

No it would just make the black market portion larger. The guns are already here. It's not like they need to be imported or created. The majority of these guns were likely not new purchases, so halting new purchases probably won't change much. People will still steal them from their family members and so on. Now if you say that the already existing guns will be confiscated in addition to halting sales, then that would be more reasonable of an argument, except that has different problems (how would confiscation fo 315+ million firearms work? Who will pay the costs?) 

Presumably they'd have a buyback program at the start, and then going forward they seize any firearms that law enforcement came across.  It wouldn't get rid of 100% of them, but over the years with guns being removed from circulation and no longer being replaced by millions of new ones every year, you'd see a large reduction.

But like I said, I'm not actually in favor of this, but that is how it would work in theory.  My point was a nationwide ban isn't comparable to a ban in Chicago because thousands of guns from states and cities with more lax laws can flow into Chicago with relatively little restriction.

attack on HUMAN right? okay...I best find an eye doctor as my eyes can't stop rolling

While the black market section would get larger, there would also be a general decrease overall (as I've previously stated, not everyone who commits a crime has the capability to access the black market). Additionally, due to supply/demand, their would likely be a pretty steep increase in prices of both guns and ammunitions.

Additionally, I find the arguement that we should do nothing to help fix this problem because we are already so deep in shit to be ridiculous. Yes, there is no panacea. I think everybody realizes that. However, this doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps. Decreasing the sales of guns, decreasing the open carry of guns, increasing buyback programs etc would all be steps towards decreasing gun prevalence.

Also worth noting, most people here aren't trying to outlaw guns. Just the bigger ones... (also worth noting that when I refer to "guns" in this post, I'm talking about things like the AR15, but I don't know what to call them anymore, so I'm stuck with calling them just "guns")

1. Like with drug prohibition, this is a bad thing. The people who have the guns are going to be the ones who shouldn't. 

2. The argument is that such activity will make it worse, and that's why we should do nothing. Usually we propose other solutions depending on our political ideology. A libertarian would likely blame the drug war for high crime rates. A libertarian-socialist would blame income inequality. A conservative would blame societies moral issues. 

3. If the problem is the high crime rate, how does banning "bigger ones" which are not in the overwhelming majority of crimes help? Furthermore, how did banning such weapons help with the terrorist attacks and massacres found in other countries, like the recent Charlie Hebdo attack? 

1. Is it though? While we've already established that some of the criminals will remain in possession of guns, I don't think that the possession of AR15-esque weaponry by others will do anything to help. As I've already stated, in the hands of a law abiding citizen, lighter weaponry is suitable in the overwhelming majority of cases imo. Making heavier weaponry illegal will make it more difficult for everyone, including criminals, to come into possession of these weapons.

2. I disagree that it will make it worse for the reasons I stated above.

3. Because, it is virtually impossible to ban all firearms in America. This is a concession. A concession which limits the capability of one person to do large amounts of damage. As stated, there is no panacea. There will be cases where large scale crimes are committed with heavier weaponry and there will be cases committed with lighter weaponry. However, it is undeniable that heavier weaponry is more capable than lighter weaponry. I believe that restricting this weaponry will help weapons out of the hands of some people, and I believe that it will save lives, but it will not solve the problem.

A larger problem lies within the ease of acquiring weapons (legally). There should be stronger screenings and mandatory training to own a gun. As is, there are far too many gun homicides, accidental deaths, crossfire casualties etc to think that we are where we should be with gun laws.

I see that there are some arguments on whether gun control will actually help, and I think that discussion needs to take place between experts to determine where we should go with gun laws. However, I don't think arguments such as self defense, recreation or hunting should come into play when discussion regulations on ar15-esque weaponry. I also think there are many steps that we need to take towards ensuring that the law abiding citizens who own guns should own those guns.

1. You'll see gun cartels in the U.S. They'll give their servants weapons and will be able to have even more control over the lives of lesser criminals (drug addicts and sex slaves) than they do now. This is a bad thing if we want to reduce crime. 

2. My point was that people disagree with on it making things better, and therefore they don't see it as doing nothing to fix a problem, they see it as doing nothing to make the problem worse. They've seen what prohibition has done with drugs and what the war on poverty has done with the impoverished, and just don't buy mandates as a solution. 

3. But the problem isn't one person doing a large amount of damage, and if somebody chooses to do a large amount of damage legalities aren't going to prevent them. They'll take out student loans and buy the expensive weapons from the cartel if they're a loony college student (as James Holmes did.) If they're a terrorist they'll be funded by whomever. If they're a cartel they'll be the ones who have weapons, and vastly better ones than these measly semi-auto look good sporting rifles. 

4. Who is going to pay such costs? I think the government is having a hard time training police on how to use weapons properly, it would be even worse if they were responsible for civilians as well. If you say the people must pay for these costs, what about the poor? That is quite an unegalitarian burden. It implies that only the people who can afford the testing process are allowed to defend themselves, and often it is the poor who need the defense the most. The mass shootings, are a very, very small percentage of homicides in this country. So is it really a problem worth the cost? I mean, should we start training people on how to properly use a hammer or knife, because more people die from those tools than these high capacity weapons. 

5. That is called political elitism, and it is against the nature of republicanism and democracy, that a certain elite knows better about how people should live their lives than the individuals who are living the lives is an idea which we supposedly ditched during the enlightenment. As it is now, however, the "experts" disagree on this matter. Here's an interesting paper from Harvard law. 

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

"The same pattern appears when comparisons of violence to gun ownership are made within nations. Indeed, “data on fire‐ arms ownership by constabulary area in England,” like data from the United States, show “a negative correlation,”10 that is, “where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are high‐ est.”11 Many different data sets from various kinds of sources are summarized as follows by the leading text:"

"A second misconception about the relationship between fire‐ arms and violence attributes Europe’s generally low homicide rates to stringent gun control. That attribution cannot be accurate since murder in Europe was at an all‐time low before the gun controls were introduced. For instance, virtually the only English gun control during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the practice that police patrolled without guns. During this period gun control prevailed far less in England or Europe than in certain American states which nevertheless had—and continue to have—murder rates that were and are comparatively very high"