Weapon Control Over a large area?

Question

Here's the setting.

The land in question is a city that is the size of a country approximately equivalent to England (130,395 km²).

The city was formed in the beginning by a king who had discovered a crystal of immeasurable worth. The crystal was sold to an off-world trader for enough to fund the city multiple times over. The king now has a near-infinite amount of money.

The city is highly populated, with a stable economy and a well funded education system. It is a 'utopia' of sorts... except it's not. The place is overrun with weapons, swords, guns, magical equipment, the lot. If you can think of it, someone in this high tech country sized metropolis will have too.

The city is 'supposed' to be revered as a safe haven for anyone seeking a place to live a normal life. For the most part, aside from the hundreds of thousands of weapon-related crimes reported each day, this is true.

Given this, how could this world become a 'Weapon Free' City? Such that the public has no access to dangerous weapons, only the militia (if there is one by the time you're finished).

These are some parameters:

• A near unlimited budget.
• The ability to break down parts of the city, though homes must be provided for citizens, so doing so is suboptimal.
• Civilian safety is top priority. Killing Civilians in an effort to make the place a safe haven isn't the best way to make the city weapons-free.
• There is access to magic, weapons, Distant Science (Including alien science of any kind) and anything else required.
• 100% of weapons needn't be eradicated, though a 98% turnout is optimal, if it's a believable path.

How would this be done?

Answer 1

Your problems would be manyfold. So, assuming you don't want the problem to come back, you'll have to get to the root.

First up: The crime problem. You didn't necessarily say this is your core problem, but the lower the crime rate, the less need there would be for weapons, the less weapons get used. There is no easy solution to this, but typically the reason people go into crime circles (syndicates, etc), is either:

• They need money (solution is create more jobs, set up agencies to help manage debts, do research to find out why people are getting into debt in the first place)

• They like the rush (invest in more contact sports: martial arts, rough sports, high octane activities)

• They don't know any better, e.g. crime family (make them an offer: either work for the police to help track down criminals, or spend the rest of their days behind bars)

• Youths that have nothing better to do, youths whose parents can't afford anything for them, so they end up growing up on the street, or just youths that got kicked out. (You'd need to invest in a system to take the kids off the streets, think YMCA, or some kind of neighbourhood program that you get locals to run for you. Those living on the streets need shelter, an income, and someone to look out for them. Maybe start a 'buddy system', where some of the older ones look out for the younger ones, with an adult to supervise them)

Second up: The organized crime. Again, this wasn't exactly discussed, but there is no doubt going to be a chapter of some kind of organized crime in your city. No city is exempt. Look at my suggestion for 'They don't know any better', above. You'll need a dedicated group to continuously fight this, no matter what.

Then came the weapons! Alright, if you followed the first two, then you should see the influx of criminals sloughing off. Now, you can start tackling the actual weapons problem. (not literally, you should be doing all this simultaneously).

• First you need to know what the current weapons' registration laws are. Then you need to change them (obviously they aren't working)

• The new laws should include mandatory courses on weapon use, safety, and a psychological test to see if the registree is fit to have a weapon. This is addition to needing a 'valid reason' to need said weapon (you're in a city, you don't need to hunt, and protection of the home is the police's job). 'Fail' any of these, and your license is revoked and you have 1 week to turn in your weapon, or you'll get a 'friendly visit' from your local chapter of 'weapons control'.

• Announce new laws. Offer that anyone can turn in non-registered weapons without any problem at their local police station --within 6 months-- and start training a specialized squad with scanning technology to track down all weapons. In announcement, include the following information:

  1. 1 hour after the time limit is up, the squad starts doing random home and business searches (stealthily, of course). Anyone caught with a non-registered weapon is heavily fined, the weapon will be seized, and there will be weekly broadcasts how many fines were issued because of these sweeps.

  2. 1 month after the time limit, anyone caught will be fined, the weapon will be seized, and spend the night in their local police station -- and again, weekly broadcasts of numbers caught, this time with names and pictures.

  3. 1 year after the time limit. In addition to a fine and the seizure of the weapon, there is now also a minimal 1 year jail sentence and 5 years community service upon release. As well, the person will be barred from registering for a weapon's licence for the next decade.

Follow these steps, and you should have your issue under control in roughly 5 years, provided there is no evil mastermind with ideal countermeasures.

Answer 2

So based on my understanding, you just want an efficient way of collecting and neutralizing weapons without causing any casualties assuming that some people will retaliate with their weapons.

The best way I can think of is to create a weapon neutralization system. This system can either be small scale or large scale.

On a large scale, it can be a mother ship with a high energy core and advanced technology that can neutralize any threat with magic. For example, when a high velocity projectile is detected, the mother ship will create a magical barrier and instantaneously harden air atoms to block the projectile. Assuming the technology abroad the mother ship is high enough, the total time from the projectile being launched to blocking it can be milliseconds. Once this mother ship is running, weapons can be easily captured by the militia.

On a small scale, a small debuff spell can be used. For example, in a small area, the forces of everything will get nullified, including magic. This way, men can go collect the weapons without putting themselves in danger.

But overall, my solution is to first nullify the weapons, and then collect them.

Answer 3

The premise is that the problem is weapons, but I submit the problem is the people.

Switzerland is a pleasant, law abiding, low crime nation where every male citizen has an automatic rifle and some ammunition at home (I believe the amount is 200 rounds, but things may have changed). Despite all the firepower on every street, gun crime is rare. This is because part of the cultural background of Switzerland is every make citizen is conscripted and trained to use the weapon properly, and treat it as a tool of warfare. He respects this much the same way you or i wold respect tables or other powerful tool with the potential to cause grievous bodily harm if misused.

Looking at American crime statistics, once you actually localize where the gun crime takes place you see there are "islands" of criminality and murder, surrounded by much larger areas where there is little gun crime at all. Interestingly, crime statistics are lower overall in US States where concealed carry is allowed, since criminals fear the possibility of armed resistance (and to get a concealed carry permit you must undergo training and certification, depending on which state you live in). Once again, a culture of training and respect for the power of the weapon exists to lower criminality and violence.

OTOH, you can have draconian gun control laws, like in Canada, and still have horrific mass murders. Air India flight 182 was destroyed by a bomb in flight, killing 329 people, the worst mass murder in Canadian history. Other mass murders were committed by dynamite (Giant Mine) or using a jerrycans of gasoline to set fire to a nightclub in Montreal. Terrorists in Canada have been stopped before detonating bombs made from a pressure cooker in Victoria, or derailing a passenger train in Toronto. The recent attack in France using a truck to kill over 80 people should also remind everyone that almost anything can be used as a weapon.

So forget about trying to confiscate every weapon. The criminals who intend to use them won't surrender them anyway and the rest of the population will become disarmed and helpless. Instead, you need to instil a culture of training and respect in order for people to treat weapons with the care and attention needed for any powerful tool or device. How you do this can take many forms. The Swiss do this by conscription and mass training, most Americans who own firearms generally come from families where gun ownership goes back many years or generations, or belong to clubs or groups who use them to hunt, making learning a shared tradition among family and friends.

YMMV.

Answer 4

Using Only Money

• Step One: Buy all the weapons anyone would sell. With unlimited funds a price point can be matched, and then exceeded enough to convince most buyers. It is likely that you hit your mark with this step alone, if the price is high enough.
• Step Two: Buy information on who still has weapons after step one. With unlimited funds, snitches be rolling in riches.
• Step Three: Pass a law outlawing weaponry without authorization and place a bounty on the capture but not death of people with unauthorized weaponry. Anyone who collects a bounty is free to claim the wealth, station and other privilege of those with weapons. With unlimited wealth, it quickly becomes impractical to have a weapon: you can easily get under a 2% ownership with this path - probably a lot less.

Using Magic or 'Distant Science'

Same as above, but use magic for step two, to determine the location of gun owners. For step three, hand out limited-use stun rays for anyone going after weapon bounties.

Answer 5

TL:DR since "alien science of any kind" is allowed the problem can be solved using extremely powerful alien technology. Simply create a weapons control system that can recover faster than it can be destroyed. This will render weapons obsolete. Once the weapons are obsolete, just purchase the now-useless weapons with money from your limitless funds.

Primitive weapons can be made from even arts and crafts materials. Hand-to-hand combat skills or disease can kill people.

With access to "alien science of any kind", then obtain a hypercomputer more efficient at storing information than the human brain. And is capable of think faster than humans (for example, neural network artificial intelligence programs). Upload the minds of the people into the system. This system will be capable of backing up their memories in case of death. Multiple hypercomputer will recover any lost data due to system failures.

Of course, people will still interact with each other, but now they can't kill each other.