feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
Yeah, and those locked up guns are properly stored.
The gun in a shoebox under the bed that is then used by a six year old to kill a four year old is not.
edit: syntax
Keeping a gun in a shoebox under the bed where a 6 year old can access it and use it to kill or injure another person is already a crime. If I leave a gun out somewhere and somebody, child or adult, accesses it and negligently uses it to hurt themselves or somebody else I'll be prosecuted.
Wait, that's already a crime? Then what has the last couple pages of sky is falling jack booted thugs kicking down your door to check for gun safes hysteria been about then?
Kilkrazy wrote: Then we have a solution. You contract with a gun club of your choice to have your gun storage facilities at home inspected for safety.
This is a better distinction, yes. Iowa requires I take a class before giving me a concealed carry permit, but I contract with the private party of my choice; the state just wants the paper from an accredited authority.
feeder wrote: Wait, that's already a crime? Then what has the last couple pages of sky is falling jack booted thugs kicking down your door to check for gun safes hysteria been about then?
This is the US. We don't stop crimes; we prosecute any responsible survivors.
Prestor Jon wrote: Keeping a gun in a shoebox under the bed where a 6 year old can access it and use it to kill or injure another person is already a crime. If I leave a gun out somewhere and somebody, child or adult, accesses it and negligently uses it to hurt themselves or somebody else I'll be prosecuted.
This is dancing around the truth, and I think you know it. Improperly storing a firearm is generally speaking not a crime in and of itself.
You're referring to a catchall criminal negligence which doesn't specifically govern firearms at all, it could just as easily apply to a dog or a car or a hammer. If you want to argue that's adequate than that's one thing but I think the distinction is pretty clear in that a law governing firearm storage is clearly intended to avoid the child shooting in the first place, not serve as a deterrent after the fact.
Prestor Jon wrote: Keeping a gun in a shoebox under the bed where a 6 year old can access it and use it to kill or injure another person is already a crime. If I leave a gun out somewhere and somebody, child or adult, accesses it and negligently uses it to hurt themselves or somebody else I'll be prosecuted.
This is dancing around the truth, and I think you know it. Improperly storing a firearm is generally speaking not a crime in and of itself.
You're referring to a catchall criminal negligence which doesn't specifically govern firearms at all, it could just as easily apply to a dog or a car or a hammer. If you want to argue that's adequate than that's one thing but I think the distinction is pretty clear in that a law governing firearm storage is clearly intended to avoid the child shooting in the first place, not serve as a deterrent after the fact.
No, it's a class 1 misdemeanor in North Carolina, the state I live in.
§ 14-315.1. Storage of firearms to protect minors.
(a) Any person who resides in the same premises as a minor, owns or possesses a firearm, and stores or leaves the firearm (i) in a condition that the firearm can be discharged and (ii) in a manner that the person knew or should have known that an unsupervised minor would be able to gain access to the firearm, is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor if a minor gains access to the firearm without the lawful permission of the minor's parents or a person having charge of the minor and the minor:
(1) Possesses it in violation of G.S. 14-269.2(b);
(2) Exhibits it in a public place in a careless, angry, or threatening manner;
(3) Causes personal injury or death with it not in self defense; or
(4) Uses it in the commission of a crime.
(b) Nothing in this section shall prohibit a person from carrying a firearm on his or her body, or placed in such close proximity that it can be used as easily and quickly as if carried on the body.
(c) This section shall not apply if the minor obtained the firearm as a result of an unlawful entry by any person.
(d) "Minor" as used in this section means a person under 18 years of age who is not emancipated. (1993, c. 558, s. 2; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 14, s. 11.)
If a minor gains possession of one of my guns and brings it onto school grounds, even if they never discharge it, it's a felony. And being convicted of that felony will revoke my rights to lawfully own firearms.
§ 14-269.2. Weapons on campus or other educational property.
(c) It shall be a Class I felony for any person to cause, encourage, or aid a minor who is less than 18 years old to possess or carry, whether openly or concealed, any gun, rifle, pistol, or other firearm of any kind on educational property. However, this subsection does not apply to a BB gun, stun gun, air rifle, or air pistol.
Kilkrazy wrote: Then we have a solution. You contract with a gun club of your choice to have your gun storage facilities at home inspected for safety.
This is a better distinction, yes. Iowa requires I take a class before giving me a concealed carry permit, but I contract with the private party of my choice; the state just wants the paper from an accredited authority.
And this is part of the issue. You don't have a catch-all requirement as to what is proper "accrediting". Also any inspections surrounding secure storage and the like would have to be randomly done to prevent people from just doing what they need to on the day of the inspection that gets scheduled.
Kilkrazy wrote: Then we have a solution. You contract with a gun club of your choice to have your gun storage facilities at home inspected for safety.
This is a better distinction, yes. Iowa requires I take a class before giving me a concealed carry permit, but I contract with the private party of my choice; the state just wants the paper from an accredited authority.
And this is part of the issue. You don't have a catch-all requirement as to what is proper "accrediting". Also any inspections surrounding secure storage and the like would have to be randomly done to prevent people from just doing what they need to on the day of the inspection that gets scheduled.
I agree, but that's not an insurmountable issue, either. Well, at least the former.
Anyway this is all a moot point. The real problem with preventing this and absolutely every shooting is the way that the US currently interprets the second amendment. Nothing is going to change as the second amendment is currently written, and there is currently little appetite among the public to do so, so pretty much any significant restriction is doomed. Rinse and repeat until that changes, which it won't.
Description of State Child Access Prevention Laws
CAP laws take a variety of forms. The strongest laws impose criminal liability when a minor is likely to gain access to a negligently stored firearm regardless of whether the minor actually gains access (California). The weakest merely prohibit certain persons, such as parents or guardians, from directly providing a firearm to a minor (Utah). There is a wide range of laws that fall somewhere between these extremes, including laws that impose criminal liability for negligently stored firearms, but only where the child uses the firearm and causes death or serious injury. Weaker laws impose penalties only in the event of reckless, knowing or intentional conduct by the adult. State CAP laws also differ on the definition of “minor.”
Laws Imposing Criminal Liability when a Child Gains Access as a Result of Negligent Storage of a Firearm
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have laws that impose criminal liability on persons who negligently store firearms, where minors could or do gain access to the firearm. Typically, these laws apply whenever the person “knows or reasonably should know” that a child is likely to gain access to the firearm.
Do Safe Storage Laws Reduce Gun Accidents?
A study published in a medical journal article (Cummings, Peter et. al, "State Gun Safe Storage Laws and Child Mortality Due to Firearms, "Journal of the American Medical Association, 278 [October 1, 1997]: 1084-86) "looked at 12 states that had enacted Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The CAP laws provide criminal penalties for gun owners who fail to use trigger locks or otherwise adequately restrict access to their firearms by children." (Bell, Dawson, "Trigger locks may not be solution to gun problems," Detroit Free Press, March 29, 2000)
The following are additional excerpts from the just cited Detroit Free Press news article. (If the majority of news accounts were as thorough and balanced as this one, GunCite wouldn't be necessary. The article is worth reading in its entirety.)
"The researchers found that accidental deaths among children younger than 15 were '23 percent lower than expected.'
"Using the 23 percent figure, the researchers estimated that the lives of 39 children were spared in the CAP law states [over a period of up to 4 years]. In states without the laws, it was estimated that 216 children who died could have been saved [again over a 4 year period].
"[A] Free Press analysis of child mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta indicated that although there was some impact from safe storage laws, it was barely measurable and dwarfed by a sharp decline nationally in accidental shooting deaths.
"That decline includes all manner of unintentional shootings, such as when a child finds a loaded gun in the house, plays with it and accidentally kills someone.
"Between the mid-1980s and the mid-90s, unintentional firearm fatalities in U.S. children younger than 15 dropped nearly 44 percent, the analysis found.
"In states that enacted CAP laws during that period, the decline was marginally greater -- 45.1 percent vs. 42.6 percent for non-CAP states.
"If the slight differences between CAP and non-CAP states could be entirely attributed to trigger locks, the laws were responsible for saving the lives of 1.75 children a year, the Free Press found." [emphasis added]
"Don Kates, a civil rights lawyer in California who has written several books about gun-related issues, said many of the public health researchers studying gun violence are open advocates of gun control whose work is twisted in public debate.
"Children younger than 5 are twice as likely to die from ingesting household poisons than by gunfire, said Kates, a gun-rights advocate.
" 'So the question for the Legislature should be: Is a parent criminally responsible for leaving an unlocked container of bleach below the sink?' Kates said."
Another conclusion the article reports is, "[T]rigger locks appeared to have no impact on murder or suicide by children, adolescents or adults."
Kilkrazy wrote: To be honest, the rest of the civilised world sees yet another school gun massacre in the USA -- only 10 dead this time -- and is amazed at how pants on head stupid it seems not to acknowledge the role of guns in the matter.
Given that the rest of the civilised world has not collapsed into a series of police state dictatorships despite having gun control, and doesn't suffer regular mass shootings, this attitude may have some elements of reasonable cogitation behind it.
Actually most were in the last 100 years.
In contrast we have a plethora of states in the Americas with stringent gun laws, and murder rates that would make Putin blanch.
Kilkrazy wrote: Then we have a solution. You contract with a gun club of your choice to have your gun storage facilities at home inspected for safety.
This is a better distinction, yes. Iowa requires I take a class before giving me a concealed carry permit, but I contract with the private party of my choice; the state just wants the paper from an accredited authority.
And this is part of the issue. You don't have a catch-all requirement as to what is proper "accrediting". Also any inspections surrounding secure storage and the like would have to be randomly done to prevent people from just doing what they need to on the day of the inspection that gets scheduled.
There would never be uniformity in secure storage laws or inspections because it's a state issue not Federal. Firearms purchased from FFLs are required to include trigger locks per Federal law because purchasing guns from a FFL is interstate commerce. Securely storing a gun in your private residence is not interstate commerce, there is no Federal jurisdiction over how privately owned firearms are stored so it's a state issue so you can have different laws or no laws on it at all depending on the state.
Kilkrazy wrote: To be honest, the rest of the civilised world sees yet another school gun massacre in the USA -- only 10 dead this time -- and is amazed at how pants on head stupid it seems not to acknowledge the role of guns in the matter.
Given that the rest of the civilised world has not collapsed into a series of police state dictatorships despite having gun control, and doesn't suffer regular mass shootings, this attitude may have some elements of reasonable cogitation behind it.
And to also be fair, most of the world didn't have the gun proliferation, and recent expansions (last 150 years) that the US has had. We have to make laws based off of our unique situation. How do we make things safer without restricting rights beyond reasonable expectation. Coupled with the fact that we honestly can't trust much our police forces to protect us, or even do the right thing, this is a hard place to be in.
We have to find compromise that works with the two loudest sides:
"Mah Rights" people who see any compromise as throwing out the second amendment
and the "Repeal the Second" crowd that wants to get rid of guns altogether, or at least make it as hard as possible to be a gun owner (my aunt falls into this category).
I have an honest question (EU so out of the water on this one). I 100% understand that the US citizens have a constitutional right to purchase and keep firearms. On the other hand, don't people also have the right to be able to send their kid to school without having to worry that they are going to get shot because neighbour X was irresponsible with his firearms?
Lets put things in perspective. Broadly speaking, the chances of your average k-12 student being killed by gunshot at school is one in several million. We're talking lotto level odds here.
Now, the fact that it happens at all is awful, but ultimately its something that is so rare, and more important, seemingly random, that in actual practice the school's parking lot presents a danger orders of magnitude larger, and resources devoted to things like traffic safety, healthcare and nutrition, school renovations, after school programs, etc would almost certainly save many more lives at a much lower cost.
This is a tough argument to agree with because the same is true of any number of things that we regulate now and take for granted, things like.....
1. Eating lead paint
2. Lethal cases of food poisoning
3. Terrorists blowing up your airplane
4. Having heavy things fall on you while at work
etc, etc, etc.
1. Good example, we didn't get rid of paint, we just changed the recipe, consuming paint is still bad for you but it's just as accessible as it ever was
2. We only regulate businesses that sell or serve food, the govt isn't inspecting your kitchen or refrigerator but they're regulating WalMart and Chipotle. The same way the govt regulates FFLs but not private individuals.
3. We should really remove a lot of the anti terror laws in the Patriot Act, get rid of the No Fly List entirely and reform airport security, this is just another example of bloated, excessive, oppressive govt bureaucracy
4. Workplace accidents are still a common and dangerous occurrence in the construction industry https://www.bls.gov/iif/
.... and I agree. Guns should still be available, but with a "changed receipe" for how you store or procure them. They are still easily accessible with back ground checks and liability insurance requirements for ownership. Then, we can regulate businesses (such as Insurance companies, gun shops, and gun show organizers) to enforce these items. So, Guns really are no different from things we all ready regulate for safety reasons.
.... except we choose to put them in some special "class" for .... reasons?
What new procurement or storage methods do you want to see implemented and how would they mitigate crimes committed with guns? Most states already have safe storage laws for gun ownership. Why did the thread go off on the tangent of storage anyway? Safely secured doesn't mean that the owner is the only one that can access them, the Santa Fe shooting wasn't a result of improper storage. When I'm not using, cleaning or carrying any of my guns they're locked up in the safe but I'm not the only one that can open the safe, my wife and our older kids all know how to open it too. Proper storage means not doing things like leaving a pistol in the kids' Lego bin or tossing it under the front seat on my way to the range or leaving rifles laying out on the coffee table. Having your shotgun and revolver locked up but having your 17 year old son know the combination or know where you keep the key doesn't violate any secure storage laws.
Secure storage laws also don't automatically give police probably cause to search your house for unsecured guns. We already have a ton of laws that people could potentially be violating in their homes yet the police can't just show up at your door and enter your house against your wishes to search for potential illegal activity without a warrant or probable cause. The fact that it is possible that I am violating a law inside my house does not mean there is probable cause for the police to believe I am actively violating a law inside my house.
Even if somehow for some reason gun storage laws were the one exception allowed under the 4th amendment before any inspections could even take place we'd first need to establish an accurate and comprehensive registry which would require state laws to be passed and that's going to be difficult to do in more than a few states and be enforced by local and state law enforcement which will be a tremendous strain on resources.
All of this came up from the notion of holding people negligent for their weapons being used in criminal acts. Therefore, safe storage became an issue and who can or can nto access them became a topic. So, regarding Santa Fe, the kid used his Dad's weapons and kid shooters typically get their weapons from someone else. Therefore, the question is how did they have access to the weapon when they did not procure them as their own property. This then led to who would have the power to perform safe storage inspections (which is abit of a re herring since thediscussion was in the context of investigating negligence by the police, so presumably the police. This is a very different situation than random searches and verification).
Our little side discussion was prompted by the comment tha the probability of someone being killed in a school shooting was low, and therefore we did not need to have the Government take any meaningful action on the topic. I then pointed to situations where the probability of injury/death were low but the Government still regulated on behalf of the public. You rightly pointed out some the specifics of those situations. I countered with the fact that these specifics did not really change the idea that the Government can choose to put regulations in place around liability insurance for weapons being required, safe storage laws, or other market-based regulations on gun sales/permitting/insurance. However, for some reason... as a society.... we put guns in some sort of special case that these normal regulatory concepts do not apply even though none of these potential regulations would infringe on a citizens rights to obtain and maintain a weapon.
Kilkrazy wrote: To be honest, the rest of the civilised world sees yet another school gun massacre in the USA -- only 10 dead this time -- and is amazed at how pants on head stupid it seems not to acknowledge the role of guns in the matter.
Given that the rest of the civilised world has not collapsed into a series of police state dictatorships despite having gun control, and doesn't suffer regular mass shootings, this attitude may have some elements of reasonable cogitation behind it.
And to also be fair, most of the world didn't have the gun proliferation, and recent expansions (last 150 years) that the US has had. We have to make laws based off of our unique situation. How do we make things safer without restricting rights beyond reasonable expectation. Coupled with the fact that we honestly can't trust much our police forces to protect us, or even do the right thing, this is a hard place to be in.
We have to find compromise that works with the two loudest sides:
"Mah Rights" people who see any compromise as throwing out the second amendment
and the "Repeal the Second" crowd that wants to get rid of guns altogether, or at least make it as hard as possible to be a gun owner (my aunt falls into this category).
I have an honest question (EU so out of the water on this one). I 100% understand that the US citizens have a constitutional right to purchase and keep firearms. On the other hand, don't people also have the right to be able to send their kid to school without having to worry that they are going to get shot because neighbour X was irresponsible with his firearms?
Lets put things in perspective. Broadly speaking, the chances of your average k-12 student being killed by gunshot at school is one in several million. We're talking lotto level odds here.
Now, the fact that it happens at all is awful, but ultimately its something that is so rare, and more important, seemingly random, that in actual practice the school's parking lot presents a danger orders of magnitude larger, and resources devoted to things like traffic safety, healthcare and nutrition, school renovations, after school programs, etc would almost certainly save many more lives at a much lower cost.
This is a tough argument to agree with because the same is true of any number of things that we regulate now and take for granted, things like.....
1. Eating lead paint
2. Lethal cases of food poisoning
3. Terrorists blowing up your airplane
4. Having heavy things fall on you while at work
etc, etc, etc.
1. Good example, we didn't get rid of paint, we just changed the recipe, consuming paint is still bad for you but it's just as accessible as it ever was
2. We only regulate businesses that sell or serve food, the govt isn't inspecting your kitchen or refrigerator but they're regulating WalMart and Chipotle. The same way the govt regulates FFLs but not private individuals.
3. We should really remove a lot of the anti terror laws in the Patriot Act, get rid of the No Fly List entirely and reform airport security, this is just another example of bloated, excessive, oppressive govt bureaucracy
4. Workplace accidents are still a common and dangerous occurrence in the construction industry https://www.bls.gov/iif/
.... and I agree. Guns should still be available, but with a "changed receipe" for how you store or procure them. They are still easily accessible with back ground checks and liability insurance requirements for ownership. Then, we can regulate businesses (such as Insurance companies, gun shops, and gun show organizers) to enforce these items. So, Guns really are no different from things we all ready regulate for safety reasons.
.... except we choose to put them in some special "class" for .... reasons?
What new procurement or storage methods do you want to see implemented and how would they mitigate crimes committed with guns? Most states already have safe storage laws for gun ownership. Why did the thread go off on the tangent of storage anyway? Safely secured doesn't mean that the owner is the only one that can access them, the Santa Fe shooting wasn't a result of improper storage. When I'm not using, cleaning or carrying any of my guns they're locked up in the safe but I'm not the only one that can open the safe, my wife and our older kids all know how to open it too. Proper storage means not doing things like leaving a pistol in the kids' Lego bin or tossing it under the front seat on my way to the range or leaving rifles laying out on the coffee table. Having your shotgun and revolver locked up but having your 17 year old son know the combination or know where you keep the key doesn't violate any secure storage laws.
Secure storage laws also don't automatically give police probably cause to search your house for unsecured guns. We already have a ton of laws that people could potentially be violating in their homes yet the police can't just show up at your door and enter your house against your wishes to search for potential illegal activity without a warrant or probable cause. The fact that it is possible that I am violating a law inside my house does not mean there is probable cause for the police to believe I am actively violating a law inside my house.
Even if somehow for some reason gun storage laws were the one exception allowed under the 4th amendment before any inspections could even take place we'd first need to establish an accurate and comprehensive registry which would require state laws to be passed and that's going to be difficult to do in more than a few states and be enforced by local and state law enforcement which will be a tremendous strain on resources.
All of this came up from the notion of holding people negligent for their weapons being used in criminal acts. Therefore, safe storage became an issue and who can or can nto access them became a topic. So, regarding Santa Fe, the kid used his Dad's weapons and kid shooters typically get their weapons from someone else. Therefore, the question is how did they have access to the weapon when they did not procure them as their own property. This then led to who would have the power to perform safe storage inspections (which is abit of a re herring since thediscussion was in the context of investigating negligence by the police, so presumably the police. This is a very different situation than random searches and verification).
Our little side discussion was prompted by the comment tha the probability of someone being killed in a school shooting was low, and therefore we did not need to have the Government take any meaningful action on the topic. I then pointed to situations where the probability of injury/death were low but the Government still regulated on behalf of the public. You rightly pointed out some the specifics of those situations. I countered with the fact that these specifics did not really change the idea that the Government can choose to put regulations in place around liability insurance for weapons being required, safe storage laws, or other market-based regulations on gun sales/permitting/insurance. However, for some reason... as a society.... we put guns in some sort of special case that these normal regulatory concepts do not apply even though none of these potential regulations would infringe on a citizens rights to obtain and maintain a weapon.
Safe storage laws wouldn't prevent teenagers from having access to their parents' guns if the parents felt it appropriate to give them access. The Santa Fe shooting didn't happen because the guns weren't secured it happened because the parents didn't think their son was going to go on a murder spree. Same as Sandy Hook.
So basically it comes down yet again to the sociopath behind the tool, not the tool itself. Why didn't the Boston Bombing have the activist out pounding the street to limit access to pressure cookers and metal fasteners? We punished the person behind that attack, not Proctor and Gamble for making the pot or Grainger for making the bolts.
Kilkrazy wrote: To be honest, the rest of the civilised world sees yet another school gun massacre in the USA -- only 10 dead this time -- and is amazed at how pants on head stupid it seems not to acknowledge the role of guns in the matter.
Given that the rest of the civilised world has not collapsed into a series of police state dictatorships despite having gun control, and doesn't suffer regular mass shootings, this attitude may have some elements of reasonable cogitation behind it.
And to also be fair, most of the world didn't have the gun proliferation, and recent expansions (last 150 years) that the US has had. We have to make laws based off of our unique situation. How do we make things safer without restricting rights beyond reasonable expectation. Coupled with the fact that we honestly can't trust much our police forces to protect us, or even do the right thing, this is a hard place to be in.
We have to find compromise that works with the two loudest sides:
"Mah Rights" people who see any compromise as throwing out the second amendment
and the "Repeal the Second" crowd that wants to get rid of guns altogether, or at least make it as hard as possible to be a gun owner (my aunt falls into this category).
I have an honest question (EU so out of the water on this one). I 100% understand that the US citizens have a constitutional right to purchase and keep firearms. On the other hand, don't people also have the right to be able to send their kid to school without having to worry that they are going to get shot because neighbour X was irresponsible with his firearms?
Lets put things in perspective. Broadly speaking, the chances of your average k-12 student being killed by gunshot at school is one in several million. We're talking lotto level odds here.
Now, the fact that it happens at all is awful, but ultimately its something that is so rare, and more important, seemingly random, that in actual practice the school's parking lot presents a danger orders of magnitude larger, and resources devoted to things like traffic safety, healthcare and nutrition, school renovations, after school programs, etc would almost certainly save many more lives at a much lower cost.
This is a tough argument to agree with because the same is true of any number of things that we regulate now and take for granted, things like.....
1. Eating lead paint
2. Lethal cases of food poisoning
3. Terrorists blowing up your airplane
4. Having heavy things fall on you while at work
etc, etc, etc.
1. Good example, we didn't get rid of paint, we just changed the recipe, consuming paint is still bad for you but it's just as accessible as it ever was
2. We only regulate businesses that sell or serve food, the govt isn't inspecting your kitchen or refrigerator but they're regulating WalMart and Chipotle. The same way the govt regulates FFLs but not private individuals.
3. We should really remove a lot of the anti terror laws in the Patriot Act, get rid of the No Fly List entirely and reform airport security, this is just another example of bloated, excessive, oppressive govt bureaucracy
4. Workplace accidents are still a common and dangerous occurrence in the construction industry https://www.bls.gov/iif/
.... and I agree. Guns should still be available, but with a "changed receipe" for how you store or procure them. They are still easily accessible with back ground checks and liability insurance requirements for ownership. Then, we can regulate businesses (such as Insurance companies, gun shops, and gun show organizers) to enforce these items. So, Guns really are no different from things we all ready regulate for safety reasons.
.... except we choose to put them in some special "class" for .... reasons?
What new procurement or storage methods do you want to see implemented and how would they mitigate crimes committed with guns? Most states already have safe storage laws for gun ownership. Why did the thread go off on the tangent of storage anyway? Safely secured doesn't mean that the owner is the only one that can access them, the Santa Fe shooting wasn't a result of improper storage. When I'm not using, cleaning or carrying any of my guns they're locked up in the safe but I'm not the only one that can open the safe, my wife and our older kids all know how to open it too. Proper storage means not doing things like leaving a pistol in the kids' Lego bin or tossing it under the front seat on my way to the range or leaving rifles laying out on the coffee table. Having your shotgun and revolver locked up but having your 17 year old son know the combination or know where you keep the key doesn't violate any secure storage laws.
Secure storage laws also don't automatically give police probably cause to search your house for unsecured guns. We already have a ton of laws that people could potentially be violating in their homes yet the police can't just show up at your door and enter your house against your wishes to search for potential illegal activity without a warrant or probable cause. The fact that it is possible that I am violating a law inside my house does not mean there is probable cause for the police to believe I am actively violating a law inside my house.
Even if somehow for some reason gun storage laws were the one exception allowed under the 4th amendment before any inspections could even take place we'd first need to establish an accurate and comprehensive registry which would require state laws to be passed and that's going to be difficult to do in more than a few states and be enforced by local and state law enforcement which will be a tremendous strain on resources.
All of this came up from the notion of holding people negligent for their weapons being used in criminal acts. Therefore, safe storage became an issue and who can or can nto access them became a topic. So, regarding Santa Fe, the kid used his Dad's weapons and kid shooters typically get their weapons from someone else. Therefore, the question is how did they have access to the weapon when they did not procure them as their own property. This then led to who would have the power to perform safe storage inspections (which is abit of a re herring since thediscussion was in the context of investigating negligence by the police, so presumably the police. This is a very different situation than random searches and verification).
Our little side discussion was prompted by the comment tha the probability of someone being killed in a school shooting was low, and therefore we did not need to have the Government take any meaningful action on the topic. I then pointed to situations where the probability of injury/death were low but the Government still regulated on behalf of the public. You rightly pointed out some the specifics of those situations. I countered with the fact that these specifics did not really change the idea that the Government can choose to put regulations in place around liability insurance for weapons being required, safe storage laws, or other market-based regulations on gun sales/permitting/insurance. However, for some reason... as a society.... we put guns in some sort of special case that these normal regulatory concepts do not apply even though none of these potential regulations would infringe on a citizens rights to obtain and maintain a weapon.
Safe storage laws wouldn't prevent teenagers from having access to their parents' guns if the parents felt it appropriate to give them access. The Santa Fe shooting didn't happen because the guns weren't secured it happened because the parents didn't think their son was going to go on a murder spree. Same as Sandy Hook.
Would a parent provide access to their guns if their was a consequence to themselves if the child did something inappropriate with the weapon like say; brandish it in public; illegally discharge it, commit a robbery, etc?
Maybe, maybe not. However, we currently have no deterrent for someone like the Sandy Hook shooters' Mom to just give their kid access to their guns. Perhaps not the best example, as she was the first victim; but you probably understand my meaning.
However, my main point is that there are lots of things we can do and still maintain the 2A. We just choose not to because we as a society treat guns in an irrational way that we do not treat other products and tools.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.
You have not heard of inalienable rights?
I think the problem is the claim that rights are god-given. To quote George Carlin on that particular point:
Spoiler:
But let’s say it’s true, let’s say God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights? The Bill of Rights of this country has ten stipulations, okay? Ten rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week because we had to amend the Bill of Rights an additional seventeen times. So God forgot a couple of things. Like… slavery! Just fething slipped his mind. [laughing] But let’s say, let’s say God gave us the original ten. He gave the British thirteen, the British Bill of Rights has thirteen stipulations. The Germans have twenty-nine, the Belgians have twenty-five, the Swedish have only six, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fething goddamn god-given deal is that? No rights at all? Why would God give different people in different countries different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn’t sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
Yeah, that's not a realistic scenario in which you would be found criminally liable. it appears most states have laws about storing your firearms and penalties for not doing so.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
Yeah, that's not a realistic scenario in which you would be found criminally liable. it appears most states have laws about storing your firearms and penalties for not doing so.
And yet that wasn't what was suggested. The only criteria given is that someone gained access to my weapons.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
Yeah, that's not a realistic scenario in which you would be found criminally liable. it appears most states have laws about storing your firearms and penalties for not doing so.
And yet that wasn't what was suggested. The only criteria given is that someone gained access to my weapons.
Wouldn't an investigation prove that you were not negligent if you had securely stored your weapon? I mean, isn't that what we are talking about? I assume police don't just randomly charge people with negligence without an investigation right? Then once charged, don;t they have to prove it in court?
Wouldn't an investigation prove that you were not negligent if you had securely stored your weapon? I mean, isn't that what we are talking about? I assume police don't just randomly charge people with negligence without an investigation right? Then once charged, don;t they have to prove it in court?
You're missing that this is the baiting definitions game, where you ask your opponent to define a common term and then go "but you didn't say [insert contrived circumstances here] therefore your argument is wrong"
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
Yeah, that's not a realistic scenario in which you would be found criminally liable. it appears most states have laws about storing your firearms and penalties for not doing so.
Other s are indeed arguing for this strict liability level actually. not here may be,but definitely in other places.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
Yeah, that's not a realistic scenario in which you would be found criminally liable. it appears most states have laws about storing your firearms and penalties for not doing so.
Other s are indeed arguing for this strict liability level actually. not here may be,but definitely in other places.
Exactly my point. I was wondering if this was going to be another "If someone can steal it, it wasn't secured enough" argument.
If a person has a problem with eating, it's a good idea not to stockpile biscuits in the pantry. This is an incredibly obvious thing. And yet with guns you pretend it isn't true, because you will not admit the reality about guns.
We have a high crime rate in the US. Even factoring out firearms related muders from the US and leavings firearm related deaths in the rest of Europe we still lead by a huge factor.
This is false. You believe false things. If you were to learn things that aren't false, you wouldn't be able to defend your gun position any more. And so I predict you will not learn correct things about US crime rates.
Your school shooting number is artificially inflated by including non- firearms related incidents
They are all incidents involving guns. You have claimed a false thing. It includes non-homicide incidents, like gun safety accidents, but of course those incidents are part of the cost of gun proliferation.
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SOFDC wrote: Off the chart as compared to?... Europe? Sure. Always have been. Even back when gun laws were roughly equivalent.
Gun laws were more similar, but rates of gun ownership were nothing alike. It isn't the laws, but the proliferation of guns that drives much higher murder rate. This is for a very simple and obvious reason - when something is likely to be near to hand, you will use it more often than when it is very rarely near to you.
People deny this because they are unwilling to admit that sometimes things you like have consequences, but things fething have consequences. I like pizza and I will still choose to eat it, but I'd be lying if I denied it was bad for me. This doesn't necessarily mean people should stop eating it, it doesn't necessarily mean society should encourage pizza makers to use healthier cheese, but it does mean that any honest conversation about pizza needs people to start with people accepting that pizza is not a health food.
The same for guns.
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Frazzled wrote: In contrast we have a plethora of states in the Americas with stringent gun laws, and murder rates that would make Putin blanch.
Actually Russia has a murder rate almost triple the US. The US problem is bad, but its not 'wildly corrupt dictatorship with chronic problems with equality, justice and police corruption' bad.
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Just Tony wrote: So basically it comes down yet again to the sociopath behind the tool, not the tool itself. Why didn't the Boston Bombing have the activist out pounding the street to limit access to pressure cookers and metal fasteners? We punished the person behind that attack, not Proctor and Gamble for making the pot or Grainger for making the bolts.
Because you balance the level of benefit of an item against the level of its harm. This is not something that should need to be explained.
That said you I won't debate the accuracy of the claim that firearms simply existing leads to incidents of their misuse simply because they're there to be misused, that's a point I'll concede, though there's little/no direct correlation between raw numbers and homicide rates within the US itself over time (overall deaths have declined even as we have more firearms available than ever, it's the shock incidents that have spiked).
In my personal experience, and shooting gets you a lot of time next to cops doing their mandatory proficiency, you really want to help them. Being extra nice to public servants is free for the most part and gets you a lot of goodwill you might want to use later on.
They might not be there to help you as an individual, but they're part of a system that tries to make sure everything you benefit from in society works as intended.
Police absolutely have an important role to play in society.
However, particularly under the legal and professional framework in the US that surrounds police, as an individual, you have every incentive to not want to be anywhere near the police and to keep interactions, even friendly ones, to an absolute minimum.
They have no duty to protect or assist you. They can and will routinely lie to you (thats basic police work and how they usually get confessions) but lying to them is a crime. They are not required to know the law in their enforcement of it, and their ignorance of it is legally shielded, while your ignorance of the law is no defense in court. If they do something illegal they are unlikely to be held accountable without significant evidence and public pressure, but even passive resistance on my part is a crime. Their entire job is to look for, and be a professional witness to, violations of the law, even if unrelated to any whatever their immediate task was. There is a reason every lawyer and veteran cop will tell you "dont talk", no matter how trivial you think a statement may be. Even when it comes to firearms, they can and do get away with shoots that would send anyone without a badge to jail in a heartbeat and training is heavily based around paramount officer safety at all costs that frees them to shoot at the mere apprehension of a firearm being drawn.
Which ultimately comes from an unusually high proliferation of guns.
Cops are always in the edge because they believe everyone down to the old lady they're helping to cross the road may be armed and can put them on the long list of police fatalities.
Vaktathi wrote: rm, depends on how you make the comparison, it's not an outrageous claim
No, it's false. You look at rates of assault or other non-lethal violent crime, and the US is smack bang in the middle of developed countries. You look at non-violent crimes, break-ins and robberies etc, and the US actually on the better end of the scale. As such, his statement "We have a high crime rate in the US" is a false statement. The US not a blasted, lawless wasteland desperate for Chuck Norris to flying kick it in to civilization. It's just another developed country, albeit one with a murder rate that is unique among developed countries, and it also happens to have gun proliferation that is unique among developed countries.
That said you I won't debate the accuracy of the claim that firearms simply existing leads to incidents of their misuse simply because they're there to be misused, that's a point I'll concede, though there's little/no direct correlation between raw numbers and homicide rates within the US itself over time (overall deaths have declined even as we have more firearms available than ever, it's the shock incidents that have spiked).
What's important to note is that shootings haven't declined, but deaths from shootings have. This is largely the result of better emergency medical care. But yes, it is important to seperate the overall murder rate from the shock incidents, but unfortuntely that's now how the politics of this issue plays out.
And I think the raw numbers of guns is the wrong stat. If a town has 100 homes, and 60 of them have one gun each then there is a gun near at hand for most people most of the time. If the next town over has 100 homes, and 1 home has 100 guns and the other 99 have no guns at all, then most people will not have a gun near at hand, despite that town having a notionally higher rate of guns to people. And note that while the US stockpile of guns has grown, the number of homes with guns has fallen by about a third in the last 60 years. Is that part of the cause of falling murder rates? Dunno.
If a person has a problem with eating, it's a good idea not to stockpile biscuits in the pantry. This is an incredibly obvious thing. And yet with guns you pretend it isn't true, because you will not admit the reality about guns.
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.
To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits.
We need to focus on the cause behind the violent incidents and not the tools that were used. Fortunately, US violent crime is plummeting, and the FBI crime statistics make it quite clear that the number of guns that are owned in the US has no correlation at all to crime rates at all.
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.
To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits
Except we do regulate food - nutritional labeling, banning trans fats, even regular inspection of restaurants and food processing facilities.
And that's the point - as a society people learned that bad stuff happened (trans fats cause coronary artery disease, unsafe facilities were making contaminated products etc) and took action instead of just publicly circle-jerking about not doing anything.
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.
To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits
Except we do regulate food - nutritional labeling, banning trans fats, even regular inspection of restaurants and food processing facilities.
And that's the point - as a society people learned that bad stuff happened (trans fats cause coronary artery disease, unsafe facilities were making contaminated products etc) and took action instead of just publicly circle-jerking about not doing anything.
And we regulate firearms, they come with handy books that warn you of their potential to cause damage. They are sold with trigger locks. Firearms sellers are open to federal inspection. Next!
Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.
To use your example, its like saying that because some people have issues with overeating that nobody can have unhealthy food. You're saying Fred can't have biscuits because George is obese and shouldn't eat biscuits
Except we do regulate food - nutritional labeling, banning trans fats, even regular inspection of restaurants and food processing facilities.
And that's the point - as a society people learned that bad stuff happened (trans fats cause coronary artery disease, unsafe facilities were making contaminated products etc) and took action instead of just publicly circle-jerking about not doing anything.
Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.
Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.
Nice work ignoring the other two points I made - we do ban ingredients and preparation practices when there's clear evidence that they're harmful.
Not even going to bother on the hyperbole laden "illegal police state coming to illegally search and illegally seize muh freedums" stuff.
Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.
Nice work ignoring the other two points I made - we do ban ingredients and preparation practices when there's clear evidence that they're harmful.
Not even going to bother on the hyperbole laden "illegal police state coming to illegally search and illegally seize muh freedums" stuff.
Its not relevant. Owning a gun or a specific type of gun isn't equivalent to, say, food containing arsenic or something that is purely toxic. There is a very long list of legitimate reasons to own guns. There is no legitimate reason to put arsenic or other poisons in food.
And its not hyperbole to say that having the police inspect homes to enforce safe storage of guns is a violation of the 4th amendment. Its pretty much a textbook example of what a violation would look like.
Grey Templar wrote: Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.
If I had said or even suggested that recognizing that gun proliferation must mean gun bans or even increased regulations, then you would have a good point. But I said no such thing. So instead what we're looking at is a fairly crude two card trick, where you avoid my actual point and instead argue against a hypothetical, possible conclusion that some other person might have. Because you can't challenge that claim about gun proliferation, and politically you aren't willing to admit it is true, so instead you balderdash around it.
Just think about how dysfunctional this is. Imagine having this conversation with someone;
"I think pizza is bad for you."
"I disagree, we shouldn't ban pizza."
Everyone knows that's some absurd nonsense. But it is what we accept as a matter of course from the pro-gun debate. Really weird.
If a person has a problem with eating, it's a good idea not to stockpile biscuits in the pantry. This is an incredibly obvious thing. And yet with guns you pretend it isn't true, because you will not admit the reality about guns.
[user]The food isn't the issue, the persons behavior is. That is an incredibly obvious thing
We have a high crime rate in the US. Even factoring out firearms related muders from the US and leavings firearm related deaths in the rest of Europe we still lead by a huge factor.
This is false. You believe false things. If you were to learn things that aren't false, you wouldn't be able to defend your gun position any more. And so I predict you will not learn correct things about US crime rates.
[/user]Ok, I'm wrong because when I say Europe because I'm not counting Eastern Europe where countries like Russia and the Ukraine that have very high murder rates pushing up the over all murder rate. So in the US the murder rate is about 4.8 per 100k. About 1/2 of that are firearms, so call it 2.4 per 100k
Now look at total for Europe which is about 3 per 100k, definitely higher. Take out all the former communist block countries and and your looking below 2.4 without removing firearms deaths.
Your school shooting number is artificially inflated by including non- firearms related incidents
They are all incidents involving guns. You have claimed a false thing. It includes non-homicide incidents, like gun safety accidents, but of course those incidents are part of the cost of gun proliferation.
[user]I said firearms, the list of school shootings includes at least one pellet gun ( pellet guns are not firearms). You can see that one right on Wikipedia. The list has some issues.
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SOFDC wrote: Off the chart as compared to?... Europe? Sure. Always have been. Even back when gun laws were roughly equivalent.
Gun laws were more similar, but rates of gun ownership were nothing alike. It isn't the laws, but the proliferation of guns that drives much higher murder rate. This is for a very simple and obvious reason - when something is likely to be near to hand, you will use it more often than when it is very rarely near to you.
[/user]Actually it has more to do with culture than proliferation of guns. The US high murder rate is raised by just a few cities with very high rates. My state has a very high rate of firearms ownership and a murder rate one of the lowest in the country.
People deny this because they are unwilling to admit that sometimes things you like have consequences, but things fething have consequences. I like pizza and I will still choose to eat it, but I'd be lying if I denied it was bad for me. This doesn't necessarily mean people should stop eating it, it doesn't necessarily mean society should encourage pizza makers to use healthier cheese, but it does mean that any honest conversation about pizza needs people to start with people accepting that pizza is not a health food.
The same for guns.
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Frazzled wrote: In contrast we have a plethora of states in the Americas with stringent gun laws, and murder rates that would make Putin blanch.
Actually Russia has a murder rate almost triple the US. The US problem is bad, but its not 'wildly corrupt dictatorship with chronic problems with equality, justice and police corruption' bad.
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Just Tony wrote: So basically it comes down yet again to the sociopath behind the tool, not the tool itself. Why didn't the Boston Bombing have the activist out pounding the street to limit access to pressure cookers and metal fasteners? We punished the person behind that attack, not Proctor and Gamble for making the pot or Grainger for making the bolts.
Because you balance the level of benefit of an item against the level of its harm. This is not something that should need to be explained.
Grey Templar wrote: Except whats being proposed by Gun-control nutters is that innocent people should have their rights restricted because of what bad people do.
If I had said or even suggested that recognizing that gun proliferation must mean gun bans or even increased regulations, then you would have a good point. But I said no such thing. So instead what we're looking at is a fairly crude two card trick, where you avoid my actual point and instead argue against a hypothetical, possible conclusion that some other person might have. Because you can't challenge that claim about gun proliferation, and politically you aren't willing to admit it is true, so instead you balderdash around it.
Just think about how dysfunctional this is. Imagine having this conversation with someone;
"I think pizza is bad for you."
"I disagree, we shouldn't ban pizza."
Everyone knows that's some absurd nonsense. But it is what we accept as a matter of course from the pro-gun debate. Really weird.
You didn't say it, this time. But people who are Anti-gun do say stuff like that. Literally all the time.
They argue for increased regulations as well as outright bans. None of which would actually have stopped the incidents they are allegedly trying to prevent, so the only net result is disarming law abiding citizens. Its just been a steady erosion of the 2nd amendment over the years. You really can't blame people who support the 2nd for being rather jumpy and aggressive. Anybody who is the target of repeated attacks will respond like that.
People complain how the NRA has become more toxic, but its just a response to the political and cultural assault that they've been under, attacks which are just as if not more toxic.
Insurgency Walker, you might want to check the quote tags in your reply to me.
Insurgency Walker wrote: I said firearms, the list of school shootings includes at least one pellet gun ( pellet guns are not firearms). You can see that one right on Wikipedia. The list has some issues.
There was one incident involving a pellet gun, therefore we should ignore the US having more than 6 times as many incidents than the other 13 countries combined. This is silly.
Actually it has more to do with culture than proliferation of guns. The US high murder rate is raised by just a few cities with very high rates. My state has a very high rate of firearms ownership and a murder rate one of the lowest in the country.
This is another claim that is commonly made that is totally false. No, Chicago and a handful of other cities don't account for the high rate of US murders. For all the talk, the Illinois murder rate is 5.5 per 100,000, compared to a national average of 4.5 per 100,000. Chicago isn't even enough to make Illinois that far above the national average, and well below states like Louisiana and South Carolina. DC is another thing entirely, I'll grant you that, but even then its 130 murders out of 14,000 nationwide, it isn't materially impacting the national average.
Anyhow, here's a chart that tracks gun deaths against gun proliferation per state. Note that it is gun deaths, so gun suicides play a major role, but there's no reason they shouldn't be part of the conversation.
More guns results in more gun deaths, and the correlation is pretty tight.
I've never said it, so you can stop that nonsense right now.
But people who are Anti-gun do say stuff like that. Literally all the time.
And you should debate with them on the points they make. I didn't make that point, and the only reason to counter the point I did make with your argument against a different argument made by different people is to balderdash your way around either contradicting or accepting the point I did make.
People complain how the NRA has become more toxic, but its just a response to the political and cultural assault that they've been under, attacks which are just as if not more toxic.
No, it really isn't. The NRA's position is a direct product of how they've aligned themselves with money and political power.
I remember when your monarch could walk the streets at night without a guard.
I think you had fewer firearms laws then too.
Correlation =/= causation. There were also fewer countries in the Balkans back in Gustav VI Adolf's time, does that mean the number of countries in the Balkans causes gun crime to drop?
You still haven't adressed the fact that rights are social constructs.
Didn't mean to imply causation. Was pointing out how your society is becoming less free. Your monarch can't freely walk the streets. Less freedom also does not mean more safety. It just means less freedom. Freedom is something we are always talking about right? Free to choose safe foods. Free to choose clean energy. Free to marry whomever you wish, worship however you wish. Free to study what you wish. Free to discuss what you wish. Only freedom can be scary, so better reign that in. For a ruling class freedom is only good to get you to the top. Then you reign that in before someone else climbs that same ladder.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
Yeah! You guys rate a 2 on the Free-do-meter!(Patent Pending) Not to be confused with the Frito-meter, the second best made up meter! A 2 out of 7! Woooooooo!
But in all seriousness this is bullgak because the "divine" in whatever religion or spirituality is horsegak/doesn't exist and has absolutely nothing to do with the US Government. We are a no Magic Sky Fairy zone.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.
You have not heard of inalienable rights?
Have you not paid attention to the discussion? I've been over this multiple times, the "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" aren't inalienable, because you can get put in jail. Similarly, the "right to bear arms" that "shall not be infringed" can be infringed, e.g. if you're a felon.
Your "inalienable rights" are social constructs, and the sooner you recognize that fact the sooner a more productive discussion can be had on what those rights entail.
Those are just from this year. So I wouldn't find it far- fetched to find someone broke into my house and just picked up my small biometric safe, and took it home to crack open. Another huge issue is stupid people leaving guns in their cars, and the cars being broken into. Those people need to get nailed for negligence IMO.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.
You have not heard of inalienable rights?
Have you not paid attention to the discussion? I've been over this multiple times, the "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" aren't inalienable, because you can get put in jail. Similarly, the "right to bear arms" that "shall not be infringed" can be infringed, e.g. if you're a felon.
Your "inalienable rights" are social constructs, and the sooner you recognize that fact the sooner a more productive discussion can be had on what those rights entail.
It is not the right that is the social construct. The social constructs are the tools we use to interact with each other within those rights. The idea of inalienable rights was that the could not be surrendered, sold or transferred. That is why to can't waive certain rights. It is a founding principle of this nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
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sebster wrote: Insurgency Walker, you might want to check the quote tags in your reply to me.
Insurgency Walker wrote: I said firearms, the list of school shootings includes at least one pellet gun ( pellet guns are not firearms). You can see that one right on Wikipedia. The list has some issues.
There was one incident involving a pellet gun, therefore we should ignore the US having more than 6 times as many incidents than the other 13 countries combined. This is silly.
Actually it has more to do with culture than proliferation of guns. The US high murder rate is raised by just a few cities with very high rates. My state has a very high rate of firearms ownership and a murder rate one of the lowest in the country.
This is another claim that is commonly made that is totally false. No, Chicago and a handful of other cities don't account for the high rate of US murders. For all the talk, the Illinois murder rate is 5.5 per 100,000, compared to a national average of 4.5 per 100,000. Chicago isn't even enough to make Illinois that far above the national average, and well below states like Louisiana and South Carolina. DC is another thing entirely, I'll grant you that, but even then its 130 murders out of 14,000 nationwide, it isn't materially impacting the national average.
Anyhow, here's a chart that tracks gun deaths against gun proliferation per state. Note that it is gun deaths, so gun suicides play a major role, but there's no reason they shouldn't be part of the conversation.
More guns results in more gun deaths, and the correlation is pretty tight.
I've never said it, so you can stop that nonsense right now.
But people who are Anti-gun do say stuff like that. Literally all the time.
And you should debate with them on the points they make. I didn't make that point, and the only reason to counter the point I did make with your argument against a different argument made by different people is to balderdash your way around either contradicting or accepting the point I did make.
People complain how the NRA has become more toxic, but its just a response to the political and cultural assault that they've been under, attacks which are just as if not more toxic.
No, it really isn't. The NRA's position is a direct product of how they've aligned themselves with money and political power.
Don't deflect on the pellet gun issue, that list has some flaws and I pointed out the most obvious.
Some years half of the murders in Michigan take place in Detroit, and it's not just about population density.
Your proliferation, chart didn't come through. But will look that up. Sorry about the reply tags from the earlier post. Dang my lack of forum skills
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also don't think suicide belongs in the statistics when talking about gun violence. Although suicide is an act of self violence including it seems to be used to generate fear and inflate numbers. I know people that when the hear that police are most likely to die by their own gun they walk away thinking police are being stripped of there firearms and shot with them. Not that it is a suicide issue.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.
You have not heard of inalienable rights?
I think the problem is the claim that rights are god-given. To quote George Carlin on that particular point:
Spoiler:
But let’s say it’s true, let’s say God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights? The Bill of Rights of this country has ten stipulations, okay? Ten rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week because we had to amend the Bill of Rights an additional seventeen times. So God forgot a couple of things. Like… slavery! Just fething slipped his mind. [laughing] But let’s say, let’s say God gave us the original ten. He gave the British thirteen, the British Bill of Rights has thirteen stipulations. The Germans have twenty-nine, the Belgians have twenty-five, the Swedish have only six, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fething goddamn god-given deal is that? No rights at all? Why would God give different people in different countries different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn’t sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning.
The founders were mostly Deists. When they mention the divine law they are speaking to a natural law of the universe. At least that is what I like to think - it's mostly common sense not to steal from/kill/or oppress people.
I remember when your monarch could walk the streets at night without a guard.
I think you had fewer firearms laws then too.
Correlation =/= causation. There were also fewer countries in the Balkans back in Gustav VI Adolf's time, does that mean the number of countries in the Balkans causes gun crime to drop?
You still haven't adressed the fact that rights are social constructs.
Didn't mean to imply causation. Was pointing out how your society is becoming less free. Your monarch can't freely walk the streets. Less freedom also does not mean more safety. It just means less freedom. Freedom is something we are always talking about right? Free to choose safe foods. Free to choose clean energy. Free to marry whomever you wish, worship however you wish. Free to study what you wish. Free to discuss what you wish. Only freedom can be scary, so better reign that in. For a ruling class freedom is only good to get you to the top. Then you reign that in before someone else climbs that same ladder.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
Yeah! You guys rate a 2 on the Free-do-meter!(Patent Pending) Not to be confused with the Frito-meter, the second best made up meter! A 2 out of 7! Woooooooo!
But in all seriousness this is bullgak because the "divine" in whatever religion or spirituality is horsegak/doesn't exist and has absolutely nothing to do with the US Government. We are a no Magic Sky Fairy zone.
Agreed - see response above^ - don't forget - when this nation was founded there were an equal if not more number of stupid people they had to convince to do the right thing. They had to use the right language.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?
In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.
Actually only 11 states require the reporting of lost or stolen firearms, and even those have differing sections. Example, Maryland, you only have to report handguns and "assault weapons" as lost/stolen, and in Michigan, you only have to report them if they are stolen, not lost.
Putting a label on food saying it has this many calories and X, Y, and Z ingredients is totally different from banning guns or restricting what kinds of guns you can have, or suggesting that the police be allowed to conduct random illegal searches of our homes.
Nice work ignoring the other two points I made - we do ban ingredients and preparation practices when there's clear evidence that they're harmful.
Not even going to bother on the hyperbole laden "illegal police state coming to illegally search and illegally seize muh freedums" stuff.
I will reiterate again - Cigarettes kill 480k people a year in the united states (through associated diseases caused by smoking) but it is a real number. 13k people a year are killed by guns (in most of these murders a replacement weapon like a knife of even fists would have still produced a murder also). That is 37 times the number of deaths. Cigarettes are sold with a warning lable that says they can cause cancer and that you shouldn't smoke if you are pregnant. Over 40k of these deaths are caused by second hand smoke! 3x the number of deaths than guns from people smoking near other people!
Where is the national outrage on that? Where is the call to ban cigarettes? I don't hear it. Also, while tobacco companies aren't exactly popular. The NRA gets treated like an organization that supports murdering children - when in fact they are just protecting a constitutional right to bear arms. Tobacco companies have no such constitutional protection - they literally just sell a product that kills people that has no other use but to kill you.
Insurgency Walker wrote: It is not the right that is the social construct. The social constructs are the tools we use to interact with each other within those rights. The idea of inalienable rights was that the could not be surrendered, sold or transferred. That is why to can't waive certain rights. It is a founding principle of this nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Just because you say (or quote someone) doesn't make it true. I've always found that quote quite silly, it's pretty self evident that by damned near any measure all men are NOT created equal, and while it's nice to say those rights are inalienable is it really significant or even true? My understanding of the word inalienable (remembering it's not a common word outside of America so maybe my understanding is wrong) is that it simply means something you can't give away, it can't be transferred by the possessor. Except isn't the crux of the issue not people giving away those rights but rather them being taken away, which history shows can and does happen. And it's not like they can't be given away by the possessor anyway.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also don't think suicide belongs in the statistics when talking about gun violence. Although suicide is an act of self violence including it seems to be used to generate fear and inflate numbers. I know people that when the hear that police are most likely to die by their own gun they walk away thinking police are being stripped of there firearms and shot with them. Not that it is a suicide issue.
I think suicide should be in a separate column, but it definitely needs to be brought up. Being able to kill yourself more easily makes you more likely to succeed. Depression is a sickness that can go various levels be treated, so less people succeeding at killing themselves is for the better.
Personally I don't have a problem with guns in America, I think a large number of guns makes deadly violence more prevalent but putting a realistic number on it is difficult because of all the other factors that feed into that statistic. I also think a large number of guns probably makes non-deadly crimes less prevalent, but again damned near impossible to put a number on that.
At the end of the day random shootings are still statistically feth all and if muricans deem the level of random shootings an acceptable price for having guns, I'm fine with that. Not every country has to be Sweden, if you don't like the American philosophy on life then don't move there.
I drive a 60's muscle car that is far more likely to kill someone than if I drove a modern buzz box, but I still drive it because society currently at least has deemed the risk small enough to leave the choice in my hands and I'm grateful for that. I don't see it as being a hell of a lot different to allowing people to have guns as long as the random shootings remain statistically small.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?
In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.
What good would reporting a lost gun do to anyone. There are 500 million guns in this country. "We got a gun on the loose" "someone call the police!" see - it doesn't make sense.
"Nothing is bad as long as anything else is worse" is pretty much textbook whataboutism.
So far as banning smoking, part of the reason that you haven't seen a national push to do so is because smoking has been going down dramatically for generations and there is no end in sight. It's gone from like 45% of the population to like 16%, and dropping every year.
At the end of the day random shootings are still statistically feth all and if muricans deem the level of random shootings an acceptable price for having guns, I'm fine with that. Not every country has to be Sweden, if you don't like the American philosophy on life then don't move there.
... ...
The political issue is that an increasing number of Americans don't think the level of random shootings is an acceptable price to pay.
Ouze wrote: "Nothing is bad as long as anything else is worse" is pretty much textbook whataboutism.
So far as banning smoking, part of the reason that you haven't seen a national push to do so is because smoking has been going down dramatically for generations and there is no end in sight. It's gone from like 45% of the population to like 16%, and dropping every year.
It's just putting things in perspective. How can you judge anything without perspective? True - just because something else is worse doesn't mean you should ignore another issue - it does beg the question. Why does this almost statically irrelevant issue cause people such anger. The answer is simple - it's purely political - as is cigarettes being legal. Want to sell a dangerous product here in the states? It's going to cost you a lot of money and the cigarette companies pay it.
It's true - anti smoking campaign worked. Children seeing images of people who lost their vocal cords laying over dying in a hospital bed made a real impact on people starting smoking. In the next 30 years those deaths from smoking will drop significantly. This is great! You can still buy a cigarette though and many more will die needlessly.
Maybe we should run adds showing to pain that people suffer after a mass shooting - to call on the empathy of people considering mass murder. It was effective to stop people from killing themselves and others via smoking?
While banning cigarettes would have an almost immediate drop in smoking related death - banning guns would have almost no effect on overall deaths by gun. 500 million guns in the US already - most unregistered with no real method to confiscation them. Plus confiscation carries a risk of inciting rebellion - which could potentially be catastrophic.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?
In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.
In the instance of the Santa Fe shooter the guns were properly locked up and stored and the shooter also had access to them. He was 17 and unlike the Parkland shooter he doesn't years of violent behavior, mental instability and police interactions. It's perfectly legal in Texas and most states for minors to use guns and own long guns so the shooter in this instance had used these guns before, knew where they were stored and had access to them, none of which broke any laws or invalidated the fact that the guns were locked up when not in use. Properly securing my guns when I'm not using them doesn't mean that I'm literally the only person that could access them. Multiple people in my family can access my guns when I'm not around, that doesn't mean they aren't properly secured when I'm not there. You trust people until they prove to be untrustworthy but you can't always see it coming. Prior to the shooting did the parents know their teenage son was trying to get a date with that girl? Were they aware of his persistent behavior and prior rejections that he ignored? Did they know he felt humiliated by the most recent and public rejection and harbored a grudge against the girl that grew into a murderous rage? If the shooter hadn't acted irresponsibly with the guns previously and didn't express his feelings to his parents how were they supposed to know he had become a danger?
Do you have kids? If you do how much information do they typically volunteer about their day at school? How much communication do you get about their school day from their teachers? How much information do you get from the parents of your kids' friends about what happens at school? How much information do you have about your kids' social lives?
Sure in hindsight the teenager should have been prevented from accessing the guns in the house when he was upset and he clearly needed some help with his social life. However, that's a biased evaluation based on the outcome, what we need to do is evaluate the process that led to that decision in the first place not judge with the advantage of hindsight. What did the parents know prior to the shooting and is it reasonable to have expected them to have restricted the shooter's access to the guns based on whatever information they had at the time?
Ouze wrote: "Nothing is bad as long as anything else is worse" is pretty much textbook whataboutism.
So far as banning smoking, part of the reason that you haven't seen a national push to do so is because smoking has been going down dramatically for generations and there is no end in sight. It's gone from like 45% of the population to like 16%, and dropping every year.
It's just putting things in perspective. How can you judge anything without perspective? True - just because something else is worse doesn't mean you should ignore another issue - it does beg the question. Why does this almost statically irrelevant issue cause people such anger. The answer is simple - it's purely political - as is cigarettes being legal. Want to sell a dangerous product here in the states? It's going to cost you a lot of money and the cigarette companies pay it.
It's true - anti smoking campaign worked. Children seeing images of people who lost their vocal cords laying over dying in a hospital bed made a real impact on people starting smoking. In the next 30 years those deaths from smoking will drop significantly. This is great! You can still buy a cigarette though and many more will die needlessly.
Maybe we should run adds showing to pain that people suffer after a mass shooting - to call on the empathy of people considering mass murder. It was effective to stop people from killing themselves and others via smoking?
While banning cigarettes would have an almost immediate drop in smoking related death - banning guns would have almost no effect on overall deaths by gun. 500 million guns in the US already - most unregistered with no real method to confiscation them. Plus confiscation carries a risk of inciting rebellion - which could potentially be catastrophic.
The issue with confiscation isn't rebellion, it's that it's a blatant violation of post facto protection and a logistical impossibility.
What good would reporting a lost gun do to anyone. There are 500 million guns in this country. "We got a gun on the loose" "someone call the police!" see - it doesn't make sense.
Yeah...that's not why one reports a lost gun. It's to cover your ass in case it gets used in illegal activities.
What good would reporting a lost gun do to anyone. There are 500 million guns in this country. "We got a gun on the loose" "someone call the police!" see - it doesn't make sense.
Yeah...that's not why one reports a lost gun. It's to cover your ass in case it gets used in illegal activities.
I'd imagine that makes it significantly harder to try to fence too, but I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about the selling process for that kind of stuff.
feeder wrote: I certainly support serious penalties for those whose improperly stored firearms are involved in a negligent or criminal shoot.
Define "negligently stored".
Many of the weapons used in mass shootings were locked up. Some in safes, some in cases with locks, some in locked rooms.
To which individuals who shouldn't have had access to them were able to get access.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If I have my guns locked up, and someone still breaks in, steals them, and kills someone I am NOT to blame.
That's correct, you're not criminally liable if someone breaks in and steals them.
You can potentially face charges if the firearms aren't reported stolen, correct?
In any regards, you're creating a secondary caveat. If your guns are kept in safes, with locks, or in locked rooms--how are people like the shooter in this instance getting access to firearms they shouldn't have access to?k
One should think that keys and combinations should be kept in a more responsible manner.
I'm guessing you've never heard of bolt cutters or sledge hammers or hack saws?
I've been reading a few of Jim Wright (@Stonekettle)'s articles on mass shootings, gun ownership, responsibility and so on. They're well worth a read. Despite him being in favour of guns and me not so much, I really can't fault how he argues. He's a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer, certified rangemaster, armourer and gunsmith. I'm happy to call him an expert on guns.
I won't list all his articles, but this one particularly impressed me. It's largely on responsibility.
Sebs, that is an amazing graph. It clearly shows the correlation. Wow.
The only real statistic that matters is overall murder rates. When you do a graph correlating overall murder rates to state gun ownership things get weird. The two outliers are Washington DC and Louisiana. DC has no guns and high murders, Louisiana has lots of guns and high murder. The overall trend is a bell curve that has a sweet spot of mid levels of gun ownership and low murders. Luckily I live in one of these states.
I'm guessing you've never heard of bolt cutters or sledge hammers or hack saws?
Show a news article that can reliably source that the Santa Fe shooter used bolt cutters, a sledgehammer, or a hacksaw to gain access to what was used.
This is where the problem comes from. There's all these ridiculous scenarios where people can come up with rather than just the father did a shoddy job securing his firearms and is looking for anyone else to point the finger at. He already tried to blame the victims with the "bullying" and "embarrassment" nonsense.
Crispy78 wrote: I've been reading a few of Jim Wright (@Stonekettle)'s articles on mass shootings, gun ownership, responsibility and so on. They're well worth a read. Despite him being in favour of guns and me not so much, I really can't fault how he argues. He's a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer, certified rangemaster, armourer and gunsmith. I'm happy to call him an expert on guns.
I won't list all his articles, but this one particularly impressed me. It's largely on responsibility.
I'd generally say that if America wants some sensible ideas on the whole gun thing, they could do a lot worse than talk to this guy.
All of the responsible gun owners I know, myself included, agree with the statement that "There are no accidental discharges only negligent ones." Modern firearms are designed very well for the most part and they won't just fire by themselves. If a firearm you are handling goes off when you didn't intend to fire a round then you are guilty of not following safe handling procedures. Firearm safety is pretty simple:
Treat every gun like it's loaded,
Always make sure the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction,
Identify your target and what's beyond it before you fire,
Make sure the gun is unloaded before you strip/clean it,
Store firearms securely when they're not in use.
Everyone who owns a firearm should always follow those rules and should make sure that everyone else that they live with or shoot with follows those rules as well. If you follow those rules you should never have a negligent discharge. The safe usage of any dangerous tool can also be governed by a similar set of basic rules.
We have a society that guarantees a lot of individual freedom so we therefore, as a society, need to consistently reinforce the importance of individual responsibility.
I'm guessing you've never heard of bolt cutters or sledge hammers or hack saws?
Show a news article that can reliably source that the Santa Fe shooter used bolt cutters, a sledgehammer, or a hacksaw to gain access to what was used.
This is where the problem comes from. There's all these ridiculous scenarios where people can come up with rather than just the father did a shoddy job securing his firearms and is looking for anyone else to point the finger at. He already tried to blame the victims with the "bullying" and "embarrassment" nonsense.
The Santa Fe shooter didn't need to break in to access the firearms because his parents had deemed their 17 year old honors student to be trustworthy in regards to responsibly using the firearms they owned. In hindsight that was clearly a mistake but I haven't seen any evidence that the parents were aware of any warning signs that their son was planning a mass murder. It's a less egregious version of what happened with Sandy Hook but in that instance the Sandy Hook murderer's mother chose to use recreational shooting as a way to connect with her son that she knew was suffering from mental/behavioral problems. Again, the gun the properly secured but the teenage was trusted with the ability to access it, which in hindsight was wrong and the mother paid for that mistake with her life since she was her son's first victim.
The world would certainly be a better place with better parenting across the board and parents having better knowledge of what's going on with their kids' lives but that's a very difficult thing to fix with laws.
What good would reporting a lost gun do to anyone. There are 500 million guns in this country. "We got a gun on the loose" "someone call the police!" see - it doesn't make sense.
Yeah...that's not why one reports a lost gun. It's to cover your ass in case it gets used in illegal activities.
I'd imagine that makes it significantly harder to try to fence too, but I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about the selling process for that kind of stuff.
If it's a private buyer - they literally don't care.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.
You have not heard of inalienable rights?
Have you not paid attention to the discussion? I've been over this multiple times, the "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" aren't inalienable, because you can get put in jail. Similarly, the "right to bear arms" that "shall not be infringed" can be infringed, e.g. if you're a felon.
Your "inalienable rights" are social constructs, and the sooner you recognize that fact the sooner a more productive discussion can be had on what those rights entail.
It is not the right that is the social construct. The social constructs are the tools we use to interact with each other within those rights. The idea of inalienable rights was that the could not be surrendered, sold or transferred. That is why to can't waive certain rights. It is a founding principle of this nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I'm really struggling to explain this in a way that isn't rude or condescending, but I'll try:
Merriam-Webster wrote:Definition of inalienable
: incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred
Merriam-Webster wrote:Definition of alienated
: feeling withdrawn or separated from others or from society as a whole : affected by alienation
By definition a right that can be withdrawn or separated from someone cannot be inalienable. The right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" can be withdrawn from a US citizen, as evidenced by the fact that you can be incarcerated or put to death for having committed a crime. The alternative is that the State simply ignores those rights which really isn't a precedence you want to be setting.
Similarly, the "right to bear arms", which "shall not be infringed", isn't absolute either; felons aren't allowed to own weapons. By definition, the right to bear arms thus cannot be inalienable, because there are situations where it can be withdrawn from you. If something can be withdrawn, it is by definition not inalienable. It's what the word means. Ergo, the idea that the right to bear arms is absolute and cannot be limited is bollocks. It's already limited.
American society decides when to withdraw those rights from people, and what those rights entail (see the changing interpretation of the Second Amendment from being collective to being individual). Those rights exist and are honoured because the people of the US collectively decide they should be. That is by definition a social construct. QED.
Sebs, that is an amazing graph. It clearly shows the correlation. Wow.
The only real statistic that matters is overall murder rates. When you do a graph correlating overall murder rates to state gun ownership things get weird. The two outliers are Washington DC and Louisiana. DC has no guns and high murders, Louisiana has lots of guns and high murder. The overall trend is a bell curve that has a sweet spot of mid levels of gun ownership and low murders. Luckily I live in one of these states.
I would love to see the Histogram you are siting. Care to share. I am a bit of a graph nerd.
But, back on point. Rights are more than social constructs because they have their origins with the divine. Get it?
This is where the point of trying to have a rational discussion stops. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use "Deus Vult!" as an actual argument on Dakka before though, so that's nice I guess.
You have not heard of inalienable rights?
Have you not paid attention to the discussion? I've been over this multiple times, the "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" aren't inalienable, because you can get put in jail. Similarly, the "right to bear arms" that "shall not be infringed" can be infringed, e.g. if you're a felon.
Your "inalienable rights" are social constructs, and the sooner you recognize that fact the sooner a more productive discussion can be had on what those rights entail.
It is not the right that is the social construct. The social constructs are the tools we use to interact with each other within those rights. The idea of inalienable rights was that the could not be surrendered, sold or transferred. That is why to can't waive certain rights. It is a founding principle of this nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I'm really struggling to explain this in a way that isn't rude or condescending, but I'll try:
Merriam-Webster wrote:Definition of inalienable
: incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred
Merriam-Webster wrote:Definition of alienated
: feeling withdrawn or separated from others or from society as a whole : affected by alienation
By definition a right that can be withdrawn or separated from someone cannot be inalienable. The right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" can be withdrawn from a US citizen, as evidenced by the fact that you can be incarcerated or put to death for having committed a crime. The alternative is that the State simply ignores those rights which really isn't a precedence you want to be setting.
Similarly, the "right to bear arms", which "shall not be infringed", isn't absolute either; felons aren't allowed to own weapons. By definition, the right to bear arms thus cannot be inalienable, because there are situations where it can be withdrawn from you. If something can be withdrawn, it is by definition not inalienable. It's what the word means. Ergo, the idea that the right to bear arms is absolute and cannot be limited is bollocks. It's already limited.
American society decides when to withdraw those rights from people, and what those rights entail (see the changing interpretation of the Second Amendment from being collective to being individual). Those rights exist and are honoured because the people of the US collectively decide they should be. That is by definition a social construct. QED.
The declaration of independence is not a legal document. It was a declaration of war against tyranny. It's essentially the charter of the free world now.
14th amendment covers this pretty well.
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
This issue is not that these rights can't be removed but that they shouldn't.
Sebs, that is an amazing graph. It clearly shows the correlation. Wow.
The only real statistic that matters is overall murder rates. When you do a graph correlating overall murder rates to state gun ownership things get weird. The two outliers are Washington DC and Louisiana. DC has no guns and high murders, Louisiana has lots of guns and high murder. The overall trend is a bell curve that has a sweet spot of mid levels of gun ownership and low murders. Luckily I live in one of these states.
I would love to see the Histogram you are siting. Care to share. I am a bit of a graph nerd.
Yeah I'd like to see the same graph - with suicide/justifiable homicide/and accidental death removed. Basically - gun ownership compared to violent crime.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
US is upper middle of the pack for world suicide rate. Barely above the world average. Looking at data it's almost exclusively a male problem. With Europe leading the world in total suicide rate. There is no indication that this is a gun problem - I wouldn't fund your study.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Obviously access to a gun will increase the odds of successfully committing suicide but I don't think you can tie gun ownership to suicide rates.
Prestor Jon wrote: Our suicide rate among males has been steadily climbing for decades.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml#part_154969 We have an unhealthy society and it’s made worse by the level of notoriety and infamy that is granted to murder suicides. This is a problem throughout Western society, Australia was recently shocked by a murder suicide of an entire family. Here in the US we have more people, more guns, more drugs and contributing cultural differences that exacerbate the problem.
I'm having issues importing the chart from the NIMH site but here's the important stats:
Trends over Time
Suicide rate is based on the number of people who have died by suicide per 100,000 population. Because changes in population size are taken into account, rates allow for comparisons from one year to the next.
Figure 1 shows the age-adjusted suicide rates in the United States for each year from 1999 through 2016 for the total population, and for males and females presented separately.
During that 17-year period, the total suicide rate increased 28% from 10.5 to 13.4 per 100,000.
The suicide rate among males remained nearly four times higher (21.3 per 100,000 in 2016) than among females (6.0 per 100,000 in 2016).
Now contrast the 28% increase in the suicide rate over the last 17 years with the rate of gun ownership per household:
Over the long term the percentage of gun owning households has decreased and in the same 17 year period that suicides have increased gun ownership has been relatively flat between 39%-45% each year.
Also from the NIMH website:
Figure 3 shows the rates of suicide for race/ethnicity groups in 2016. The rates of suicide were highest for males (32.8 per 100,000) and females (10.2 per 100,000) in the American Indian/Alaska Native group, followed by males (26.5 per 100,000) and females (7.9 per 100,000) in the White/non-Hispanic group.
Table 2 includes information on the total number of suicides for the most common methods.
In 2016, firearms were the most common method used in suicide deaths in the United States, accounting for almost half of all suicide deaths (22,963).
Figure 5 shows the percentages of suicide deaths by method among males and females in 2016. Among males, the most common method of suicide was firearm (56.6%). Among females, the most common methods of suicide were poisoning (33.0%) and firearm (32.1%).
Native Americans are the ethnic group with the highest suicide rate by a significant margin and the states with the highest suicide rates are the states where the reservations are located so I'm not sure how that would mitigate the impact of any new Federal gun laws aimed at reducing suicide by gun because reservations are sovereign entities that aren't subject to Federal laws like the States.
14th amendment covers this pretty well.
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
This issue is not that these rights can't be removed but that they shouldn't.
And I've never commented on whether they should or not. I said that the "shall not be infringed" part of the Second Amendment (which is a law last time I looked) is bollocks because it's demonstrably not true.
14th amendment covers this pretty well.
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
This issue is not that these rights can't be removed but that they shouldn't.
And I've never commented on whether they should or not. I said that the "shall not be infringed" part of the Second Amendment (which is a law last time I looked) is bollocks because it's demonstrably not true.
The fact that the government might get away with violations the “shall not be infringed” part doesn’t make it untrue, it just means the government can get away with being naughty.
14th amendment covers this pretty well.
"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
This issue is not that these rights can't be removed but that they shouldn't.
And I've never commented on whether they should or not. I said that the "shall not be infringed" part of the Second Amendment (which is a law last time I looked) is bollocks because it's demonstrably not true.
I think that the amendment is speaking of people in a plural sense or a philosophical sense. You are absolutely right that your rights can be taken away and that the constitution can be changed. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know how the US government works or was deigned to work.
You absolutely should put gun suicides in there. I would posit that a great number of gun suicides wouldn't have happened without easy access to a firearm.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
There is definitely a correlation between a 3 day waiting period and overall reduction suicide rate or extension of a waiting period. That means it is a good safety measure. It also makes sense - guns are exceptionally lethal in suicide attempts - chance of completing suicide is over 97% with a gun. It shows in the numbers for sure. Then again - the numbers aren't perfect. They can't tell you a lot of things - they can't tell you how many of those completed suicide attempts by guns wouldn't have just tried another highly effective method without a gun available. Which is what I am saying.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
There is definitely a correlation between a 3 day waiting period and overall reduction suicide rate or extension of a waiting period. That means it is a good safety measure. It also makes sense - guns are exceptionally lethal in suicide attempts - chance of completing suicide is over 97% with a gun. It shows in the numbers for sure. Then again - the numbers aren't perfect. They can't tell you a lot of things - they can't tell you how many of those completed suicide attempts by guns wouldn't have just tried another highly effective method without a gun available. Which is what I am saying.
Well, fair enough. We can't ask the dead their opinion. We do have interviews with people who survive suicide attempts, and they usually express regret.
The other highly effective impulsive method of suicide is the high jump. High fences on bridges are difficult to scale but not impossible, but just the addition of that extra layer of difficulty reduces the number of jumpers.
Some people are very driven and will end their life at any cost. Most suicidal people are not, and if an impulsive method is not available, they will not act and either the situation will pass or they will get help.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
There is definitely a correlation between a 3 day waiting period and overall reduction suicide rate or extension of a waiting period. That means it is a good safety measure. It also makes sense - guns are exceptionally lethal in suicide attempts - chance of completing suicide is over 97% with a gun. It shows in the numbers for sure. Then again - the numbers aren't perfect. They can't tell you a lot of things - they can't tell you how many of those completed suicide attempts by guns wouldn't have just tried another highly effective method without a gun available. Which is what I am saying.
Well, fair enough. We can't ask the dead their opinion. We do have interviews with people who survive suicide attempts, and they usually express regret.
The other highly effective impulsive method of suicide is the high jump. High fences on bridges are difficult to scale but not impossible, but just the addition of that extra layer of difficulty reduces the number of jumpers.
Some people are very driven and will end their life at any cost. Most suicidal people are not, and if an impulsive method is not available, they will not act and either the situation will pass or they will get help.
I would question some of the findings of that study based upon the facts about suicide and gun ownership I posted earlier. The states with the highest suicide rates also have reservations and Native Americans have the highest suicide rate of any ethnicity by a significant margin. Also, in the last 17 years suicides are up 28% nationally but gun ownership is flat at across that time period at about 42% of households.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
There is definitely a correlation between a 3 day waiting period and overall reduction suicide rate or extension of a waiting period. That means it is a good safety measure. It also makes sense - guns are exceptionally lethal in suicide attempts - chance of completing suicide is over 97% with a gun. It shows in the numbers for sure. Then again - the numbers aren't perfect. They can't tell you a lot of things - they can't tell you how many of those completed suicide attempts by guns wouldn't have just tried another highly effective method without a gun available. Which is what I am saying.
Well, fair enough. We can't ask the dead their opinion. We do have interviews with people who survive suicide attempts, and they usually express regret.
The other highly effective impulsive method of suicide is the high jump. High fences on bridges are difficult to scale but not impossible, but just the addition of that extra layer of difficulty reduces the number of jumpers.
Some people are very driven and will end their life at any cost. Most suicidal people are not, and if an impulsive method is not available, they will not act and either the situation will pass or they will get help.
The rate of suicide lethality goes up when a gun is used it can't be argued against. There are other factors at play though. Suicide rate is increasing at a high rate but as Prestor has pointed out gun ownership in households is not increasing at anywhere near that rate. This does not match the conclusions of the study.
Xenomancers wrote: [The rate of suicide lethality goes up when a gun is used it can't be argued against. There are other factors at play though. Suicide rate is increasing at a high rate but as Prestor has pointed out gun ownership in households is not increasing at anywhere near that rate. This does not match the conclusions of the study.
While I agree that adding a gun ups the odds of lethality, it's not as bad as it seems. There are two kinds of suicide attempts: Serious attempts, and pleas for help/attention. The pleas for help are not exactly what you would call "serious" attempts, yet they are still counted towards suicide statistics. Not many people use guns for pleas of help/attention.
Prestor Jon wrote: [
I would question some of the findings of that study based upon the facts about suicide and gun ownership I posted earlier. The states with the highest suicide rates also have reservations and Native Americans have the highest suicide rate of any ethnicity by a significant margin. Also, in the last 17 years suicides are up 28% nationally but gun ownership is flat at across that time period at about 42% of households.
There are other factors as well. The gaps in the urban/rural makeup for instance. Suicides are more common among the poor, elderly, socially isolated, and those farther from mental health providers. Rural life, by its nature, has far more of this than urban life. Guns just also exist more in rural areas.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
There is definitely a correlation between a 3 day waiting period and overall reduction suicide rate or extension of a waiting period. That means it is a good safety measure. It also makes sense - guns are exceptionally lethal in suicide attempts - chance of completing suicide is over 97% with a gun. It shows in the numbers for sure. Then again - the numbers aren't perfect. They can't tell you a lot of things - they can't tell you how many of those completed suicide attempts by guns wouldn't have just tried another highly effective method without a gun available. Which is what I am saying.
Well, fair enough. We can't ask the dead their opinion. We do have interviews with people who survive suicide attempts, and they usually express regret.
The other highly effective impulsive method of suicide is the high jump. High fences on bridges are difficult to scale but not impossible, but just the addition of that extra layer of difficulty reduces the number of jumpers.
Some people are very driven and will end their life at any cost. Most suicidal people are not, and if an impulsive method is not available, they will not act and either the situation will pass or they will get help.
I would question some of the findings of that study based upon the facts about suicide and gun ownership I posted earlier. The states with the highest suicide rates also have reservations and Native Americans have the highest suicide rate of any ethnicity by a significant margin. Also, in the last 17 years suicides are up 28% nationally but gun ownership is flat at across that time period at about 42% of households.
Well yeah, the ol' correlation does not mean causation. But the study did show that suicide rates are higher in areas with higher rates of gun ownership, and it's an established fact that access to impulsive ways to end your life will increase the chance of you trying to top yourself, if you were so inclined.
I really started this tangent to try and dispel the "they'll just find another way" myth. All studies show otherwise.
Insurgency Walker wrote: It is not the right that is the social construct. The social constructs are the tools we use to interact with each other within those rights. The idea of inalienable rights was that the could not be surrendered, sold or transferred. That is why to can't waive certain rights. It is a founding principle of this nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Just because you say (or quote someone) doesn't make it true. I've always found that quote quite silly, it's pretty self evident that by damned near any measure all men are NOT created equal, and while it's nice to say those rights are inalienable is it really significant or even true? My understanding of the word inalienable (remembering it's not a common word outside of America so maybe my understanding is wrong) is that it simply means something you can't give away, it can't be transferred by the possessor. Except isn't the crux of the issue not people giving away those rights but rather them being taken away, which history shows can and does happen. And it's not like they can't be given away by the possessor anyway.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also don't think suicide belongs in the statistics when talking about gun violence. Although suicide is an act of self violence including it seems to be used to generate fear and inflate numbers. I know people that when the hear that police are most likely to die by their own gun they walk away thinking police are being stripped of there firearms and shot with them. Not that it is a suicide issue.
I think suicide should be in a separate column, but it definitely needs to be brought up. Being able to kill yourself more easily makes you more likely to succeed. Depression is a sickness that can go various levels be treated, so less people succeeding at killing themselves is for the better.
Personally I don't have a problem with guns in America, I think a large number of guns makes deadly violence more prevalent but putting a realistic number on it is difficult because of all the other factors that feed into that statistic. I also think a large number of guns probably makes non-deadly crimes less prevalent, but again damned near impossible to put a number on that.
At the end of the day random shootings are still statistically feth all and if muricans deem the level of random shootings an acceptable price for having guns, I'm fine with that. Not every country has to be Sweden, if you don't like the American philosophy on life then don't move there.
I drive a 60's muscle car that is far more likely to kill someone than if I drove a modern buzz box, but I still drive it because society currently at least has deemed the risk small enough to leave the choice in my hands and I'm grateful for that. I don't see it as being a hell of a lot different to allowing people to have guns as long as the random shootings remain statistically small.
Just because you say something doesn't make it true. Correct. When you come right down to it the US doesn't have a large group of documents and while the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document it is considered as a guide to understanding the political philosophy of the founders. So what did they mean by saying things like all men are created equally, and this inalienable rights thing? What was natures god?
They decided they wanted to create a society and culture that put those ideas above all others. When our courts examine law many of them still reflect upon those values because we can and should give them meaning. The founders believed that when a government stopped recognizing those rights leading to injustice it was the people's right to create a new government. Some of them believed it was their duty.
What about prison and execution? Well removing those rights is such a serious action that our legal system is filled with rights for the accused starting with the idea that you are innocent until proven guilty. Most of these ideas were already kicking around Europe and the idea of a right to self defense was one of those.
This means the founders were some kind of awsome freedom savants?
Feth no. But they were some crazy revolutionarys. Some of them, a bunch really, hated the idea of sharing the rights they had claimed in the name of the collective.
What does this have to do with a school shooting?
It seems like today it's always about my rights. My rights to self defense, my right to a safe school, my right not to be offended by your religion, my right not to be offended by your music, my right not be be offended by your sex, my right to health care. When it used to be about our rights. Our rights to freedom of expression, our rights to equality, our rights to equal protection under the law. Our right to life, our right to choose?
Pretty obvious that the school shooters didn't believe in the our people's rights. Looks like school shooters believe rights are not unalienable. Who taught him to take others rights? The teachers? His parents? His classmates? His life experience?
We aren't building a better society, we are building sleeper cells.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
There is definitely a correlation between a 3 day waiting period and overall reduction suicide rate or extension of a waiting period. That means it is a good safety measure. It also makes sense - guns are exceptionally lethal in suicide attempts - chance of completing suicide is over 97% with a gun. It shows in the numbers for sure. Then again - the numbers aren't perfect. They can't tell you a lot of things - they can't tell you how many of those completed suicide attempts by guns wouldn't have just tried another highly effective method without a gun available. Which is what I am saying.
Well, fair enough. We can't ask the dead their opinion. We do have interviews with people who survive suicide attempts, and they usually express regret.
The other highly effective impulsive method of suicide is the high jump. High fences on bridges are difficult to scale but not impossible, but just the addition of that extra layer of difficulty reduces the number of jumpers.
Some people are very driven and will end their life at any cost. Most suicidal people are not, and if an impulsive method is not available, they will not act and either the situation will pass or they will get help.
I would question some of the findings of that study based upon the facts about suicide and gun ownership I posted earlier. The states with the highest suicide rates also have reservations and Native Americans have the highest suicide rate of any ethnicity by a significant margin. Also, in the last 17 years suicides are up 28% nationally but gun ownership is flat at across that time period at about 42% of households.
Well yeah, the ol' correlation does not mean causation. But the study did show that suicide rates are higher in areas with higher rates of gun ownership, and it's an established fact that access to impulsive ways to end your life will increase the chance of you trying to top yourself, if you were so inclined.
I really started this tangent to try and dispel the "they'll just find another way" myth. All studies show otherwise.
I agree with you that correlation isn’t causation and that the availability of a firearm makes it easier to act on impulse and successful commit suicides. There’s also a lot of complexity with suicides. The 18-25 age group has the highest rate of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts but they have the second lowest rate per age group of successful suicides. The 65+ age group has the highest rate of successful suicides and a very low rate of suicide attempts. At 65+ I think suicide becomes more of an euthanasia issue than a mental health issue.
There’s also more factors that affect a states suicide rate than just gun ownership. Oklahoma and Louisiana have a similar rate of gun ownership both are higher than a state like NJ but Oklahoma has a much higher suicide rate than Louisiana or NJ. Oklahoma also has much more Reservation land than Louisiana or NJ and Native Americans have a significantly higher suicide rate than other ethnic groups. As a group Native Americans have triple the suicide rate as Asians even though Asians account for twice the percentage of suicide attempts as Native Americans. I think that difference is attributable to a lot more factors than just gun ownership.
I've only skimmed the thread, but one thing I picked up on is a 'gun owners need to secure their guns properly' theme.
My situation: I live on 38 acres, have horses, goats, chickens, ducks, llama, alpacas, a couple pet pigs (don't get me started on that one), dogs, and a teenaged daughter.
I've shot two rattlers and one copperhead in the last 4 weeks. One of the rattlers was less than 3 feet from my back deck, the copperhead was by the chicken coop.
Last summer we had a rattler (5 footer) in one of the horse pastures. I had to run 800 meters to the house, grab a rifle, run back out to where my wife was keeping the horses away form the snake, and then shoot the snake.
I've also had to cap a coyote trying to get into a goat pen and a fox digging into the chicken coop.
Now, I keep a 12 gauge and a .22 in the barn, one .22 rifle in a gun case on a Polaris utility vehicle, and one between the gun safe and the wall. All loaded but safeties on. Daughter, wife, and I all know how to use them. The process of finding keys to the safe, going to the room with the safe, unlocking and getting out a gun, going to another room to get ammo/magazines, then going to take care of the varmint is frankly asinine.
Making laws to make my life hardier is something I am going to fight. Making laws to allow some LEO to check on my compliance is also something I would be very much against.
Crispy78 wrote: I've been reading a few of Jim Wright (@Stonekettle)'s articles on mass shootings, gun ownership, responsibility and so on. They're well worth a read. Despite him being in favour of guns and me not so much, I really can't fault how he argues. He's a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer, certified rangemaster, armourer and gunsmith. I'm happy to call him an expert on guns.
I won't list all his articles, but this one particularly impressed me. It's largely on responsibility.
I'd generally say that if America wants some sensible ideas on the whole gun thing, they could do a lot worse than talk to this guy.
All of the responsible gun owners I know, myself included, agree with the statement that "There are no accidental discharges only negligent ones." Modern firearms are designed very well for the most part and they won't just fire by themselves. If a firearm you are handling goes off when you didn't intend to fire a round then you are guilty of not following safe handling procedures. Firearm safety is pretty simple:
Treat every gun like it's loaded,
Always make sure the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction,
Identify your target and what's beyond it before you fire,
Make sure the gun is unloaded before you strip/clean it,
Store firearms securely when they're not in use.
Everyone who owns a firearm should always follow those rules and should make sure that everyone else that they live with or shoot with follows those rules as well. If you follow those rules you should never have a negligent discharge. The safe usage of any dangerous tool can also be governed by a similar set of basic rules.
We have a society that guarantees a lot of individual freedom so we therefore, as a society, need to consistently reinforce the importance of individual responsibility.
I'm guessing you've never heard of bolt cutters or sledge hammers or hack saws?
Show a news article that can reliably source that the Santa Fe shooter used bolt cutters, a sledgehammer, or a hacksaw to gain access to what was used.
This is where the problem comes from. There's all these ridiculous scenarios where people can come up with rather than just the father did a shoddy job securing his firearms and is looking for anyone else to point the finger at. He already tried to blame the victims with the "bullying" and "embarrassment" nonsense.
The Santa Fe shooter didn't need to break in to access the firearms because his parents had deemed their 17 year old honors student to be trustworthy in regards to responsibly using the firearms they owned. In hindsight that was clearly a mistake but I haven't seen any evidence that the parents were aware of any warning signs that their son was planning a mass murder. It's a less egregious version of what happened with Sandy Hook but in that instance the Sandy Hook murderer's mother chose to use recreational shooting as a way to connect with her son that she knew was suffering from mental/behavioral problems. Again, the gun the properly secured but the teenage was trusted with the ability to access it, which in hindsight was wrong and the mother paid for that mistake with her life since she was her son's first victim.
The world would certainly be a better place with better parenting across the board and parents having better knowledge of what's going on with their kids' lives but that's a very difficult thing to fix with laws.
GC knew very specifically how to open one of the quicksafes in a bathroom in case of home invasion or her crazy bio dad braking in, and it was her Beretta in it.
skyth wrote: Gun suicides should very much be included in the graph. The whole point is that the more guns out there, the more often they are used in a bad way.
Gun suicide is not relevant here. Suicidal rampages are but suicides are not related to guns. There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device. Anyone serious about killing themselves (and basically anyone that pulls the trigger with a handgun to the head is serious) have probably gone to a website like this https://www.quora.com/What-are-ways-to-painlessly-commit-suicide?redirected_qid=14365332 and even discussed it with other people.
Most suicides occur after months or years of intrusive thoughts. But the actual act itself is usually impulsive, and keeping a gun handy is an easy way to kill yourself on impulse.
My friend Mike Lareau was raised in a gun free home. When he committed suicide he ran an acetylene gas line into a plastic bag pulled over his head. His life was ending that night regardless of what instrument he had at hand. Had his blowtorch been empty, he would have found something else. I've also seen OTHER suicide attempts, some being successful, and less than a quarter of them involved guns.
I once won $20 on a scratch off ticket, but I'm not expanding that to assume everyone in the country who buys a scratch off ticket will win $20, because I know that is an uncommon event in the face of overwhelming evidence that most people won't. That is how anecdotal data works.
Automatically Appended Next Post: An academic study into suicide by gun made the following discovery:
[quote=]The restriction of firearm availability in Switzerland resulting from the Army XXI reform was followed by an enduring decrease in the general suicide rate.
Ouze wrote: I once won $20 on a scratch off ticket, but I'm not expanding that to assume everyone in the country who buys a scratch off ticket will win $20, because I know that is an uncommon event in the face of overwhelming evidence that most people won't. That is how anecdotal data works.
Given that the US isn't an outlier for suicide I'd say its not something to consider at all.
A gun might make an already suicidal person more likely to be successful, but it doesn't make them suicidal in the first place. Just like having a gun doesn't make you more likely to commit murder.
Ouze wrote: I once won $20 on a scratch off ticket, but I'm not expanding that to assume everyone in the country who buys a scratch off ticket will win $20, because I know that is an uncommon event in the face of overwhelming evidence that most people won't. That is how anecdotal data works.
Given that the US isn't an outlier for suicide I'd say its not something to consider at all.
A gun might make an already suicidal person more likely to be successful, but it doesn't make them suicidal in the first place. Just like having a gun doesn't make you more likely to commit murder.
Grey Templar wrote: A gun might make an already suicidal person more likely to be successful, but it doesn't make them suicidal in the first place. Just like having a gun doesn't make you more likely to commit murder.
cuda1179 wrote: The only real statistic that matters is overall murder rates. When you do a graph correlating overall murder rates to state gun ownership things get weird. The two outliers are Washington DC and Louisiana. DC has no guns and high murders, Louisiana has lots of guns and high murder. The overall trend is a bell curve that has a sweet spot of mid levels of gun ownership and low murders. Luckily I live in one of these states.
Suicides matter, but we'll stick to murders if you want.
First up, you're 100% wrong when you say DC has no guns. DC has tight gun laws, banning semi-auto rifles and requiring registration, but oh man it has guns. It has 50% more guns than any state, DC has 66.4 guns per 1,000 people, next is Arkansas is 41.6 guns per 1,000. Only proviso is my data is registered guns, which will bump DC up relatively, but still, it's a myth that there's no guns in DC. There's guns. Heller made sure of that.
Anyhow, I went and got the guns per capita stats, and put them against murders per capita. I tried putting the table here but html and coherent tables are natural enemies. I can give anyone the figures if they want. But here's the scatter graphs showing the results;
The first has DC excluded to show the relationship without that one strong example, the second includes DC for completeness. Either way the relationship is pretty clear, honestly its a bit more clear than I would have thought, I would have thought urban/rural share, police funding, education funding etc would have muddied the picture more than it does. I guess someone could claim that gun ownership correlates to a bunch of the above, but given that argument basically boils down to 'it isn't the guns it's the Republicanism' I'm not sure any pro-gun person exactly wants to make that argument
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Easy E wrote: I would love to see the Histogram you are siting. Care to share. I am a bit of a graph nerd.
I've had my crack at it, seen above. Only limit in my figures, that I am aware of, was my guns per 1,000 people stats showed registered guns, which would likely understate relative guns in states with weak registration requirements.
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Xenomancers wrote: The declaration of independence is not a legal document. It was a declaration of war against tyranny. It's essentially the charter of the free world now.
It really isn't. The Declaration is one of the great documents of history, but it has no role to play in how freedom works in any other country. It's actually quite noticeable how little of it was copied or even used as inspiration outside of the US.
Suicide isn't suicide. Suicide is successful attempted suicide.
A method of suicide which is easily accessible, and instantly successful, is likely to lead to a higher suicide rate because it reduces the chance of second thoughts or rescue.
The studies I referred to in previous posts show this through statistics.
This has been explained over and over. You just refuse to acknowledge it. Because a lot of suicides are impulsive acts. Grab the gun, pull the trigger. One and done. There is no feeling of regret like with pills, car exhaust, or slitting ones wrists. All which can be stopped by calling for assistance. No setup like hanging or dropping a toaster in the bath, which can turn people away.
If you use a gun and survive, the odds of you being able to call for help or help arriving from another person hearing the shot is low. If you do get saved, the chances of having permanent damage which would require extensive recovery time and care costs are incredibly high.
Just stop and read this. One time. Don't skim over it and in two pages go "but why does the method matter?" Because you know why now.
Xenomancers wrote: There are many ways one can commit suicide - people choose the gun because it is painless and quick. They can simply choose another device.
You are really wrong there in two very big ways. The first is that suicide is less of a choice and more of an impulse produced by a mental health failure. Being an irrational impulse it can be made more likely by external factors, particularly the presence of triggers. One very powerful trigger is the presence of a gun in the house. For instance, when Israel noted a chronic suicide rate among soldiers on weekend leave, it stopped the soldiers taking their guns home. Suicides dropped 40% immediately.
The second reason is that when a gun is used in a suicide attempt, the result is almost always fatal. Cutting, poison are rarely fatal.
The simple reality is that when a gun is nearby, a suicide attempt is more likely, and that attempt is more likely to be fatal.
The Swiss Army study I referenced in a previous post, showed that gun suicides were reduced and there was also a long-term reduction in the total number of suicides, when the number of available guns was reduced.
Kilkrazy wrote: The Swiss Army study I referenced in a previous post, showed that gun suicides were reduced and there was also a long-term reduction in the total number of suicides, when the number of available guns was reduced.
Yep, this stuff is really well established, and clear to anyone who isn't actively trying to deny it. This is what I meant earlier on when I talked about the basic dishonesty among the pro-gun segment. It is okay to argue that further restrictions won't work, or wouldn't be justified by the increased inconvenience. That's a legitimate political argument. But instead they attempt to deny there is any cost at all to gun proliferation. They attempt to deny that a greater presence of guns could possibly increase the greater misuse of guns. It's an absurd position that someone could only argue for by showing a plain indifference to empirical reality.
As I said earlier, I love pizza, and want there to be more pizza everywhere all the time, but I'm not gonna pretend it is healthy.
Correlation between murders per capita and guns per capita doesn't necessarily mean the latter is the cause of the former, it could just as easily be the other way around.
It's anecdotal I know, but when I first moved to the US I lived in an area with a pretty high crime rate and lots of break ins and I met a few people who did not own guns previously got them after moving in to the area.
But either way it does need to be broken down even more than just murders per capita, it really needs to be broken down in to the type of murder as well. In a cost-benefit analysis of guns, not all murders can be lumped together because not all murders have the same perceived "cost".
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Correlation between murders per capita and guns per capita doesn't necessarily mean the latter is the cause of the former, it could just as easily be the other way around.
It's anecdotal I know, but when I first moved to the US I lived in an area with a pretty high crime rate and lots of break ins and I met a few people who did not own guns previously got them after moving in to the area.
That's pretty much a definition of a vicious circle. Insecurity leads to more guns, more guns lead to potential criminals being more aggressive which in turn creates the conditions for an even higher murder rate.
At the end of the day random shootings are still statistically feth all and if muricans deem the level of random shootings an acceptable price for having guns, I'm fine with that. Not every country has to be Sweden, if you don't like the American philosophy on life then don't move there.
... ...
The political issue is that an increasing number of Americans don't think the level of random shootings is an acceptable price to pay.
Perhaps, but...
1. These internet discussions usually seem to be dominated pro gun Americans vs anti-gun non-Americans (or perhaps ex-pats). The split among Americans doesn't seem as distinct left/right as many other political discussions. When I was living in the US it seemed like even a lot of my left leaning friends were fine with guns, or would mention something negative about them but also admit they owned and enjoyed guns themselves. It wasn't like a lot of other political issues where the mere mention of the topic made it obvious which side of the political spectrum a person was on.
2. Of the Americans who think the level of random shooting is unacceptable, how many of those are actually grounded in factual analysis of the probability of a random shooting occurring? There does seem to be a whole bunch of fear mongering over guns these days and that will sway public opinion of the uneducated masses (and we all know how loud the uneducated masses of Americans can be ). I've read discussions where apparently kids are scared to go to school because of shootings, which to me suggests fear mongering more than anything because at the end of the day they're probably more likely to get killed by getting run over by a soccer mum in an SUV or trip over and bash their heads on something sharp or choke on a fish bone.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Correlation between murders per capita and guns per capita doesn't necessarily mean the latter is the cause of the former, it could just as easily be the other way around.
It's anecdotal I know, but when I first moved to the US I lived in an area with a pretty high crime rate and lots of break ins and I met a few people who did not own guns previously got them after moving in to the area.
That's pretty much a definition of a vicious circle. Insecurity leads to more guns, more guns lead to potential criminals being more aggressive which in turn creates the conditions for an even higher murder rate.
Not necessarily, the areas with high murder rates may have high murder rates regardless of gun ownership, it's just they attract high gun ownership because people want to be able to protect themselves.
Maybe, I don't know, but it's what makes it hard to do a real proper analysis, there's so many factors that go in to something that separating causation from correlation is damned near impossible.
Even on the suicide thing, there's so many factors that affect suicide rates that it is difficult to get a concrete number on the affect of guns on suicide. I do believe based on the evidence that guns make suicide more likely, but by how much? Without any concrete numbers all we have are emotional discussions instead of factual ones.
At the end of the day random shootings are still statistically feth all and if muricans deem the level of random shootings an acceptable price for having guns, I'm fine with that. Not every country has to be Sweden, if you don't like the American philosophy on life then don't move there.
... ...
The political issue is that an increasing number of Americans don't think the level of random shootings is an acceptable price to pay.
Perhaps, but...
1. These internet discussions usually seem to be dominated pro gun Americans vs anti-gun non-Americans (or perhaps ex-pats). The split among Americans doesn't seem as distinct left/right as many other political discussions. When I was living in the US it seemed like even a lot of my left leaning friends were fine with guns, or would mention something negative about them but also admit they owned and enjoyed guns themselves. It wasn't like a lot of other political issues where the mere mention of the topic made it obvious which side of the political spectrum a person was on.
I have 4 guns at home so I can't possibly be anti-gun. I have also lived (and shot) in the US for extended periods of time.
I do believe that firearm regulations in other countries do a decent enough job of keeping the bad side of guns to a more manageable level.
That said, I agree with you that there is an additional split in the gun politics question besides left/right and that's rural/urban. Urban types tend to be more ideological in their opposition to any kind of gun ownership, while I've come across lots of left of centre gun owners in more rural areas.
Likewise pro-gun are also split into the utilitarian type who probably wouldn't mind reasonable measures and the ideological don't-take-my-guns-it's-my-divine-right.
Overread wrote: That said I've honestly no idea how common those random searches are and I would highly suspect that most typical firearms owners only get inspected when they are starting out (ensuring compliance) and at any point their licence changes state or is renewed/ended.
My dad had a gun for quite a while, and I don't ever remember him being visited. There was some advice on the sort of secure cabinet that was required, but even then, I don't know if the local constable ever actually visited our house.
Just Tony wrote: My friend was raised in a gun free home. When he committed suicide he ran an acetylene gas line into a plastic bag pulled over his head. His life was ending that night regardless of what instrument he had at hand.
Or had his acetylene bottle been empty maybe he would have reconsidered? In the UK the preferred method for a long time was the stove, running on coal gas, found in a lot of homes. When they started using natural gas instead (no or not enough CO to kill you) the suicides dropped sharply, especially among females. They didn't go out and find another means because this sort of suicide was an impulsive act made easy by access to a perfect tool.
Some will find another way, sure, but most people that want to die for reasons are so depressed that they can't be bothered with any complicated plans for it.
Just Tony wrote: My friend was raised in a gun free home. When he committed suicide he ran an acetylene gas line into a plastic bag pulled over his head. His life was ending that night regardless of what instrument he had at hand.
Or had his acetylene bottle been empty maybe he would have reconsidered? In the UK the preferred method for a long time was the stove, running on coal gas, found in a lot of homes. When they started using natural gas instead (no or not enough CO to kill you) the suicides dropped sharply, especially among females. They didn't go out and find another means because this sort of suicide was an impulsive act made easy by access to a perfect tool.
Some will find another way, sure, but most people that want to die for reasons are so depressed that they can't be bothered with any complicated plans for it.
Then there was the response to people using paracetamol. A restriction on number of paracetamol that can be purchased in a single transaction was imposed. Result was a lot less successful suicides using paracetamol.
So having to go round a shop twice, or go to a different shop, was enough of a barrier to reduce the number of suicides.
cuda1179 wrote: The only real statistic that matters is overall murder rates. When you do a graph correlating overall murder rates to state gun ownership things get weird. The two outliers are Washington DC and Louisiana. DC has no guns and high murders, Louisiana has lots of guns and high murder. The overall trend is a bell curve that has a sweet spot of mid levels of gun ownership and low murders. Luckily I live in one of these states.
Suicides matter, but we'll stick to murders if you want.
First up, you're 100% wrong when you say DC has no guns. DC has tight gun laws, banning semi-auto rifles and requiring registration, but oh man it has guns. It has 50% more guns than any state, DC has 66.4 guns per 1,000 people, next is Arkansas is 41.6 guns per 1,000. Only proviso is my data is registered guns, which will bump DC up relatively, but still, it's a myth that there's no guns in DC. There's guns. Heller made sure of that.
Spoiler:
Anyhow, I went and got the guns per capita stats, and put them against murders per capita. I tried putting the table here but html and coherent tables are natural enemies. I can give anyone the figures if they want. But here's the scatter graphs showing the results;
The first has DC excluded to show the relationship without that one strong example, the second includes DC for completeness. Either way the relationship is pretty clear, honestly its a bit more clear than I would have thought, I would have thought urban/rural share, police funding, education funding etc would have muddied the picture more than it does. I guess someone could claim that gun ownership correlates to a bunch of the above, but given that argument basically boils down to 'it isn't the guns it's the Republicanism' I'm not sure any pro-gun person exactly wants to make that argument
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Easy E wrote: I would love to see the Histogram you are siting. Care to share. I am a bit of a graph nerd.
I've had my crack at it, seen above. Only limit in my figures, that I am aware of, was my guns per 1,000 people stats showed registered guns, which would likely understate relative guns in states with weak registration requirements.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Xenomancers wrote: The declaration of independence is not a legal document. It was a declaration of war against tyranny. It's essentially the charter of the free world now.
It really isn't. The Declaration is one of the great documents of history, but it has no role to play in how freedom works in any other country. It's actually quite noticeable how little of it was copied or even used as inspiration outside of the US.
Honestly not trying to be argumentative or pedantic here but I'm curious where you got statistics from gun registries for the states since 44 states have no gun registry of any kind (8 of those states even have laws forbidding the creation of a registry). I'm not saying your gun ownership rates aren't reasonably accurate but they can't come from gun registries because the majority of states don't have such a thing. There's been polls/surveys of gun ownership per capita for the states and the North Carolina numbers usually align with my anecdotal experience so I think your numbers are likely accurate enough if that's where you got them. If you actually used registered firearms DC would be an even greater outlier because 44 of the states have zero registered firearms.
States that Require Registration of All Firearms
District of Columbia
Hawaii
States that Require Registration of Handguns
New York
States that Require New Residents to Report Their Firearms
California
Maryland (handguns and assault weapons)
States that Require Registration of Pre-Ban Assault Weapons or 50 Caliber Rifles
California (assault weapons and 50 caliber rifles)
Connecticut (assault weapons and large capacity magazines)
Hawaii (assault pistols)
Maryland (assault pistols)
New Jersey (assault weapons)
New York (assault weapons)
States that Prohibit Registries of Firearms
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Vermont
Kilkrazy wrote: We've got concrete numbers on the effect of guns on suicide rates in the Swiss study referred to twice above.
Studies in other countries can’t really be applied to the US because there are so many different variables. The fact that some of the countries with the highest suicide rates have strict gun laws and/or very few guns in circulation
But fine, let’s assume you are correct. Getting rid of guns because it might reduce successful suicides is not a good idea. It tramples on constitutional rights and attempts to solve a problem that really isn’t an issue here. The effort would bear more fruit without the other issues if you focus on preventing and treating depression, rather than demonizing tools and innocent people.
Kilkrazy wrote: We've got concrete numbers on the effect of guns on suicide rates in the Swiss study referred to twice above.
Studies in other countries can’t really be applied to the US because there are so many different variables. The fact that some of the countries with the highest suicide rates have strict gun laws and/or very few guns in circulation
But fine, let’s assume you are correct. Getting rid of guns because it might reduce successful suicides is not a good idea. It tramples on constitutional rights and attempts to solve a problem that really isn’t an issue here. The effort would bear more fruit without the other issues if you focus on preventing and treating depression, rather than demonizing tools and innocent people.
Literally nobody in this thread is saying ban all guns. No one. That's just you, Captain of the USS Ludicrous Hyberbole, boldly going where no has gone before.
Kilkrazy wrote: We've got concrete numbers on the effect of guns on suicide rates in the Swiss study referred to twice above.
Studies in other countries can’t really be applied to the US because there are so many different variables. The fact that some of the countries with the highest suicide rates have strict gun laws and/or very few guns in circulation
But fine, let’s assume you are correct. Getting rid of guns because it might reduce successful suicides is not a good idea. It tramples on constitutional rights and attempts to solve a problem that really isn’t an issue here. The effort would bear more fruit without the other issues if you focus on preventing and treating depression, rather than demonizing tools and innocent people.
Okay, first step on the road to getting better mental health in the USA:
Stop using mental health to deflect from guns every time there is a high profile killing with guns.
Stop demonizing mental health problems and innocent people by only ever mentioning it as a means of deflecting the focus from guns, reinforcing stigma around mental health issues.
I used to think gun ownership was fine, despite not owning any guns myself or ever really wanting to. I'm actually becoming more pro-gun now though, particularly given the Dodd-Frank situation and the sabre-rattling about embargoes. Once we see the collapse, guns and ammo are going to be a better investment than just about anything else you can come up with after all.
It's funny to me, as when the gun-clutchers were freaking out about buying up as many guns as possible under President Obama, I laughed for quite a while. Now we have Trump, and while I'm not going to liquidate any investments over it, but I'm seriously thinking about buying quite a few pretty damned soon.
I'm going to put my tinfoil hat on for just a second. This just popped into my head though.
Thinking about suicide attempts.
Guns are almost always fatal in suicide attempts - other types of attempts are quite often not fatal.
So who benefits the most from guns not being available in regards to suicide victims? Suicide attempts will still occur - they will just be unsuccessful. Those failed attempts lead to hospitalizations - which in turn lead to anti-depressions/anxiety medications being prescribed to the victims - medications that these people will likely be taking for years or their entire life.
Kilkrazy wrote: We've got concrete numbers on the effect of guns on suicide rates in the Swiss study referred to twice above.
Studies in other countries can’t really be applied to the US because there are so many different variables. The fact that some of the countries with the highest suicide rates have strict gun laws and/or very few guns in circulation
But fine, let’s assume you are correct.
No, not assuming anything here. This is not something you can have an opinion on. There is hard evidence on this. Rejecting that evidence is actively getting people killed.
Kilkrazy wrote: We've got concrete numbers on the effect of guns on suicide rates in the Swiss study referred to twice above.
Studies in other countries can’t really be applied to the US because there are so many different variables. The fact that some of the countries with the highest suicide rates have strict gun laws and/or very few guns in circulation
But fine, let’s assume you are correct. Getting rid of guns because it might reduce successful suicides is not a good idea. It tramples on constitutional rights and attempts to solve a problem that really isn’t an issue here. The effort would bear more fruit without the other issues if you focus on preventing and treating depression, rather than demonizing tools and innocent people.
Literally nobody in this thread is saying ban all guns. No one. That's just you, Captain of the USS Ludicrous Hyberbole, boldly going where no has gone before.
It's funny that you think it'll stop anywhere else BUT a ban on all firearms.
Kilkrazy wrote: We've got concrete numbers on the effect of guns on suicide rates in the Swiss study referred to twice above.
Studies in other countries can’t really be applied to the US because there are so many different variables. The fact that some of the countries with the highest suicide rates have strict gun laws and/or very few guns in circulation
But fine, let’s assume you are correct. Getting rid of guns because it might reduce successful suicides is not a good idea. It tramples on constitutional rights and attempts to solve a problem that really isn’t an issue here. The effort would bear more fruit without the other issues if you focus on preventing and treating depression, rather than demonizing tools and innocent people.
Literally nobody in this thread is saying ban all guns. No one. That's just you, Captain of the USS Ludicrous Hyberbole, boldly going where no has gone before.
It's funny that you think it'll stop anywhere else BUT a ban on all firearms.
If this is genuinely what the pro gun side thinks, then no wonder they have an obstinate refusal to accept basic realities. Every single concession to even the most obvious of facts is, in their mind, is another inch towards the grim inevitability of total ban on all gun ownership.
Is there any democracies in the world where a total blanket ban on private gun ownership is a thing?
No, the total ban on firearms has almost invariably been followed by a totalitarian regime in some of the worst dictatorships known to man. Oddly enough, every single one of those regimes started as progressives, socialists, or communists.
Just Tony wrote: No, the total ban on firearms has almost invariably been followed by a totalitarian regime in some of the worst dictatorships known to man. Oddly enough, every single one of those regimes started as progressives, socialists, or communists.
Good one. What's facts worth when we can have a good old cry about 'progressives', eh?
So no democracies have a gun ban. But a ban on guns in America is in the realm of possibility? Pull the other one
Just Tony wrote: No, the total ban on firearms has almost invariably been followed by a totalitarian regime in some of the worst dictatorships known to man. Oddly enough, every single one of those regimes started as progressives, socialists, or communists.
Good one. What's facts worth when we can have a good old cry about 'progressives', eh?
So no democracies have a gun ban. But a ban on guns in America is in the realm of possibility? Pull the other one
Nazi Germany began as a democracy and they banned guns. That was far from the only factor that caused it, but it is a characteristic of tyrannical groups to disarm the citizens. Always slowly, bit by bit, so they don’t realize what’s going on till it’s too late.
If progressives truly don’t want to ban guns, then they need to stop pushing for more useless gun control. It doesn’t solve the problems they claim it will, it only serves to move closer to a totalitarian regime.
Just Tony wrote: No, the total ban on firearms has almost invariably been followed by a totalitarian regime in some of the worst dictatorships known to man. Oddly enough, every single one of those regimes started as progressives, socialists, or communists.
Good one. What's facts worth when we can have a good old cry about 'progressives', eh?
So no democracies have a gun ban. But a ban on guns in America is in the realm of possibility? Pull the other one
Nazi Germany began as a democracy and they banned guns. That was far from the only factor that caused it, but it is a characteristic of tyrannical groups to disarm the citizens. Always slowly, bit by bit, so they don’t realize what’s going on till it’s too late.
And a cake begins as an egg but you don't pretend it's an omelette. No one who is taken seriously pretends that Nazi Germany was anything other than a far-right dictatorship.
The Nazis actually relaxed existing gun laws, but only for party members and other 'desirables'.
If progressives truly don’t want to ban guns, then they need to stop pushing for more useless gun control. It doesn’t solve the problems they claim it will,
If conservatives truly are afraid of a total gun ban, then they need to stop obstructing reasonable gun control measures.
it only serves to move closer to a totalitarian regime.
Oh captain my captain! Fearlessly guiding the good ship Ludicrous Hyperbole through the treacherous waters of Reasonable Debate
Just Tony wrote: No, the total ban on firearms has almost invariably been followed by a totalitarian regime in some of the worst dictatorships known to man. Oddly enough, every single one of those regimes started as progressives, socialists, or communists.
Good one. What's facts worth when we can have a good old cry about 'progressives', eh?
So no democracies have a gun ban. But a ban on guns in America is in the realm of possibility? Pull the other one
Nazi Germany began as a democracy and they banned guns.
If progressives truly don’t want to ban guns, then they need to stop pushing for more useless gun control. It doesn’t solve the problems they claim it will,
If conservatives truly are afraid of a total gun ban, then they need to stop obstructing reasonable gun control measures.
it only serves to move closer to a totalitarian regime.
Oh captain my captain! Fearlessly guiding the good ship Ludicrous Hyperbole through the treacherous waters of Reasonable Debate
That's one of the problems with the gun control debate, neither side is willing to compromise. Demanding that gun owners concede to whatever demands anti gun groups seek to impose is neither reasonable nor is it a rational compromise. Threatening an ultimatum that if gun owners don't acquiesce to current demands for restrictions then even more draconian restrictions will be imposed later is even more unreasonable. If you're telling me that I have to surrender to your demands now or you'll demand even more later all that tells me is that you want more restrictions so if we agree to your demands now you'll want more later.
Commentary: The problem with "common-sense" gun laws
"Okay, gun haters -- now what?" That's the question many Second Amendment supporters are asking in the wake of the horrific shooting at Santa Fe High School. The carnage, the loss of life -- it's all too familiar. And so are the responses from advocates for more restrictive gun laws, often couched by them as "common-sense gun laws." What's different this time is this shooting is inspiring more people to ask the question gun rights' supporters have been raising for years:
What "common-sense gun laws" would have stopped this?
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, was one of many Democrats playing the "common-sense" card in the wake of Friday's shooting. "The American people are united overwhelmingly -- gun owners, non-gun owners -- on common-sense gun safety legislation. Expand background checks, do away with the gun show loophole," Sanders told NBC News. The potential 2020 presidential candidate went on to blame the NRA for the shooting, which he claims "has become a right-wing political organization."
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat who has made gun control a legislative priority, went even farther, blaming gun rights supporters in Congress for giving "a green light to would-be shooters, who pervert silence into endorsement."
But would expanded background checks, or closing the alleged "gun show loophole" have had any impact on the Santa Fe shooter? How about bringing back the "assault weapon ban," or restricting the size of magazines, or raising the minimum age for legal gun purchases?
Answer: No.
The Texas shooter used two of the most common, easily accessed guns in America: a traditional .38 caliber pistol and a shotgun. No so-called "assault weapons" or the much-reviled (but hugely popular among gun owners) AR-15. No, just the sort of basic firearms that gun-control supporters often say they find acceptable.
President Obama tells the story of traveling through rural Iowa during the 2008 campaign and his wife Michelle saying to him, "If I was living in a farmhouse, where the sheriff's department is pretty far away, and somebody could just turn off the highway and come up to the farm, I'd want to have a shotgun or a rifle to make sure I was protected."
President Obama's reply: "And she was right."
This is the "Good gun vs. bad gun" dichotomy exposed by the Santa Fe shooting, and it led to some unfortunate reporting by USA Today:
"Two details set the Santa Fe shooting apart from other recent deadly attacks: explosives and the use of less-lethal weapons," the newspaper tweeted.
"Less lethal?" The response from the pro-2A community was, "Tell that to the victims."
But the point USA Today was trying to make is that these weapons can't do as much damage as quickly as other guns. "The guns [used at Santa Fe High] may have slowed down the gunman's deadly rampage because they have a slower firing rate than firearms used in other recent mass shootings, such as the AR-15," they reported.
And the counterpoint Second Amendment advocates are making -- and have been trying to make for years -- is that shotguns and handguns are plenty dangerous enough -- as evidenced by the horror outside Houston. They may not look as scary as black rifles with modified, military-style stocks, but they're just as lethal. Which is why, gun-rights activists argue, nearly every proposal for "common-sense gun laws" actually makes no sense. Not if you goal is to stop the next Parkland or Santa Fe shooting.
CBS News' Margaret Brennan raised this point on Sunday during a "Face the Nation" interview with Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo:
"In this specific instance, the shooter didn't have a known criminal record. His father had legally obtained the guns that he used in this shooting. They weren't semi-automatic weapons, so specifically what laws do you think need to be changed that would have prevented this attack," Brennan asked.
Sheriff Acevedo responded by talking about proper gun storage -- locking guns up so they can't be used without the owner's permission. This is a policy promoted by the NRA, too. But it's not one that's been advanced by the activists at anti-gun organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety or gun restrictionist members of Congress like Senator Murphy.
No, the only gun law that would have stopped Santa Fe is total gun confiscation. And given that the perpetrator in Santa Fe also experimented with IEDs and pressure-cooker bombs, even that may not have been enough.
A few people, most notably former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, have spoken publicly about repealing the Second Amendment -- a mandatory step in any effort to ban private gun ownership. But they are lonely voices, even on the Left.
Democrats are caught on the horns of their own dilemma. They can either propose useless laws that would have virtually no impact on potential mass shooters; or gun confiscation which has very little support among the electorate and would be a massive turnout magnet for Republican voters.
Meanwhile, the Texas shooting also poses a quandary for the "police people, not guns" proponent on the Right. Unlike the Parkland shooter--who had repeated troubling encounters with law enforcement-- the Santa Fe suspect had no criminal record and was an honor student and involved in his church. As in the case of the Las Vegas shooter, there were no "red flags" until the shooting started.
Perhaps there is a third way. Democrats could join conservatives in asking uncomfortable questions about whether government policies kept the Parkland shooter out of jail in the name of "social justice." And they could support efforts by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to enforce current gun laws to get more gun criminals behind bars.
Would these efforts end mass shootings? Of course not -- because nothing short of confiscating all guns would do that. But they would lower the overall gun crime rate, make some communities safer and get some guns off the street.
To many on the Right, that sounds like "common sense."
If progressives truly don’t want to ban guns, then they need to stop pushing for more useless gun control. It doesn’t solve the problems they claim it will,
If conservatives truly are afraid of a total gun ban, then they need to stop obstructing reasonable gun control measures.
it only serves to move closer to a totalitarian regime.
Oh captain my captain! Fearlessly guiding the good ship Ludicrous Hyperbole through the treacherous waters of Reasonable Debate
That's one of the problems with the gun control debate, neither side is willing to compromise. Demanding that gun owners concede to whatever demands anti gun groups seek to impose is neither reasonable nor is it a rational compromise. Threatening an ultimatum that if gun owners don't acquiesce to current demands for restrictions then even more draconian restrictions will be imposed later is even more unreasonable. If you're telling me that I have to surrender to your demands now or you'll demand even more later all that tells me is that you want more restrictions so if we agree to your demands now you'll want more later.
Commentary: The problem with "common-sense" gun laws
"Okay, gun haters -- now what?" That's the question many Second Amendment supporters are asking in the wake of the horrific shooting at Santa Fe High School. The carnage, the loss of life -- it's all too familiar. And so are the responses from advocates for more restrictive gun laws, often couched by them as "common-sense gun laws." What's different this time is this shooting is inspiring more people to ask the question gun rights' supporters have been raising for years:
What "common-sense gun laws" would have stopped this?
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, was one of many Democrats playing the "common-sense" card in the wake of Friday's shooting. "The American people are united overwhelmingly -- gun owners, non-gun owners -- on common-sense gun safety legislation. Expand background checks, do away with the gun show loophole," Sanders told NBC News. The potential 2020 presidential candidate went on to blame the NRA for the shooting, which he claims "has become a right-wing political organization."
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat who has made gun control a legislative priority, went even farther, blaming gun rights supporters in Congress for giving "a green light to would-be shooters, who pervert silence into endorsement."
But would expanded background checks, or closing the alleged "gun show loophole" have had any impact on the Santa Fe shooter? How about bringing back the "assault weapon ban," or restricting the size of magazines, or raising the minimum age for legal gun purchases?
Answer: No.
The Texas shooter used two of the most common, easily accessed guns in America: a traditional .38 caliber pistol and a shotgun. No so-called "assault weapons" or the much-reviled (but hugely popular among gun owners) AR-15. No, just the sort of basic firearms that gun-control supporters often say they find acceptable.
President Obama tells the story of traveling through rural Iowa during the 2008 campaign and his wife Michelle saying to him, "If I was living in a farmhouse, where the sheriff's department is pretty far away, and somebody could just turn off the highway and come up to the farm, I'd want to have a shotgun or a rifle to make sure I was protected."
President Obama's reply: "And she was right."
This is the "Good gun vs. bad gun" dichotomy exposed by the Santa Fe shooting, and it led to some unfortunate reporting by USA Today:
"Two details set the Santa Fe shooting apart from other recent deadly attacks: explosives and the use of less-lethal weapons," the newspaper tweeted.
"Less lethal?" The response from the pro-2A community was, "Tell that to the victims."
But the point USA Today was trying to make is that these weapons can't do as much damage as quickly as other guns. "The guns [used at Santa Fe High] may have slowed down the gunman's deadly rampage because they have a slower firing rate than firearms used in other recent mass shootings, such as the AR-15," they reported.
And the counterpoint Second Amendment advocates are making -- and have been trying to make for years -- is that shotguns and handguns are plenty dangerous enough -- as evidenced by the horror outside Houston. They may not look as scary as black rifles with modified, military-style stocks, but they're just as lethal. Which is why, gun-rights activists argue, nearly every proposal for "common-sense gun laws" actually makes no sense. Not if you goal is to stop the next Parkland or Santa Fe shooting.
CBS News' Margaret Brennan raised this point on Sunday during a "Face the Nation" interview with Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo:
"In this specific instance, the shooter didn't have a known criminal record. His father had legally obtained the guns that he used in this shooting. They weren't semi-automatic weapons, so specifically what laws do you think need to be changed that would have prevented this attack," Brennan asked.
Sheriff Acevedo responded by talking about proper gun storage -- locking guns up so they can't be used without the owner's permission. This is a policy promoted by the NRA, too. But it's not one that's been advanced by the activists at anti-gun organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety or gun restrictionist members of Congress like Senator Murphy.
No, the only gun law that would have stopped Santa Fe is total gun confiscation. And given that the perpetrator in Santa Fe also experimented with IEDs and pressure-cooker bombs, even that may not have been enough.
A few people, most notably former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, have spoken publicly about repealing the Second Amendment -- a mandatory step in any effort to ban private gun ownership. But they are lonely voices, even on the Left.
Democrats are caught on the horns of their own dilemma. They can either propose useless laws that would have virtually no impact on potential mass shooters; or gun confiscation which has very little support among the electorate and would be a massive turnout magnet for Republican voters.
Meanwhile, the Texas shooting also poses a quandary for the "police people, not guns" proponent on the Right. Unlike the Parkland shooter--who had repeated troubling encounters with law enforcement-- the Santa Fe suspect had no criminal record and was an honor student and involved in his church. As in the case of the Las Vegas shooter, there were no "red flags" until the shooting started.
Perhaps there is a third way. Democrats could join conservatives in asking uncomfortable questions about whether government policies kept the Parkland shooter out of jail in the name of "social justice." And they could support efforts by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to enforce current gun laws to get more gun criminals behind bars.
Would these efforts end mass shootings? Of course not -- because nothing short of confiscating all guns would do that. But they would lower the overall gun crime rate, make some communities safer and get some guns off the street.
To many on the Right, that sounds like "common sense."
Nobody who is taken seriously wants to ban all guns, that's silly and unrealistic. I was trying to highlight the "they're coming for our guns" paranoid delusion.
I think Big Crafting is behind this. Nothing sells poster board and markers like an anti gun rally.
Adam Ruins everything, and even Penn and Teller took on this topic. Yes, sometimes anti depressants and increase the risk of some kids committing suicide. However, it lowers the risk in the vast majority of kids. Risk assessment and management here.
Although to be honest about it, it does effect a lot of kids. Weren't one of the Columbine shooters having a bad reaction to one of his meds, so doctors decided to simply switch him to the generic version of the same drug?
feeder wrote: [
Nobody who is taken seriously wants to ban all guns, that's silly and unrealistic. I was trying to highlight the "they're coming for our guns" paranoid delusion.
So, Nancy Pelosi isn't taken seriously? She's strait out said it. As have editorial staff from Think Progress and Huff Po.
feeder wrote: [
Nobody who is taken seriously wants to ban all guns, that's silly and unrealistic. I was trying to highlight the "they're coming for our guns" paranoid delusion.
So, Nancy Pelosi isn't taken seriously? She's strait out said it. As have editorial staff from Think Progress and Huff Po.
As far as I can ascertain, Pelosi has not straight out said she wants a total gun ban. She did say she hopes a ban on bump stocks is a slippery slope to further gun restrictions.
If you have a source for Pelosi saying she wants to ban all guns, I'd like to hear it.
I think Big Crafting is behind this. Nothing sells poster board and markers like an anti gun rally.
Adam Ruins everything, and even Penn and Teller took on this topic. Yes, sometimes anti depressants and increase the risk of some kids committing suicide. However, it lowers the risk in the vast majority of kids. Risk assessment and management here.
Although to be honest about it, it does effect a lot of kids. Weren't one of the Columbine shooters having a bad reaction to one of his meds, so doctors decided to simply switch him to the generic version of the same drug?
Yeah, idgaf what a comedian and a comedian/magician duo say. You got some studies to link?
Adam/Penn & Teller may be able to take on things like which buffets to avoid or are Air BnBs really just horror movies waiting to happen, but unless they are professionals without my knowing, their word is as good as Trump on this topic.
A gunman who opened fire at an Oklahoma restaurant Thursday evening was confronted by two people who saw what was happening, got their guns and shot him dead, police said.
The man, whom police identified as 28-year-old Alexander Tilghman, planted himself outside the door to Louie's Grill & Bar in Oklahoma City at about 6:30 p.m. local time. He began firing a handgun into the restaurant. Three people, including two juveniles, were wounded, according to police. A fourth person fell and broke his arm when the shooting started.
The gunman turned to flee and was confronted by two armed men outside, Carlos Nazario, 35, and Bryan Wittle, 39.
Police say the two men had arrived at the restaurant separately and saw the man open fire. They went and got handguns they each had stored in the trunks of their vehicles. The men then shot and killed the gunman, according to police, who gave no further details.
Capt. Bo Mathews of the Oklahoma City Police Department confirmed that all three men had used handguns and said investigators had no idea why the gunman targeted the restaurant or what he was planning to do afterward.
Heres is the terrifying part of the story.....
The Republican governor recently vetoed a state bill that would have allowed adults to carry a firearm without training or a permit. The bill had widespread support among lawmakers in Oklahoma, already considered a gun-friendly place. About a dozen other states have passed so-called constitutional carry laws.
I think Big Crafting is behind this. Nothing sells poster board and markers like an anti gun rally.
Adam Ruins everything, and even Penn and Teller took on this topic. Yes, sometimes anti depressants and increase the risk of some kids committing suicide. However, it lowers the risk in the vast majority of kids. Risk assessment and management here.
Although to be honest about it, it does effect a lot of kids. Weren't one of the Columbine shooters having a bad reaction to one of his meds, so doctors decided to simply switch him to the generic version of the same drug?
Yeah, idgaf what a comedian and a comedian/magician duo say. You got some studies to link?
Adam/Penn & Teller may be able to take on things like which buffets to avoid or are Air BnBs really just horror movies waiting to happen, but unless they are professionals without my knowing, their word is as good as Trump on this topic.
Both of these guys have pretty hard-core citations to back them up. No, I'm not going to post every link from their episodes.
I think Big Crafting is behind this. Nothing sells poster board and markers like an anti gun rally.
Adam Ruins everything, and even Penn and Teller took on this topic. Yes, sometimes anti depressants and increase the risk of some kids committing suicide. However, it lowers the risk in the vast majority of kids. Risk assessment and management here.
Although to be honest about it, it does effect a lot of kids. Weren't one of the Columbine shooters having a bad reaction to one of his meds, so doctors decided to simply switch him to the generic version of the same drug?
Yeah, idgaf what a comedian and a comedian/magician duo say. You got some studies to link?
Adam/Penn & Teller may be able to take on things like which buffets to avoid or are Air BnBs really just horror movies waiting to happen, but unless they are professionals without my knowing, their word is as good as Trump on this topic.
Both of these guys have pretty hard-core citations to back them up. No, I'm not going to post every link from their episodes.
A well-sourced story is factual regardless of who presents it. That's why Trumpalos hate John Oliver. He tells the truth in a entertaining way.
I will check out this Adam Ruins guy. I can't fething stand Penn and Teller.
I think Big Crafting is behind this. Nothing sells poster board and markers like an anti gun rally.
Adam Ruins everything, and even Penn and Teller took on this topic. Yes, sometimes anti depressants and increase the risk of some kids committing suicide. However, it lowers the risk in the vast majority of kids. Risk assessment and management here.
Although to be honest about it, it does effect a lot of kids. Weren't one of the Columbine shooters having a bad reaction to one of his meds, so doctors decided to simply switch him to the generic version of the same drug?
Yeah, idgaf what a comedian and a comedian/magician duo say. You got some studies to link?
Adam/Penn & Teller may be able to take on things like which buffets to avoid or are Air BnBs really just horror movies waiting to happen, but unless they are professionals without my knowing, their word is as good as Trump on this topic.
Both of these guys have pretty hard-core citations to back them up. No, I'm not going to post every link from their episodes.
Cool story. You want to link or are we doing a swoop and poop name drop?
Edit: @feeder, that may be true and I do enjoy John Oliver, but he has also been wrong/made mistakes. You cannot just take a story from entertainers at face value, because they can get things turned around or tell you something that is almost true but not quite because they didn't present it right or understand it.
cuda1179 wrote: Although to be honest about it, it does effect a lot of kids. Weren't one of the Columbine shooters having a bad reaction to one of his meds, so doctors decided to simply switch him to the generic version of the same drug?
Speaking from personal experience, that kind of stuff really does super uncomfortable gak to your brain. Even if it's the "right one", the adjustment period can be really fethed up. I spent about a week not knowing how to described the fugue state I was in to anyone other than that I felt like I was orthogonal to myself. There were times I genuinely questioned if things were even real or if it was just a vivid dream.
So yeah, honestly, I'm personally kinda surprised there's not more of this kind of stuff. I think what should really bother people more than this happening (because, at least to me, it's kind of a no-brainer), is why in this country there's so many untreated/undiagnosed mental health cases.
Stop the problem from happening, and you stop the need for treatment that makes people go sideways. I mean, I guess if you think private industry can withstand that loss in profits anyway.
I used to have panic attacks. I haven't had one in a while, but they were random, and were so horrible that they were essentially a self reinforcing loops; the more worried I was about having one the more likely it was I would have one.
At one point I was prescribed some drug. I think it was Paxil, but whatever, not important. What happened was fascinating - first, it didn't stop the panic attacks, like at all. Second, it caused suicidal ideation. I don't mean like, I subtly started thinking dark thoughts - once I was driving home and then suddenly thought "hey, I should drive into that overpass". It was super strong, super overt, and it wasn't even my own voice; it was like a stranger yelled it inside my mind. I literally laughed, it was so outlandish.
Anyway I stopped taking the Paxil and eventually the panic attacks went away on their own for whatever reason that caused them to suddenly manifest in the first place.
Ultimately I think we're going to look back on this period in psychological medicine the way we now look back on the way we used to treat epilepsy with leeching.
I'd really like to see us improve healthcare in this country, but I think we need to have an honest discussion about that for it to happen and that means the right wing needs to care about mental health for longer than in the 48 hours immediately following a mass shooting.
Also, I'm not doing that thing where I pretend we only have mass shootings because of Ritalin or whatever, because these medications are common worldwide and mass shooting are not common worldwide. I don't think it's a non-factor either, though.
Oh sure. I'm not blaming the meds. But last I knew, there's more mental health issues estimated in the US than elsewhere. It's not unreasonable to assume the possibility that we might have different ones here than elsewhere, or at least, a higher prevalence of certain specific ones than elsewhere. Not to say that the medicine isn't effective in some or even most cases, but it seems like it's often a factor in these kinds of situations, and that's when it goes wrong the hardest.
Yeah, we're on the same page. I was just agreeing that it really can mess you up; I sometimes wonder what might have happened if the Paxil was a little more subtle, or if I had been in a bad state of mind at that time - and this is something they give to people who actually are clinically depressed!
Ouze wrote: I used to have panic attacks. I haven't had one in a while, but they were random, and were so horrible that they were essentially a self reinforcing loops; the more worried I was about having one the more likely it was I would have one.
At one point I was prescribed some drug. I think it was Paxil, but whatever, not important. What happened was fascinating - first, it didn't stop the panic attacks, like at all. Second, it caused suicidal ideation. I don't mean like, I subtly started thinking dark thoughts - once I was driving home and then suddenly thought "hey, I should drive into that overpass". It was super strong, super overt, and it wasn't even my own voice; it was like a stranger yelled it inside my mind. I literally laughed, it was so outlandish.
Anyway I stopped taking the Paxil and eventually the panic attacks went away on their own for whatever reason that caused them to suddenly manifest in the first place.
Ultimately I think we're going to look back on this period in psychological medicine the way we now look back on the way we used to treat epilepsy with leeching.
I'd really like to see us improve healthcare in this country, but I think we need to have an honest discussion about that for it to happen and that means the right wing needs to care about mental health for longer than in the 48 hours immediately following a mass shooting.
Also, I'm not doing that thing where I pretend we only have mass shootings because of Ritalin or whatever, because these medications are common worldwide and mass shooting are not common worldwide. I don't think it's a non-factor either, though.
I agree 100%. So what are they problems with mental health?
Seeking medical attention for these issues puts are marker on you your whole life in the healthcare system. Anxiety/depression/ect - will be in your chart forever - this scared people from reporting their issues.
Seeking medical attention is expensive and likely the people suffering the most don't take their issues serious enough (they think they can get through it on their own)
The field of psychology one of the least exact sciences in medicine - we really don't know enough about what we are doing when we are treating mental health issues. A lot of times the treatments exacerbate the issue if the patient doesn't follow up with prescribing doctors. Sometimes they work great. In my personal experience I find these treatments exceptionally lacking - I am not really sure they increase quality of life.
Honestly I think the best place to start is to make aquiring healthcare easier for people - free healthcare would go a long way with that. A lot of issues within the healthcare system need to be seriously examined to increase efficientcy and the government needs to supplement it big time. Having a healthy populace should be one of the primary places government should be placing it's resources in.
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BaronIveagh wrote: I'll point out that the only way to stop this insanity is to ban the news from showing their names and faces.
All of these idiots have been driven to get thier 15 of fame atop the corpses of others, so, you know what? Deny them that. Poof, problem solved.
As more info comes out on the the school shooting in Noblesville, Indiana today it appears a teacher tackled the shooter. The teacher was shot three times but is going to be ok. One other student was also hit but not fatally.
The news coverage should be 'some donkey-cave shot up a school today, heres the stories from the families' and carefully not talk about the shooter at all.
Sympathy for the families, being forgotten and sent to rot for the perp.
daedalus wrote: Oh sure. I'm not blaming the meds. But last I knew, there's more mental health issues estimated in the US than elsewhere. It's not unreasonable to assume the possibility that we might have different ones here than elsewhere, or at least, a higher prevalence of certain specific ones than elsewhere. Not to say that the medicine isn't effective in some or even most cases, but it seems like it's often a factor in these kinds of situations, and that's when it goes wrong the hardest.
Or it’s simply over diagnosed, not because the American people are especially predisposed towards such conditions, but a consequence of a healthcare system in which more money is made the more drugs are issued. In the UK doctors have no personal interest in giving out prescriptions for particular drugs, in fact the NHS has interest in not giving out drugs because it costs the state. Prescription drugs are advertised on tv in the US - ‘ask you doctor for Xanthafil today’. That doesn’t happen in the UK because your doctor decides what you’re getting or not and they’re no reason to favour one brand over another. Doctors in the US can shovel out pills because insurers pick up the tab.
Children in the US are some of the most doped up in the world. Parent can’t handle a noisy kid? Take them to the doctor and he’ll prescribe expensive sedatives. It’s much more difficult in the UK. I don’t believe that mental health is an especially special problem in the US, but the frequency of prescribing sedatives is.
There's a reason this group of medications is only used to treat acute symptoms and are never advised to be taken long-term, even in full-grown adults - they are addictive. And they can be highly addictive, too, I'm speaking from close experience. Getting people off a benzodiazepine addiction is a long process. While I'm trying to start with the premise that the doctors in those cases still have their patient's best interest at heart, it kind of boggles my mind what kind of situations these are when a toddler gets god damn benzodiazepines for a longer period of time; and it makes me questions whether or not there might have been far better treatment plans for those kids.
daedalus wrote: Oh sure. I'm not blaming the meds. But last I knew, there's more mental health issues estimated in the US than elsewhere. It's not unreasonable to assume the possibility that we might have different ones here than elsewhere, or at least, a higher prevalence of certain specific ones than elsewhere. Not to say that the medicine isn't effective in some or even most cases, but it seems like it's often a factor in these kinds of situations, and that's when it goes wrong the hardest.
Or it’s simply over diagnosed, not because the American people are especially predisposed towards such conditions, but a consequence of a healthcare system in which more money is made the more drugs are issued. In the UK doctors have no personal interest in giving out prescriptions for particular drugs, in fact the NHS has interest in not giving out drugs because it costs the state. Prescription drugs are advertised on tv in the US - ‘ask you doctor for Xanthafil today’. That doesn’t happen in the UK because your doctor decides what you’re getting or not and they’re no reason to favour one brand over another. Doctors in the US can shovel out pills because insurers pick up the tab.
Children in the US are some of the most doped up in the world. Parent can’t handle a noisy kid? Take them to the doctor and he’ll prescribe expensive sedatives. It’s much more difficult in the UK. I don’t believe that mental health is an especially special problem in the US, but the frequency of prescribing sedatives is.
Crazyterran wrote: The news coverage should be 'some donkey-cave shot up a school today, heres the stories from the families' and carefully not talk about the shooter at all.
Sympathy for the families, being forgotten and sent to rot for the perp.
I'll agree to this only to a point. Not outing the shooter lets conspiracy theorists run rampant and could be used by some to push agendas concerning the 'criminal' nature of certain ethnic groups.
Kilkrazy wrote: Is there good evidence to suppose that mass killers are triggered by media reports of other mass killers?
I mean, I'm sure someone somewhere has done research on the subject--but whether it's good evidence or not will be up for debate. There's always some attempt to argue things away from "access to guns is a major factor".
Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the United States in the eight years after Columbine and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold."
Kilkrazy wrote: Is there good evidence to suppose that mass killers are triggered by media reports of other mass killers?
It's widely accepted that suicide contagion effect is real and that's why it's reportedly differently now so why shouldn't we treat mass shootings in a similar manner? Media reporting on successful suicides increases the rate of suicides so it’s reasonable to believe massive media attention on spree killers can contribute to creating more spree killers.
ASPECTS OF NEWS COVERAGE THAT CAN PROMOTE SUICIDE CONTAGION
Clinicians, researchers, and other health professionals at the workshop agreed that to minimize the likelihood of suicide contagion, reporting should be concise and factual. Although scientific research in this area is not complete, workshop participants believed that the likelihood of suicide contagion may be increased by the following actions:
Presenting simplistic explanations for suicide.
Suicide is never the result of a single factor or event, but rather results from a complex interaction of many factors and usually involves a history of psychosocial problems (12). Public officials and the media should carefully explain that the final precipitating event was not the only cause of a given suicide. Most persons who have committed suicide have had a history of problems that may not have been acknowledged during the acute aftermath of the suicide. Cataloguing the problems that could have played a causative role in a suicide is not necessary, but acknowledgment of these problems is recommended.
Engaging in repetitive, ongoing, or excessive reporting of suicide in the news.
Repetitive and ongoing coverage, or prominent coverage, of a suicide tends to promote and maintain a preoccupation with suicide among at-risk persons, especially among persons 15-24 years of age. This preoccupation appears to be associated with suicide contagion. Information presented to the media should include the association between such coverage and the potential for suicide contagion. Public officials and media representatives should discuss alternative approaches for coverage of newsworthy suicide stories.
Providing sensational coverage of suicide.
By its nature, news coverage of a suicidal event tends to heighten the general public's preoccupation with suicide. This reaction is also believed to be associated with contagion and the development of suicide clusters. Public officials can help minimize sensationalism by limiting, as much as possible, morbid details in their public discussions of suicide. News media professionals should attempt to decrease the prominence of the news report and avoid the use of dramatic photographs related to the suicide (e.g., photographs of the funeral, the deceased person's bedroom, and the site of the suicide).
Reporting "how-to" descriptions of suicide.
Describing technical details about the method of suicide is undesirable. For example, reporting that a person died from carbon monoxide poisoning may not be harmful; however, providing details of the mechanism and procedures used to complete the suicide may facilitate imitation of the suicidal behavior by other at-risk persons.
Presenting suicide as a tool for accomplishing certain ends.
Suicide is usually a rare act of a troubled or depressed person. Presen- tation of suicide as a means of coping with personal problems (e.g., the break-up of a relationship or retaliation against parental discipline) may suggest suicide as a potential coping mechanism to at-risk persons. Although such factors often seem to trigger a suicidal act, other psychopathological problems are almost always involved. If suicide is presented as an effective means for accomplishing specific ends, it may be perceived by a potentially suicidal person as an attractive solution.
Glorifying suicide or persons who commit suicide.
News coverage is less likely to contribute to suicide contagion when reports of community expressions of grief (e.g., public eulogies, flying flags at half-mast, and erecting permanent public memorials) are minimized. Such actions may contribute to suicide contagion by suggesting to susceptible persons that society is honoring the suicidal behavior of the deceased person, rather than mourning the person's death.
Focusing on the suicide completer's positive characteristics.
Empathy for family and friends often leads to a focus on reporting the positive aspects of a suicide completer's life. For example, friends or teachers may be quoted as saying the deceased person "was a great kid" or "had a bright future," and they avoid mentioning the troubles and problems that the deceased person experienced. As a result, statements venerating the deceased person are often reported in the news. However, if the suicide completer's problems are not acknowledged in the presence of these laudatory statements, suicidal behavior may appear attractive to other at-risk persons -- especially those who rarely receive positive reinforcement for desirable behaviors.
CONCLUSION
In addition to recognizing the types of news coverage that can promote suicide contagion, the workshop participants strongly agreed that reporting of suicide can have several direct benefits. Specifically, community efforts to address this problem can be strengthened by news coverage that describes the help and support available in a community, explains how to identify persons at high risk for suicide, or presents information about risk factors for suicide. An ongoing dialogue between news media professionals and health and other public officials is the key to facilitating the reporting of this information.
Mental illness is not a communicable disease, but there’s a strong body of evidence that suicide is still contagious. Publicity surrounding a suicide has been repeatedly and definitively linked to a subsequent increase in suicide, especially among young people. Analysis suggests that at least 5 percent of youth suicides are influenced by contagion.
People who kill themselves are already vulnerable, but publicity around another suicide appears to make a difference as they are considering their options. The evidence suggests that suicide “outbreaks” and “clusters” are real phenomena; one death can set off others. There’s a particularly strong effect from celebrity suicides.
“Suicide contagion is real, which is why I’m concerned about it,” said Madelyn Gould, a professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry at Columbia University, who has studied suicide contagion extensively.
Suicide is a substantial public health issue. Instances have risen over the past decade, according to a 2013 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, particularly among the middle-aged. More people die in the U.S. by suicide than in car accidents. But focusing media attention on suicide — while well-intentioned — can lead to the tragic outcome of fueling more if such a national conversation is not handled in the right way.
A coalition of journalists, along with a group of suicide prevention groups, including the American Association of Suicidology and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, have issued a set of recommendations on how to talk about suicide in the media. "Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide," which cites more than 50 research studies, notes that the amount, duration and prominence of suicide news coverage “can increase the likelihood of suicide in vulnerable individuals.” It can be especially harmful when the media goes into detail about how a person died, uses dramatic images or glamorizes the person’s death, according to the report.
Ok now that we've determined that I'm no crazier than normal, and might be on to something here, thoughts on a solution that pisses off no one but the press?
Also, Prestor John, why Scævola for a sig? I'd have gone for Marx, myself, if I wanted a sig quote to slam religion. Most people at least know who he is.
You will never find a solution that pleases everyone. That is impossible when the two extremes of the argument are diametrically opposite on what they want.
However there could be a compromise which satisfies the middle ground, the 75% of Americans who broadly support gun ownership but are getting increasingly dismayed by the increasing number of massacres.
I propose the following:
1. Mandatory licence test for safety training. This would be conducted by local gun clubs affiliated with the NRA, based on a national standard developed by the NRA..
2. No-one to be allowed to buy a gun without holding a valid safety certificate.
3. Background check for criminal record and mental health before purchase.
4. All guns owned to be registered with local gun club affiliated with the NRA. The NRA to maintain a national database of registered weapons.
5. If a gun is stolen or lost it must be reported..
Have you even banned bump stocks yet? A device seemingly only suited for mass shooters and people who just want to spray targets with bullets in a manner not consistent with any of the argued justifications for rifle ownership. You wouldn’t use one for sport or home defence or reasonably for hunting, it doesn’t strike me as particularly appropriate for a range.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Have you even banned bump stocks yet? A device seemingly only suited for mass shooters and people who just want to spray targets with bullets in a manner not consistent with any of the argued justifications for rifle ownership. You wouldn’t use one for sport or home defence or reasonably for hunting, it doesn’t strike me as particularly appropriate for a range.
Yes well, it doesn't require a bump stock to bump fire so banning them in a way that makes sense with out banning basic trigger modifications is probably outside the scope of law makers ability to fathom let alone accomplish.
The problem with the proposed bump stock bans is the wording. The proposed laws I've seen are all similar to
To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the manu- facture, possession, or transfer of any part or combina- tion of parts that is designed and functions to increase the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle but does not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun, and for other purposes.
790.222 Bump-fire stocks prohibited.—A person may not 737 import into this state or transfer, distribute, sell, keep for 738 sale, offer for sale, possess, or give to another person a bump 739 fire stock. A person who violates this section commits a felony 740 of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 741 775.083, or s. 775.084. As used in this section, the term “bump 742 fire stock” means a conversion kit, a tool, an accessory, or a 743 device used to alter the rate of fire of a firearm to mimic 744 automatic weapon fire or which is used to increase the rate of 745 fire to a faster rate than is possible for a person to fire such 746 semiautomatic firearm unassisted by a kit, a tool, an accessory, 747 or a device. 748 Section 14.
http://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2018/7026/BillText/er/HTML So the aftermarket trigger I installed would be illegal, as would the Eotech sight, or the vertical fore grip, or even a good sling. All allow me to fire more rapidly than I can without them.
You then can look at enforcement issues. How do cops enforce a law with this wording consistently and fairly? One cop may ONLY enforce it against actual bump stocks. One may say "Hey, that aftermarket trigger means you go to jail".
Insurgency Walker wrote: Showing once again that there is no common sense in common sense gun control laws.
“Common sense” and “reasonable” are only used by anti-gun proponents to make it seem like pro-gun advocates are neither of those things. Legislation such as bump stock bans or magazine limits are neither common sense nor reasonable in my opinion, but then that makes me some sort of demon in their eyes. All this talk of “compromise” is absolute bunk, because the pro-gun side never gets anything out of the deal, it’s always just a list of restrictions demanded by anti-gun folks.
Nostromodamus wrote: All this talk of “compromise” is absolute bunk, because the pro-gun side never gets anything out of the deal, it’s always just a list of restrictions demanded by anti-gun folks.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Compromise is shorthand for what parts you want to keep the most.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Not really an accurate statement at all. There are many many gun laws and regulations at the federal, state and municipality level. Probably more than most countries. They are just different than other countries' laws and regulations and many folks on Dakka don't like them. Some think the existing laws are too permissive, some think not permissive enough.
Nostromodamus wrote: All this talk of “compromise” is absolute bunk, because the pro-gun side never gets anything out of the deal, it’s always just a list of restrictions demanded by anti-gun folks.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Compromise is shorthand for what parts you want to keep the most.
Except we've "compromised" repeatedly, when we've just ignored the "shall not be infringed" part, and allowed them to be infringed, again, and again, and again.
Nostromodamus wrote: All this talk of “compromise” is absolute bunk, because the pro-gun side never gets anything out of the deal, it’s always just a list of restrictions demanded by anti-gun folks.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Compromise is shorthand for what parts you want to keep the most.
I think the compromise should be taking a serious look at why our educational system has devolved into some sort of psychopath generating machine.
And we've already violated the Constitution as it's the Federal Government that controls interstate commerce, not the states.
"[Congress shall have the power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3)
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Compromise is shorthand for what parts you want to keep the most.
The issue is though that restricting guns won't actually solve the problem, and may in fact, make it worse. Actual solutions have been outlined above, but everyone falls back to guns, because taking 'responsibility' is beyond the average American at this point.
Insurgency Walker wrote: Showing once again that there is no common sense in common sense gun control laws.
“Common sense” and “reasonable” are only used by anti-gun proponents to make it seem like pro-gun advocates are neither of those things. Legislation such as bump stock bans or magazine limits are neither common sense nor reasonable in my opinion, but then that makes me some sort of demon in their eyes. All this talk of “compromise” is absolute bunk, because the pro-gun side never gets anything out of the deal, it’s always just a list of restrictions demanded by anti-gun folks.
Indeed. Where are the compromises that are beneficial to gun owners? The Hearing Act? CHL reciprocity?
Nostromodamus wrote: All this talk of “compromise” is absolute bunk, because the pro-gun side never gets anything out of the deal, it’s always just a list of restrictions demanded by anti-gun folks.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Compromise is shorthand for what parts you want to keep the most.
You literally have no clue about the current legislation in place on a state by state basis, but opine like you do.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Not really an accurate statement at all. There are many many gun laws and regulations at the federal, state and municipality level. Probably more than most countries. They are just different than other countries' laws and regulations and many folks on Dakka don't like them. Some think the existing laws are too permissive, some think not permissive enough.
And that's part of the problem. Too many laws, too small jurisdiction and in many cases no teeth.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Not really an accurate statement at all. There are many many gun laws and regulations at the federal, state and municipality level. Probably more than most countries. They are just different than other countries' laws and regulations and many folks on Dakka don't like them. Some think the existing laws are too permissive, some think not permissive enough.
And that's part of the problem. Too many laws, too small jurisdiction and in many cases no teeth.
Since the school shootings have all involved teenage or young adults why not just get rid of them? One of the things we legally recognize is that children and teenagers only have partially formed mental facilities so they are far more prone to react in an unstable manner that's influenced by emotion and hormones so why not just completely remove them from society until they are proper adults? All kids ages 10 and up go stay locked up safely with the state until early to mid-20s adulthood when they can pass a series of test showing that they are mentally stable and mature enough to participate in the adult world, the young adults that wash out get transferred to adult facilities and stay locked up so they aren't a danger to other people. Weed out the bad ones early and keep them safely away from everyone else.
Or we can recognize that these events are a 1 in a million type of occurrences, and stick away from the hyperbole.
Kids are more likely to die from a disease they've caught in school. More likely to die travelling to school. More likely to suffer a life limiting injury in a school sport.
A great read on this phenomena of school shootings, and why it's getting so much attention, for such a extremely low risk issue.
Kilkrazy wrote: You will never find a solution that pleases everyone. That is impossible when the two extremes of the argument are diametrically opposite on what they want.
However there could be a compromise which satisfies the middle ground, the 75% of Americans who broadly support gun ownership but are getting increasingly dismayed by the increasing number of massacres.
I propose the following:
1. Mandatory licence test for safety training. This would be conducted by local gun clubs affiliated with the NRA, based on a national standard developed by the NRA..
2. No-one to be allowed to buy a gun without holding a valid safety certificate.
3. Background check for criminal record and mental health before purchase.
4. All guns owned to be registered with local gun club affiliated with the NRA. The NRA to maintain a national database of registered weapons.
5. If a gun is stolen or lost it must be reported..
1) Possibly, but there would need to be a great PR campaign for this so it doesn't show as Big Brother keeping a list of gun owners
2) Goes with 1
3) We would have to reform our healthcare system, which most of us have been advocating for.
4) Nope. Nope nope nope. The NRA would outright refuseto do such a thing, and even us moderate pro-gun people are against it. As a counter-point, how about we ban non-background check private sales, and any sales must be completed at an FFL, and the feds pick up the tab. That way the ATF gets the paper trail it needs, sellers (and buyers) are safe, and no real registry exists?
5) I absolutely agree.
Kilkrazy wrote: You will never find a solution that pleases everyone. That is impossible when the two extremes of the argument are diametrically opposite on what they want.
However there could be a compromise which satisfies the middle ground, the 75% of Americans who broadly support gun ownership but are getting increasingly dismayed by the increasing number of massacres.
I propose the following:
1. Mandatory licence test for safety training. This would be conducted by local gun clubs affiliated with the NRA, based on a national standard developed by the NRA..
2. No-one to be allowed to buy a gun without holding a valid safety certificate.
3. Background check for criminal record and mental health before purchase.
4. All guns owned to be registered with local gun club affiliated with the NRA. The NRA to maintain a national database of registered weapons.
5. If a gun is stolen or lost it must be reported..
1) Possibly, but there would need to be a great PR campaign for this so it doesn't show as Big Brother keeping a list of gun owners
2) Goes with 1
Oh please. This is nonsense.
Also, you don't want the NRA involved period. They're garbage and should be treated as such. They're nothing but a lobbyist for conservative "Christian" values and gun manufacturers at this point.
3) We would have to reform our healthcare system, which most of us have been advocating for.
It would require more on the side of criminal reform to ensure that domestic abuse disqualifies you from owning firearms. People advocating for healthcare reform aren't advocating for it strictly on the side of firearms.
4) Nope. Nope nope nope. The NRA would outright refuseto do such a thing, and even us moderate pro-gun people are against it. As a counter-point, how about we ban non-background check private sales, and any sales must be completed at an FFL, and the feds pick up the tab. That way the ATF gets the paper trail it needs, sellers (and buyers) are safe, and no real registry exists?
Again, cut the NRA out of anything and everything until they remove Oliver North from their payroll. Same goes for the weird nonsense coming out of NRATV.
Additionally, the ATF gets to have digital, searchable records. Look into what they're having to cope with and tell me that is acceptable in this day and age.
5) I absolutely agree.
At least that's done then.
So what penalties should exist for those who don't report a firearm lost or stolen? I'm of the opinion that it should be barring them from owning a firearm until getting recertified via a local gun club and after that to have 'home checks' to make sure the firearm is properly secured. If they lose too many or too many 'get stolen', they're barred from owning them period.
Kan, you go on to propose punishing the victims of crimes, and have the gall to call pointing out a valid response 'nonsense'.
Now to take whole thread to task:
Rather than look at valid, and legal responses to this issue, all of you run back to guns, and try to exploit whatever tragedy has happened to push hard to treat a symptom rather than the cause, as though this will solve anything
Liberals: Shut the feth up about guns and, for once, try something constructive rather than whine about conservatives and their guns.
Conservatives: Shut the feth up about guns and offer solutions rather than bitch about liberals and their assumption that police will save them.
Because once you do remove guns from the equation, next you'll whine about how easy it is to get bombs, and then knives, and then demand people cut off their hands lest they beat someone to death. Without dealing with the root problem, you can take all the steps you like to reduce the issue, but will never actually stop the violence. Why? American Ingenuity. If you don't believe me, remember that people are still shot and stabbed in prisons, where all sorts of weapons are banned.
So, first step: ban certain types of coverage of events. Bring the media that glorifies them to heel. Remember, ISIS TV covered suicide bombers in the same way that CNN and Fox and so on cover school shooters; IE in a manner that convinces a certain type of kid to go out and kill as many people as they can. There's your issue, and there's the difference between other countries with the same gun laws, and the US.
Kan, you go on to propose punishing the victims of crimes, and have the gall to call pointing out a valid response 'nonsense'.
I proposed punishing the victim of a crime(read: someone who had a gun stolen) involving a weapon being lost or stolen. I also proposed punishing someone who is the victim of nothing but their own failings. In both instances however, I thought it would be abundantly clear that it all had to do with a "strikes" system. Someone who loses their gun, even one time absolutely should be punished for it. It's a frigging gun not your car keys or a cell phone.
If people want to treat guns as though they're somehow more valuable than children's lives(which is what the argument from the NRA keeps amounting to), make it so that the firearms get treated as such for failing to ensure proper care. Someone who fosters children can be severely punished for failing to report one of their charges missing. Parents can be held legally responsible for the death of their children from failing to provide a standard of care.
So try again.
Also, with regards to this:
So, first step: ban certain types of coverage of events. Bring the media that glorifies them to heel. Remember, ISIS TV covered suicide bombers in the same way that CNN and Fox and so on cover school shooters; IE in a manner that convinces a certain type of kid to go out and kill as many people as they can. There's your issue, and there's the difference between other countries with the same gun laws, and the US.
Try actually watching some frigging news. CNN and Fox have in no real way, shape, or form 'glorified' these kinds of shootings. They get coverage but why the hell shouldn't they? It's news. What do you want them to do, cut to commercials for the duration of the event? Pretend it didn't happen?
There's also not any real "other countries with the same gun laws" as the US. That's part of the problem.
Kilkrazy wrote: You will never find a solution that pleases everyone. That is impossible when the two extremes of the argument are diametrically opposite on what they want.
However there could be a compromise which satisfies the middle ground, the 75% of Americans who broadly support gun ownership but are getting increasingly dismayed by the increasing number of massacres.
I propose the following:
1. Mandatory licence test for safety training. This would be conducted by local gun clubs affiliated with the NRA, based on a national standard developed by the NRA..
2. No-one to be allowed to buy a gun without holding a valid safety certificate.
3. Background check for criminal record and mental health before purchase.
4. All guns owned to be registered with local gun club affiliated with the NRA. The NRA to maintain a national database of registered weapons.
5. If a gun is stolen or lost it must be reported..
What you propose is useless wish listing. Items #1, 2, and 4 are literally impossible to legislate on the Federal level. Congress cannot legally pass such laws because the Federal government does not possess the jurisdiction to do so. We can’t have a Federal fires purchasing license for the same reasons why we can’t have Federal drivers licenses or Federal fishing licenses or Federal home buying licenses or Federal adoption licenses etc. Federal gun laws are restrictions placed on the seller not the buyer. Federal Firearms License holders, gun store owners, who engage in interstate commerce are required to follow Federal laws regarding to whom they can lawfully sell a gun. If I sell a gun I own via a private sale that is intrastate commerce governed by state law not Federal. Likewise the requirements I have to meet to obtain a concealed carry license are a matter of state law not Federal. The safe storage laws I have to abide by are state laws not Federal laws. Item #3 already exists on the Federal level and is applicable to all Federally licenses dealers all the time for every purchase. Item #5 already exists on the state level for most states and can’t be implemented on the Federal level.
Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the United States in the eight years after Columbine and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold."
Because spreading their name and face and kill count gives the little gaks exactly what they wanted.
Kanluwen wrote: [
If people want to treat guns as though they're somehow more valuable than children's lives(which is what the argument from the NRA keeps amounting to), make it so that the firearms get treated as such for failing to ensure proper care. Someone who fosters children can be severely punished for failing to report one of their charges missing. Parents can be held legally responsible for the death of their children from failing to provide a standard of care.
Yes, but if someone breaks into your house and steals your kids, the parents are not the one's charged, usually. So, your analogy really doesn't work there.
Kanluwen wrote: [
Try actually watching some frigging news. CNN and Fox have in no real way, shape, or form 'glorified' these kinds of shootings. They get coverage but why the hell shouldn't they? It's news. What do you want them to do, cut to commercials for the duration of the event? Pretend it didn't happen?
I have to watch entirely too much frigging news because Trump says we can't turn it off. It's either Fox or The Price is Right every lunch break. I wish to God we could see something else.
How about:
Not show the killers name or face, not act like it's the most important thing going on in the world, not run it 24/7 for weeks following the event to milk as much advertising money from it as possible? Not do running tallies like it's a gaming killboard about how this compares to other school killings? There are more ways to glorify something than just show images of the killer and some religious themed music playing in the background. Stretching out coverage as much as possible and milking it as long as you can does the job just as well.
Kanluwen wrote: [
There's also not any real "other countries with the same gun laws" as the US. That's part of the problem.
I notice that disparaging 'real' again. Sorry, Kan, that trap is so obvious it's unworthy of even you. So, let's go with a country that follows a hot second after the US for gun ownership per capita, Norway. They have the second highest guns per capita following the US, but are third from the bottom for per capita gun deaths.
Guns are not the issue. It's how the media and the politicians milk it for all it's worth that guarantees another one. And it's people like you who's obsession with the idea that guns are the issue that means that no one will ever stop it.
Guns are not the issue. It's how the media and the politicians milk it for all it's worth that guarantees another one. And it's people like you who's obsession with the idea that guns are the issue that means that no one will ever stop it.
Guns are definitely an issue here. . . They are one of many issues that are repeatedly illustrated as problematic. I won't sit here and say they are THE problem, but to hand wave them away as a complete non-issue is problematic on its own.
Guns are definitely an issue here. . . They are one of many issues that are repeatedly illustrated as problematic. I won't sit here and say they are THE problem, but to hand wave them away as a complete non-issue is problematic on its own.
Well, let's look at this one: he used a weapon already illegal (sawed off shotgun), and one that is ubiquitous to the degree that no amount of law enforcement will ever round them all up (revolver).
So, how would passing more laws about guns have had any impact? Half of what he had was already illegal.
While gun violence is a problem, in the case of school shootings, it's not the main issue. It;'s not why the US, per capita, has a rate of gun violence near the top, when the next biggest nation for gun ownership per cap is three from the bottom of the list.
Grey Templar wrote: Not to mention you can turn any shotgun into a sawed-off with a hacksaw in about 60 seconds.
Actually no, it depends on the shotgun. Any double barrel you can do that though. Pump actions limit how short the barrel can be, but singles and doubles it's doable.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Have you even banned bump stocks yet? A device seemingly only suited for mass shooters and people who just want to spray targets with bullets in a manner not consistent with any of the argued justifications for rifle ownership. You wouldn’t use one for sport or home defence or reasonably for hunting, it doesn’t strike me as particularly appropriate for a range.
The ATF has proposed a rule that would be a de-facto ban on them. It is now in a mandatory waiting period for public comments. That period ends June 27th, with implementation to take place at some point shortly thereafter.
This rule is going to probably be tie up in litigation, though. I suspect that litigation will succeed. The ATF does not in my opinion, have the freedom to alter the Gun Control Act the way they intend to do, and ATF itself agreed they didn't when they first examined bump stocks.
It's going to take a new law, I think, which means our broken-ass congress needs to pass something, which they probably are too dysfunctional to actually do.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Have you even banned bump stocks yet? A device seemingly only suited for mass shooters and people who just want to spray targets with bullets in a manner not consistent with any of the argued justifications for rifle ownership. You wouldn’t use one for sport or home defence or reasonably for hunting, it doesn’t strike me as particularly appropriate for a range.
The ATF has proposed a rule that would be a de-facto ban on them. It is now in a mandatory waiting period for public comments. That period ends June 27th, with implementation to take place at some point shortly thereafter.
This rule is going to probably be tie up in litigation, though. I suspect that litigation will succeed. The ATF does not in my opinion, have the freedom to alter the Gun Control Act the way they intend to do, and ATF itself agreed they didn't when they first examined bump stocks.
It's going to take a new law, I think, which means our broken-ass congress needs to pass something, which they probably are too dysfunctional to actually do.
Or it's going to take the ATF actually being given some fricking authority to be able to address one of the three things they're responsible for or us renaming their useless nonsense to the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco.
CptJake wrote: The problem with the proposed bump stock bans is the wording. The proposed laws I've seen are all similar to
The ATF proposed amendment to the machine gun section of the GCA is as follows:
The term “machine gun” includes bump-stock-type devices, i.e., devices that allow a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm to which it is affixed so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.
This would not ban other trigger-based speed manipulators, but if bump stocks are outlawed because of what they do then there really is no good reason not to include echo triggers, gatt cranks, and other such devices.
I own a bump stock and I don't really have any strong feelings about the proposed ban. It's kind of fun but it doesn't really serve any useful purpose except being cool, and to be honest the very first time I used it, I thought to myself that someday some kid was going to light up his school with this thing and that will be that.
I'm more concerned with being out $100 than the diminishment of muh freedoms or whatever.
Given that Bump Stocks have been used in only 1 shooting banning them wouldn't have accomplished much. Plus the Vegas guy could have just bought a real full auto weapon if he wanted, no prior history and he planned the thing out long enough to have done all the necessary paperwork.
Its basically the definition of a useless gesture. So useless that even pro-gun people don't care.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Have you even banned bump stocks yet? A device seemingly only suited for mass shooters and people who just want to spray targets with bullets in a manner not consistent with any of the argued justifications for rifle ownership. You wouldn’t use one for sport or home defence or reasonably for hunting, it doesn’t strike me as particularly appropriate for a range.
The ATF has proposed a rule that would be a de-facto ban on them. It is now in a mandatory waiting period for public comments. That period ends June 27th, with implementation to take place at some point shortly thereafter.
This rule is going to probably be tie up in litigation, though. I suspect that litigation will succeed. The ATF does not in my opinion, have the freedom to alter the Gun Control Act the way they intend to do, and ATF itself agreed they didn't when they first examined bump stocks.
It's going to take a new law, I think, which means our broken-ass congress needs to pass something, which they probably are too dysfunctional to actually do.
Or it's going to take the ATF actually being given some fricking authority to be able to address one of the three things they're responsible for or us renaming their useless nonsense to the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco.
No the BATFE is never going to have extra constitutional powers that allow it to usurp Congressional authority and arbitrarily make new laws that make firearms accessories that are currently able to be lawfully owns to be illegal because...reasons. Nobody should want the DoJ to have the power to unilaterally make new laws even if Trump and Sessions werent in charge of it that’s a tremendously horrible and blatantly unconstitutional idea.
Prestor Jon wrote: Honestly not trying to be argumentative or pedantic here but I'm curious where you got statistics from gun registries for the states since 44 states have no gun registry of any kind (8 of those states even have laws forbidding the creation of a registry). I'm not saying your gun ownership rates aren't reasonably accurate but they can't come from gun registries because the majority of states don't have such a thing.
And we've already violated the Constitution as it's the Federal Government that controls interstate commerce, not the states..
While I agree with you that this is unconstitutional, I have every belief that courts of appeals will uphold it until it gets to the Supreme Court. The same thing is happening with eggs in California. In order to send eggs to California you have to meet California standards in the raising, care, feed, and medication of your chickens. This blatantly violated interstate commerce law, and the courts didn't really care.
This pure nonsense. The Nazi firearms regulations removed the requirement to hold a firearms permit for long arms, removed any record keeping requirements for sales and purchases, lowered the age you could own a gun. It did formally prevent Jews from owning guns, but that was already largely true - before this law police had used the existing 'trustworthy' clause to take guns from Jews.
Far from being the fantasy of 'first they take the guns' you want it to be, Nazi Germany actually proves the exact opposite - the problem with guns stopping a tyranny is the people who are powerful enough to own all the guns are the people who are empowered enough to put the tyranny in to place.
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Prestor Jon wrote: That's one of the problems with the gun control debate, neither side is willing to compromise.
The problem isn't a lack of compromise. The problem is a basic lack of shared reality. The pro-gun side tries to argue, ludicrously, that gun proliferation don't impact murder rates. The anti-gun side tries to solve the problem by fixating on the guns used in high profile spree killings, ignorant of the weapons used in daily murders that don't make the news.
Demanding that gun owners concede to whatever demands anti gun groups seek to impose is neither reasonable nor is it a rational compromise.
It isn't a threat, it is a basic political strategy. Negotiate a settlement while at the height of your political power. A sensible gun owner would want to settle the gun control debate while guns are present in a third of all homes, and while the pro-gun faction holds enormous political clout through the NRA and it's dominance in the Republican party.
Or you can let the current state of events carry on as they are, and back yourself to never need a compromise because the pro-gun movement will never be in a point of weakness. That's a huge gamble, because the number of households with guns is on a long term decline (due mostly to the shifting urban/rural split). The collapse of the Republican party many people talk about seems quite unlikely to me, but at the same time I really doubt the Republican party in twenty years is going to be much like the party today - I wouldn't want to bank on it as a steadfast NRA ally which is also politically potent.
Just looking from a very high level, I'd be pushing to settle the issue now.
Norway is not the third most "gunny" country in the world, it's 18th. Norwegians have 30% as many guns as Americans, and there are quite strong restrictive laws on gun ownership.
If we draw draw any inferences, this shows that it's possible to have strong restrictive laws while allowing a fairly high level of gun ownership and keeping a low level of gun crime.
Maybe the USA should look at the Norway model for the right way to do it.
Kilkrazy wrote: Norway is not the third most "gunny" country in the world, it's 18th. Norwegians have 30% as many guns as Americans, and there are quite strong restrictive laws on gun ownership.
If we draw draw any inferences, this shows that it's possible to have strong restrictive laws while allowing a fairly high level of gun ownership and keeping a low level of gun crime.
Maybe the USA should look at the Norway model for the right way to do it.
Per capita. Not total, per capita. Though I'll grant I've read other studies that put it at 8th per capita. Interestingly, the United States has 101 guns per 100 people, supposedly.
18 may have been a misreading on my part. However rankings are an imprecise and potentially misleading statistic.
The key point that Norway has about 30% of the guns that the USA does, lower crime rate and a gun death rate which is less than 30% of the USA. Norway also has a pretty strict set of gun laws.
Kilkrazy wrote: 18 may have been a misreading on my part. However rankings are an imprecise and potentially misleading statistic.
The key point that Norway has about 30% of the guns that the USA does, lower crime rate and a gun death rate which is less than 30% of the USA. Norway also has a pretty strict set of gun laws.
They may indeed, but their gun murder rate is not 30% of the US per capita rate. Instead it's down around Japans. Which bans guns. So,if it's not the number of guns...
Kilkrazy wrote: Norway also has a pretty strict set of gun laws.
I'd wager pretty much like ours. There's virtually no chance to get a concealed carry license or any type of self/home defense gun. The guns they have are rifles and shotguns for hunting/sports and handguns for different kinds of sport shooting. There's about a 0% chance anyone except a collector will be granted permission to buy the sort of small handguns you'd stuff in a pocket. A Norwegian isn't armed unless he's going to the range or hunting - an American can be and many are.
So even if they might have 30% of the US per capita gun ratio the handgun percentage is much, much smaller.
Kilkrazy wrote: Norway also has a pretty strict set of gun laws.
I'd wager pretty much like ours. There's virtually no chance to get a concealed carry license or any type of self/home defense gun. The guns they have are rifles and shotguns for hunting/sports and handguns for different kinds of sport shooting. There's about a 0% chance anyone except a collector will be granted permission to buy the sort of small handguns you'd stuff in a pocket. A Norwegian isn't armed unless he's going to the range or hunting - an American can be and many are.
So even if they might have 30% of the US per capita gun ratio the handgun percentage is much, much smaller.
Actually you're wrong. Norway is not as restrictive as Finland is. There are limits, don't get me wrong, but handgun ownership is allowed, with 21 being the age you can legally get one. Norwegian law actually seems to prefer smaller, and thus, more concealable weapons, as they restrict higher calibers, allowing up to 4 different handguns. Which is frankly, far more than is really needed for a US style school shooting. Norway actually loosened it's laws somewhat in the most recent revision of the weapons act, no longer requiring ammunition to be stored separate from the guns, for example.
Interestingly, given how many of the perps in school shooting obtain their weapons, the laws there would be useless in stopping them. Since, in all likelihood, junior knows the combination to Mom and Dad's gun safe if hunting is big. I can say from my own experiences growing up, not knowing the combo is impractical. and usually given up on after two or three times that the student is tasked with putting away the masters firearms.
How do you expect to "get anything" when the US has the closest to no regulation at all.
Not really an accurate statement at all. There are many many gun laws and regulations at the federal, state and municipality level. Probably more than most countries. They are just different than other countries' laws and regulations and many folks on Dakka don't like them. Some think the existing laws are too permissive, some think not permissive enough.
And that's part of the problem. Too many laws, too small jurisdiction and in many cases no teeth.
No regulation, but to many laws. Alright dude.
If every town, country and state has his own set of laws which can easily be bypassed by just driving across the state or county line yes, there are too many laws but very little effect.
Kilkrazy wrote: Norway also has a pretty strict set of gun laws.
I'd wager pretty much like ours. There's virtually no chance to get a concealed carry license or any type of self/home defense gun. The guns they have are rifles and shotguns for hunting/sports and handguns for different kinds of sport shooting. There's about a 0% chance anyone except a collector will be granted permission to buy the sort of small handguns you'd stuff in a pocket. A Norwegian isn't armed unless he's going to the range or hunting - an American can be and many are.
Plus long guns are restricted to 3 rounds per clip.
Kilkrazy wrote: 18 may have been a misreading on my part. However rankings are an imprecise and potentially misleading statistic.
The key point that Norway has about 30% of the guns that the USA does, lower crime rate and a gun death rate which is less than 30% of the USA. Norway also has a pretty strict set of gun laws.
They may indeed, but their gun murder rate is not 30% of the US per capita rate. Instead it's down around Japans. Which bans guns. So,if it's not the number of guns...
Then the cause is something else.
Perhaps Americans are unusually violent or impulsive.
Kilkrazy wrote: 18 may have been a misreading on my part. However rankings are an imprecise and potentially misleading statistic.
The key point that Norway has about 30% of the guns that the USA does, lower crime rate and a gun death rate which is less than 30% of the USA. Norway also has a pretty strict set of gun laws.
They may indeed, but their gun murder rate is not 30% of the US per capita rate. Instead it's down around Japans. Which bans guns. So,if it's not the number of guns...
Then the cause is something else.
Perhaps Americans are unusually violent or impulsive.
We do tend to demonize certain peaceful activities, while idolizing some folks who engage in horrible activities
BaronIveagh wrote: Norway is not as restrictive as Finland is. There are limits, don't get me wrong, but handgun ownership is allowed, with 21 being the age you can legally get one. Norwegian law actually seems to prefer smaller, and thus, more concealable weapons, as they restrict higher calibers.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful", yes. But you do realize that smaller caliber doesn't necessarily mean a smaller gun? You want a long barrel for target shooting, and since there's no reason to make the gun small (a sports shooter doesn't have to hide it) and it can use extra weight for stability it is often quite bulky. Dad's got one of those nice Beretta .22LR target pistols and it's not small - 5.9'' barrel, overall length 8.8'', weight 41 ounces. A Glock 17 is smaller and weighs less...
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful", (snip) Dad's got one of those nice Beretta .22LR target pistols and it's not small - 5.9'' barrel, overall length 8.8'', weight 41 ounces.
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'. I think the biggest I've ever seen a revolver was 557 Tyrannosaur. That's barely anti-vehicle. If you're hunting AFVs, use at least a 14mm Russian, or 20mm Oerlikon\
\
And, just, FYI: Dude, an 8.8 inch gun easily fits in the pockets of most trench-coats. Hell, that small I could make it a sleeve gun. It's not very big. My first pistol was a .69 Tower locks light dragoon (1745) It's blackpowder bit it looks, and hits, like a hand held howitzer. It weighs about 80 ounces and even it's fairly concealable with a 1.5 foot barrel.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
Which is just government steps to restrict the rights of the citizens.
When the 2nd Amendment was written, it was done so with the idea that citizens would have access to the same weaponry that the government had. Hence private citizens owning ships carrying cannons and the like. The "needlessly powerful" is just a way to get people thinking it's ok to restrict the rights.
Anything over .50 that isn’t black powder is classified as a “destructive device” and needs to be registered and stamped under the NFA, so we have that in the US too.
Spetulhu wrote: It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car
Nope. Tried that once with a Trapdoor Springfield. Unless you hit the driver it will not disable an automobile reliably.. However, a 12 gauge loaded with an explosive slug does ok. A Willy Pete round in it does better though.
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Nostromodamus wrote: Anything over .50 that isn’t black powder is classified as a “destructive device” and needs to be registered and stamped under the NFA, so we have that in the US too.
Not quite correct: it has to be made before 1893 (IIRC) or of a type made before then. Meaning that yes, there are 75mm howitzers and machine guns that can be bought and sold without license legally. Regardless of propellant.
For example, there are late 1800's rifles that were made to fire explosive slugs. They hit like a 40mm grenade and are legal to own because Congress set an arbitrary date rather than any sort of examination of the actual weapons.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
Which is just government steps to restrict the rights of the citizens.
When the 2nd Amendment was written, it was done so with the idea that citizens would have access to the same weaponry that the government had. Hence private citizens owning ships carrying cannons and the like. The "needlessly powerful" is just a way to get people thinking it's ok to restrict the rights.
This is bullgak. The idea behind the 2nd Amendment is that it is there so the citizens can defend themselves against tyranny. So now you are telling me it is really there to protect against pirates and other countries in international waters?
How many private ships do you see with military weaponry out there?
This is bullgak. The idea behind the 2nd Amendment is that it is there so the citizens can defend themselves against tyranny. So now you are telling me it is really there to protect against pirates and other countries in international waters?
How many private ships do you see with military weaponry out there?
Actually they did do those things. A friend of mine actually had an armed vessel permit issued to him, so, one that I can think of. However, in fairness, it was for the Traveling Pirate Museum, so...
Technically any museum ship where the weaponry is maintained in a state of readiness would fall under this too, so any battleship museum would require one.
I always love the people who say they need guns to protect against a tyrranical government. A tyrranical government will just send a predator drone to take out their domestic terrorist group at one of their strategy sessions, aka little Timmy's backyard birthday BBQ.
Skaorn wrote: I always love the people who say they need guns to protect against a tyrranical government. A tyrranical government will just send a predator drone to take out their domestic terrorist group at one of their strategy sessions, aka little Timmy's backyard birthday BBQ.
Neat concept. How many millions of drones do they have? Not millions? Shame, because one casualty inducing drone strike on US soil to eliminate a dissident would kick off any uprising that I think you're incapable of picturing. So unless you see fleets of Predators being produced wholesale and a massive drone pilot training program, this idea is about as far fetched as the FEMA death camp garbage from years prior.
Skaorn wrote: I always love the people who say they need guns to protect against a tyrranical government. A tyrranical government will just send a predator drone to take out their domestic terrorist group at one of their strategy sessions, aka little Timmy's backyard birthday BBQ.
In the event of an actual civil war, the government would rapidly run out of ammunition for surgical strike weapons. These type of weapons also require knowing where the target is. The rebels wouldn't be announcing their HQ locations via facebook.
Plus the use of those weapons would rapidly turn anybody on the fence about which side to support over to the rebels. Just remember how much trouble the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are/have given to the US army. Now multiply that by a thousand.
There are about 2 million US service members, and another ~450,000 National guard. The population of the US is about 325 million. Subtracting the members of the armed forces from the population, that leaves 131 civilians per members of US armed forces. Keep in mind that a huge chunk of the US armed forces are NOT combat personnel, roughly 80%. Now most of them are combat trained, but their duties are involved in supporting the actual boots on the ground. If they get forced into combat the overall efficiency of the total army goes way down. So the reality is you'd have each combat soldier needing to police far more than 131 civilians. If we just go with the straight 80% of the US army are support positions, then you have a ratio of 1 Soldier per 663 civilians.
This of course does assume 100% of the US armed forces are 100% behind the government. In reality, some portions of the army would join the rebellion, as would National Guard units of the states which wholesale joined the Rebels. Bases in conservative areas and states would get occupied by rebel forces rather quickly.
Then the loyalist areas would run into another problem. Food. Most food production is located in conservative areas. The cities would get cut off rather quickly, leading to starvation, as our modern infrastructure has almost no food stored long term. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego would quickly have millions of starving civilians living under martial law.
Skaorn wrote: I always love the people who say they need guns to protect against a tyrranical government. A tyrranical government will just send a predator drone to take out their domestic terrorist group at one of their strategy sessions, aka little Timmy's backyard birthday BBQ.
Neat concept. How many millions of drones do they have? Not millions? Shame, because one casualty inducing drone strike on US soil to eliminate a dissident would kick off any uprising that I think you're incapable of picturing. So unless you see fleets of Predators being produced wholesale and a massive drone pilot training program, this idea is about as far fetched as the FEMA death camp garbage from years prior.
About a far fetched as the fantasy that a "militia" of "patriots" can overthrow a democratically elected government, if said government does something these "militia" doesn't like?
Grey Templar wrote: In the event of an actual civil war, the government would rapidly run out of ammunition for surgical strike weapons. These type of weapons also require knowing where the target is. The rebels wouldn't be announcing their HQ locations via facebook.
There are only so many bird sanctuaries in the country, though.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
Which is just government steps to restrict the rights of the citizens.
When the 2nd Amendment was written, it was done so with the idea that citizens would have access to the same weaponry that the government had. Hence private citizens owning ships carrying cannons and the like. The "needlessly powerful" is just a way to get people thinking it's ok to restrict the rights.
This is bullgak. The idea behind the 2nd Amendment is that it is there so the citizens can defend themselves against tyranny. So now you are telling me it is really there to protect against pirates and other countries in international waters?
How many private ships do you see with military weaponry out there?
Hate to break it to you, but when the country was founded the idea was that the citizens would be the primary defense of the nation not just because they couldn't afford a standing army but because standing armies lead to behaviors that were harmful to a free state. The 2nd Amendment is for defending the nation. Defending from Pirates, French Canadians, the Dutch, Giant robots, Godzilla, take your fething pick.
Hate to break it to you, but when the country was founded the idea was that the citizens would be the primary defense of the nation not just because they couldn't afford a standing army but because standing armies lead to behaviors that were harmful to a free state. The 2nd Amendment is for defending the nation. Defending from Pirates, French Canadians, the Dutch, Giant robots, Godzilla, take your fething pick.
It was also a total reality that there were no elaborate funding apparatus for things like ships and other heavy implements of war. There were no Blackwaters, no KBR, no federal shipyards or anything of the sort at that point.
We've since moved beyond that world and should discuss the merits/demerits of the 2nd amendment, the way most other amendments have as well.
As somebody who experienced the LA riots within blocks of where I lived I'm really glad that my dad and several neighbors were armed at the time as it kept our block from going up in flames while the police and fire departments were completely overwhelmed and unable to respond to anything. You can be in a very urban area with a regular police force and still be left to fend completely for yourself.
A high capacity semi auto rifle is a wonderful visual deterrent that will cause people to reconsider things and back off just by it's presence. If things were to jump off and you need to actually fire you have the ability to deal with multiple threats which is much harder to with single shot rifles, shotguns or revolvers. People have the understanding that as a group they have a chance to rush somebody with a more limited firearm, but when confronted with a high capacity weapon they don't want to deal with that risk and will move on to easier pickings. Many anti gun protesters are quick to say that "you don't need many shots" to defend your home, family or business, which simply isn't true. While riots aren't a frequent thing if you are ever faced with one it's very reassuring to know that you have a weapon capable of being an asset when dealing with that type of situation or any other situation where you are dealing with more than one threat..
The 2nd amendment allows us to defend ourselves when the state or civil services fail to protect us, or are too slow to act, which has happened before and will continue to happen in the future. Our daily lives tend to be pretty conflict free and well organized but discord and mass violence can flare up anywhere and when it does the protection that we take for granted suddenly evaporates and you have have to protect yourself and your family. It's about preserving the ability to take personal responsibility for your own welfare.
BaronIveagh wrote: They may indeed, but their gun murder rate is not 30% of the US per capita rate.
Norway has 0.56 intentional homicides per 100,000 people. The United States has 4.88. The US rate per capita is more than 8 times Norway. But then Japan is 0.31, almost half of Norway's again.
While this doesn't prove the impact of gun proliferation on homicides, the countries you offered up do happen to track from most guns to least guns in the same order they track from most murders per capita to least murders per capita, so claiming it as evidence that guns have no impact seems pretty odd.
Instead it's down around Japans. Which bans guns. So,if it's not the number of guns...
Then the cause is something else.
You're missing some really obvious stuff. First, no-one is making the argument that guns alone drive the murder rate. Other factors, such a policing effectiveness, education levels and income equality also impact murder, as they impact overall crime rates.
The second factor you're missing is the nature and type of gun ownership. Norway has a lot of guns but these are almost entirely bolt action rifles and shotguns, due to the country's strong hunting culture. Pistols are mostly sporting pistols. What there are very few of are semi-auto pistols, which just happen to be the weapons used in most murders in the US. Funny that.
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Just Tony wrote: Neat concept. How many millions of drones do they have? Not millions? Shame, because one casualty inducing drone strike on US soil to eliminate a dissident would kick off any uprising that I think you're incapable of picturing. So unless you see fleets of Predators being produced wholesale and a massive drone pilot training program, this idea is about as far fetched as the FEMA death camp garbage from years prior.
Trash argument. You've invented a fantasy where the government attack is done without any greater context, such as a situation where civilians have already taken violent actions of their own.
In reality the drone strike would be taking place in an environment where there was already violence, and a resistance effective enough that federal government isn't confident of approaching the scene with conventional ground based forces. In that context the idea that a drone strike would be some enormous rallying call for resistors is nonsense, as it requires a very high level of resistance in the first place.
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Grey Templar wrote: In the event of an actual civil war, the government would rapidly run out of ammunition for surgical strike weapons. These type of weapons also require knowing where the target is.
Another trash argument. First up you've made an assumption that government would need precision weapons for every single resistance fighter, completely ignoring that such weapons don't need to kill every single person in the enemy organisation, but are used to dismantle the structure by taking out essential command personnel. You've also assumed that government can't locate key targets, despite witnessing a decade of US operations in the ME where they have been used to take out those exact kinds of targets.
These two awful arguments get at the core of a key fact about the pro-gun faction. Because these guys want their guns in order to be able to fight their government if needed, so you'd think they'd have a pretty good idea about how such fighting started and how it was won and lost. And yet they post argument like these latest two efforts, which are just silliness to be honest.
It's like if someone told you they went running every evening to build their fitness, because they want to be a professional tennis player. Fine. But if they go on to explain that fitness is a very important part of being ready to hit the fuzzy thing with the bat, then after explaining the fuzzy thing is called a ball and the bat is called a racquet, you would probably start to suspect that while it's good they go for a run and build their fitness, it pretty obviously has nothing to do with tennis.
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Insurgency Walker wrote: Hate to break it to you, but when the country was founded the idea was that the citizens would be the primary defense of the nation not just because they couldn't afford a standing army but because standing armies lead to behaviors that were harmful to a free state. The 2nd Amendment is for defending the nation. Defending from Pirates, French Canadians, the Dutch, Giant robots, Godzilla, take your fething pick.
You might not have noticed, but despite all that talk the US now has a standing army. Quite a big one.
Obviously it’s part of a greater conflict, a conflict on such a scale that no army on earth could win without resorting to nuclear weapons. Precision weapons are pretty useless in a war like that.
Grey Templar wrote: Obviously it’s part of a greater conflict, a conflict on such a scale that no army on earth could win without resorting to nuclear weapons. Precision weapons are pretty useless in a war like that.
That's not even close to being true. A resistance movement can be 1% of the population, 10%, or it can be 90%. And depending on the nature of the resistance org and the conflict it produces, it could have a ratio of 1 fighting man for every 10 supporters, or it could be 1 to 100. Then we need to consider if that resistance is locally concentrated or dispersed, each of which has strengths and acute weaknesses. And that movement could have very hierarchical structures, or it could be highly dispersed.
All of that impacts what operations can defeat that resistance movement, with most conflicts being likely resolved a long time before you reach the point of needing nukes to do it.
So I'll say it again, when people who want guns so they're ready in case they have to fight their government then start posting stuff like 'no army on earth could win without resorting to nuclear weapons', well while they might genuinely believe their guns are there to help them just in case, their remarkable lack of knowledge about how and why resistance movements are fought proves the real reason is nothing to do with being ready to fight a revolutionary war.
Skaorn wrote: I always love the people who say they need guns to protect against a tyrranical government. A tyrranical government will just send a predator drone to take out their domestic terrorist group at one of their strategy sessions, aka little Timmy's backyard birthday BBQ.
Neat concept. How many millions of drones do they have? Not millions? Shame, because one casualty inducing drone strike on US soil to eliminate a dissident would kick off any uprising that I think you're incapable of picturing. So unless you see fleets of Predators being produced wholesale and a massive drone pilot training program, this idea is about as far fetched as the FEMA death camp garbage from years prior.
LMFAO! You assume they'll tell you when the black hat is on. They'll just smear it all over the media that incompetent domestic terrorists accidentally blew themselves up and that authorities are looking into leads to other cells. People will ultimately believe it because it's a much more convenient story to believe as it doesn't require them to do anything. Really you only have to do that to the troublesome ones though, chances are they'll just round people up at night with strike teams in an APC. Hopefully you're armed to take one of those out, otherwise it's just one more dangerous terrorist contained. If you are armed like that, they'd probably just use the drone.
You assume that all outlets will report the lie. You assume that all gun owners who are armed explicitly in the potential defense of freedom will advertise. You also assume that the government can outrace social media. The only assumption I make is that the US government currently doesn't have NEARLY the infinite resources or manpower... sorry, personpower to deal with every armed citizen in the country rising up against it if it became tyrannical. You also assume every military person would follow an unlawful order, which is woefully wrong.
Skaorn wrote: I always love the people who say they need guns to protect against a tyrranical government. A tyrranical government will just send a predator drone to take out their domestic terrorist group at one of their strategy sessions, aka little Timmy's backyard birthday BBQ.
Neat concept. How many millions of drones do they have? Not millions? Shame, because one casualty inducing drone strike on US soil to eliminate a dissident would kick off any uprising that I think you're incapable of picturing. So unless you see fleets of Predators being produced wholesale and a massive drone pilot training program, this idea is about as far fetched as the FEMA death camp garbage from years prior.
LMFAO! You assume they'll tell you when the black hat is on. They'll just smear it all over the media that incompetent domestic terrorists accidentally blew themselves up and that authorities are looking into leads to other cells. People will ultimately believe it because it's a much more convenient story to believe as it doesn't require them to do anything. Really you only have to do that to the troublesome ones though, chances are they'll just round people up at night with strike teams in an APC. Hopefully you're armed to take one of those out, otherwise it's just one more dangerous terrorist contained. If you are armed like that, they'd probably just use the drone.
Yeah, "war on Terror". That's why some find the patriot act (and the surrounding security theater) to be less than patriotic.
But let us talk about the Militia for a moment. The Militia is a community level organization that is directed by the state. As such currently an extension of the States National guard, as the state gets to appoint the Militia officers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "I joined the Militia and all I got was this stupid belt buckle"
Joke for all you civil war fans
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
Funny thing is - a .50 desert eagle puts out less muzzle energy than a 5.56mm (which is just a high velocity .22). These are not powerful weapons.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
Funny thing is - a .50 desert eagle puts out less muzzle energy than a 5.56mm (which is just a high velocity .22). These are not powerful weapons.
Though transfer of that kinetic energy of a .50 AE vs. a 5,56x45mm into a target is usually more devastating thanks to the larger impact diameter, less overpenetration and usually more malleable bullet, if I'm not completely mistaken. Disregarding that "tumbling bullet" thingy that apparently happens in some 5,56x45mm rifles.
In the end, both large-bore handguns and the vast majority of rifles are very dangerous, with the difference that rifle caliber weapons have more hunting applications than large-bore handguns, I guess. I don't claim to be an expert.
Just Tony wrote: You assume that all outlets will report the lie. You assume that all gun owners who are armed explicitly in the potential defense of freedom will advertise. You also assume that the government can outrace social media. The only assumption I make is that the US government currently doesn't have NEARLY the infinite resources or manpower... sorry, personpower to deal with every armed citizen in the country rising up against it if it became tyrannical. You also assume every military person would follow an unlawful order, which is woefully wrong.
All the government needs to do to prevent such an uprising is maintain the outward appearance of democracy. As long as that facade is maintained, violent response will be viewed incredibly harshly. Hell, even Che Guevara said that you could only begin an armed revolution when any illusion of democracy was removed. Until that point you will have an incredibly hard time gathering support as people will still want to act within the democratic system. Like how Mugabe held onto power for decades without there being any armed revolution which deposed him.
And just have the police carry out the raids on the subversive elements. Many gun owners will fall in line to protect the cops as they had to shoot first so they could go back home to their families.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
Funny thing is - a .50 desert eagle puts out less muzzle energy than a 5.56mm (which is just a high velocity .22). These are not powerful weapons.
Though transfer of that kinetic energy of a .50 AE vs. a 5,56x45mm into a target is usually more devastating thanks to the larger impact diameter, less overpenetration and usually more malleable bullet, if I'm not completely mistaken. Disregarding that "tumbling bullet" thingy that apparently happens in some 5,56x45mm rifles.
In the end, both large-bore handguns and the vast majority of rifles are very dangerous, with the difference that rifle caliber weapons have more hunting applications than large-bore handguns, I guess. I don't claim to be an expert.
I'm simply making this point.
Someone claimed that a .50 pistol is unnecessarily powerful. However - it's still weaker than what is considered to be a very weak rifle calbre. Penetration is typically considered a good thing for a round also (though it can mean less energy transferred to the target) it also means it it can penetrate body armor and other obstructions on the way to the target.
All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
What I find interesting about the fantasies of holding off the government is that more than likely the people that have them will be on the side of the government if things took a turn. The wistful dreaming seems based around some overt evil government when the reality will be far less obvious.
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
I can't think of any that were successful and didn't receive aid. There are plenty that would have succeeded with or without that aid.
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
I can't think of any that were successful and didn't receive aid.
That's where I'm at. Can you imagine any other nation on earth willing to oppose the American government in event of an ACW 2?
There are plenty that would have succeeded with or without that aid.
I don't know about that. Perhaps the various popular revolts in the various banana republics?
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
I can't think of any that were successful and didn't receive aid.
That's where I'm at. Can you imagine any other nation on earth willing to oppose the American government in event of an ACW 2?
Well thats kinda the point of the 2nd amendment. That any future Civil war wouldn't need foreign aid. The purpose of the 2nd is that the citizens be armed to the extent that they can fight back. Plus the side benefits of defense against criminals and dangerous critters.
And yeah, I can think of several countries that would gladly smuggle in weaponry. Russia and China just to name two.
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
Depends on the definition of aid, I suppose.
If we just mean direct combat aid (such as supplying air cover, fighting personnel etc.) then the Cuban Revolution would qualify. If we mean any action taken to weaken the government of the country undergoing a revolution, then I don't think so.
The armed forces of the Batista regime were weakened by an arms embargo imposed by the USA, cutting them off from replacement parts for their aircraft, among other things. But the actual fighting was pretty much all done by the Cuban people. If the Batista regime had air power throughout the conflict then it might not have resulted in the victory of the revolutionaries as they would have been much more vulnerable when moving out of their main strongholds to capture the cities in the final days of the war, to say nothing of what effect increased aerial surveillance could have had.
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
The revolutionary war in the states almost qualifies - that war revolution succeeded a lot more due to weather than the french though.
It's not like aid should be ruled out. As in a fully armed populace to support a resistance is a good place to start when asking for help from foreign governments.
Grey Templar wrote:
And yeah, I can think of several countries that would gladly smuggle in weaponry. Russia and China just to name two.
What interest would authoritarian states like Russia and China have in restoring a strong American Democracy?
They might smuggle in the sort of weapons that could prolong conflict, but not win.
Xenomancers wrote:
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
The revolutionary war in the states almost qualifies - that war revolution succeeded a lot more due to weather than the french though.
It's not like aid should be ruled out. As in a fully armed populace to support a resistance is a good place to start when asking for help from foreign governments.
I have a hard time thinking of nations that would be interested in allying with an insurrection that could meaningfully resist the American military. Maybe some kind of British-French-German-Japan coalition?
Grey Templar wrote:
And yeah, I can think of several countries that would gladly smuggle in weaponry. Russia and China just to name two.
What interest would authoritarian states like Russia and China have in restoring a strong American Democracy?
They might smuggle in the sort of weapons that could prolong conflict, but not win.
Xenomancers wrote:
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
The revolutionary war in the states almost qualifies - that war revolution succeeded a lot more due to weather than the french though.
It's not like aid should be ruled out. As in a fully armed populace to support a resistance is a good place to start when asking for help from foreign governments.
I have a hard time thinking of nations that would be interested in allying with an insurrection that could meaningfully resist the American military. Maybe some kind of British-French-German-Japan coalition?
I doubt it.
I thought I was going to stay out of this, but here we go:
The government would have to keep the countries infrastructure intact, so they can't bring their biggest weapons to bear. You won't see bombing runs, or armored companies running down the streets of Philadelphia (not that I would complain about it at the current moment). None of this even accounts for a percentage of military personnel that will refuse orders to put down the rebellion. Our armed forces swear to uphold the constitution, not the government, so its entirely possible to have a massive schism within the military.
So yeah, its entirely possible that a second revolution would be won. If we will ever reach that point, only time will tell. Odds are it will involve the Bundys, though.
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
The Dorr Rebellion in 1842 could be called a long term success even though it failed to enact change in the short term.
In a similar fashion the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 was a short term defeat of the United Mine Workers in West Virginia but highlighted the plight of the miners and laid the groundwork for union gains under the New Deal a decade later.
While the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s was successful there were numerous attempts at armed rebellion such as the Glenville Shootout in 1968 and incidents of armed/violent resistance like the 1969 Greensboro Uprising.
It's also notable that within a few years of winning our War for Independence the newly formed Federal government had to deal with Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts which played a large role in calling the constitutional convention to replace the Articles of Confederation and the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania that directly challenged the newly formed Federal government's powers of taxation. The second amendment was proposed and ratified after the government had to put down Shays Rebellion and was kept unaltered after the Whiskey Rebellion was quelled. The governing politicians of the time didn't see an armed populace as a detriment or threat to the country even after thousands took up arms against the government.
The second amendment has always been about empowering the populace to be capable of self reliance and to curb government authority by enabling the people to push back if necessary. Our government isn't supposed to be scared of being overthrown by an armed populace they're supposed to be respectful of an armed populace because imposing too much governmental control over their lives can result in violence and bloodshed that would be damaging to the country.
Grey Templar wrote:
And yeah, I can think of several countries that would gladly smuggle in weaponry. Russia and China just to name two.
What interest would authoritarian states like Russia and China have in restoring a strong American Democracy?
They might smuggle in the sort of weapons that could prolong conflict, but not win.
Xenomancers wrote:
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
The revolutionary war in the states almost qualifies - that war revolution succeeded a lot more due to weather than the french though.
It's not like aid should be ruled out. As in a fully armed populace to support a resistance is a good place to start when asking for help from foreign governments.
I have a hard time thinking of nations that would be interested in allying with an insurrection that could meaningfully resist the American military. Maybe some kind of British-French-German-Japan coalition?
I doubt it.
I thought I was going to stay out of this, but here we go:
The government would have to keep the countries infrastructure intact, so they can't bring their biggest weapons to bear. You won't see bombing runs, or armored companies running down the streets of Philadelphia (not that I would complain about it at the current moment). None of this even accounts for a percentage of military personnel that will refuse orders to put down the rebellion. Our armed forces swear to uphold the constitution, not the government, so its entirely possible to have a massive schism within the military.
So yeah, its entirely possible that a second revolution would be won. If we will ever reach that point, only time will tell. Odds are it will involve the Bundys, though.
I doubt it would involve the Bundys. Nobody of note wants to follow those fethwits anywhere and even the better organized III%er groups are incredibly cringeworthy once you really examine them.
I doubt we'll ever see another Civil War but if things ever got destabilized I would imagine it would be more along the Federal vs State divide. Something like Trump letting Sessions turn the DEA loose on states that legalized marijuana, shutting down dispensaries and arresting owners, investors and patrons and prosecuting them Federally. Or doing something similarly stupid with guns or public lands or shared state resources that gets the State authorities squaring off against each other with everyone else caught in the crossfire.
Just Tony wrote:You assume that all outlets will report the lie. You assume that all gun owners who are armed explicitly in the potential defense of freedom will advertise. You also assume that the government can outrace social media. The only assumption I make is that the US government currently doesn't have NEARLY the infinite resources or manpower... sorry, personpower to deal with every armed citizen in the country rising up against it if it became tyrannical. You also assume every military person would follow an unlawful order, which is woefully wrong.
And you assume that everybody would rally against the US government. I've heard enough talk of tyrannical policies that Fox News is advocating for. Why assume that this demographic of "patriots" will rise up against this tyrannical government instead of support it?
I assume that people who legally own guns are aware of WHY the 2nd Amendment exists. I also assume that there's no way they'd be able to keep any sort of human rights violation quiet in any way, shape, or form. Wiping out someone they didn't like is a direct violation of due process, and therefore would be an unlawful order. Speaking as a military person, NOBODY who takes their oath of service seriously would follow that order. So it's not assumptive to think that the government takes this into consideration, it's intuitive and logical. It's also logical that certain groups do INDEED want to revoke the 2nd, and lo and behold it's the same group that isn't shy about having personal liberties taken away.
Just Tony wrote: I assume that people who legally own guns are aware of WHY the 2nd Amendment exists. I also assume that there's no way they'd be able to keep any sort of human rights violation quiet in any way, shape, or form. Wiping out someone they didn't like is a direct violation of due process, and therefore would be an unlawful order. Speaking as a military person, NOBODY who takes their oath of service seriously would follow that order. So it's not assumptive to think that the government takes this into consideration, it's intuitive and logical. It's also logical that certain groups do INDEED want to revoke the 2nd, and lo and behold it's the same group that isn't shy about having personal liberties taken away.
These are some pretty bizarre arguments.
1.) The assumption that just because someone owns a gun means they understand why the 2nd amendment exist also means that by definition, no newspaper can defame someone, because by dint of owning a printing press, they understand how that fits into larger society.
2.) You appear to be arguing that no military person who follow an unlawful order? There are no shortage of examples of that in US history. I see you did preface it with a No True Scotsman, but doing so just makes it a meaningless argument.
So we should assume that every gun owner is ignorant and every service member is corrupt?
And should I be reading Urban Dictionary in my free time so I can keep up with the bizarre terms? It was inconvenient enough dealing with "Flanderization"...
Just Tony wrote: So we should assume that every gun owner is ignorant and every service member is corrupt?
And should I be reading Urban Dictionary in my free time so I can keep up with the bizarre terms? It was inconvenient enough dealing with "Flanderization"...
Just do what I do when I come across a term I'm unfamiliar with, like I just did with "flanderization." Take 2 seconds and google it.
Just Tony wrote: So we should assume that every gun owner is ignorant and every service member is corrupt?
And should I be reading Urban Dictionary in my free time so I can keep up with the bizarre terms? It was inconvenient enough dealing with "Flanderization"...
No, that would be just as bizarre in the exact opposite direction. If I go to the store and am supposed to buy oranges, and I forget, it would be a little silly for me to ask my wife if the only reasonable alternative would to have been for me to buy the entire stock of oranges.
The act of successfully filling out a 4473 doesn't magically make you an expert in constitutional law. It just proves you can read and don't have a record.
Just Tony wrote: I assume that people who legally own guns are aware of WHY the 2nd Amendment exists. I also assume that there's no way they'd be able to keep any sort of human rights violation quiet in any way, shape, or form. Wiping out someone they didn't like is a direct violation of due process, and therefore would be an unlawful order. Speaking as a military person, NOBODY who takes their oath of service seriously would follow that order.
The new President of the NRA is a former military officer who followed orders to sell weapons to Iran in direct violation of US law so the cash could be funneled to Nicaraguan narco-terrorists. Methinks we're being a wee bit generous in our expectations
Just Tony wrote: I assume that people who legally own guns are aware of WHY the 2nd Amendment exists. I also assume that there's no way they'd be able to keep any sort of human rights violation quiet in any way, shape, or form. Wiping out someone they didn't like is a direct violation of due process, and therefore would be an unlawful order. Speaking as a military person, NOBODY who takes their oath of service seriously would follow that order.
The new President of the NRA is a former military officer who followed orders to sell weapons to Iran in direct violation of US law so the cash could be funneled to Nicaraguan narco-terrorists. Methinks we're being a wee bit generous in our expectations
But he did it for a good cause! We can excuse a lot of unlawful orders as long as the other party is real donkey-caves. Or at least portrayed as such.
feeder wrote: All this talk of armed insurrection against a tyrannical American government got me thinking. Has there ever been a successful citizen's uprising, without the aid of a foreign government?
I can't think of any that were successful and didn't receive aid. There are plenty that would have succeeded with or without that aid.
Insurgency Walker wrote: As such currently an extension of the States National guard, as the state gets to appoint the Militia officers.
No. . . it IS the national guard.
The national guard is something different from the Militia. The states are responsible for choosing the officers of the Militia but they don't have to come from within the national guard. The presence of the national guard does not supplant the Militia or obsolete it.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The armed forces of the Batista regime were weakened by an arms embargo imposed by the USA, cutting them off from replacement parts for their aircraft, among other things.
But the actual fighting was pretty much all done by the Cuban people. If the Batista regime had air power throughout the conflict then it might not have resulted in the victory of the revolutionaries as they would have been much more vulnerable when moving out of their main strongholds to capture the cities in the final days of the war, to say nothing of what effect increased aerial surveillance could have had.
The revolutionaries were directly supplied and supported by Soviet Russia. The revolutionaries may have done the fighting, but they did it with Soviet rifles.
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Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote: The government would have to keep the countries infrastructure intact, so they can't bring their biggest weapons to bear. You won't see bombing runs, or armored companies running down the streets of Philadelphia (not that I would complain about it at the current moment). None of this even accounts for a percentage of military personnel that will refuse orders to put down the rebellion. Our armed forces swear to uphold the constitution, not the government, so its entirely possible to have a massive schism within the military.
The Syrian conflict is worth examining in light of your post. The conflict there supports your point that it any conflict is likely to produce a schism in the military. The conflict there began when a significant portion of the military refused to support Assad's brutal repression.
However, the extraordinary devastation in Syria, such as Assad placing whole cities under general bombardment, shows that in a sufficiently serious civil war, there is no holding back. And that isn't just Syria, some of history's most brutal, destructive wars were civil wars. The Russian, Spanish and American Civil Wars were not noted for their restraint by military forces.
They restrict stuff like anti-tank revolvers because it's "needlessly powerful",
I want to see an 'anti tank revolver'.
Sorry for my hyperbole. I meant any stuff that's needlessly powerful for anything you're allowed to do with it. The only place an ordinary citizen can see, handle and shoot a Desert Eagle .50 is at a shooting club, for example. We're generally not allowed to hunt with handguns either so someone wanting a SW 500 or a 45-70 revolver had better be a collector. It won't stop a tank but it might stop a car. In short, if the only possible application is killing other people (either by being powerful or easy to conceal) we probably can't get a permit. You don't need a DE 50 for IPSC shooting competitions.
I also know I can easily fit a foldable-stock assault rifle under a long coat, but I'm not getting a permit for one.
Which is just government steps to restrict the rights of the citizens.
When the 2nd Amendment was written, it was done so with the idea that citizens would have access to the same weaponry that the government had. Hence private citizens owning ships carrying cannons and the like. The "needlessly powerful" is just a way to get people thinking it's ok to restrict the rights.
This is bullgak. The idea behind the 2nd Amendment is that it is there so the citizens can defend themselves against tyranny. So now you are telling me it is really there to protect against pirates and other countries in international waters?
How many private ships do you see with military weaponry out there?
Hate to break it to you, but when the country was founded the idea was that the citizens would be the primary defense of the nation not just because they couldn't afford a standing army but because standing armies lead to behaviors that were harmful to a free state. The 2nd Amendment is for defending the nation. Defending from Pirates, French Canadians, the Dutch, Giant robots, Godzilla, take your fething pick.
So you are saying the 2nd Amendment is pointless now that we have a standing volunteer army and the world's most powerful military?
So you are saying the 2nd Amendment is pointless now that we have a standing volunteer army and the world's most powerful military?
No, because that military would be grossly outnumbered if even 10% of the US citizens took up arms against it. I seem to recall an exercise a few years back where the military's opponents was supposed to represent the local people and the National Guard fighting against them. I forget to be honest how it turne out, but the scandal that arose from it made it sound like it didn't end well for the army.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The armed forces of the Batista regime were weakened by an arms embargo imposed by the USA, cutting them off from replacement parts for their aircraft, among other things.
But the actual fighting was pretty much all done by the Cuban people. If the Batista regime had air power throughout the conflict then it might not have resulted in the victory of the revolutionaries as they would have been much more vulnerable when moving out of their main strongholds to capture the cities in the final days of the war, to say nothing of what effect increased aerial surveillance could have had.
The revolutionaries were directly supplied and supported by Soviet Russia. The revolutionaries may have done the fighting, but they did it with Soviet rifles.
Only at the beginning for their initial departure from Mexico (most of which were lost after they were ambushed after landing). After that they acquired their weapons and ammunition from defeated Batista soldiers.
Kilkrazy wrote: The USA did have a civil war and the government won.
Using the Militia of course. That is where my belt buckle joke came from. A very common artifact from battlefields is the VMM buckle and cartridge box cover plate. Folks from Maine joined up in droves when they called up the Maine Militia.
However the important point is that the existence of a large, well-armed militia movement did not prevent the government from winning the war.
Well that could be in part to the fact that the south had a smaller Militia pool to begin with. Militia is functional in a free state, but when large parts of the population is disarmed, like slaves.....
Or when large parts of the population don't support the troops/government. A good part of the reason why the communists won in China was because the Nationalists ah...sucked donkey balls....and were not worth fighting for.
Insurgency Walker wrote: As such currently an extension of the States National guard, as the state gets to appoint the Militia officers.
No. . . it IS the national guard.
The national guard is something different from the Militia. The states are responsible for choosing the officers of the Militia but they don't have to come from within the national guard. The presence of the national guard does not supplant the Militia or obsolete it.
I think you need to look up the law. . . the national guard is, per federal law the "organized militia" and you're quite simply wrong here.
However the important point is that the existence of a large, well-armed militia movement did not prevent the government from winning the war.
Thats incorrect but in the inverse. A majority of the forces fighting for the Light (aka union) at the start were actually state militias and formations. Thats one reason in the first year they were equipped with an array of weaponry, from rifles to rifled muskets, to old style smooth bore muskets. This is particularly true of early battles like Bull Run. It took a bit for them to start to standardize kit.
Its kind of like December - February 1941-1942 in the Pacific. Formations fighting the Japanese were more typically armed with Springfields and heavy machine guns and Tommy style helmets. Even at guadalcanal the First Marine Division was equipped with a melange of gear - 1930s weapons but newer helmets etc.
However the important point is that the existence of a large, well-armed militia movement did not prevent the government from winning the war.
I was simply making the point that the Union had a lot more expendable bodies to send into battle. The civil war was about who was willing to lose more men. Many died on all sides from all over the place. Today things would be much different. We appreciate life a lot more today. Look at Palestine. 50 People die in Gaza and the world reacts against it. Imagine how the world would react to hundreds of Americans dying in the same way - waving american flags and screaming about the core values of democracy...the war would be over before it even started.
Insurgency Walker wrote: As such currently an extension of the States National guard, as the state gets to appoint the Militia officers.
No. . . it IS the national guard.
The national guard is something different from the Militia. The states are responsible for choosing the officers of the Militia but they don't have to come from within the national guard. The presence of the national guard does not supplant the Militia or obsolete it.
I think you need to look up the law. . . the national guard is, per federal law the "organized militia" and you're quite simply wrong here.
National guard is quite literally a reserve army. Trained in the same way as regular army by the army.
However the important point is that the existence of a large, well-armed militia movement did not prevent the government from winning the war.
I was simply making the point that the Union had a lot more expendable bodies to send into battle. The civil war was about who was willing to lose more men. Many died on all sides from all over the place. Today things would be much different. We appreciate life a lot more today. Look at Palestine. 50 People die in Gaza and the world reacts against it. Imagine how the world would react to hundreds of Americans dying in the same way - waving american flags and screaming about the core values of democracy...the war would be over before it even started.
Really? Then why is the Syrian civil war still going?
So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
Well, the argument was advanced that it's impossible to enact gun legislation in the USA because it would provoke a civil war which inevitably would be won by the side with the armed militia, i.e. gun owners.
The purpose of my postings on the ACW was to show that the armed militia might not all go to one side, and the government might win anyway.
However, if reasonable gun control legislation was enacted and did provoke a civil war which was won by the pro-gun side, the situation would arise that the militias formed with the purpose of defending the rule of law against tyranny would have ended up imposiing tyranny over the rule of law at the point of the gun. This would be most ironic, I feel.
Insurgency Walker wrote: As such currently an extension of the States National guard, as the state gets to appoint the Militia officers.
No. . . it IS the national guard.
The national guard is something different from the Militia. The states are responsible for choosing the officers of the Militia but they don't have to come from within the national guard. The presence of the national guard does not supplant the Militia or obsolete it.
I think you need to look up the law. . . the national guard is, per federal law the "organized militia" and you're quite simply wrong here.
National guard is quite literally a reserve army. Trained in the same way as regular army by the army.
However the important point is that the existence of a large, well-armed militia movement did not prevent the government from winning the war.
I was simply making the point that the Union had a lot more expendable bodies to send into battle. The civil war was about who was willing to lose more men. Many died on all sides from all over the place. Today things would be much different. We appreciate life a lot more today. Look at Palestine. 50 People die in Gaza and the world reacts against it. Imagine how the world would react to hundreds of Americans dying in the same way - waving american flags and screaming about the core values of democracy...the war would be over before it even started.
Really? Then why is the Syrian civil war still going?
Because the world doesn't care for ether faction. Islamic extremist or tyranical overlord? Which side do you chose?
Kilkrazy wrote: Well, the argument was advanced that it's impossible to enact gun legislation in the USA because it would provoke a civil war which inevitably would be won by the side with the armed militia, i.e. gun owners.
The purpose of my postings on the ACW was to show that the armed militia might not all go to one side, and the government might win anyway.
However, if reasonable gun control legislation was enacted and did provoke a civil war which was won by the pro-gun side, the situation would arise that the militias formed with the purpose of defending the rule of law against tyranny would have ended up imposiing tyranny over the rule of law at the point of the gun. This would be most ironic, I feel.
If somehow Congress passed new gun control legislation that was so draconian that it pushed a third of the country to take up arms against its enforcement and ignite a civil war then I would think that such legislation could not be described as “reasonable.”
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Easy E wrote: So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
Why would today be different from any other day?
Nobody in authority is even going to attempt to address root causes they’re just going to push tangential issue in an effort to drive up turnout from their respective Party base in election years.
Kilkrazy wrote: Well, the argument was advanced that it's impossible to enact gun legislation in the USA because it would provoke a civil war which inevitably would be won by the side with the armed militia, i.e. gun owners.
The purpose of my postings on the ACW was to show that the armed militia might not all go to one side, and the government might win anyway.
However, if reasonable gun control legislation was enacted and did provoke a civil war which was won by the pro-gun side, the situation would arise that the militias formed with the purpose of defending the rule of law against tyranny would have ended up imposiing tyranny over the rule of law at the point of the gun. This would be most ironic, I feel.
I don't know how you would define reasonable legislation but truly reasonable legislation is not going to start a war. I feel like a gun grab could incite something. Me - I would just regretfully hand over whatever the government demanded from me - because I have a good life and a lot to lose. Lots of deep south people are willing to stand for that kind of stuff and it could get really ugly real fast. Lets just go with what we know works. Make a federal law that any fire arm purchase requires a 3 day waiting period - this would reduce gun death by suicide in every state that doesn't have this requirement. Lets stop broadcasting mass shooting event's shooters names and such this could reduce the copy cat effect. Lets start a massive campaign against violence of all kinds in schools.
Insurgency Walker wrote: As such currently an extension of the States National guard, as the state gets to appoint the Militia officers.
No. . . it IS the national guard.
The national guard is something different from the Militia. The states are responsible for choosing the officers of the Militia but they don't have to come from within the national guard. The presence of the national guard does not supplant the Militia or obsolete it.
I think you need to look up the law. . . the national guard is, per federal law the "organized militia" and you're quite simply wrong here.
There's organized and unorganized militia... federally.
Organized militia – consisting of State militia forces; notably, the National Guard and Naval Militia.[8] (Note: the National Guard is not to be confused with the National Guard of the United States.)
Unorganized militia – composing the Reserve Militia: every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age, not a member of the National Guard or Naval Militia.
The 2nd amendment applies to both. However, I don't think it's kosher (not that it's very clear) to have the state choose an officer from the unorganized militia to command the national guard (organized militia).
Easy E wrote: So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
I think you're right. Plus its an election year. Plus Congress doesn't appear to be voting on anything. I think Congress has taken a multiyear vacation now.
I think Trump thinks its a win if he passes one thing a year.
Oops this is a US politics post, my bad.
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
Common sense gun control from an avowed gun nut! A rare sight in the wild
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
Common sense gun control from an avowed gun nut! A rare sight in the wild
Honestly, no issues with these at all. (the CHL Reciprocity Act will be hard fought tho, unless there's a standard to receive a CHL).
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
Common sense gun control from an avowed gun nut! A rare sight in the wild
I am not immediately opposed to any of these except perhaps the 21 age requirement. Not because I don't think it will be effective. I just think it's a form of age discrimination. Like it's no doubt the road would be a safer place if senior citizens weren't allowed to drive - but it would still be wrong to deny them the right to drive.
I assume there already is an age requirement on buying guns and driving, it’s just not 21. Some states don’t allow drinking alcohol before 21, why not gun ownership?
However the important point is that the existence of a large, well-armed militia movement did not prevent the government from winning the war.
I was simply making the point that the Union had a lot more expendable bodies to send into battle. The civil war was about who was willing to lose more men. Many died on all sides from all over the place. Today things would be much different. We appreciate life a lot more today. Look at Palestine. 50 People die in Gaza and the world reacts against it. Imagine how the world would react to hundreds of Americans dying in the same way - waving american flags and screaming about the core values of democracy...the war would be over before it even started.
Really? Then why is the Syrian civil war still going?
Because the world doesn't care for ether faction. Islamic extremist or tyranical overlord? Which side do you chose?
There were more factions at first and the world didn't care when civilians got bombed, it only started caring once it had to take care of the refugees from the conflict, and then the caring was mostly "ew, foreigners, get them out!".
Easy E wrote: So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
I think you're right. Plus its an election year. Plus Congress doesn't appear to be voting on anything. I think Congress has taken a multiyear vacation now.
I think Trump thinks its a win if he passes one thing a year.
Oops this is a US politics post, my bad.
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
I would absolutely support this.
Howard A Treesong wrote:I assume there already is an age requirement on buying guns and driving, it’s just not 21. Some states don’t allow drinking alcohol before 21, why not gun ownership?
Drinking is not a constitutional right. If they aren't mature enough to handle firearms at 18 (legal age of adulthood), why are we letting them vote, or enlist in the military, or drive, or practice free speech? (That's what the pushback would be, not my personal opinion)
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
Common sense gun control from an avowed gun nut! A rare sight in the wild
Honestly, no issues with these at all. (the CHL Reciprocity Act will be hard fought tho, unless there's a standard to receive a CHL).
All CHL applications will be sent to me with a $50 processing fee.
Easy E wrote: So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
I think you're right. Plus its an election year. Plus Congress doesn't appear to be voting on anything. I think Congress has taken a multiyear vacation now.
I think Trump thinks its a win if he passes one thing a year.
Oops this is a US politics post, my bad.
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
I disagree with the age restriction. I would also add a repeal the National Firearms Act, on grounds that it is unconstitutional and doesn't improve safety. Replace it with a law simply placing an additional tax on the sale, public and private, of automatic firearms and Destructive devices. That law would also state that no restrictions may be placed upon magazine capacity or open carry by the states. Add a Federal Concealed Carry license and eliminate all State concealed carry licenses. The Federal CCW would be a "Shall Issue" document.
Other than that, I'd be ok with most of that stuff. Though its worth noting a lot of that stuff is already law. Straw sales are illegal, illegal firearm transfers are highly illegal.
As the 2nd amendment is a Constitutional Right, the practice of that right should be the same across the entire US.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I assume there already is an age requirement on buying guns and driving, it’s just not 21. Some states don’t allow drinking alcohol before 21, why not gun ownership?
It depends, but generally its 18. Same as Voting and Driving.
IMO, if you raised the age to 21 you would also have to raise the voting and driving age. It would be impossible to justify someone being allowed to vote and drive, but they can't exercise their 2nd amendment rights.
Easy E wrote: So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
I think you're right. Plus its an election year. Plus Congress doesn't appear to be voting on anything. I think Congress has taken a multiyear vacation now.
I think Trump thinks its a win if he passes one thing a year.
Oops this is a US politics post, my bad.
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
I also agree with these. We have pretty common agreement about what steps need to be taken; yet somehow* we can't get those things passed.
*= Somehow in this cases indicates that Congress simply will not act. Too scared.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I assume there already is an age requirement on buying guns and driving, it’s just not 21. Some states don’t allow drinking alcohol before 21, why not gun ownership?
It's 18 - when you are considered legally adult. Some guns require you to be 21 but I don't agree with that or alcohol being 21 ether.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote: Is there an age restriction on being elected to congress or the presidency?
both I believe. Written in the constitution actually.
Easy E wrote: So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
I think you're right. Plus its an election year. Plus Congress doesn't appear to be voting on anything. I think Congress has taken a multiyear vacation now.
I think Trump thinks its a win if he passes one thing a year.
Oops this is a US politics post, my bad.
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
I disagree with the age restriction. I would also add a repeal the National Firearms Act, on grounds that it is unconstitutional and doesn't improve safety. Replace it with a law simply placing an additional tax on the sale, public and private, of automatic firearms and Destructive devices. That law would also state that no restrictions may be placed upon magazine capacity or open carry by the states. Add a Federal Concealed Carry license and eliminate all State concealed carry licenses. The Federal CCW would be a "Shall Issue" document.
Other than that, I'd be ok with most of that stuff. Though its worth noting a lot of that stuff is already law. Straw sales are illegal, illegal firearm transfers are highly illegal.
As the 2nd amendment is a Constitutional Right, the practice of that right should be the same across the entire US.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I assume there already is an age requirement on buying guns and driving, it’s just not 21. Some states don’t allow drinking alcohol before 21, why not gun ownership?
It depends, but generally its 18. Same as Voting and Driving.
IMO, if you raised the age to 21 you would also have to raise the voting and driving age. It would be impossible to justify someone being allowed to vote and drive, but they can't exercise their 2nd amendment rights.
Straw sales are illegal but not enforced. I would push enforcement and make it a capital murder level felony.
Same for illegal sales.
Age limit. I recommend the adjustment as historically, long guns were not used in crime greatly, were less concealable and had working applications. Much of that has changed.
Additionally I think, am convinced we have a mental health and culture crisis here now. By culture I don't mean video, evil music whatever, I mean it's become a method of fame to go out like this. Mental health, well that's pretty apparent.
Thats because its impossible to enforce laws against Straw Sales except for after the fact. Unless you keep everybody under constant surveillance all the time then they can't stop someone who has no criminal record of any kind from buying a gun and then later selling it to someone in a private deal. Active enforcement is pretty much impossible for any sort of law like this.
Long Guns aren't used much in crime even today. And all guns have working applications. I'm going to use my AK to go deer and hog hunting later this year.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Some states don’t allow drinking alcohol before 21, why not gun ownership?
1.) As pointed out, the firearms are constitutionally protected, consumption of alcohol is not. Also the 21 and over for alcohol is relatively recent and I don't think a great idea, I think 18 would be more appropriate... but that's another thread.
2.) In rural parts of the country hunting is a way of life. You're saying that a 16 year old shouldn't be able to own a deer rifle that might be what helps his or her family get through hard winters. In most of the bottom part of the country teenagers own .22 rifles. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with an age limit on handgun ownership, though, and in most states - probably the majority - handgun ownership does have an age limit.
Easy E wrote: So based solely on how this thread has derailed to all sorts of wierd topics, I am going to guess that the Santa Fe Shooting will lead to no new legislation on guns, school shootings, or anything really before the mid-terms.
People are too busy worrying about civil wars, the actual Civil War, revolution, etc. to worry about school shootings.
I think you're right. Plus its an election year. Plus Congress doesn't appear to be voting on anything. I think Congress has taken a multiyear vacation now.
I think Trump thinks its a win if he passes one thing a year.
Oops this is a US politics post, my bad.
Frazzleds Model 2018 Firearms Act (Federal)
*Incentives for states to provide information for the background check-charges, convictions, and mental health (federal can't mandate).
*Requirements for all federal agencies to provide such information.
*All firearms sales will require a background check.
*National Hearing Act
*CHL Reciprocity Act
Frazzled's Model State 2018 Firearms Adjustment
*All firearm transfers require a background check.
*Background system automatically reports a change. If there is a change, see Model Cali law below.
*All medical personnel must update the NCIS.
*Model California law: after adjudication if someone is found permanently or temporarily mentally unstable, firearms can be temporarily taken and given to a relative or other disgnatee.
*Straw sales are subject to Class A Felony.
*Illegal firearm transfers are subject to a Class A Felony.
*Firearm sales minimum age: 21.
Aren't straw sales already a felony? The problem is enforcement. And that can't really happen without a register.
Over here every firearm has its unique ID that must always accompany the weapon. When you sell the gun to someone else, you register the transaction with the cops and the ID goes to the new owner.
Straw purchasing is basically nonexistent this way.
Aren't straw sales already a felony? The problem is enforcement. And that can't really happen without a register.
Over here every firearm has its unique ID that must always accompany the weapon. When you sell the gun to someone else, you register the transaction with the cops and the ID goes to the new owner.
Straw purchasing is basically nonexistent this way.
You could still have straw purchases that way. You simply say you've lost/destroyed the weapon, give the purchaser the weapon, and part ways.
And every firearm in the US an unique ID, its called a serial number, that is etched in the receiver. Its only as useful as knowing what that Serial number belongs to.
Aren't straw sales already a felony? The problem is enforcement. And that can't really happen without a register.
Over here every firearm has its unique ID that must always accompany the weapon. When you sell the gun to someone else, you register the transaction with the cops and the ID goes to the new owner.
Straw purchasing is basically nonexistent this way.
You could still have straw purchases that way. You simply say you've lost/destroyed the weapon, give the purchaser the weapon, and part ways.
That comes with lots of questions. Misplace a gun and that's grounds for having your license revoked, have it "stolen" and you better have your cabinet with a big hole or they'll slap you with improper storage.
Ultimately no right is 100% unlimited, even if constitutionally protected, because it can be amended. So I guess a better, more complete answer would have been that gun rights are protected by the constitution, and as such there is a steep political cost to infringing upon them, sure to incur litigation by a powerful and passionate lobby with a large percentage population backing it - there is no such lobby or political appetite to have an 18 year old senator.
So there is no technical reason that you can't make gun ownership only available to 35 year olds, but it's really not realistically feasible either.
So it's not impossible to have different ages of accession to constitutional rights.
Hrm, broadly speaking this is not the case. In general, once you are 18, anything constitutionally protectes is open to you, the above offices being clearly spelled out exceptions (same way a naturalized citizen doesnt have the ability to run for president either since natural borne is an enumerated requirement). With firearms, about the only age related restrictions on legal adults I know of that has survived challenge is a ban on FFL's selling handguns to under 21's, but they can acquire them through private transfer/inheritance/etc
I would be shocked if age restrictions on ownership survived a court challenge, especially a broad ban on all types of firearms, and a broad ban on all purchases (not just handguns) for under 21's may run into the same issue.
Now, speaking personally, in one sense I can see the logic behind such a rule preventing under 21's from buying firearms. That demographic is disproportionatley responsible for, and victimized by, violence with firearms, in the same way as young people and alcohol. That said, I'm strongly of the opinion that someone is either an adult or not. If theyre old to vote or old enough to be issued a machinegun and told to fight, kill, and die on the other side of the planet, then theyre old enough to buy a rifle and pop open a six pack of beer. Same thing goes for charging minors as adults for crimes, not a fan of that either for the same reasons, if they're not old enough to have their own legal agency and responsibilities, then theyre not old enough for the consequences.
Just Tony wrote:I assume that people who legally own guns are aware of WHY the 2nd Amendment exists. I also assume that there's no way they'd be able to keep any sort of human rights violation quiet in any way, shape, or form. Wiping out someone they didn't like is a direct violation of due process, and therefore would be an unlawful order. Speaking as a military person, NOBODY who takes their oath of service seriously would follow that order. So it's not assumptive to think that the government takes this into consideration, it's intuitive and logical. It's also logical that certain groups do INDEED want to revoke the 2nd, and lo and behold it's the same group that isn't shy about having personal liberties taken away.
All those assumptions are very optimistic and idealised. We've seen enough example that contradict this. And regarding the last sentence: Are you talking about Republicans? Because they do want to take away personal liberties from certain minorities all the time. Are they now also trying to remove the 2nd amendment too?
Insurgency Walker wrote: As such currently an extension of the States National guard, as the state gets to appoint the Militia officers.
No. . . it IS the national guard.
The national guard is something different from the Militia. The states are responsible for choosing the officers of the Militia but they don't have to come from within the national guard. The presence of the national guard does not supplant the Militia or obsolete it.
I think you need to look up the law. . . the national guard is, per federal law the "organized militia" and you're quite simply wrong here.
And then there is the unorganized Militia. Which is not the national guard. Which by definition does not match the original idea of the Militia because the weapons are not with the people but under state control.
I think you need to look up the law. . . the national guard is, per federal law the "organized militia" and you're quite simply wrong here.
Actually, you're the one who's wrong:
U.S. Code › Title 10 › Subtitle A › Part I › Chapter 12 › § 246 wrote:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Edit: Ah, Insurgency walker beat me to it, but I quote the actual law in question so he can't claim it doesn't really say that.
I'd also like to point to what happened in Leige. Seems if you're willing to break laws and kill people, the only real limit is your creativity.
Also, someone asked earlier about taking out a tank with things available to civilians. Here we go: One half pound coffee can, a road flare, a mix of 50% iron oxide and [ingredient omitted to avoid mod anger]. Put it all together inside the coffee can with the flare accessible and get it up on the engine deck of the AFV. Or anyplace else that it won't roll off before it does it's work. Because that will burn right through the tank.
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