Discussion of US gun laws

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**Spacemanvic**

Did you know that the top 4 out of 5 worst gun massacres occurred outside the United States in countries where guns are heavily regulated/outlawed?

http://www.top5ofanything.com/index.php?h=db8a4490

Norway, 77 killed, 158 wounded

Norway's gun laws among toughest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/24/norway-strict-gun-laws-circumvented

South Korea, 57 killed, 35 wounded
South Korea's gun laws restrictive: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/01/gun-control-in-korea.html

Australia, 35 killed, 21 wounded
Australia's heavy handed gun laws didnt have the effect they wanted: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1736501,00.html

Virginia Tech, Virginia USA, 32 killed, 25 wounded
Virginia Tech had/has a no guns policy on campus. Lotta good it did them: virginiatechmassacre.com

Columbia, 30 killed, 15 wounded
Columbia is in the midst of a drug war, among other issues. Gun laws would be ineffective as even the government is corrupt.

**Spacemanvic**

Just some basic info on NFA and gun control laws that restrict the ownership and posession of same...it's worth the read:
P.S. You cant just walk in and buy an automatic weapon.

Quick FAQS related to Machine Guns and Suppressors...

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA 34):
This law placed certain classes of firearms into a registered ownership category. Private individuals can possess a functional machine gun, silencer (suppressor), short-barreled rifle or shotgun, smooth-bore pistol, cane gun, or destructive device (certain shotguns, grenade launchers, hand grenades, bazookas, mortars, cannon, etc.) only after first paying a Federal Transfer Tax of either $5 or $200 per firearm/device. The $5 tax applies to pen guns, cane guns, smoothbore pistols, or any other such firearm that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms classifies as "Any Other Weapon" (AOW). All other functional guns or devices in the NFA registry require payment of a $200 federal tax for each private transfer. The tax is not an annual tax. It only is paid each time a functional NFA firearm is being transferred to or from a private owner (excepting inheritance).

The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA 68):
Largely modeled after the 1938 Gun Control Act of Nazi Germany, a section of this law updated the NFA 34 by restricting the transfer of newly imported machine guns to the military, law enforcement, and certain Special Occupational Tax (SOT) payers. In addition, a short moratorium was provided before the law went into effect, to allow unregistered machine guns and other NFA firearms already in private hands, to be added to the Federal Registry without penalty.

The Gun Owners Protection Act of 1986 (GOPA 86):
A somewhat vague statement was added to this bill that has been interpreted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and some Federal Courts to mean no machine guns registered after enactment (May 19, 1986) can be built and sold to private individuals. BATFE further concluded that SOT payers cannot receive "post-May" guns without first presenting a letter from a qualifying government agency that has requested to see the firearm. These rulings do not apply to other types of NFA firearms. Transfers to government agencies having law enforcement or military functions are allowed. SOT payers who are also licensed as manufacturers are allowed to produce machine guns from scratch, from kits, or by means of conversion. They cannot transfer them to private individuals. They can be transferred to other SOT payers or government agencies only as described above. Post-May guns cannot be retained by a SOT payer who fails to renew his SOT annually.

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (VCCLEA 94):
This law sunset on 30 Sep 04 and no longer applies. This law banned the public sale of new detachable magazines with more than a ten round capacity, and invented a new term - assault weapon, the future manufacture of which were also banned from public sale. Note, the law applies only to firearms manufactured after enactment of the law. Specifically, it limits certain features on certain types of firearms. Semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines may possess no more than one of the following features: pistol grip protruding conspicuously beneath the action, telescoping or folding stock, threaded barrel desinged to accommodate a flash suppressor, flash suppressor (not to be confused with a muzzle brake), grenade launcher, bayonet mount. Semiautomatic pistols with detachable magazines may possess no more than one of the following features: magazine that attaches outsidethe pistol grip, threaded barrel, shrouded barrel, unloaded weight of 50 ounces or more, a semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm. Semiautomatic shotguns may possess no more than one of the following features: folding or telescoping stock, pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously below the action, fixed magazine capacity over five rounds, ability to accept detachable magazines.

State Laws and Local Ordinances:
Most states allow ownership of NFA firearms, but some states or local municipalities have statutes or ordinances that restrict or ban ownership. At last count thirteen states placed some sort of restrictions on the types of NFA firearms you could own (anything from requiring a state permit to outright denial). These include California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. If you are uncertain of the laws in your area, contact your state or national gun rights organization for help. They likely will know more about your local firearms laws than anybody else.

Government Agency Transfers:
There are no federal prohibitions on any type of government entity acquiring most NFA firearms, including many destructive devices. Some states prohibit law enforcement agencies from possessing certain types of NFA firearms or destructive devices. Government agencies are exempt from paying Federal Transfer Taxes or Federal Excise Taxes. In most cases, machine guns and other NFA weapons can be imported, purchased off-the-shelf, or custom manufactured specifically for any authorized government agency. Excluding direct military contracts with licensed manufacturers, all other transfers to government agencies, including law enforcement agencies, must first be approved by BATF. All foreign transfers require State Department approval.

SOT Dealer Transfers:
The SOT (Special Occupational Tax) is an annual fee paid to the U.S. Treasury Department by dealers, manufacturers, or importers of certain products including alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. In the case of firearms, the SOT is broken down between NFA dealers, manufacturers, and importers (A separate SOT applies to destructive devices). For our purposes the term "SOT payer" refers to any currently licensed gun dealer, manufacturer, or importer who also has paid the SOT for dealing in NFA firearms. SOT payers have the advantage of being able to transfer functional NFA firearms to or from other SOT payers and government agencies, with BATFE approval, but without having to pay a transfer tax. SOT payers also can acquire registered NFA firearms from any regular gun dealer or private citizen, but only after paying the applicable transfer tax and receiving BATFE approval. SOT payers can transfer certain functional NFA firearms to in-state residents and to both in-state and out-of-state regular gun dealers, but only after they have paid the appropriate transfer tax and received approval from BATF.

Regular Gun Dealer Transfers:
Regular gun dealers or manufacturers who do not have SOT's, still can acquire functional NFA firearms from in-state or out-of-state sources. If the firearm is a machine gun, they are restricted to purchasing only those machine guns registered prior to May 19, 1986, excluding all dealer samples. The applicable NFA transfer taxes must first be paid on each NFA firearm ordered. Once this paperwork is approved and they have received shipment, transfers can then be conducted with private individuals in-state, or with other dealers either in-state or out-of-state. These transfers also require payment of the tax and BATFE approval before they can be completed.

How to Pay the Tax:
If you are acquiring an NFA firearm from a SOT payer, he will provide you with copies of the required paperwork for each firearm being transferred to you. If this is a private transfer or a transfer from a regular gun dealer who does not possess a SOT, forms can be acquired from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), National Firearms Act Branch, Washington, D.C. Some states have their own requirements in addition to the federal paperwork. Check with the appropriate licensing bureau in your state. The federal paperwork involves three forms, two of which must be completed in duplicate (ATF Form 4 and fingerprint card). The front of the ATF Form 4s are filled out and signed by the seller (See exceptions for SOT payers and corporations below). On the back of the Form 4s are placed recent photographs of the purchaser. The purchaser also signs the block under his photograph. The bottom backside of the forms are endorsed by the purchaser's sheriff, chief judge, police chief, etc. The second set of forms are FBI fingerprint cards. While the Form 4s are being endorsed, ask to be fingerprinted using the cards supplied by BATF. Both the person fingerprinted and the person taking them sign these forms. The third form is the ATF 5330.20, Certificate of Compliance with 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5)(B). This is a statement by the transferee (buyer) that he is a legal resident of the United States. The transferee should complete this form using capital letters and sign it. The transferor (seller) then mails the paperwork and a check for the Federal Transfer Tax to BATFE. On average it takes about 90 days for approval. The seller will receive back one of the Form 4s with a Federal Transfer Tax Stamp attached to it. This is given to the purchaser when he picks up the NFA firearm. It's his firearm from then on. No further tax is due.

Corporate or Estate Ownership:
In some areas it is difficult to get a law enforcement signature on the ATF Form 4. To circumvent this problem, some people purchase the gun through a corporation or an estate. If you are a SOT payer acquiring a firearm from a private source, a private individual who is creating an estate, or someone who is incorporated or is a senior officer in a corporation, you can acquire an NFA firearm on an ATF Form 4 without the need for a law enforcement endorsement, photograph, or fingerprint card. You still must pay the Federal Transfer Tax. If the gun is transferred to a corporation, it must be retained by the corporation until it is dissolved. At such time the gun must be sold on a tax paid transfer, retitled to someone on a tax paid transfer, or surrendered to the BATF. In the case of estate ownership, it can be transferred or inherited.

Travel and Use:
Do not take NFA firearms out of state without first checking with BATFE. For machine guns, destructive devices, short barrel rifles, and short barrel shotguns, you will need prior approval from BATFE on a Form 5320.20 to travel interstate or to permanently move NFA firearms to another state. This protects you from accidentally going some place where they are banned. If the state you are traveling to allows possession of the type of NFA firearm you own, and you have received prior approval on a Form 5320.20 (if applicable), then you can transport the firearm through any state just like any other firearm. That means it must be unloaded and readily inaccessible (in a locked case or trunk of the car). While in a travel status you are afforded the same protection as any other gun owner under the GOPA 86 law. You cannot be legally arrested for simply passing through a state, county, or township where the guns are banned unless you violate the procedures just described or stop in that state for an extended period of rest. Necessary stops for food, gas, repairs, etc., are allowed. Stopping to site-see, visit friends, or even spend the night, might be construed as an unnecessary delay and place you at risk. Check your state and local laws for other restrictions that may apply regarding hunting, concealed carry, or self-defense with an NFA firearm.

Temporary Transfers:
NFA firearms may be left for repair with an authorized person (dealer, gunsmith, manufacuturer) without filing any federal paperwork (check your state and local laws for any restrictions). BATFE advises owners to first file a Form 5 before doing this. The Form 5 was designed for the purposes of inheritance, government acquisition, or to transfer a deactived firearm. It looks very similar to the Form 4, the main difference being that no tax is paid. However, law enforcement endorsements and fingerprint cards are required (unless waived by BATFE). As a result, the Form 5 is a bit awkward for purposes of repair. If you are taking the firearm to someone local and reputable, and the repairs won't take a very long time, then a Form 5 may seem pointless. If you are shipping the firearm to someone you don't know, it might be best to use the Form 5 as an audit trail. Indeed, some companies won't accept NFA firearms without an approved Form 5. Use your best judgement.

Transferable Firearms:
NFA firearms that can be transferred to private citizens on an ATF Form 4 are the most desirable, and therefore most expensive ones to acquire. They are often referred to as "fully transferable". Nearly all NFA suppressors, short barrel rifles, short barrel shotguns, and AOWs are transferable. The number of registered machine guns that are transferable was frozen in 1986. Included in this category are the following machine guns:

Original or converted machine guns, whether foreign or domestic, if added to the Federal Registry prior to enactment of the GCA 68.

Deactivated war trophies (DEWAT) that were registered prior to enactment of the GCA 68. DEWATs can be reactivated after payment of the $200 Federal Transfer Tax and approval by BATF.

Domestically manufactured or remanufactured guns that were registered after the GCA 68 enactment, but prior to the GOPA 86 (May 19th, 1986). This includes registered receivers, sears, bolts, or other parts accepted by BATF.

Imported guns that were remanufactured into machine guns prior to the GOPA (May 19, 1986). This includes registered receivers, sears, bolts, or other parts accepted by BATF.

Curios and Relics:
Some states allow private ownership of machine guns only if they are listed as Curios & Relics by the Federal Government. Examples would include original Thompson 1921 or 1928 submachine guns, and early production M-16 rifles. The Curios & Relics list is periodically updated and you can petition for particular guns to be added. Normally a gun is accepted to the list if the Federal Government determines it is of some historic value or of such an age or rarity that it is unlikely to see criminal use. Collectors who possess a Curios & Relics license (FFL) can purchase these guns out-of-state, with prior payment of the applicable transfer tax and approval by BATF.

Pre-May Dealer Sample:
Machine guns imported after 1968 and prior to May 19, 1986, are transferable to FFL dealers (01) and manufacturers (07) who have paid the Special Occupational Tax (SOT) for the current year. A dealer who acquires a pre-May dealer sample and then fails to pay the SOT in succeeding years may retain the gun in his private collection. It only can be transferred to someone holding a SOT or to an approved government agency, usually military or law enforcement. An exception is made sometimes if the gun is being inherited from the dealer's estate by a family member.

Post-May Dealer Sample:
Any machine gun manufactured or imported after May 19, 1986, can be transferred between SOT payers only if they first provide a letter on agency letterhead showing that a legitimate government organization has requested to see it. This usually means a law enforcement agency or military unit. The gun can be retained by the dealer/manufacturer only so long as he pays his annual SOT. If he drops the SOT, BATFE expects him to first dispose of, surrender, or destroy the gun. It can be transferred only to another SOT payer or approved government agency, as previously described.

Privately Building NFA Firearms:
Provided there are no state or local restrictions, you can build your own NFA firearm if you receive prior approval from BATFE on a tax paid Form 1. Along with the Form 1, you must include fingerprint cards, law enforcement endorsement, and a drawing of the firearm. Machine guns will not be approved. Only suppressors, short barrel shotguns, short barrel rifles, destructive devices and AOWs will be approved. In all cases, the tax will be $200 per firearm to make. Once approved, they will be treated as any other fully transferable NFA firearm.

**purplefood**

How many of the total number of gun massacres in the past 50 years have been in the US though?

**Kilkrazy**

All three of the UK's gun massacres were done with weapons held on legal licences.

I don't think the incidence of gun massacres is a good argument for gun control. They are so rare that statistically there is nothing to be got from them in terms of significance.

The strange thing about the US is not the gun massacres, it is the large amount of deaths from gunshot not during massacres.

**Jihadin**

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_States

Goes back to more then 50 yrs

**mattyrm**

Melissia wrote:There's also the problem that a large number of men* don't seek help for their mental problems to begin with.

*(And a smaller number of women, as well. But men, due to cultural reasons (IE Machismo), are less likely to get help for mental problems, and more likely to develop violent mental issues as a result. The actual rate of mental illness between the two genders is about the same, but the rate of reporting is quite different.)

True, but it is pretty vocabulary failureif you go see a doctor isnt it?

Look at me, I havent seen a doctor for 18 years and I'm in great condition.

(Hack.. gasp... wheeze... Why does my left arm go numb when my arse itches?)

**Grey Templar**

mattyrm wrote:
Melissia wrote:There's also the problem that a large number of men* don't seek help for their mental problems to begin with.

*(And a smaller number of women, as well. But men, due to cultural reasons (IE Machismo), are less likely to get help for mental problems, and more likely to develop violent mental issues as a result. The actual rate of mental illness between the two genders is about the same, but the rate of reporting is quite different.)

True, but it is pretty vocabulary failure if you go see a doctor isnt it?

Look at me, I havent seen a doctor for 18 years and I'm in great condition.

(Hack.. gasp... wheeze... Why does my left arm go numb when my arse itches?)

That kinda Doctor anyway

The truth is, if you still have the mental capacity to think "Dang, I may need to see a psychiatrist" then you probably still don't need one. Its the people that think they're fine that really need one.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

I'll say one thing, though, people have wasted thousands of miles of column inches on this, and we can talk about it until the cows come home, but we, the good members of Dakka, ain't gonna change a damn thing!

Best stick to arguing about Star Wars and Batman

**A Town Called Malus**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I'll say one thing, though, people have wasted thousands of miles of column inches on this, and we can talk about it until the cows come home, but we, the good members of Dakka, ain't gonna change a damn thing!

Best stick to arguing about Star Wars and Batman

But we can't change anything about them either! So we should not change something about something important!

**Relapse**

Grey Templar wrote:
mattyrm wrote:
Melissia wrote:
But hardcore criminals generally only shoot other hardcore criminals!
That is wrong in so many ways that I am at a loss for how to express its wrongness.

Its not THAT wrong is it?

Maybe you and I are defining hardcore criminals differently, Im not talking about blokes who rob banks or hold up liquor stores. Clearly they shoot randoms.

But proper full blown gangsters, mostly they shoot other gangsters. They hardly ever shoot cops either. That's why not as many cops as you would think get killed in the line of duty.

What money is there to be made killing Joe Public or Police officers?

They most certainly dont walk into public places to massacre people, whats the bloody point?!

As I said, you wouldnt see Scarface or Tony Soprano walking into a cinema to shoot people. Hardcore criminal organisations exist to make money, and aside from maybe some racketeering (again, they usually kneecap you not kill you, because dead people dont pay anymore) they really don't kill many people, and they most certainly don't butcher people at random at Batman showings because they are off their teeny tits.

Ergo, its not wrong, and its certainly not an epic wrongun on a planetary scale.

Gangsters arn't the dangerous ones. Its the wannabe gangsters that are dangerous.

A real Gangster is a business kinda guy. He is predictable and isn't going to shoot people off hand, because its bad for business. Sure, the threat is there of course, but unless you are an actual threat to his business, rather then a revenue stream, he isn't going to hurt you(seriously anyway)

Wannabe Gangsters are exactly that. Young punks with the tools, but not the business sense. They will happily shoot you off hand for the slightest provocation. They bust into liquor stores and gas stations, steal a few bucks, and shoot the place up. Criminals and Lawabiders alike are in equal danger from these guys.

Both are hardcore criminals. Unfortunantly, the dangerous ones are the most common. There are certaintly hundreds of thousands of Wannabe Gangsters in various places.

The Mexicans I know would disagree.

**Grey Templar**

True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

**purplefood**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I'll say one thing, though, people have wasted thousands of miles of column inches on this, and we can talk about it until the cows come home, but we, the good members of Dakka, ain't gonna change a damn thing!

Best stick to arguing about Star Wars and Batman

But we can't change anything about them either! So we should not change something about something important!

That's a fairly good point...
If you're going to argue about something you can't change it may as well be important...
I like that...

**Relapse**

Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

**A Town Called Malus**

Relapse wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

They would do it even if they didn't have all the guns. If a civilian man shoots a cartel member then not only are the cartel going to kill him, they're going to kill his wife, his children, his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else connected with him, just to make a point about not messing with them.

Fear is more powerful than any gun and that is the real weapon which they use.

**Grey Templar**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

They would do it even if they didn't have all the guns. If a civilian man shoots a cartel member then not only are the cartel going to kill him, they're going to kill his wife, his children, his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else connected with him, just to make a point about not messing with them.

Fear is more powerful than any gun and that is the real weapon which they use.

True, but they do that regardless if people shoot back.

And maybe if everyone was armed they wouldn't have gotten so powerful in the first place.

"And armed world is a civilized world"

**Relapse**

Grey Templar wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

They would do it even if they didn't have all the guns. If a civilian man shoots a cartel member then not only are the cartel going to kill him, they're going to kill his wife, his children, his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else connected with him, just to make a point about not messing with them.

Fear is more powerful than any gun and that is the real weapon which they use.

True, but they do that regardless if people shoot back.

And maybe if everyone was armed they wouldn't have gotten so powerful in the first place.

"And armed world is a civilized world"

Exactly.

**Spacemanvic**

Grey Templar wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

They would do it even if they didn't have all the guns. If a civilian man shoots a cartel member then not only are the cartel going to kill him, they're going to kill his wife, his children, his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else connected with him, just to make a point about not messing with them.

Fear is more powerful than any gun and that is the real weapon which they use.

True, but they do that regardless if people shoot back.

And maybe if everyone was armed they wouldn't have gotten so powerful in the first place.

"And armed world is a civilized world"

As a gun owner and CCW holder, I agree.

An interview with
John R. Lott, Jr.
author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws

Question: What does the title mean: More Guns, Less Crime?

John R. Lott, Jr.: States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes. Thirty-one states now have such laws—called "shall-issue" laws. These laws allow adults the right to carry concealed handguns if they do not have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness.

Question: It just seems to defy common sense that crimes likely to involve guns would be reduced by allowing more people to carry guns. How do you explain the results?

Lott: Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate—as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.

Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves.

Question: What is the basis for these numbers?

Lott: The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994.

Question: Your argument about criminals and deterrence doesn't tell the whole story. Don't statistics show that most people are killed by someone they know?

Lott: You are referring to the often-cited statistic that 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances. However, what most people don't understand is that this "acquaintance murder" number also includes gang members killing other gang members, drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by customers they picked up for the first time, prostitutes and their clients, and so on. "Acquaintance" covers a wide range of relationships. The vast majority of murders are not committed by previously law-abiding citizens. Ninety percent of adult murderers have had criminal records as adults.

Question: But how about children? In March of this year [1998] four children and a teacher were killed by two school boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Won't tragedies like this increase if more people are allowed to carry guns? Shouldn't this be taken into consideration before making gun ownership laws more lenient?

Lott: The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad ones. I have studied multiple victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1995. These were incidents in which at least two or more people were killed and or injured in a public place; in order to focus on the type of shooting seen in Arkansas, shootings that were the byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were excluded. The effect of "shall-issue" laws on these crimes has been dramatic. When states passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by 84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent, and injuries by 82 percent.

For other types of crimes, I find that both children as well as adults are protected when law-abiding adults are allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Finally, after extensively studying the number of accidental shootings, there is no evidence that increasing the number of concealed handguns increases accidental shootings. We know that the type of person who obtains a permit is extremely law-abiding and possibly they are extremely careful in how they take care of their guns. The total number of accidental gun deaths each year is about 1,300 and each year such accidents take the lives of 200 children 14 years of age and under. However, these regrettable numbers of lives lost need to be put into some perspective with the other risks children face. Despite over 200 million guns owned by between 76 to 85 million people, the children killed is much smaller than the number lost through bicycle accidents, drowning, and fires. Children are 14.5 times more likely to die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns.

Question: Wouldn't allowing concealed weapons increase the incidents of citizens attacking each other in tense situations? For instance, sometimes in traffic jams or accidents people become very hostile—screaming and shoving at one another. If armed, might people shoot each other in the heat of the moment?

Lott: During state legislative hearings on concealed-handgun laws, possibly the most commonly raised concern involved fears that armed citizens would attack each other in the heat of the moment following car accidents. The evidence shows that such fears are unfounded. Despite millions of people licensed to carry concealed handguns and many states having these laws for decades, there has only been one case where a person with a permit used a gun after a traffic accident and even in that one case it was in self-defense.

Question: Violence is often directed at women. Won't more guns put more women at risk?

Lott: Murder rates decline when either more women or more men carry concealed handguns, but a gun represents a much larger change in a woman's ability to defend herself than it does for a man. An additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3 to 4 times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.

Question: Aren't you playing into people's fears and prejudices though? Don't politicians pass these shall-issue laws to mollify middle-class white suburbanites anxious about the encroachment of urban minority crime?

Lott: I won't speculate about motives, but the results tell a different story. High crime urban areas and neighborhoods with large minority populations have the greatest reductions in violent crime when citizens are legally allowed to carry concealed handguns.

Question: What about other countries? It's often argued that Britain, for instance, has a lower violent crime rate than the USA because guns are much harder to obtain and own.

Lott: The data analyzed in this book is from the USA. Many countries, such as Switzerland, New Zealand, Finland, and Israel have high gun-ownership rates and low crime rates, while other countries have low gun ownership rates and either low or high crime rates. It is difficult to obtain comparable data on crime rates both over time and across countries, and to control for all the other differences across the legal systems and cultures across countries. Even the cross country polling data on gun ownership is difficult to assess, because ownership is underreported in countries where gun ownership is illegal and the same polls are never used across countries.

Question: This is certainly controversial and there are certain to be counter-arguments from those who disagree with you. How will you respond to them?

Lott: Some people do use guns in horrible ways, but other people use guns to prevent horrible things from happening to them. The ultimate question that concerns us all is: Will allowing law-abiding citizens to own guns save lives? While there are many anecdotal stories illustrating both good and bad uses of guns, this question can only be answered by looking at data to find out what the net effect is.

All of chapter seven of the book is devoted to answering objections that people have raised to my analysis. There are of course strong feelings on both sides about the issue of gun ownership and gun control laws. The best we can do is to try to discover and understand the facts. If you agree, or especially if you disagree with my conclusions I hope you'll read the book carefully and develop an informed opinion.

**Relapse**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

They would do it even if they didn't have all the guns. If a civilian man shoots a cartel member then not only are the cartel going to kill him, they're going to kill his wife, his children, his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else connected with him, just to make a point about not messing with them.

Fear is more powerful than any gun and that is the real weapon which they use.

If one man shoots a cartel member, he is probably going to die, but if the whole town starts breaking out guns, the cartel is not really likely to come down on it. More to the point, the cartels wouldn't have the power they do in the first place, since the citizens would have long ago put them down in their infancy.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Spacemanvic

As has been said before by Penn and Teller, there are really not that many reports of a mass killing at an NRA convention as opposed to shootings in other places.

**A Town Called Malus**

Relapse wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

They would do it even if they didn't have all the guns. If a civilian man shoots a cartel member then not only are the cartel going to kill him, they're going to kill his wife, his children, his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else connected with him, just to make a point about not messing with them.

Fear is more powerful than any gun and that is the real weapon which they use.

If one man shoots a cartel member, he is probably going to die, but if the whole town starts breaking out guns, the cartel is not really likely to come down on it. More to the point, the cartels wouldn't have the power they do in the first place, since the citizens would have long ago put them down in their infancy.

"To be in power you don't need guns or money or even numbers, you just need the will to do what the other guy won't." - Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects.

It may be taken from a film but it is true. It's one thing to give everyone a gun, it's another thing entirely for everyone to suddenly be capable of using that gun to kill.

**Relapse**

I like the Penn and Teller take on gun control

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=SCXtfR0_roE

Automatically Appended Next Post:

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Those guys are hardcore for sure.They just go into an area and take what they want with no one daring to say anything. This is a case where it's highlighted what happens when the bad guys have all the guns.

They would do it even if they didn't have all the guns. If a civilian man shoots a cartel member then not only are the cartel going to kill him, they're going to kill his wife, his children, his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else connected with him, just to make a point about not messing with them.

Fear is more powerful than any gun and that is the real weapon which they use.

If one man shoots a cartel member, he is probably going to die, but if the whole town starts breaking out guns, the cartel is not really likely to come down on it. More to the point, the cartels wouldn't have the power they do in the first place, since the citizens would have long ago put them down in their infancy.

"To be in power you don't need guns or money or even numbers, you just need the will to do what the other guy won't." - Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects.

It may be taken from a film but it is true. It's one thing to give everyone a gun, it's another thing entirely for everyone to suddenly be capable of using that gun to kill.

If someone was abusing myself or my neighbors family and freedoms, I would very much be ready to fight to protect those freedoms. I believe most other posters here would also use the strongest means at their disposal.

**Melissia**

Grey Templar wrote:True, I was refering to the base difference between the Mafia and local petty gangs. Of which both a real hardcore criminals.

Of course neither has anything on Mexican cartels.

Yeah, those fethers are what hardcore criminals think of when they think of hardcore criminals.

**Jihadin**

I posted this before...might as well do it again

Ash Street shootout: The night that changed Tacoma's Hilltop

Nobody died in the Ash Street shootout. That was the miracle.

Ten minutes, 300 shots. Army Rangers versus gangsters. Bullet holes and broken windows. The night of Sept. 23, 1989 turned the Tacoma Hilltop into a national bulls-eye, an emblem of unrest.

Bill Foulk, the retired Ranger who led a group of Army buddies in a defensive stand against the gangsters, still lives in the same house: 2319 S. Ash St.

He wouldn't leave then, though even his commanders urged him to do so. He isn't leaving now. At 52, it amuses him to think he's turned into the old guy on the block.

A few years back, a Tacoma police officer said something to him about the shootout.

"He said it was the single most important incident in Tacoma that caused a change in police policies and practices,"Foulk said.

"I guess I'm still surprised that people are still interested in that story,"Foulk added – which is part jive, because he knows it's a good story.

BLATANT DRUG DEALING

In 1989, Ash Street was an open-air drug market. There were several hot spots, but the epicenter was a little house numbered 2328, where Renae Harttlet, 18, lived with her boyfriend, Mark "Marco"Simmons – the main dog on the street, according to neighbors who remember.

The drug traffic had always been around, but by the summer 1989, it had grown blatant, fueled by an influx of gang members moving in from California and other areas.

"We had this open drug-gang phenomenon that was occurring in Tacoma that we had never experienced before,"said Bob Sheehan, now an assistant police chief, then a sergeant who worked the Hilltop area. "We didn't know how to respond to it. We were doing our best but we were struggling with it."

Ash Street neighbors groused to police, called 911 repeatedly, and got nowhere.

One of them was Shirley Luckett, then 33 and a young mother. She lived at 2360.

Luckett was a busybody and a spitfire – the type who took down license plates, took no guff and called police on a regular basis.

"I'm always looking at my surroundings – I like to feel safe,"she said. "My son, he couldn't ride his bike to the store and wear his red shirt without them gangsters chasing him home. You have a right to live anywhere, peacefully, without that junk and trash spilling over on you.”

The typical response from police was tepid, neighbors felt. Community-oriented policing – getting out of the car, getting to know neighbors – was a coming trend, still viewed with suspicion by veteran cops who typically came up in the '60s and preferred the old ways.

Police Chief Ray Fjetland pushed the new programs, but old habits were hard to break.

"They used to call it ‘over the hood or over the radio,' "said Bob David, 52, a retired Tacoma police officer, and one of the first responders to the Ash Street shooutout. "That's the way a patrolman handled his day. If it didn't come over the hood – if the fight didn't come over the hood of the police car – you could drive away and let it resolve itself. Because that way there's less violence, less stress, and that's the way things were done."

POWERLESS

Renae Harttlet, now 38, doesn't like to think of those days. She was 18 then, already a mother – wild, young and nave, she said, but never a crack addict, she insists. She rented the house at 2328 – but she had no power over the wave of dealing on the street, the friends of Marco Simmons who came and went. Sometimes she fought with him about it. Nothing changed.

Simmons, reportedly still in the Tacoma area, could not be reached by The News Tribune to provide his recollections. Harttlet said many of the hangers-on around the house were there with his permission.

"I don't want to act like I'm innocent, 'cause I'm not,"Harttlet said. "I'm aware of things that took place, but sometimes it wasn't to my liking. I didn't agree to it. I don't want to blame and act like I was totally innocent of the situation. Did I approve of it? No. Could I control it? No.”

PRELUDE

The run-up to the shooting began with a series of public missteps that made the result seem inevitable.

In summer 1989, Foulk returned from a December deployment in Panama to find the neighborhood worse than when he left. Along with Luckett and other neighbors, he formed a neighborhood group that pressed police, demanding action. The neighbors started making signs, protesting, taking pictures of the dealers.

Even as the tension on Ash Street rose, Chief Fjetland made a decision he would later regret. Hamstrung by budget constraints and desperately short on the patrol side, he shifted four of six officers away the Hilltop crime management team – a community policing pilot project that now looked unaffordable.

Neighbors reacted with dismay. Fjetland, under fire from citizens and the City Council, agreed to reconsider. The News Tribune covered the controversy, noting efforts by Ash Street neighbors to monitor the drug activity.

"A group of a dozen neighbors who live in the area of South 23rd and Ash streets said they are on the verge of vigilante action because police have failed to curtail drug dealing around their homes.”

– The News Tribune, Sept. 21, 1989

The publicity had a side effect. Drug traffic on Ash Street slowed to a trickle. Foulk was used to seeing more than 100 cars pass through the block on a given day. After the story appeared, it was down to 20.

"That really pissed them off,"Foulk said, recalling the reaction from gangsters.

Foulk installed a video camera in his upstairs window to record the traffic. He organized a neighborhood barbecue as a show of public unity, set for 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23. He invited neighbors and friends, including Ranger buddies. Coming armed might not be a bad idea, Foulk suggested.

THE GUN FINGER

The day of the barbecue, Foulk and the neighbors got the gun finger.

It came from bystanders across the street, from cars driving by: the index finger pointed, thumb up, a little flip of the hand, mouthed words: boom, boom.

The gangsters saw the video camera in Foulk's house. They threw stones and rotten pears at it – one of the scruffy trees on the block was laden with September fruit. Someone else took shots at the house with a BB gun.

Foulk and a few Ranger friends walked across the street to confront the harassers.

It was a short talk, marked by a difference of opinion. Foulk asked for Marco Simmons. The gangsters scoffed.

Foulk told them to stop throwing things at his home and the neighbors, to stop shooting BBs, to knock it off.

The gangsters told him to take the camera out of the window.

"Stop doing wrong,"Foulk replied.

Foulk was 32, already a combat veteran, married, a homeowner. The people facing him were children, barely out of their teens – Simmons was 20.

The gangsters suggested Foulk didn't know who he was dealing with.

Foulk suggested the gangsters didn't know who they were dealing with.

The gangsters weren't impressed.

"You're history, bitch,"Foulk remembers one of them saying.

They would burn his house down and light him up – after dark, they said.

Foulk walked away, cheap chatter trailing in his wake.

"I'm gonna shoot that Army SOB,"he heard someone say.

Things started moving fast. Harttlet remembers Simmons telling her to take the children out of the house, to go down the block to her mother's.

"It was out of control,"Harttlet said. "It wasn't right, you know. But at the time, whether you're right or wrong – people at that time probably didn't look at it that way.”

DEFENSE

A few Ranger friends were already at the barbecue. Foulk called a few more. The total grew to 15. He told them to bring personal weapons, whatever they had. He called The News Tribune. A reporter, Dan Voelpel, and a photographer, Russ Carmack, soon arrived.

The plan was defensive, he and his buddies agreed. Stake out locations and wait. No first moves. If police come, disarm immediately. Maybe nothing happens. But if it does, keep the gangsters off. No more.

"Our intent was to not allow them to advance on us,"Foulk said.

Foulk ordered the women into the house. Shirley Luckett, who had a gun, was mildly annoyed. She had sent her children to stay with a relative. However the thing went down, she was in.

"I had a nine (a 9-millimeter pistol) in my hand – yes I did, somebody gave me a nine,"she said. "I was gonna fight for my life."

A car drove by. Someone in it fired a shot into the air.

After sunset, Foulk turned out the lights in the house and the yard. The neighbors waited.

THE SHOOTOUT

The first shots at Foulk's house came at 9:20 p.m., according to statements from several witnesses. Then things got crazy.

"Shots were heard and seen coming from the west side of the house. Small-caliber automatic gunfire was also heard.”

– Tacoma police report

"All of a sudden I hear a bang from across the street, then it's boom boom boom,"said Carmack, the TNT photograper. "I'm hunkered down by this piece of wood, among these cars. The bullets were whizzing past, over my head. I've never been on the receiving end of the sound before, the zinging."

William Edwards, one of the Rangers, was posted on the front porch. When the shooting started, he hit the ground. A bullet slammed into the wall beside him.

He and other Rangers returned fire, seeing figures running among parked cars on the other side of the street.

A new fusillade of shots came from the opposite side of the house. Ranger Russell Nolte, posted in the backyard, crawled forward – a shot hit the front of the house, three feet over his head.

Ranger Burr Settles was upstairs by the hated video camera. A shot came through the window, and a shower of shattered glass grazed his head.

"Numerous muzzle flashes/shots began coming in from the east. There were at least three different shooters.”

– Tacoma police report

The Rangers again returned fire. Outside, the assailants flitted among the parked cars, shooting over their shoulders and ducking down.

Luckett flattened herself on the floor of Foulk's house. Bullets slammed into the walls.

"It's something I would never want to be in again – 'cause it was frightening,"she said.

Harttlet, down the street in her mother's house, was in the same position.

"I'm petrified of guns to this day,"she said.

Inside Foulk's house, Luckett dialed 911.

"They're shooting!"she shouted at the receiver.

A few Rangers overheard and put down their weapons, sending Luckett into a conniption.

"You cannot do that!"

The first police car came down the middle of the street, emergency lights on, sirens blaring. Carmack watched.

"All of a sudden another round goes off,"he said. "I have never seen smoke come out of a rear set of tires ... this patrol car backed out, just squealing.”

Officers in the car reported hearing 50 to 60 shots in less than a minute.

For 20 years, the official version of the shootout held that no one was hurt in the gunfire. Not true, according to Foulk. During the firefight, one gangster rushed toward Foulk's house.

"I guess he thought he was gonna John Wayne it,"Foulk remembered.

One of the Rangers took aim and winged the gangster in the shoulder. The attacker staggered back and ran away. The moment goes unmentioned in police reports and witness accounts of the time. Unverified gossip holds that the wounded man was treated at a Seattle-area hospital.

More cops poured into the block. The gangsters ran.

"As other police units arrived in the area, subjects were seen fleeing. Those subjects were pursued, and some caught and detained.”

– Tacoma police report

COPS TAKE CONTROL

The gunfire dwindled. Foulk listened and ran the options.

Cops coming, guaranteed.

Show yourself. Do not get shot.

He was carrying two pistols: A Browning 9-millimeter, and a Colt .357. Foulk put them in the laundry basket in the laundry room. He walked out the back door, to his driveway and the alley behind his house.

He felt someone behind and didn't fight. A hand shoved his head down, a voice ordered him to the ground, a knee plowed him into a spread-eagle.

"Who's in charge around here?"the cop said.

"I guess I am.”

"What the (expletive) is going on?”

Foulk cannot remember the officer's name. It could have been Bob David, the officer who wrote the primary report of the incident. It could have been Jim Pincham, another officer who was among the first to respond to the scene. It could have been any of at least a dozen cops who swarmed into Ash Street that night.

TAKING THE GUNS

David remembers the scene. He was in charge of handling the Rangers. Over the radio, a commander he won't name told him to seize all their guns as evidence.

The Rangers weren't happy. David offered a compromise. They were Rangers – they had lots of guns, right? Give up the lousy ones – keep the high-end stuff.

Nowhere close to protocol. David knew it. Part of him didn't care.

"I wasn't gonna be the arm to hurt somebody that I knew was innocent, fighting someone that I knew was guilty,"he said.

Sgt. Mike Miller, one of the mid-level commanders running the crime scene, wasn't happy, either. Arriving at Foulk's home, taking control, he gave the Rangers a tongue-lashing.

"R/SGT (Responding sergeant) lectured Foulk and his companions for not calling for police assistance until shots were fired. ... R/SGT feels that this situation may have been avoided by calling 911 prior to the shooting getting started. R/SGT also expressed the above thoughts to the military commanders of Foulk and his friends...”

– Excerpt from Miller's police report

Carmack, the photographer, heard a police commander lecturing the Rangers. He doesn't know who it was, but he knows what he heard.

"The commander, he was really pissed off at the soldiers,"Carmack recalled. "He said, ‘I don't see one (expletive) body over there.' I may be ad-libbing, but he was upset that they missed."

THE CHASE

Renae Harttlet walked outside from her mother's house.

"I just know I came out and everyone scattered,"she said. "The street was smoky as heck – everyone came out and everybody was like gone.”

Police were taking witness statements and fanning out across the Hilltop, searching for the assailants. The Rangers gave sketchy descriptions. They described one particular shooter – a big, beefy kid in a red, white and blue jacket.

Two blocks from the scene, a police dog cornered a group of young men.

One suspect was carrying 16 bullets, .38 caliber. He said he was holding them for a friend, but couldn't remember the friend's name. Same went for the pistol he was carrying.

Another suspect was carrying copper-headed rounds for a gas gun – big, beefy kid in a red, white and blue jacket. His name was Frankie Lee Stricklen.

He was 20, already familiar to police from previous contacts on the Hilltop. A 1987 incident led to a second-degree burglary conviction. State community corrections officers had little hope for him.

"Stricklen lacks basic skills presently and will continue to experience problems securing employment. His learning disability is severe and I do not project he will be making significant progress in near future.”

– Department of Corrections report, July 27, 1989

Police brought several Rangers to the area where Stricklen was held. All of them identified him as one of the shooters.

He would be the only man charged in the incident.

THE AFTERSHOCKS

The neighbors stayed at Foulk's house all night.

"Nobody wanted to go home,"Foulk said. "They're like, hey, you guys got all the guns.”

At 7 a.m. the phones started ringing. Media.

Along with the other neighbors, Luckett spent the night at Foulk's house. She woke up seething.

Across the street at 2319, Harttlet was no happier. She woke to reporters knocking at the door, TV cameras in the street and a milling crowd of neighbors.

Luckett was one of them. Harttlet fixed on her, walking across the street, screaming and pointing.

The moment survives on 20-year-old video. Luckett stands on a slope, screaming back at Harttlet, rapid-fire.

"What kind of a mother are you?"Luckett says. "What kind of a mother are you?”

In the video, Harttlet lunges forward, pulls Luckett down, and the two women roll into Ash Street, clawing and kicking.

Marco Simmons, Harttlet's boyfriend, rushes in, kicking at Luckett. A neighbor rushes from behind and kicks at Simmons, and the fight spreads, spilling down the street, going on and on.

Someone off-camera says, "Where's the damned police?”

The police had been called. They arrived 27 minutes later. Records showed they were handling other calls: a burglary in progress, two stolen-car reports, an escaped mental patient and a domestic dispute in the city's North End.

Whatever the reasons, less than 12 hours after a neighborhood shootout that made national headlines, the timing was lousy.

Foulk spent the next three weeks sleeping upstairs, fully dressed, with a gun at his side.

He remembers a visit from Army commanders, one of whom he won't name.

"I cannot order you to leave your home. But I suggest you do,"the commander said.

"If I leave they will burn this house to the ground,"Foulk replied.

"Well, you've got fire insurance, don't you?”

LANDLORD GETS INVOLVED

Tom Cosey, then 61, had owned the house at 2328 South Ash since 1965. An old soldier, he had always fixed things himself, handled problems himself. In his day, neighbors would kick unruly youths in the butt. None of that gangster crap.

He wasn't the sort of landlord to throw people out on a whim. The Hilltop was far from rich. People struggled. He tried to go easy when he could – but the shootout and complaints from neighbors were too much.

He had thought about evicting Harttlet before, but always hesitated. He knew her mother, who lived down the street. Cosey talked to Foulk and other neighbors, who voted 11-1 for eviction.

"I was for the Rangers, for what they did, you damn betcha – old soldiers,"says Cosey. "I probably would have done the same thing.”

He told police what he was planning. They told him to wait a little. He waited two days and knocked on Harttlet's door.

"I said, OK, back up and out,"he remembered. "They knew that I had had it.”

There was more to it. Cosey knew the city had a crime abatement program. Enough police complaints, and they could take his house.

"I understood,"Harttlet said. "He told me that he didn't want me to have to move, but they were having meetings and all that stuff and there was nothing he could do about it.”

CITY REACTION

Tacoma's leaders had a public relations uproar on their hands.

Mayor Doug Sutherland suggested limiting civil rights in certain areas of the city. His would-be successors, mayoral candidates Karen Vialle and Tim Strege, jousted over who could be tougher on crime.

Police demanded more bodies – 100 additional officers, right away, a budget-buster.

Gov. Booth Gardner said he wasn't ready to call the National Guard, but he would certainly consider it if police were overwhelmed.

Chief Fjetland took the local heat. At a hastily arranged public meeting, neighbors ripped him for transferring officers out of the Hilltop.

Media pundits chewed on the shootout. TV reporters turned Ash Street into a stock backdrop. Newspapers fretted.

Tacoma, always Seattle's scruffy sibling, had a new bruise.

"The shootout ... was on the fringe of anarchy. And it represents just the beginning of what will happen in Tacoma and other communities if police don't get substantially better at dealing with drug dealers.

"...These are sorry and frightening times when citizens feel they have to do law enforcement's job because they no longer trust the police to do it.”

– The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review, Sept. 25, 1989 (editorial)

Community groups and the Safe Streets organization met with neighbors and batted opinions back and forth. Luckett went to those meetings and felt growing anger as the discussion shifted to a race debate.

"They tried to make it a black-white thing – it was never that – it was always residents against alleged drug dealers,"she remembered. "You cannot make that shootout on Ash Street a racist thing because it was not a racist thing. I don't care. If you want to fight alongside to clean up this place, you're my brother.”

Police pulled overtime shifts, keeping constant vigil on Ash Street, walking up and down the block, talking to combatants from both sides. At one point, police brokered a truce between the two sides – an agreement that seemed to wink at drug-dealing, as long as there was no violence.

Luckett wanted no part of it.

"Why were we gonna sit down and negotiate with some dope-dealin', gun-slinging, drug-using fools?"she said. "That didn't make no sense to me. They didn't have no right to be doing what they were doing up there.”

THE ARMY REACTION

Bill Foulk had a new problem. His commanding officers didn't like the publicity surrounding their sergeant. His home on Ash Street was declared off-limits to other Rangers. There was talk of transferring him to another base.

"I was an embarrassment to the Army, because I did what I thought was right,"he remembered.

A meeting at the Fort Lewis public affairs office shortly after the shooting underscored the situation. Foulk remembers a tough colonel going straight at him.

"Sergeant Foulk, I want you to know you can forget about being promoted,"the colonel said.

"Why is that, sir?”

"Because you've become too well-known for the wrong reasons.”

After weeks of nonstop tension, Foulk had to get away from the house, just to feel normal for a while.

He picked a barbecue joint on Mildred Street. Not so far from Ash, but it felt like another country. He sat down and ordered a beer.

He heard someone at another table hailing the bartender.

"Say, this guy's money's no good here,"the voice said.

Foulk turned and saw a table full of off-duty cops: Tacoma police officers and Pierce County sheriff's deputies – about a dozen of them. For the rest of the night, beer was free.

ONE CONVICTION

Frankie Stricklen, the only man charged in connection with the shootout, was convicted of second-degree assault. He was later sentenced to 22 months in prison.

The years that followed led to more convictions for drug-related offenses. Stricklen is currently in the Pierce County Jail, awaiting trial on a drug possession charge. He declined requests for an interview.

The only record of his views comes from a 1990 broadcast of "48 Hours"on CBS. A reporter interviewed Stricklen in the jail. He denied involvement in the shootout.

Did you start the shooting?

No. I didn't.

So let me make sure I understand this, Frankie. You and your friends are hanging around, minding your own business, not doing anything illegal at all...

Mm-hm.

... not selling any drugs, not buying any drugs, not using any drugs, not shooting anybody...

Nope.

. ...or at anybody. And these guys come along, these Army Rangers, and shoot up the neighborhood.

Yeah.

Forgive me. It just doesn't sound like it makes any sense.

That's it.

– Excerpt from "48 Hours"broadcast, Feb. 22, 1990.

CHANGES

Bob David retired from the police department in 1997; a decade of chasing bad guys wore him down, and the death of a colleague soured him on police work.

The shootout was bad, an embarrassment for the department, but it was good, too. Old habits began to die.

"With (Foulk) doing what he did, bringing all this up to make a it a huge political football, that's when things started to change,"he said.

Fjetland's plans for community-oriented policing took hold, jump-started by the controversy. By degrees, the Hilltop crime management team was reassembled. The department assigned community liaison officers to specific areas, breaking the city into sectors, and refining data-gathering.

"I look at the Ash Street shooting as kind of the pinnacle of all that stuff, because it became national and it really got our attention. It was huge, it was a big deal,"said Sheehan, the veteran assistant chief. "(Fjetland) started training the department and making the necessary changes to get a better handle on what was going on."

Shirley Luckett moved out of Ash Street years back. After the shootout, she learned that people in her own household had been buying drugs from the dealers on the block. It was a disappointment.

She lives near Foss High School now. She still watches the street, and calls police sometimes to warn them about suspicious activity – not as much as the old days.

Ash Street is a better place now, more peaceful. Whatever people thought about the shootout, something good came from it.

"A lot of people misunderstood what it was really about,"she said. "If neighbors get together instead of peeking out from behind their blinds, you can make a difference. You can really make a difference.”

Renae Harttlet is a single mother with seven children. One is a miracle – born premature, given no chance to survive, in surgery before he weighed a pound.

"I'm just blessed,"she said. "I never thought I was blessed before. I've been through so much in my life, and I never thought any good things would happen for me, but they have.”

She doesn't claim innocence. She hates to relive the shootout, or think about it. It was crazy, a mess. She doesn't fault the Rangers. Upstanding citizens, she says. Good people, though she didn't understand it then.

Her older children know the shooting as a story their mother doesn't like to tell. They ask her questions sometimes, and she sums it up short.

"I've been in trouble even after that happened. But I also changed up,"she said. "I have these kids that look at me. If my kids get taken or I get in trouble, who's gonna take care of them? These kids are my life. I have to do right. I would never allow that to ever happen again. I'd never live like that.”

ROOTS RUN DEEP

Bill Foulk could have moved. He never did.

As the tough colonel predicted, he was never promoted. He left the Army in 1993.

His house at 2319 South Ash is bigger than it was, after 20 years of puttering. He repaired the bullet holes long ago.

Twice the square footage now, he guesses: add-ons in back, covered porch in front, new picket fence. On the side, a deck and small swimming pool, and green grass, and flowers and tomatoes.

"I like it here,"he says. "I like this neighborhood.”

He's had the front windows redone. About halfway up the front siding, between the window and the wall, a pockmark lingers – the last bullet hole.

It's a ladder job. He means to patch it, but he keeps forgetting.

Staff writer Brian Everstine contributed to this report.

**A Town Called Malus**

Relapse wrote:
If someone was abusing myself or my neighbors family and freedoms, I would very much be ready to fight to protect those freedoms. I believe most other posters here would also use the strongest means at their disposal.

But how would you fight? Your children are walking to school and a parked car explodes. How could you fight against that?

Your wife is going shopping and is shot as a car drives past her. Or maybe they take her and she'll die if you don't do what the cartel says.

Your neighbour has been promised that if he betrays you his family will be spared, would you kill him too? Just for trying to protect his family in the only way he thinks he can?

What exactly are you willing to do? How many people are you willing to kill? How many people are you willing to lose?

**Relapse**

You're talking about about worst case scenarios where the choices to do the right thing and fight back are painful. My country was established because brave men chose to do the right thing, no matter how painful.
Just so you know I'm not playing with theory, I have been in situations where I could have had my head shot off, but went in to help put down the threat because no one else was around.
I know how far I will go to stop a criminal, and my answer is that I will use whatever force is needed to protect other people.

**Akroma06**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Relapse wrote:
If someone was abusing myself or my neighbors family and freedoms, I would very much be ready to fight to protect those freedoms. I believe most other posters here would also use the strongest means at their disposal.

But how would you fight? Your children are walking to school and a parked car explodes. How could you fight against that?

Your wife is going shopping and is shot as a car drives past her. Or maybe they take her and she'll die if you don't do what the cartel says.

Your neighbour has been promised that if he betrays you his family will be spared, would you kill him too? Just for trying to protect his family in the only way he thinks he can?

What exactly are you willing to do? How many people are you willing to kill? How many people are you willing to lose?

And that is why fear works. People are afraid of these things happening and thus they back down. If as a group people stand up then groups like cartels don't have that power. People talk, if someone saw something suspicious they should say something, such as a car noone has seen before in the neighborhood. But doing nothing because of what MIGHT happen is the problem. But an armed society is a polite society. If people are afraid to commit a crime because they don't know who has a gun and who doesn't then they won't commit a crime.

While I don't agree with Penn and Teller on everything...gun control is one of the ones I do.

Oh btw it would seem that most people in Co agree with me.

Colorado gun stores are seeing a big jump in demand for firearms since last Friday's massacre at a midnight movie showing in Aurora.

Background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado reportedly increased more than 41 percent after last week’s Aurora movie massacre. The Denver Post reports that firearm instructors have also seen increased interest in training needed for a concealed-carry permit.

"It's been insane," Jake Meyers, an employee at Rocky Mountain Guns and Ammo in Parker told the newspaper Monday.

Between Friday and Sunday, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm — a 43 percent increase over the previous Friday through Sunday and a 39 percent jump over those same days on the first weekend of July.

The biggest spike was on Friday, when there were 1,216 checks, a 43 percent increase over the average number for the previous two Fridays.

On Friday morning, just hours after alleged 24-year-old gunman James Holmes killed 12 and injured 58 others at the Century Aurora theater, up to 20 people were already waiting outside the store when Meyers arrived, he said.

He said the day was “probably the busiest Monday all year” and said basic firearms classes that he and the store’s owner conduct are booked for the next three weeks — a first for this year, the newspaper reports.

"A lot of it is people saying, 'I didn't think I needed a gun, but now I do,' " he told the newspaper. "When it happens in your backyard, people start reassessing — 'Hey, I go to the movies.'"

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/24/background-checks-for-guns-in-colorado-reportedly-jump-41-percent-since-movie/#ixzz21Z8rqRDF

**Lynata**

Akroma06 wrote:If people are afraid to commit a crime because they don't know who has a gun and who doesn't then they won't commit a crime.

A cynic would say: "Or they'd merely shoot first".

Also, I'm not sure if the US crime statistics would agree to that assessment either.

Akroma06 wrote:http://www.foxnews.com

Heh.

Sorry, had to.

**SilverMK2**

Spacemanvic wrote:Question: But how about children? In March of this year [1998] four children and a teacher were killed by two school boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Won't tragedies like this increase if more people are allowed to carry guns? Shouldn't this be taken into consideration before making gun ownership laws more lenient?

Lott: The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad ones.

If only those children in school were packing uzi's...

**Lynata**

SilverMK2 wrote:If only those children in school were packing uzi's...

A vision of some cyberpunk'esque future just appeared before my inner eye, of school kids with SMGs and people driving to work in armoured cars and old ladies in bullet-proof vests shopping for groceries and bullets.

**Kilkrazy**

Jihadin wrote:I posted this before...might as well do it again

Ash Street shootout: The night that changed Tacoma's Hilltop

Nobody died in the Ash Street shootout. That was the miracle.

...

Staff writer Brian Everstine contributed to this report.

It would be better to provide a link rather than long screeds of text.

Thanks.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Been doing some research on gun control in America, and found some interesting facts:

1) A guy called Gage tried to seize some guns, and apparently, it led to a minor skirkmish called the revolution

2) After the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, some states passed laws banning African Americans from owning guns.

3) After the civil war, more states passed laws banning African Americans from owning guns.

4) In the 1960s, images of African Americans arming themselves prompted calls for more gun control...seems to be a pattern emerging here

To sum up, I've always supported the idea of people gunning down crooks if their life is threatened, but after reading about the racist element behind gun control (I'm an ethnic minority to those that don't know), I'm edging more towards being pro-gun.

I don't know how to say this, but could Frazz and other pro-gun posters on this site be right? The horror....