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 BaronIveagh wrote:

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.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

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.

Not to mention you can turn any shotgun into a sawed-off with a hacksaw in about 60 seconds.

 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.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not to mention you can turn any shotgun into a sawed-off with a hacksaw in about 60 seconds.

Was it actually a sawn off shotgun? Or was it something like a Mossberg Shockwave which the media/witness might falsely describe as sawn off?

 Nostromodamus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not to mention you can turn any shotgun into a sawed-off with a hacksaw in about 60 seconds.

Was it actually a sawn off shotgun? Or was it something like a Mossberg Shockwave which the media/witness might falsely describe as sawn off?

According to some reports, he sawed it off to hide it under his coat. Not sure beyond that, I havn't been able to find photos of the actual weapons.

He also brought explosive devices the police bomb squad handled. Also illegal.

 Nostromodamus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not to mention you can turn any shotgun into a sawed-off with a hacksaw in about 60 seconds.

Was it actually a sawn off shotgun? Or was it something like a Mossberg Shockwave which the media/witness might falsely describe as sawn off?

I'm seeing various reports that it was a remington 870 with a sawed off barrel, or one with a short barrel. (they come in a 14" model)

As for the inspiration argument. The killer seemed to follow the Columbine M.O., to the exact type of pipe bombs used, and wearing the trench coat.

 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.

 Ouze wrote:

 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.

Yeah, pretty much.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 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.

It was a CBS page, which took figures from the ATF registry. Which does exclude a lot of firearm types (which explains why all the numbers are quite low).
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/most-heavily-armed-states-in-america/

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
A person may not import into this state

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.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Nazi Germany began as a democracy and they banned guns.

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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.

Yes, per capita the Norwegians have 30 guns per hundred i.e. 30% as much as the USA.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, per capita the Norwegians have 30 guns per hundred i.e. 30% as much as the USA.

Yes, but that puts them at 2nd, or 8th, depending on which study you're reading. Not 18th.

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...

Then the cause is something else.

 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.

Spetulhu wrote:

 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.

 djones520 wrote:

jouso wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

jouso wrote:

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.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spetulhu wrote:

 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.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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...

Spetulhu wrote:

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.

Yeah, I'd like to see any type of pistol, let alone Revolver, that could legitimately be classified as "Anti-tank".

Also, a 557 Tyrannosaur Revolver? I've only seen it in a rifle, I can't imagine it in a pistol version.