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Would you ever move out of your home/state/country just because of stricter gun laws?

I have a friend who wants to move out of California because he can't shoot in his backyard(even though he lives in an apartment in an urban area) and that people are too anti gun apparently

It really depends. Illinois laws are a very big stickler for me, one of the reasons I'll be glad to leave. I was not happy that I had to apply to get my 2nd Amendment rights.

Now, if a state were to outright ban "Assault Rifles", I'd probably never go there, because I spent a lot of freaking money on mine.

I'm gonna state the opposite, so my anwser to this is still yes.

I wouldn't move to a place with your gun laws.

 Soladrin wrote:
I'm gonna state the opposite, so my anwser to this is still yes.

I wouldn't move to a place with your gun laws.

I would agree. I am all for being able to shoot (and would love to be able to do so in the UK), but almost completely unregulated sale and use of guns? No thanks. You have to pass tests to prove you can drive a car before you can go out on the roads on your own, why don't you need to do the same things if you want to have/use a gun?

An initial test/course teaching gun safety in use, storage and maintainence, psychological evaluation, criminal background check and so on, as well as ensuring each person has a gun safe for their weapons and ammo, then on completion (assuming you pass), you get a gun licence, against which your purchases are registered, and which you need to provide to prove you are able to buy guns and ammo at your local gun store (same as if want to rent a car you need to present your driving licence) allowing them to check that a) you have one and b) it is valid and c) to register your purchases against you.

Close loopholes like gun show sales and other "private" sales and ensure that all sales are recorded (so if you sell a gun it is registered with the central agency that you have sold it and who to) and you will have a system with very little impact on the vast majority of gun owners but with a little more safety built in.

Throw in a short re-evaluation course every 5-10 years and manditory reporting by the health services of any mental problems to the gun regulation authority and I think that will really help for the minimum of hassle.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Throw in a short re-evaluation course every 5-10 years and manditory reporting by the health services of any mental problems to the gun regulation authority and I think that will really help for the minimum of hassle.

Spoken like someone who's never spent five hours in a northern Virginia DMV.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
Would you ever move out of your home/state/country just because of stricter gun laws?

I have a friend who wants to move out of California because he can't shoot in his backyard(even though he lives in an apartment in an urban area) and that people are too anti gun apparently

Your friend should want to leave California because its become a hole.
California actually has public areas where you can go shoot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I'm gonna state the opposite, so my anwser to this is still yes.

I wouldn't move to a place with your gun laws.

I would agree. I am all for being able to shoot (and would love to be able to do so in the UK), but almost completely unregulated sale and use of guns? No thanks. You have to pass tests to prove you can drive a car before you can go out on the roads on your own, why don't you need to do the same things if you want to have/use a gun?

An initial test/course teaching gun safety in use, storage and maintainence, psychological evaluation, criminal background check and so on, as well as ensuring each person has a gun safe for their weapons and ammo, then on completion (assuming you pass), you get a gun licence, against which your purchases are registered, and which you need to provide to prove you are able to buy guns and ammo at your local gun store (same as if want to rent a car you need to present your driving licence) allowing them to check that a) you have one and b) it is valid and c) to register your purchases against you.

Close loopholes like gun show sales and other "private" sales and ensure that all sales are recorded (so if you sell a gun it is registered with the central agency that you have sold it and who to) and you will have a system with very little impact on the vast majority of gun owners but with a little more safety built in.

Throw in a short re-evaluation course every 5-10 years and manditory reporting by the health services of any mental problems to the gun regulation authority and I think that will really help for the minimum of hassle.

You won't be missed.

 Frazzled wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I'm gonna state the opposite, so my anwser to this is still yes.

I wouldn't move to a place with your gun laws.

I would agree. I am all for being able to shoot (and would love to be able to do so in the UK), but almost completely unregulated sale and use of guns? No thanks. You have to pass tests to prove you can drive a car before you can go out on the roads on your own, why don't you need to do the same things if you want to have/use a gun?

An initial test/course teaching gun safety in use, storage and maintainence, psychological evaluation, criminal background check and so on, as well as ensuring each person has a gun safe for their weapons and ammo, then on completion (assuming you pass), you get a gun licence, against which your purchases are registered, and which you need to provide to prove you are able to buy guns and ammo at your local gun store (same as if want to rent a car you need to present your driving licence) allowing them to check that a) you have one and b) it is valid and c) to register your purchases against you.

Close loopholes like gun show sales and other "private" sales and ensure that all sales are recorded (so if you sell a gun it is registered with the central agency that you have sold it and who to) and you will have a system with very little impact on the vast majority of gun owners but with a little more safety built in.

Throw in a short re-evaluation course every 5-10 years and manditory reporting by the health services of any mental problems to the gun regulation authority and I think that will really help for the minimum of hassle.

You won't be missed.

Living in the UK, there's a good chance he won't be hit either. Or even shot at.

 Albatross wrote:
Living in the UK, there's a good chance he won't be hit either. Or even shot at.

Living in the US there is a pretty good chance of that as well. I'm 28, 11 years in the military, frequently visit Detroit and St. Louis, and I've never been shot at.

 Albatross wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I'm gonna state the opposite, so my anwser to this is still yes.

I wouldn't move to a place with your gun laws.

I would agree. I am all for being able to shoot (and would love to be able to do so in the UK), but almost completely unregulated sale and use of guns? No thanks. You have to pass tests to prove you can drive a car before you can go out on the roads on your own, why don't you need to do the same things if you want to have/use a gun?

An initial test/course teaching gun safety in use, storage and maintainence, psychological evaluation, criminal background check and so on, as well as ensuring each person has a gun safe for their weapons and ammo, then on completion (assuming you pass), you get a gun licence, against which your purchases are registered, and which you need to provide to prove you are able to buy guns and ammo at your local gun store (same as if want to rent a car you need to present your driving licence) allowing them to check that a) you have one and b) it is valid and c) to register your purchases against you.

Close loopholes like gun show sales and other "private" sales and ensure that all sales are recorded (so if you sell a gun it is registered with the central agency that you have sold it and who to) and you will have a system with very little impact on the vast majority of gun owners but with a little more safety built in.

Throw in a short re-evaluation course every 5-10 years and manditory reporting by the health services of any mental problems to the gun regulation authority and I think that will really help for the minimum of hassle.

You won't be missed.

Living in the UK, there's a good chance he won't be hit either. Or even shot at.

Might be stabbed or robbed though.

Nah, that's pretty unlikely too.

 Albatross wrote:
Nah, that's pretty unlikely too.

It's pretty unlikely our house is going to catch fire, but there's a rope ladder stashed on the fourth floor anyway.

 Seaward wrote:
Spoken like someone who's never spent five hours in a northern Virginia DMV.

I'd say that is more to do with your DMV being crap than anything else. But I guess it is easier to scream "THAT WON'T WORK! I NEED ME MY GUNZ!" than it is to actually get proactive to come up with something that might actually work for the majority of people.

And I love you too Fraz

 Seaward wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
Nah, that's pretty unlikely too.

It's pretty unlikely our house is going to catch fire, but there's a rope ladder stashed on the fourth floor anyway.

You too? We have a chain ladder in each room stashed under the window in case of fire. She Who Must Be Obeyed was very concerned about that. Now with TBone the wiener fire hydrant we can just load him up with water, wait thirty seconds and aim him towards the fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Spoken like someone who's never spent five hours in a northern Virginia DMV.

I'd say that is more to do with your DMV being crap than anything else. But I guess it is easier to scream "THAT WON'T WORK! I NEED ME MY GUNZ!" than it is to actually get proactive to come up with something that might actually work for the majority of people.

And I love you too Fraz

its not personal. We have more immigrants clamoring to get in here than we can handle now.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Spoken like someone who's never spent five hours in a northern Virginia DMV.

I'd say that is more to do with your DMV being crap than anything else. But I guess it is easier to scream "THAT WON'T WORK! I NEED ME MY GUNZ!" than it is to actually get proactive to come up with something that might actually work for the majority of people.

And I love you too Fraz

I'd believe it, except exactly none of what you proposed would've prevented the Sandy Hook tragedy, nor Columbine, nor countless others.

The worst mass killing in New York's history was accomplished with about two dollars worth of gasoline and a ninety-nine cent Bic lighter. Maybe, just maybe, it's extremely difficult to stop a committed madman from doing what he wants to do using nothing more than red tape.

To the OP, you might want to let your friend know that it doesn't matter what state he lives in, none of them will let you shoot from the back yard of an apartment complex.

djones520 wrote:
To the OP, you might want to let your friend know that it doesn't matter what state he lives in, none of them will let you shoot from the back yard of an apartment complex.

You've not lived in East LA have you young man...

 Seaward wrote:
I'd believe it, except exactly none of what you proposed would've prevented the Sandy Hook tragedy, nor Columbine, nor countless others.

The worst mass killing in New York's history was accomplished with about two dollars worth of gasoline and a ninety-nine cent Bic lighter. Maybe, just maybe, it's extremely difficult to stop a committed madman from doing what he wants to do using nothing more than red tape.

I'm not going to go through on a case by case basis because, well, to be honest I lack the interest to do so. You will always get dedicated people willing to do whatever it takes to acomplish their goals. We have a total ban on hand guns in the UK but there are still firearms deaths (not many, but some) every year caused by illegal handguns.

The point is not to stop these things completely, as that is clearly impossible, it is simply to make it as hard as possible without overly inconveniencing the general public. Would you say that any of the suggestions I mentioned would overly inconvenience you or anyone you know who regularly buys/sells/uses guns? More than say, having to take a driving test and present your licence whenever you hire a car? Would you say having a central, live register of gun owners, the amount of ammo they buy (and the sort), the gun offences/warnings they have recieved (such as the guy in the OP who wants to shoot in a residential area - I am not sure if that would be against the law over there? Either way, if is gun related and involves the police it could certainly be noted against his run licence number in the same way that speeding offenses are noted on your driving licence) and ensuring that everyone has at least a minimum of gun safety training and a safe place to store their gun would be a good or a bad thing?

Again, you can never stop people from going out there and doing these things completely, but it is telling when this kind of thing happens every other month...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
its not personal. We have more immigrants clamoring to get in here than we can handle now.

Welcome to every developed country in the world. I just find it a little boring that your reply to anything going against what you want "America to be" basically has you saying "don't like it? GTFO"

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Spoken like someone who's never spent five hours in a northern Virginia DMV.

I'd say that is more to do with your DMV being crap than anything else. But I guess it is easier to scream "THAT WON'T WORK! I NEED ME MY GUNZ!" than it is to actually get proactive to come up with something that might actually work for the majority of people.

And I love you too Fraz

We have a solution that works for a majority of our people.
Thanks for visiting.

I hear things are pretty lax in Mexico, so if the gun laws in the US were tightened up, people could emigrate south.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I hear things are pretty lax in Mexico, so if the gun laws in the US were tightened up, people could emigrate south.

Is this Mexico in some alternate dimension?

I don't like the idea of possibly dying in Mexico... It's barely safe to visit anymore...

I'm less concerned about the gun laws of the places I'm living, and more of the relevant crime statistics involving guns, regardless of legal or illegal possession.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
I'd believe it, except exactly none of what you proposed would've prevented the Sandy Hook tragedy, nor Columbine, nor countless others.

The worst mass killing in New York's history was accomplished with about two dollars worth of gasoline and a ninety-nine cent Bic lighter. Maybe, just maybe, it's extremely difficult to stop a committed madman from doing what he wants to do using nothing more than red tape.

I'm not going to go through on a case by case basis because, well, to be honest I lack the interest to do so. You will always get dedicated people willing to do whatever it takes to acomplish their goals. We have a total ban on hand guns in the UK but there are still firearms deaths (not many, but some) every year caused by illegal handguns.

The point is not to stop these things completely, as that is clearly impossible, it is simply to make it as hard as possible without overly inconveniencing the general public. Would you say that any of the suggestions I mentioned would overly inconvenience you or anyone you know who regularly buys/sells/uses guns? More than say, having to take a driving test and present your licence whenever you hire a car? Would you say having a central, live register of gun owners, the amount of ammo they buy (and the sort), the gun offences/warnings they have recieved (such as the guy in the OP who wants to shoot in a residential area - I am not sure if that would be against the law over there? Either way, if is gun related and involves the police it could certainly be noted against his run licence number in the same way that speeding offenses are noted on your driving licence) and ensuring that everyone has at least a minimum of gun safety training and a safe place to store their gun would be a good or a bad thing?

Again, you can never stop people from going out there and doing these things completely, but it is telling when this kind of thing happens every other month...

It doesn't happen every other month, first of all. I trust you were being hyperbolic rather than buying into the, "This is getting untenable, it's happening all the time!" hysteria that's proven incorrect at best by actual facts.

As for whether or not all that would inconvenience me? Of course it would. Monitoring how much ammo I buy would lead, within five years, to determining how much ammo I'm allowed to buy, and as someone who buys a fair amount of ammo - I shoot a lot - that'd annoy the hell out of me. Not to mention likely provoke a court case or two. Determining if my gun's stored safely? I live with another responsible adult, and if she and I are both fine with the gun being stored where it's stored - in an OHAI on the back of the nightstand - why is that the state's business?

I moved to California from the United States because of school, knowing the gun laws were absolutely terrible and that owning a gun here is walking a felony tightrope. Yes, I am an idiot.

However, once school is done and I move to a state that isn't completely insane on the issue:

I look forward to being able to change the grips or stocks on my rifle and not worry about going to jail for 2-8 years.
I look forward to not worrying about whether someone can manage to stuff 1 more round (Even if this includes damaging the magazine to the point of only working once and only chambering that first round) into a magazine over an arbitrary limit and send me to a small cage for a year+ stripping me of firearms rights.
I look forward to being able to make a firearm purchase and walk out with the item after my background check comes back clean, as opposed to after the 5 minute background check comes back.....plus a 10 day arbitrary wait (Despite the fact that I already own upwards of 30 firearms anyway, and the ridiculous notion that someone DRIVEN TO THE POINT OF COMMITTING MURDER will actually "Cool off" rather than find another method.)
I look forward to being able to purchase a handgun that isn't on some politician`s list of models that are "OK" for me to buy.
I look forward to not be looking at 2-8 years for threading the barrel of my pistol to accept a recoil comp for target shooting.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

Welcome to every developed country in the world. I just find it a little boring that your reply to anything going against what you want "America to be" basically has you saying "don't like it? GTFO"

And I get tired of people slagging the US, when everyone here came from other countries like yours, because they'd rather cross an ocean or a desert than have to stay there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I hear things are pretty lax in Mexico, so if the gun laws in the US were tightened up, people could emigrate south.

Mexico is a case study on why gun laws work in some countries but not others. Mexico has some of the toughest gun laws in the world. Yet over 50,000 people were killed there last year by "regular" firearms, including some provided by the US government, military firearms, and such high grade niceties as machine guns, grenades, and rockets.

 SOFDC wrote:
I moved to California from the United States because of school, knowing the gun laws were absolutely terrible and that owning a gun here is walking a felony tightrope. Yes, I am an idiot.

However, once school is done and I move to a state that isn't completely insane on the issue:

I look forward to being able to change the grips or stocks on my rifle and not worry about going to jail for 2-8 years.
I look forward to not worrying about whether someone can manage to stuff 1 more round (Even if this includes damaging the magazine to the point of only working once and only chambering that first round) into a magazine over an arbitrary limit and send me to a small cage for a year+ stripping me of firearms rights.
I look forward to being able to make a firearm purchase and walk out with the item after my background check comes back clean, as opposed to after the 5 minute background check comes back.....plus a 10 day arbitrary wait (Despite the fact that I already own upwards of 30 firearms anyway, and the ridiculous notion that someone DRIVEN TO THE POINT OF COMMITTING MURDER will actually "Cool off" rather than find another method.)
I look forward to being able to purchase a handgun that isn't on some politician`s list of models that are "OK" for me to buy.
I look forward to not be looking at 2-8 years for threading the barrel of my pistol to accept a recoil comp for target shooting.

Let's not get carried away. Those laws clearly work. After all, in 2011, 68% of homicides in California were committed with a firearm. If you didn't have restrictive idiocy like that, you could end up like relatively lax states like Virginia, where it's 69%.

If you didn't have restrictive idiocy like that, you could end up like relatively lax states like Virginia, where it's 69%.

Oh of course, I forgot that someone shot dead is MUCH DEADER than someone stabbed, strangled, or beaten to death. I also forgot that shot to death is also higher on the "Morally objectionable" scale than other methods. Wait...Not it isn't.

Getting out of here is one hell of an incentive to pay attention in class, I will admit.

 Seaward wrote:

 SOFDC wrote:
I moved to California from the United States because of school, knowing the gun laws were absolutely terrible and that owning a gun here is walking a felony tightrope. Yes, I am an idiot.

However, once school is done and I move to a state that isn't completely insane on the issue:

I look forward to being able to change the grips or stocks on my rifle and not worry about going to jail for 2-8 years.
I look forward to not worrying about whether someone can manage to stuff 1 more round (Even if this includes damaging the magazine to the point of only working once and only chambering that first round) into a magazine over an arbitrary limit and send me to a small cage for a year+ stripping me of firearms rights.
I look forward to being able to make a firearm purchase and walk out with the item after my background check comes back clean, as opposed to after the 5 minute background check comes back.....plus a 10 day arbitrary wait (Despite the fact that I already own upwards of 30 firearms anyway, and the ridiculous notion that someone DRIVEN TO THE POINT OF COMMITTING MURDER will actually "Cool off" rather than find another method.)
I look forward to being able to purchase a handgun that isn't on some politician`s list of models that are "OK" for me to buy.
I look forward to not be looking at 2-8 years for threading the barrel of my pistol to accept a recoil comp for target shooting.

Let's not get carried away. Those laws clearly work. After all, in 2011, 68% of homicides in California were committed with a firearm. If you didn't have restrictive idiocy like that, you could end up like relatively lax states like Virginia, where it's 69%.

And to put that in context, California's homicide rate is 20% higher per 100,000 then Virginia's.

 Frazzled wrote:
And I get tired of people slagging the US, when everyone here came from other countries like yours, because they'd rather cross an ocean or a desert than have to stay there.

The UK is actually quite an attractive place to emmigrate to for a lot of people. You may also have noticed that every single country in the world has changed over time. Just like America. I have a feeling that countries will continue to change over time as well as society changes.

No country is perfect and, it may pain you to hear this, this includes America. There are plenty of isues in the USA, as there are in every country, and it is far better to work towards looking at the issues to benefit the majority of people rather than standing in the corner screaming insults at anyone who thinks differently to you and putting your fingers in your ears whenever they suggest anything.

Seaward wrote:It doesn't happen every other month, first of all. I trust you were being hyperbolic rather than buying into the, "This is getting untenable, it's happening all the time!" hysteria that's proven incorrect at best by actual facts.

Yes, I was not giving an accurate time interval between these kinds of events, though it certainly seems from the news that gun attacks on the general population are fairly often, not to mention all the "regular" gun crime that goes on.

As for whether or not all that would inconvenience me? Of course it would. Monitoring how much ammo I buy would lead, within five years, to determining how much ammo I'm allowed to buy, and as someone who buys a fair amount of ammo - I shoot a lot - that'd annoy the hell out of me.

... Right... in a country as gun crazy as yours, where there are potential riots every time the words "gun" and "control" are mentioned in the same sentence, you really think that is going to happen? It doesn't happen anywhere else (that I am aware of) where guns are allowed but controlled.

Not to mention likely provoke a court case or two. Determining if my gun's stored safely? I live with another responsible adult, and if she and I are both fine with the gun being stored where it's stored - in an OHAI on the back of the nightstand - why is that the state's business?

And if you had a kid, would the "back of the nightstand" be a safe place to store it? Regardless of whether it is the state's business or not, if you don't keep your guns secure, you invite all sorts of trouble. None of the children who have carried out shootings in the past could buy guns in stores (one bit of gun control that I feel you guys got right ), so where exactly do they get their guns? If part of your gun ownership licence stipulates that you have to have a gun safe, that is another layer of protection against these kids getting their hands on guns when they are not supposed to.

Again, it will not stop the die hards, or those whose parents/relatives don't adequately secure their guns, but it builds in another level of protection. And again, does it really cost you much (in money, time, etc) to have a locked safe bolted into the back of your night stand/wardrobe/etc?

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Yes, I was not giving an accurate time interval between these kinds of events, though it certainly seems from the news that gun attacks on the general population are fairly often, not to mention all the "regular" gun crime that goes on.

Yes, it certainly does seem like that. It also seems like these guys are routinely using military-grade automatic weapons with special bullets.

Not the case, but it sure seems like that, according to the media.

... Right... in a country as gun crazy as yours, where there are potential riots every time the words "gun" and "control" are mentioned in the same sentence, you really think that is going to happen? It doesn't happen anywhere else (that I am aware of) where guns are allowed but controlled.

Of course it would. One of the stated goals of the AWB, according to its proponents - some of whom have admitted that it's nothing more than "do something!" showpiece legislation - is to break the dam on restriction, banning, and confiscation.

And if you had a kid, would the "back of the nightstand" be a safe place to store it?

We don't have a kid.

Regardless of whether it is the state's business or not, if you don't keep your guns secure, you invite all sorts of trouble. None of the children who have carried out shootings in the past could buy guns in stores (one bit of gun control that I feel you guys got right ), so where exactly do they get their guns? If part of your gun ownership licence stipulates that you have to have a gun safe, that is another layer of protection against these kids getting their hands on guns when they are not supposed to.

No, see, we're not the UK. That "regardless of whether it's the state's business or not," part of your statement doesn't fly over here.

Again, it will not stop the die hards, or those whose parents/relatives don't adequately secure their guns, but it builds in another level of protection. And again, does it really cost you much (in money, time, etc) to have a locked safe bolted into the back of your night stand/wardrobe/etc?

I find the notion that any of the mass killers have been something other than die hards, or possibly on the fence, to be kind of hilarious, in a very dark way. If you leave your house to kill fifteen people, you've made your call. It's not a whimsical, "Hell, it's Tuesday, I'm bored," thing that a minor impediment would stop.

I would never move to America, due to the guns. They seem way too easy for an average person, with no real training or intelligence to get. Unfortunatley it appears that alot of Amerians are ignorant to the fact that they don't need guns, and make a massive conspiracy out of gun control laws.