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2017/10/04 14:30:13
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Frazzled wrote: Anti gunners are always terrified at the prospect of following the established procedures to amend the Constitution.
Why do that when they can take nibbles here and there, slowly erode the rights over time so people never really notice.
there's already 20,000 gun laws on the books, what harm would a few more to close the gun show loop holes, and mandatory waiting periods really do?
Not selling guns to people who need a caretaker to manage their funds and run their households seems like a no brainer. Yet trump revoked that one.
Not selling guns to people on the terrorist watch list seems like another good idea, except to trump and the NRA. I get why some dakka members are against that idea, and that can easily be fixed by allowing people to contact the fbi and ask if they're on the list and provide a means to contest it.
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore. everyone else just wants rational gun laws so you can't walk into a store during a lunch break and buy enough weapons to shoot up your office or yourself.
2017/10/04 14:32:02
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Frazzled wrote: Anti gunners are always terrified at the prospect of following the established procedures to amend the Constitution.
I am all for going this route. Have been the whole time. I believe I have made myself clear on the subject quite a bit. The problem is that it requires a good deal of work to accomplish and we all know congress avoids work like cockroaches avoid light.
We also know there is one side of the aisle that is bought and paid for in large part thanks to the NRA--so it wouldn't happen.
Pretending that "anti-gunners are terrified" of trying to use established procedures is ridiculous. You can't have established procedures function properly when half of a two-party system has been hijacked with obstructionists that work so hard to keep the other party(when they're the minority or the majority) from being able to use those procedures in good faith.
Really? You think that the only reason we haven't repealed the 2nd amendment is because of NRA lobbying money? You're going to completely dismiss the tens of millions of gun owners in states that are predominantly represented in Congress by Republicans? Even Democrats from states that have high rates of gun ownership and strong state protections for gun ownership get strong endorsements from the NRA. Harry Reid has gotten A ratings from the NRA and the Republicans love to hate on Reid. Bernie Sanders' voting record is pro gun because he represents Vermont, one of the most permissive gun ownership states in the country. There are dozens of states that have state constitutions that guarantee state residents the right to own firearms. It's not surprising at all that a majority of the states support keeping a federal constitutional amendment that is essentially the same as clauses in their own state constitutions. You really think that 5% of gun owners paying $40 in annual dues to the NRA has taken over Congress?
Frazzled wrote: Anti gunners are always terrified at the prospect of following the established procedures to amend the Constitution.
Why do that when they can take nibbles here and there, slowly erode the rights over time so people never really notice.
there's already 20,000 gun laws on the books, what harm would a few more to close the gun show loop holes, and mandatory waiting periods really do?
Not selling guns to people who need a caretaker to manage their funds and run their households seems like a no brainer. Yet trump revoked that one.
Not selling guns to people on the terrorist watch list seems like another good idea, except to trump and the NRA. I get why some dakka members are against that idea, and that can easily be fixed by allowing people to contact the fbi and ask if they're on the list and provide a means to contest it.
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore. everyone else just wants rational gun laws so you can't walk into a store during a lunch break and buy enough weapons to shoot up your office or yourself.
There is no gun show loop hole to close.
There's no reason to strip constitutionally protected rights away from people because they're bad at math.
The terror watch list itself is a truly awful concept whose implementation is downright tyrannical, the whole watch list and no fly list should be done away with immediately.
Repealing the 2nd amendment would still have a large majority of gun owners in the US living in states that guarantee the right to gun ownership in their state constitutions. That dichotomy already exists in the sense that if I moved to a state like CA or NJ I would be forced to leave some or all of my firearms behind due to the state laws there.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/04 14:38:23
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
2017/10/04 14:35:04
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Depressing news once again from America. Meanwhile in the gun-free / gun-controlled countries in Europe, this sort of disgrace is rare... wonder if there's like... some sort of... correlation?
Here's Jim with a pretty easy to follow (NSFW) argument: Here
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/04 14:40:27
Thousand Sons: 3850pts / Space Marines Deathwatch 5000pts / Dark Eldar Webway Corsairs 2000pts / Scrapheap Challenged Orks 1500pts / Black Death 1500pts
Frazzled wrote: Anti gunners are always terrified at the prospect of following the established procedures to amend the Constitution.
I am all for going this route. Have been the whole time. I believe I have made myself clear on the subject quite a bit. The problem is that it requires a good deal of work to accomplish and we all know congress avoids work like cockroaches avoid light.
We also know there is one side of the aisle that is bought and paid for in large part thanks to the NRA--so it wouldn't happen.
Pretending that "anti-gunners are terrified" of trying to use established procedures is ridiculous. You can't have established procedures function properly when half of a two-party system has been hijacked with obstructionists that work so hard to keep the other party(when they're the minority or the majority) from being able to use those procedures in good faith.
Really? You think that the only reason we haven't repealed the 2nd amendment is because of NRA lobbying money? You're going to completely dismiss the tens of millions of gun owners in states that are predominantly represented in Congress by Republicans? Even Democrats from states that have high rates of gun ownership and strong state protections for gun ownership get strong endorsements from the NRA. Harry Reid has gotten A ratings from the NRA and the Republicans love to hate on Reid. Bernie Sanders' voting record is pro gun because he represents Vermont, one of the most permissive gun ownership states in the country. There are dozens of states that have state constitutions that guarantee state residents the right to own firearms. It's not surprising at all that a majority of the states support keeping a federal constitutional amendment that is essentially the same as clauses in their own state constitutions. You really think that 5% of gun owners paying $40 in annual dues to the NRA has taken over Congress?
.
You keep flinging out the number of members the NRA has as if it actually means something. The number of members a group has is irrelevant to the amount of influence that group can have. Arbys employs more people than the coal industry, but who has more political influence?
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
2017/10/04 14:40:43
Subject: Re:Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Like I said earlier, I have no interest in owning firearms
but I watch youtube gun channels to see old muskets getting fired (military history is a hobby of mine)
and two of the biggest critics of the NRA are Military Arms Channel, and the Yankee Marshall. I think the Marshall would saw off his hands before he ever joined the NRA.
And these guns are obviously pro-gun, pro-2nd.
So yeah, not every gun owner likes the NRA.
Personally, as a neutral observer, and student of American history, I don't like them either. Why? Because during the civil rights era, and back in the day when gun laws were being passed that were designed to stop African-Americans getting their hands on guns, who supported the gun laws?
You guessed it, the NRA.
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
2017/10/04 14:41:09
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
As to what can be done, I don't know. No-one does. The debate on gun control is horrible on all sides. The left focuses on scary sounding weapons and challenges opponents with moral arguments 'how can you justify this awful, black gun with a bayonet stock'. The right trades in dismissive arguments based on irrelevant technical details,
I'm going to take some issue with this part of your statement, mainly for the fact that those technical details often are not necessarily irrelevant. Having the wrong kind of grip or a pinhole drilled in the wrong place or a sear that slips too easily or a barrel that's a half inch too short is the difference between being perfectly legal and a 10 year stint in club fed. You get the technical detail arguments because they matter. The technical details are a legal minefield, putting a vertical foregrip on a large pistol makes it an NFA controlled item, but an angled foregrip does not and is perfectly fine, the ATF has, in the past, issued official letters declaring pieces of string to constitute a machinegun as a result of technical details. Want to know if a rifle is legal in California? Better start learning your technical details. If the arguments sound like they're getting into weird technical details, it's because they have very real effects in law that people have to be aware of and deal with constantly.
The bizarrely specific nature of these examples is exactly why it is irrelevant, though. No one longing for gun control actually cares whether you have a vertical or angled grip but that's the kind of stuff you end up with when every attempt at altering gun regulation at all is deliberately burried in technical minutiae to avoid the intentions of the legislation. The gun lobby playing RAW rather than RAI, basically.
So Sebster is quite right, much of the debate simply revolves around one side shouting 'we must ban X tomorrow!' without really knowing what X is (usually because that's what TV called it) and the other side looking down their nose and sniffing 'actually, that's already illegal because it is technically defined by this extremely specific detail, you dullards!'. In real terms, one side knows it doesn't know what it's talking about but wants to use the scary sounding terms people know from tv and films and associate with extreme violence or the military whilst the other side knows these technicalities aren't relevant other than to pedants.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/04 14:41:33
2017/10/04 14:42:04
Subject: Re:Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.
By Leah Libresco October 3 at 3:02 PM Leah Libresco is a statistician and former newswriter at FiveThirtyEight, a data journalism site. She is the author of “Arriving at Amen.”
Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.
Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.
I researched the strictly tightened gun laws in Britain and Australia and concluded that they didn’t prove much about what America’s policy should be. Neither nation experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun related-crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans. Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress. And in both Australia and Britain, the gun restrictions had an ambiguous effect on other gun-related crimes or deaths.
When I looked at the other oft-praised policies, I found out that no gun owner walks into the store to buy an “assault weapon.” It’s an invented classification that includes any semi-automatic that has two or more features, such as a bayonet mount, a rocket-propelled grenade-launcher mount, a folding stock or a pistol grip. But guns are modular, and any hobbyist can easily add these features at home, just as if they were snapping together Legos.
As for silencers — they deserve that name only in movies, where they reduce gunfire to a soft puick puick. In real life, silencers limit hearing damage for shooters but don’t make gunfire dangerously quiet. An AR-15 with a silencer is about as loud as a jackhammer. Magazine limits were a little more promising, but a practiced shooter could still change magazines so fast as to make the limit meaningless.
As my co-workers and I kept looking at the data, it seemed less and less clear that one broad gun-control restriction could make a big difference. Two-thirds of gun deaths in the United States every year are suicides. Almost no proposed restriction would make it meaningfully harder for people with guns on hand to use them. I couldn't even answer my most desperate question: If I had a friend who had guns in his home and a history of suicide attempts, was there anything I could do that would help?
However, the next-largest set of gun deaths — 1 in 5 — were young men aged 15 to 34, killed in homicides. These men were most likely to die at the hands of other young men, often related to gang loyalties or other street violence. And the last notable group of similar deaths was the 1,700 women murdered per year, usually as the result of domestic violence. Far more people were killed in these ways than in mass-shooting incidents, but few of the popularly floated policies were tailored to serve them.
By the time we published our project, I didn’t believe in many of the interventions I’d heard politicians tout. I was still anti-gun, at least from the point of view of most gun owners, and I don’t want a gun in my home, as I think the risk outweighs the benefits. But I can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them. Policies that often seem as if they were drafted by people who have encountered guns only as a figure in a briefing book or an image on the news.
Instead, I found the most hope in more narrowly tailored interventions. Potential suicide victims, women menaced by their abusive partners and kids swept up in street vendettas are all in danger from guns, but they each require different protections.
Older men, who make up the largest share of gun suicides, need better access to people who could care for them and get them help. Women endangered by specific men need to be prioritized by police, who can enforce restraining orders prohibiting these men from buying and owning guns. Younger men at risk of violence need to be identified before they take a life or lose theirs and to be connected to mentors who can help them de-escalate conflicts.
Even the most data-driven practices, such as New Orleans’ plan to identify gang members for intervention based on previous arrests and weapons seizures, wind up more personal than most policies floated. The young men at risk can be identified by an algorithm, but they have to be disarmed one by one, personally — not en masse as though they were all interchangeable. A reduction in gun deaths is most likely to come from finding smaller chances for victories and expanding those solutions as much as possible. We save lives by focusing on a range of tactics to protect the different kinds of potential victims and reforming potential killers, not from sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves.
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
2017/10/04 14:47:35
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
"The Omnissiah is my Moderati"
2017/10/04 14:57:37
Subject: Re:Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Personally, as a neutral observer, and student of American history, I don't like them either. Why? Because during the civil rights era, and back in the day when gun laws were being passed that were designed to stop African-Americans getting their hands on guns, who supported the gun laws?
You guessed it, the NRA.
Yes. But a bigger thing to point out is that at the time the party of gun control(for those same Racist reasons) wasn't the Republican party. Gun control has its roots in racist policies to keep black people unarmed.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/04 14:58:32
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Personally, as a neutral observer, and student of American history, I don't like them either. Why? Because during the civil rights era, and back in the day when gun laws were being passed that were designed to stop African-Americans getting their hands on guns, who supported the gun laws?
You guessed it, the NRA.
Yes. But a bigger thing to point out is that at the time the party of gun control(for those same Racist reasons) wasn't the Republican party. Gun control has its roots in racist policies to keep black people unarmed.
Which is only a thing to point out if you're wilfully ignoring the Southern Strategy and the political shift of the 60's like people always do. It's dishonest as hell, and you should know better.
For thirteen years I had a dog with fur the darkest black. For thirteen years he was my friend, oh how I want him back.
2017/10/04 15:01:53
Subject: Re:Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Personally, as a neutral observer, and student of American history, I don't like them either. Why? Because during the civil rights era, and back in the day when gun laws were being passed that were designed to stop African-Americans getting their hands on guns, who supported the gun laws?
You guessed it, the NRA.
Yes. But a bigger thing to point out is that at the time the party of gun control(for those same Racist reasons) wasn't the Republican party. Gun control has its roots in racist policies to keep black people unarmed.
Which is only a thing to point out if you're wilfully ignoring the Southern Strategy and the political shift of the 60's like people always do. It's dishonest as hell, and you should know better.
I'm well aware of political shift. But the same parties are still on the same side of the aisle in terms of gun control. So it seems silly for one side to keep pushing for gun control when it was started for racist reasons, reasons which they now abhor. So why they keep pushing it? They should drop it like a hot potato, tainted fruit and all that.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
seen below, responsible gun owners.
2017/10/04 15:09:47
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
35,000 deaths. 2/3 of which are suicides and thus have no business being included in your figure.
And even if 100% of those figures were people killing each other with guns, it would still be statistically meaningless. This is a country of 300 million people.
Violence in general is so rare in the US, gun violence specifically is also extremely rare. It's much more common than in some other countries, but in both cases it's extremely rare and statistically insignificant. Violence of all kinds has also been meteorically declining over the last 50 years.
So no, there is no Gun Problem in the US. There isn't even a violence problem. Unless you make some dishonest comparisons with utterly dissimilar countries. Then it's like saying this one place with .00003% of violence is two times as worse as a place with .000015% of violence. Technically true, but its misleading. Both places have really low rates of violence. Differences between them are like rounding errors.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
seen below, responsible gun owners.
See? Look at all the joy and happiness guns bring to the world, and you want to get rid of them because of some nuts out there with improperly diagnosed mental health issues.
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
35,000 deaths. 2/3 of which are suicides and thus have no business being included in your figure.
And even if 100% of those figures were people killing each other with guns, it would still be statistically meaningless. This is a country of 300 million people.
Violence in general is so rare in the US, gun violence specifically is also extremely rare. It's much more common than in some other countries, but in both cases it's extremely rare and statistically insignificant. Violence of all kinds has also been meteorically declining over the last 50 years.
So no, there is no Gun Problem in the US. There isn't even a violence problem. Unless you make some dishonest comparisons with utterly dissimilar countries. Then it's like saying this one place with .00003% of violence is two times as worse as a place with .000015% of violence. Technically true, but its misleading. Both places have really low rates of violence. Differences between them are like rounding errors.
It is incredibly callous to call ~60 dead and ~600 wounded a "rounding error" even if it is strictly speaking true. You're essentially saying "it's so few people we shouldn't worry about it."
I suppose "one death is a tragedy but one million (or in this case 60) is merely a statistic" really is a quote some people get behind.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/04 15:13:45
2017/10/04 15:15:04
Subject: Re:Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
That's one of those articles where I can't honestly tell if I'm supposed to be laughing at the end of it.
It's like the old saying about it's not guns that kill people, but people that kill people. Problem is, we're not doing much about/for the people, either. I said it several pages ago that guns aren't the problem, but how we perceive them. And that leads to ignoring the problems people have. Someone said it in another thread about autism that we show more sympathy for a picture of an orphaned puppy seen on the internet than we do for the human beings in pain that are right in front of us.
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
2017/10/04 15:16:22
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
35,000 deaths. 2/3 of which are suicides and thus have no business being included in your figure.
And even if 100% of those figures were people killing each other with guns, it would still be statistically meaningless. This is a country of 300 million people.
Violence in general is so rare in the US, gun violence specifically is also extremely rare. It's much more common than in some other countries, but in both cases it's extremely rare and statistically insignificant. Violence of all kinds has also been meteorically declining over the last 50 years.
So no, there is no Gun Problem in the US. There isn't even a violence problem. Unless you make some dishonest comparisons with utterly dissimilar countries. Then it's like saying this one place with .00003% of violence is two times as worse as a place with .000015% of violence. Technically true, but its misleading. Both places have really low rates of violence. Differences between them are like rounding errors.
It is incredibly callous to call ~60 dead and ~600 wounded a "rounding error" even if it is strictly speaking true. You're essentially saying "it's so few people we shouldn't worry about it."
I suppose "one death is a tragedy but one million (or in this case 60) is merely a statistic" really is a quote some people get behind.
It can be both an irrelevant rounding error and still be incredibly sad.
We should go with the hard numbers if we are discussing legislation regarding gun control. Emotion just leads to banning weapons which cause no problems and trampling on constitutional rights, for zero gain.
If a guy jumps off a building and kills himself, it's not the buildings fault. So why is it the fault of guns and gun owners when someone commits murder?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/04 15:18:27
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Frazzled wrote: Anti gunners are always terrified at the prospect of following the established procedures to amend the Constitution.
I am all for going this route. Have been the whole time. I believe I have made myself clear on the subject quite a bit. The problem is that it requires a good deal of work to accomplish and we all know congress avoids work like cockroaches avoid light.
We also know there is one side of the aisle that is bought and paid for in large part thanks to the NRA--so it wouldn't happen.
Pretending that "anti-gunners are terrified" of trying to use established procedures is ridiculous. You can't have established procedures function properly when half of a two-party system has been hijacked with obstructionists that work so hard to keep the other party(when they're the minority or the majority) from being able to use those procedures in good faith.
Translation: you don't have the votes so resort to unelected judges.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
2017/10/04 15:21:24
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Frazzled wrote: Anti gunners are always terrified at the prospect of following the established procedures to amend the Constitution.
I am all for going this route. Have been the whole time. I believe I have made myself clear on the subject quite a bit. The problem is that it requires a good deal of work to accomplish and we all know congress avoids work like cockroaches avoid light.
We also know there is one side of the aisle that is bought and paid for in large part thanks to the NRA--so it wouldn't happen.
Pretending that "anti-gunners are terrified" of trying to use established procedures is ridiculous. You can't have established procedures function properly when half of a two-party system has been hijacked with obstructionists that work so hard to keep the other party(when they're the minority or the majority) from being able to use those procedures in good faith.
Translation: you don't have the votes so resort to unelected judges.
What, as opposed to the same body of unelected judges choosing to broaden the 2nd amendment from what it used to be?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/04 15:21:32
For thirteen years I had a dog with fur the darkest black. For thirteen years he was my friend, oh how I want him back.
2017/10/04 15:21:56
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
35,000 deaths. 2/3 of which are suicides and thus have no business being included in your figure.
And even if 100% of those figures were people killing each other with guns, it would still be statistically meaningless. This is a country of 300 million people.
Violence in general is so rare in the US, gun violence specifically is also extremely rare. It's much more common than in some other countries, but in both cases it's extremely rare and statistically insignificant. Violence of all kinds has also been meteorically declining over the last 50 years.
So no, there is no Gun Problem in the US. There isn't even a violence problem. Unless you make some dishonest comparisons with utterly dissimilar countries. Then it's like saying this one place with .00003% of violence is two times as worse as a place with .000015% of violence. Technically true, but its misleading. Both places have really low rates of violence. Differences between them are like rounding errors.
well we also have yet to add in all the armed robberies, and all other crimes committed with a gun. and if you still find that such a meaningless small number, than you should also agree the war on terrorism is also meaningless and should stop as it hasn't stop terrorism or reduced the acts of terror to zero.
If a guy jumps off a building and kills himself, it's not the buildings fault. So why is it the fault of guns and gun owners when someone commits murder?
And that is such an incredibly small number of people who jump off buildings, yet we put fences up around the tall buildings to try and prevent people from jumping
PS we also lock the doors to prevent roof access.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/04 15:25:26
2017/10/04 15:28:19
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Wulfmar wrote: Depressing news once again from America. Meanwhile in the gun-free / gun-controlled countries in Europe, this sort of disgrace is rare... wonder if there's like... some sort of... correlation?
Here's Jim with a pretty easy to follow (NSFW) argument: Here
Just so you understand something. There is no difference between the level of insanity it takes to sarin gas bomb a subway...or open fire on a crowd. Literally...this same thing happend in Paris last year. So no - there is no correlation. You have to be freaking crazy to do something like this.
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder
2017/10/04 15:29:13
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
35,000 deaths. 2/3 of which are suicides and thus have no business being included in your figure.
And even if 100% of those figures were people killing each other with guns, it would still be statistically meaningless. This is a country of 300 million people.
Violence in general is so rare in the US, gun violence specifically is also extremely rare. It's much more common than in some other countries, but in both cases it's extremely rare and statistically insignificant. Violence of all kinds has also been meteorically declining over the last 50 years.
So no, there is no Gun Problem in the US. There isn't even a violence problem. Unless you make some dishonest comparisons with utterly dissimilar countries. Then it's like saying this one place with .00003% of violence is two times as worse as a place with .000015% of violence. Technically true, but its misleading. Both places have really low rates of violence. Differences between them are like rounding errors.
It is incredibly callous to call ~60 dead and ~600 wounded a "rounding error" even if it is strictly speaking true. You're essentially saying "it's so few people we shouldn't worry about it."
I suppose "one death is a tragedy but one million (or in this case 60) is merely a statistic" really is a quote some people get behind.
It can be both an irrelevant rounding error and still be incredibly sad.
We should go with the hard numbers if we are discussing legislation regarding gun control. Emotion just leads to banning weapons which cause no problems and trampling on constitutional rights, for zero gain.
If a guy jumps off a building and kills himself, it's not the buildings fault. So why is it the fault of guns and gun owners when someone commits murder?
If a guy jumps off a building and kills himself, it's not the fault of the buildings---but if it keeps happening from that particular building they might start closing down the observation decks to prevent it from happening again or installing other safety measures to prevent that specific building from being used for that purpose. Owners on other buildings might very well adopt those same measures as precautionary measures too.
If you can't understand why people blame firearms and the people who (knowingly or unknowingly) vote with that specific issue being such a key feature of the way they do while whining about how they need their guns to protect themselves from a "tyrannical government"? We're not going to get anywhere in this discussion and it becomes abundantly clear that you are best ignored on this matter.
Not saying that I have all the answers or am immune to criticism for my own stances with regards to firearms, mind you, but I find it absurdly hypocritical that you throw an example out of buildings being used for suicide when it's not unheard of for building owners to adopt measures after events like suicides to prevent their building from becoming associated with people committing suicide.
What, as opposed to the same body of unelected judges choosing to broaden the 2nd amendment from what it used to be?
Don't forget that the party that tends to be so critical of that "body of unelected judges" also did everything they could to prevent their opposition from seating someone, then rushed to fill it as quick as they could while whining about the same tactics they used being turned against them.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/04 15:32:01
2017/10/04 15:29:17
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
I'm the only one saying repeal the 2nd, as I don't think americans are mature enough to handle guns anymore.
The vast majority of gun owners have never had an accident with a firearm, let alone intentionally committed killing sprees. I think we're just fine thanks.
I doubt that, 73,505 gun accidents a year (reported) + the 35,000 deaths is a much higher percentage than muslims who are terrorists. So maybe we should end the war on terror as it's statistically meaningless and focus on some gun control.
35,000 deaths. 2/3 of which are suicides and thus have no business being included in your figure.
And even if 100% of those figures were people killing each other with guns, it would still be statistically meaningless. This is a country of 300 million people.
Violence in general is so rare in the US, gun violence specifically is also extremely rare. It's much more common than in some other countries, but in both cases it's extremely rare and statistically insignificant. Violence of all kinds has also been meteorically declining over the last 50 years.
So no, there is no Gun Problem in the US. There isn't even a violence problem. Unless you make some dishonest comparisons with utterly dissimilar countries. Then it's like saying this one place with .00003% of violence is two times as worse as a place with .000015% of violence. Technically true, but its misleading. Both places have really low rates of violence. Differences between them are like rounding errors.
It is incredibly callous to call ~60 dead and ~600 wounded a "rounding error" even if it is strictly speaking true. You're essentially saying "it's so few people we shouldn't worry about it."
I suppose "one death is a tragedy but one million (or in this case 60) is merely a statistic" really is a quote some people get behind.
It can be both an irrelevant rounding error and still be incredibly sad.
We should go with the hard numbers if we are discussing legislation regarding gun control. Emotion just leads to banning weapons which cause no problems and trampling on constitutional rights, for zero gain.
If a guy jumps off a building and kills himself, it's not the buildings fault. So why is it the fault of guns and gun owners when someone commits murder?
Saying "People have lives and dignity and therefore we should stop killing them." is not an appeal to emotion. It's not supposed to make you feel sad, it's supposed to be a recognition that 600 humans are more important than 600 cows, 600 trees, or 600 pennies - and yes, the right for those 600 people to live unharmed trumps any other rights.
Also, we actually do a gak load to reduce the number of people jumping off of buildings. I would say "roof control" is probably tighter than gun control in the U.S.A.. In fact, to get to the roof of my office building you need a maintenance pass, and the same has been true of most hotels I've been in. Even the "rooftop suite" is usually enclosed and doesn't actually let you up onto the roof where you could jump.
2017/10/04 15:31:10
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
cuda1179 wrote: Well, the difference is that there isn't an explicitly stated right to an abortion.
There isn't an explicitly stated right to posses a handgun, either. The concept of a intrinsic right to own a handgun for for self-defense within the home didn't exist until 2008.
Either you have to accept we can only have laws that do literally what they say, in which case you have no right to an abortion, a firearm disconnected from military service, or a standing army, or you have to accept that we build upon those interpretations over time to extrapolate out modern meanings. You can't pick and choose when it suits you.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/04 15:37:09
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
2017/10/04 15:32:33
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
Some of the safety measures you reference are dispassionate risk vs. reward. It's not expensive to add a lock to a roof top door, but it prevents unauthorized entry if someone manages to get onto the rooftop. It makes it harder for anyone to come up through the building and break/steal/tamper with any of the (usually very expensive and sensitive) equipment on top of the roof. And it lets the building owner shrug if and when someone does go over the side of the building, even if they're supposed to be up there to begin with, because they get to say "Well, we took EVERY precaution" and then hand off a list of bullet points to police/insurance/lawyers. And actually doing so adds a negligible amount of extra money and cost to the operation of the building. I'd guess less than 1% if I had to wager. Most probably spend more on the branding for their signs.
It's not really comparable in amount of effort and cost versus actual reward. Even when you compare every building that has those kind of measures on them (which still isn't every building in our nation, at least; I can get on top of my three story office building today if I wanted to without a key) All this probably sounds horrible to hear someone say, but I don't see a reasonable solution that would actually FIX the issue without making it worse.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/04 15:38:47
Some of the safety measures you reference are dispassionate risk vs. reward. It's not expensive to add a lock to a roof top door, but it prevents unauthorized entry if someone manages to get onto the rooftop. It makes it harder for anyone to come up through the building and break/steal/tamper with any of the (usually very expensive and sensitive) equipment on top of the roof. And it lets the building owner shrug if and when someone does go over the side of the building, even if they're supposed to be up there to begin with, because they get to say "Well, we took EVERY precaution" and then hand off a list of bullet points to police/insurance/lawyers. And actually doing so adds a negligible amount of extra money and cost to the operation of the building. I'd guess less than 1% if I had to wager. Most probably spend more on the branding for their signs.
It's not really comparable in amount of effort and cost versus actual reward. Even when you compare every building that has those kind of measures on them (which still isn't every building in our nation, at least; I can get on top of my three story office building today if I wanted to without a key) All this probably sounds horrible to hear someone say, but I don't see a reasonable solution that would actually FIX the issue without making it worse.
and considering cost & reward why have a police department if they don't stop crimes? why have a fire department if they don't stop fires?
why have the military fighting terrorists if they can't stop terrorist attacks? billions spent every day for a statistically meaningless number. magnitudes less than homicides.
It's odd the mental gymnastics people go through to discount the loss of lives so they can keep their guns. arguments that are so weird, they seem utterly ridiculous when applied anywhere else.
There's 20,000 reasonable solutions right now for gun violence, and many more reasonable ones that could be added.
2017/10/04 15:54:04
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder
2017/10/04 15:56:17
Subject: Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon
cuda1179 wrote: I keep saying it over and over and over again. If you want people to do more background checks, make it free and easily accessible. Do you know how many gun owners would willingly get on board with background checks if they could simply whip out their smart phone and do it for free in 2 minutes? The only reason to limit it to FFL dealers is so that the process for transferring a weapon is too big of a hassle and makes it cost prohibitive. I honestly think that this was intentional to make owning a gun as unattractive as possible. All this does is promote hidden sales.
The problem with background checks is the waiting period, and I understand that. I think it's a fair complaint. I think that can be offset with a pre-approval process, you fill in your form, it confirms you can lawfully get your hands on a gun, and then you just provide your registry number when you bought a gun. The gun owner could then run a quick check against a live registry when you bought a gun. Private sales would be the issue, and the big sticking point. I would think it would be okay to have private sales required to run a check, provided for free by police stations, municipal offices etc, but probably a lot of people would get really angry about that.
But even assuming the above system is workable and reliable (it will have a lot of issues with multiple jurisdictions feeding info in to the system), I'm not sure background checks will do that much. It seems people have settled on background checks just because there's broad support for the idea that something needs to be done, and broad agreement that nothing should be done that inconveniences gun owners too much. What's missing is an idea that background checks will actually do something useful. There's been more than 1,500 mass shootings in the US since Sandy Hook, how many would have been stopped by some kind of background check?
Background checks are required by Federal law, that's why we have the NIC system (https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/nics) it's an electronic system, there is no wait time beyond the time it takes to pull up the website, type in the information and get the response in regards to whether or not the person has a criminal record that would prohibit him/her from owning firearms. It takes minutes at most. If members of Congress or the Federal govt really wanted every gun sale to go through a background check all they need to do is put a portal to the NIC system on the DOJ website so everyone can use it. Then you would never have a private sale without a background check because every citizen could run a NICs check in a few minutes on their smart phone. The DOJ could do that tomorrow, it wouldn't even require any legislative action by congress and it would be a measure that has the support of most gun owners and most importantly it would actually help prevent sales to bad people.
Why isn't this done? Because the dishonesty in the debate over the right to gun ownership is the same dishonesty that is found in every political issue, that the real motivation is to control people, that policy proposals are fraught with euphemisms and spin doctoring designed to make poorly constructed legislative half measures look like political victories. Instead of making the NICS more accessible to people so that more background checks can be run (something everyone supposedly wants) the proposed law is to require every firearm sale to go through a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) and maintain the restriction of only allowing FFLs access to NICS. That's not making it easier to run background checks that's making it more burdensome to sell a firearm and forcing purchases to go through govt controlled licensures. It's also a proposed law that has no mechanism attached to it to even measure compliance let alone enforce it.
There is federal gun ownership registry in the US and only a few states require registration of guns and those states that do don't share that information except by specific request from LEOs/etc. There is no database that could be checked that would the govt (federal, state or local) how many guns I own or what guns I own or what guns I have purchased/sold or whom I purchased/sold them from/to. Here in NC I can buy an AR15 from a complete stranger, no background check, no registration, no laws will be broken it will be a perfectly legal purchase. If my grandfather dies in PA and I drive up to PA for the funeral, put his guns in my truck and drive back to NC, no background check, no registration, no laws broken. If I lived in CA and owned a gun that was registered with the state authorities and I moved to NC I wouldn't have to pass a background check or register the gun in NC and no laws would be broken. The only firearms NC even tries (halfheartedly) to regulate are pistols. If you want to buy a pistol you have to obtain a pistol purchase permit from your county sheriff or have a concealed carry permit. If I sold a pistol to a coworker and he/she had a pistol purchase permit we would both sign and put the serial number of the pistol on it but it would only be for our personal records, to show that I didn't sell my pistol illegally and my coworker didn't possess the pistol illegally, neither the county sheriff nor any state authority would be sent a copy because there is no gun registration in NC.
FFLS (gun stores) aren't required to keep records long term either. Every gun sale through an FFL requires ATF form 4473 be filled out but those records aren't kept in any central database (state or federal) and FFLS only have to hold onto them for a set period of time. You can't walk into a gun store and find 4473 forms from 20 years ago sitting in a filing cabinet. And FFLs don't even have to use the NICS for every purchase in every state, in NC anyone with a current concealed carry permit is exempt from the NICS check.
That is the reality in many states, that nobody knows who owns guns or how many or which guns. In that situation passing a law that attempts to force people to do sales through FFLs only is impossible to enforce. If such a law were passed and then I broke that law and bought an AR15 from my neighbor how would the authorities ever know? They wouldn't. Making the NICS available to the public is the best option to increase background checks on gun purchases but since that option empowers people rather than constrains them it doesn't get proposed by Congress or enacted by the DOJ.