Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
As an update, police are operating under the assumption he had help, and that he had an escape plan. No elaboration on the latter in the article.

Where you getting this? Thats... deeply disturbing...

There are multiple identical sources so I think the accurate answer is "the AP". Here's one. Don't bother reading the actual article, it's just a single line.

Sheriff Joseph Lombardo did not provide details, but said officials believe Paddock planned to survive and had made plans to escape following the carnage.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

If the ATF concluded that gun show organizers were running shows with the intent of profiting from gun sales and therefore needed an FFL in order to run a gun show I wouldn't have a problem with it. Without making the organizers obtain an FFL they won't be required to run checks.

The sticky issue would probably be that while organizers are profiting from the fact that guns are being sold at the event, they are not profiting from the actual guns sales conducted at the event. The argument would likely boil down to “booth fees” vs “getting a cut of each sale”.

I think this has been the most civil approach towards talking about the gun show “loophole” we’ve managed to have here though.

I think it would have to be approached from the angle you've laid out. Gun shows are de facto storefronts, booths are rented with the intent to use them to facilitate gun sales because gun shows are events that are designed to facilitate gun shows. All of the profits earned are derived from gun sales either directly or indirectly but the intent of the event is clear and it is overtly advertised. Gun shows are intended to be essentially pop up gun stores so it makes sense to require organizers to have an FFL.

Private sellers can still try to make sales through their own efforts, if you decide to sell a shotgun because you're giving up duck hunting you still don't need an FFL but if you bring it to a gun show then the organizer needs to run a background check on the purchaser.

Even if such a law or ATF ruling was put in place I still think making NICS accessible to the public is a really goood idea. I don't think there's a compelling reason for the DoJ to prevent any individual selling a firearm from accessing NICS.

And it would leave the current process for a private sales via word of mouth/etc unchanged, normal everyday private-to-private sales can be conducted without checks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I wonder if they don’t want to flood the system with calls by making it open for everyone and people having their paperwork filled out completely wrong causing lots of delays.

Although that might be helped somewhat by requiring everyone to register for an account (not a license) and doing an online class before being able to conduct checks.

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
As an update, police are operating under the assumption he had help, and that he had an escape plan. No elaboration on the latter in the article.

Where you getting this? Thats... deeply disturbing...

There are multiple identical sources so I think the accurate answer is "the AP". Here's one. Don't bother reading the actual article, it's just a single line.

Thanks.

Sheriff Joseph Lombardo did not provide details, but said officials believe Paddock planned to survive and had made plans to escape following the carnage.

I mean... that changes things a bit no?

Still... how in Elvis' bunghole you'd expect to escape from that!?!? Casinos are one of the most heavily watched/secured facilities....

d-usa wrote:I find a good deal on a used gun in rough shape, pay $100 for it. I clean it up, adjust the trigger, change out the sights, now it’s a nice gun. Next year I’m rough up for money and I sell it to a guy at work. Because it doesn’t look like crap anymore I sell it for $250 bucks. I made $150 on this gun and used that money as income to pay my electric bill.

I bought and sold, turned the gun around, and more than doubled my money. All things listed in this thread as a standard for requiring a FFL.

If you want to get an FFL and go through NICS, no one is against that. Now if you want to go through the hassle of tracking (and keeping) every Serial Number on record (that can be subject to audits at any time) over one gun, be me guest. You can also go through an FFL as a third party and pay them to run the check. I know here in MO you can have a local Sheriff's office oversee the transfer if there's a concern about getting held up and having the weapon stolen. There's a multitude of ways to protect yourselves and others while trying to trade or sell guns.

Deference to those you know and using your intuition hasn't failed very much in this nation. I live in a state that allows for private transfers between non-prohibited possessors and the amount of crime committed with those weapons is almost nil (3% at best per a 1994 FBI study). With the preponderance of weapons available in the US and a population that is not only growing fairly quickly but it widely diverse, it makes me wonder where all of the risk is that gun collectors and hobbyists who know one another are a threat to society. I've purchased quite a few guns off of the books (totally legal here, most of them older and collectable) and done some trading as well. None of my small circle would be considered dangerous or crazy, everyone I've ever met at a show that is a private seller has been quite level headed or is a dabbler in the industry, not a full blown salesman.

Gordon Shumway wrote:So if I just inherited a lot of guns and am looking to sell them off to profit, that's cool? (A couple I would keep for sentimental or historical reasons)

Sure, just as long as the State you live in permits it.

easysauce wrote:Again, if these "common sense gun laws" are the solution, then why do countries like Canada that have already passed them, and laws far more stringent then them, still say more laws are required?

Why do we always need more of it?

I am amazed anyone bothers owning a firearm in Canada, or parts of the US.

What's inversely puzzling is Canada's stance regarding vintage machine guns, their DEWAT standards are far more rational than those down here in here in the US.

nfe wrote:The assumption that US civilians would be a more effective opposition to the US military than the insurgencies that have been fighting it and its allies overseas is disappointingly hubristic.

Speaking strictly hypothetically, please read about the Partisans in the USSR and Tito's Partizans in Yugoslavia during WWII. None of those partisans would be considered well trained or armed by modern standards and they managed to help defeat one of the strongest militaries in world history. There's an estimated 400 million firearms available in the US (I suspect mostly due to the fact that there are a lot of trophies and antiques that aren't pertinent to modern firearm concerns), there's no way that the US military could confiscate every gun that exists. It's as much a wet dream as the end of the desire murder, which is the primary reason this issue never goes away.

Easy E wrote:I love the "Red Dawn" fantasies in this thread.

The problem is, the fantasy involves killing their own countrymen. SAD!

It's horrible, I am of the opinion that situation will never happen, even if the command structure were so compromised to turn on the American populace, our military isn't large enough to subjugate the US as a whole (technology is nice, but when the Army is as small as it is with regards to trigger-pullers right now, it's all academic) many States have legitimate militias that are recognized by State governments and the average foot soldier is not a compliant zombie to the point that they would turn their weapons on their own countrymen.

It's a fantasy and nothing more.

 Vaktathi wrote:
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.

Sure, my bad. My post wasn't clear. I didn't mean to imply that no technical details ever matter, I was only referring to the tendency of people on the pro-gun side to pick up incorrect technical details from mass shootings and only worry about those, and not the larger story. I've seen a lot of threads focus on a media report describing an attacker wielding, for example, an AK47, when actually the weapon was from some other family of semi-auto rifles and just happened to have a banana magazine.

I agree that technical details do matter, and this has a negative and often bizarre impact on the legalities of various firearms. I was referring to a specific rhetorical trick that some in the pro-gun movement use to deflect from the real issue in the wake of a mass shooting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:
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?

Both you and Kanluwen are wrong.

Kanluwen is wrong when he says the primary impact of the NRA is their lobbying money. The NRA is a tiny funder. In recent election cycles the NRA has given somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million, almost all to Republicans. When campaigns run over a billion, the NRA's contribution is irrelevant.

But you're also wrong, in your strange assumption that somehow 10s of millions of voters represent anything more than a tiny minority. There are more than 120 million active voters in the US. A 10 million strong voting block in almost all circumstances is an irrelevant bit of noise. It's the libertarian party. It's the number who think the US stop having a standing army.

But in the case of the NRA, that 10 million voter block is well organised, embedded in the Republican party and extremely well placed strategically. If a Republican votes on anything to restrict gun rights, the NRA will organise and make sure that everyone of its voters in that electorate gets out and vote for that candidate's primary opponent.

It is the classic example of a minority opinion dominating a single issue.

There's no reason to strip constitutionally protected rights away from people because they're bad at math.

There is no possible way that you think the reason people have their finances managed for them is because they struggle a bit with their maths.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?utm_term=.8cab0eca29a7

That was a really good article. I don't agree with all of it, and think it missed a few important points. For instance it was dismissive to ignore Australia's results, instead the piece should have made mention of how much more complex Australia's position on gun's is*, but overall it was a good piece with some well thought out arguments. Thanks.



*The often reported fact that since the gun buy back there's been no mass shootings is simplistic. For instance there's now more guns in Australia than there were when the buyback happened. And while mass shootings have disappeared, there's still plenty of shootings. What has dropped considerably is suicides.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
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.

Yeah, because if one people decades ago wanted to do something for a racist reasons, then no person can ever possibly believe in that same cause for a different reason. That's definitely a real thing that you certainly apply to all your own political beliefs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
35,000 deaths. 2/3 of which are suicides and thus have no business being included in your figure.

Nope, feth that. Your view here isn't just wrong, it's fething awful.

Every suicide is a preventable tragedy. It doesn't matter if the trigger is pulled by the victim or another person, each instance is a life lost that should not have been lost.

And yes, gun proliferation drives suicide. When a person is having suicidal impulses the absolute worse thing you can do is have objects in the house that cause them to keep thinking about suicides, these objects are known as triggers. And yeah, there's no better trigger than a gun.

Doubt that this works like this? In Israel they stopped letting soldiers take weapons home on weekends. Suicides among soldiers dropped by 40%.

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.

Quoting the rate of frequency with no regard for the impact of the event is absurd. When the murder rate is 4 times as high, in the US that means 7,500 more people murdered every year than would otherwise be the case. That's like having 2.5 9/11 events every year.

It's not a fething rounding error.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Translation: you don't have the votes so resort to unelected judges.

In 1876 the Supreme Court held that "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence". In 1939 the Supreme Court said "Second Amendment did not protect weapon types not having a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia."

Pro-gun types could have pushed for a constitutional amendment, changing the wording of the 2nd amendment to say 'everybody should be able to get guns for whatever purpose they want' or something to that effect. But, in your own words, they didn't have the votes so they resorted to unelected judges. They began a long campaign of arguing that the Second Amendment should be interpreted very differently. And over time they won, and now it's widely held it does support broad private gun ownership. And this victory was so complete that many people are ignorant that it was ever interpreted differently.

So yes, it is a battle over the opinions of unelected judges. But it always have been, and if you think that the pro-gun lobby didn't fight the same battle you're kidding yourself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:
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,

Thanks some interesting info that I wasn't fully aware of, and I agree that making the check easily available, either through a portal or publicly accessible terminals makes good sense.

And I agree that one major reason this process isn't in place is because of political manipulation. However, where you see a federal conspiracy to control this through licensed gun owners, I seems far more obvious to me that it's an attempt by licensed gun sellers to manipulate the law to make sure they control more of the gun trade and make more of the money.

But I think the overall point is something we agree on - much could be gained through common sense reform of existing laws, that would reduce inconvenience on gun owners, and put some actually useful gun control measures in place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. Police and Firemen are there to deal with the aftermath of crimes and fires. At best, a policeman might get very very very lucky and catch a criminal in the act once in a blue moon while he's tooling around, but that wasn't prevention, it was fast response to a crime in progress. But Firemen certainly don't prevent fires, they just put them out once they start.

This is absolutely false. Modern policing makes crime prevention a major focus of its work. Situational crime prevention, data collection used to predict future crime hotspots and build policy and processes in anticipation of that, violence prevention strategies like breaking the loop, and targeted programs to remove opportunities, skills and equipment used in crime is a regular part of modern policing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
Not this myth again...

"This is not to say that race didn't play a role - it absolutely did. Nor is it to deny that the Republicans sometimes exploited (and still exploit) racial issues to motivate voters"

The article you cited accepts as that the parties switched position on race, the South switched from Democrat to Republican. The only thing it disputes is the idea that the shift happened suddenly, in 1964, and that other factors than race were also relevant (and even then it misses the mark, as it makes no consideration that many people's opposition to economic programs is based in racial bias).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Plus you have the psychological deal with your troops fighting their fellow citizens.

I find it really fascinating that pro-gun people are so aware of the psychological impact on US soldiers for fighting US citizens, but don't spend a single second thinking about the morale impact on rebellious US citizens having to fight US soldiers.

Is there any group in the US held in higher regard than its soldiers? So do you guys honestly think that when a revolution calls to take up arms against the US military, that everyone will agree and sign on to start killing servicemen?

This shows that people who think it'll be the US population vs the army have a really simplistic understanding of the politics of revolution. Look at Syria to found out how it would actually play out. It'll be some of the army, plus some of the population, vs a different bit of the army and a different bit of the population, and whole bunch of foreign powers giving assistance to both sides.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I had the great pleasure of knowing a man that fought with the French Resistance in WWII. If he were still alive I'd want someone to argue that a militia wouldn't have been effective. They managed with antique firearms and whatever they could capture.

The French resistance was actually broadly ineffective. They were built up during the war for propaganda purposes in the UK and US, and after the war in France.

There have been lots of effective resistance movements, of course. But not in France during the war.

But if you read about those resistance movements, what you learn is that they had very effective systems in place, cell structures that allowed co-ordination and support, but didn't risk compromise if one cell was infiltrated or captured. When you build those kind of systems then getting your hands on guns is easy. The IRA spent 100 years in a country with very strict gun controls, but today they're still finding weapon caches buried out the countryside, the IRA had so many guns they lost track of massive stockpiles of them. The IRA got their hands on those guns because they had effective structures in place.

If you don't have those structures in place, then your revolution will fail, no matter how many private guns you start with. And if you have those cell structures in place, then it is not hard to get large stockpiles of guns.

 d-usa wrote:

And it would leave the current process for a private sales via word of mouth/etc unchanged, normal everyday private-to-private sales can be conducted without checks.

Which is why I'm always baffled that once there is some sort of established term (the famous gun-show loophole) everyone just gets focused on making it as narrow as possible.

Problem is private sales and straw purchases, period. Straw purchasing is forbidden, but the law is toothless because without some massive evidence you can't make a case.

Unless there's a central gun register it just can't be done.

 Grey Templar wrote:

The 2nd amendment is the final defense against a tyrannical government. Not the first. The first is using the democratic process to change the government from within through elections. We're not so far gone as to need to have a 2nd American Revolution, yet.

Stupid argument. Any attempt by civilians trying to throw down America's goverment with rifles, even with full auto rifles, is doomed to fail and death unless they get US america(at least significant part. Say half as a minimum) with them.

If they can get then they can get weapons anyway whether they had them before or not.

If they can't they are dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Dead so much it's not even funny. Bunch of civilians with rifles against US army. Good luck! Maybe you last few seconds with that once combat starts.

 d-usa wrote:
I find a good deal on a used gun in rough shape, pay $100 for it. I clean it up, adjust the trigger, change out the sights, now it’s a nice gun. Next year I’m rough up for money and I sell it to a guy at work. Because it doesn’t look like crap anymore I sell it for $250 bucks. I made $150 on this gun and used that money as income to pay my electric bill.

I bought and sold, turned the gun around, and more than doubled my money. All things listed in this thread as a standard for requiring a FFL.

The point is are you doing it on a regular basis, to make a goddamned living and turn a steady profit. But you (and others) are playing the semantics game, or just skimming posts.


It's the "maintaining a livelyhood" part that you and Gordon are ignoring.

 Ouze wrote:
As an update, police are operating under the assumption he had help, and that he had an escape plan. No elaboration on the latter in the article.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 amanita wrote:
Wow...I just learned that the perpetrator in the Las Vegas shooting also targeted huge jet fuel storage tanks in range of the hotel.

I think shooting fuel tanks to cause an explosion only works in the movies.

Yeah, I want to see a picture showing the tanks in relation to his kill zone(s). I suspect as a result of using the bump stocks he had rounds going high quite a bit. A guy willing to buy all he did and prep this would have bought a few magazines worth of tracers if he wanted to start fires by shooting fuel tanks... Very easy to get if you want them.

Vaktathi wrote:

nfe wrote:The assumption that US civilians would be a more effective opposition to the US military than the insurgencies that have been fighting it and its allies overseas is disappointingly hubristic.

Given that the US has a lot more room for groups to hide and move in, far more weapons and ammunition on hand than just about anywhere else on earth, both in an absolute and per capita sense, a much more technologically integrate population, a diverse population that wont automatically make an outsider stick out, and a lot more on hand wealth to devote to such an endeavor, I would not think so.

You would not think what? That it's hubristic? It really is. Assuming, without recourse to any data stretching far beyond 'lots of citizens like guns and outdoorshmanship and they live in a big country', that (the general) you could more competently engage the US military than people who have been embedded in conflicts for generations, are composed primarily of soldiers, ex-soldiers, or people trained by those soldiers, and that have access to modern military level hardware is the very definition of hubris.

RE: the couple folks who've thrown examples at me of poorly trained or terribly equipped insurgencies who've been effective. That's really beside the point. Firstly, I was responding to people alluding to current/recent insurgencies in Western Asia in their 'if they can do it - think how good we'd be!' assumptions; and secondly, II'm not saying that a poorly trained force can't be effective, especially when operating in its native habitat against a force unfamiliar with it, and I'm not saying that the US population couldn't muster any effective opposition to a tyrannical oppressor. I'm saying that the assumption that they'd do it better than others without drawing upon any actual data is foolishly arrogannt.

tneva82 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

The 2nd amendment is the final defense against a tyrannical government. Not the first. The first is using the democratic process to change the government from within through elections. We're not so far gone as to need to have a 2nd American Revolution, yet.

Stupid argument. Any attempt by civilians trying to throw down America's goverment with rifles, even with full auto rifles, is doomed to fail and death unless they get US america(at least significant part. Say half as a minimum) with them.

If they can get then they can get weapons anyway whether they had them before or not.

If they can't they are dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Dead so much it's not even funny. Bunch of civilians with rifles against US army. Good luck! Maybe you last few seconds with that once combat starts.

Additionally, if the US government really wanted a specific bunch of US citizens dead, they wouldn't bother sending in people with guns to do it. They'd just drone some houses from five miles away. The grunts would just investigate the ruins to try and count how many died exactly.


Never mind that if the US breaks down and militias start fighting over who gets to rebuild, guns are going to be absolutely everywhere. Individuals purchasing weapons won't actually matter. The real useful thing will be mass organisation.

"Funny" statistic. In past 50 years deaths related to guns in America has killed MORE Americans than all the wars America has taken part in it's history. Not half bad! Americans are clearly better killing Americans than non-Americans are.

nfe wrote:
The assumption that US civilians would be a more effective opposition to the US military than the insurgencies that have been fighting it and its allies overseas is disappointingly hubristic.

Huge ubran environment with endless supply of small arms and ammunition and skilled shooters? Many capable of making their own ammunition? In a real insurgency situation in the US. You'd need a 20 million man army to hold any ground.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
"Funny" statistic. In past 50 years deaths related to guns in America has killed MORE Americans than all the wars America has taken part in it's history. Not half bad! Americans are clearly better killing Americans than non-Americans are.

Almost 50% of our war casualties were Americans killing Americans anyways. Not getting our asses kicked in war is something to be proud of - not to make stupid points about non existent gun violence and suicides (which are on par with other developed western nations - we just kill ourselves with guns here.)

Can I just say, regardless anything else, that it's hard to be sympathetic with a side of an argument if one of the points they make is the *threat of violence* if they don't get their way?

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Can I just say, regardless anything else, that it's hard to be sympathetic with a side of an argument if one of the points they make is the *threat of violence* if they don't get their way?

It's not a threat. It's a guarantee. Any gun grab in the USA is going to cost lives - lots of em. I'm also not sure where you are coming from ether because both sides are threatening violence.

As a neutral, it's also clear to me that politics of any issue in the USA has become so polarised, that reasonable debate and compromise are now non-existent.

Not just in the gun debate, but in health care and trying to get a budget passed in Congress.

With regards to the gun debate, you have extremists on both sides: the all gunz are evil, and anybody who own one is evil, side Vs. from my cold dead hands and why shouldn't I be able to own a nuke, brigade.

And sadly, the reasonable people in between these extremisms, have been pushed aside.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Huge ubran environment with endless supply of small arms and ammunition and skilled shooters? Many capable of making their own ammunition? In a real insurgency situation in the US. You'd need a 20 million man army to hold any ground.

No, you wouldn't, because you aren't considering a realistic scenario. You're neglecting two factors that make civilian guns useless:

1) A situation where violent resistance is morally justified implies an oppressive and thoroughly evil government. You know, the sort of government that doesn't care too much about killing too many people and will just bomb resistance into submission without concern for collateral damage. Insurgencies fighting the current US military can succeed because the US has to at least pretend to care about hurting innocent victims. They have to send in soldiers on the ground to act as police, they can't just call in a B-52 strike and flatten any town that shows signs of disobedience. If the US occupation force didn't have any moral limits the effectiveness of those insurgencies would be vastly diminished.

2) A situation where violent resistance is morally justified is not going to magically happen out of nowhere. The government is not going to go full Nazi just for fun, it's going to start doing awful things because the people who voted for that government want it. It isn't just going to be an occupation force that a resistance group has to fight, it's going to be their fellow citizens. Where are you going to go when your neighbors hate you and will cheer on the police as they come to drag you off to the death camps? Who is going to fight alongside you? What good is your AR-15 going to do when a vigilante mob with their own AR-15s shoots you, while the police stand by and watch? Resistance against an occupying foreign power can work when the majority of the population supports the resistance even if they aren't brave enough to fight directly, and can provide the cover the resistance needs to operate successfully. It's a very different situation when you're talking about resistance against a domestic threat that the majority of the population voted to create.

The simple fact here is that the idea of random civilians with AR-15s opposing tyranny is wishful thinking at best, and fantasies about murdering government officials because of a dispute over tax rates at its worst.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Can I just say, regardless anything else, that it's hard to be sympathetic with a side of an argument if one of the points they make is the *threat of violence* if they don't get their way?

It's not a threat. It's a guarantee. Any gun grab in the USA is going to cost lives - lots of em. I'm also not sure where you are coming from ether because both sides are threatening violence.

Wow, congratulations on 100% not sating my concerns or fears. Reread what you said in a mobster voice and maybe you'll consider why I called it a threat.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Can I just say, regardless anything else, that it's hard to be sympathetic with a side of an argument if one of the points they make is the *threat of violence* if they don't get their way?

It's not a threat. It's a guarantee. Any gun grab in the USA is going to cost lives - lots of em. I'm also not sure where you are coming from ether because both sides are threatening violence.

Wow, congratulations on 100% not sating my concerns or fears. Reread what you said in a mobster voice and maybe you'll consider why I called it a threat.

So you're afraid that the US government will become a totalitarian system that will ignore the rules that are in place to guide it, and completely denounce everything the nation has stood for, for over two hundred years, in an attempt to break into our homes and take our property away from us?

Yeah, I could see how that would be a fearful thing.

And that justifies the death of six people practicing peaceful democratic assembly?

 sebster wrote:
[
In 1876 the Supreme Court held that "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence". In 1939 the Supreme Court said "Second Amendment did not protect weapon types not having a reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia."

I'd like to point out that the 1939 Heller case was a set-up by anti-gun politicians, prosecutors, and an activist judge. With an under-the-table handshake deal the judge in that case (very anti-gun) made a pro-gun verdict that was intentionally unconstitutional with the sole intent to have it appealed to the Supreme Court, some of its members openly anti-gun. They did this because they knew the Defendant was going into witness protection and couldn't appear himself, nor could he afford to send his lawyer. The Government got to have their side, and ONLY their side heard. Even then the decision was a mixed bag that was viewed as a victory by both sides.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
And that justifies the death of six people practicing peaceful democratic assembly?

I think the point has missed you by a good mile or so.

 djones520 wrote:
So you're afraid that the US government will become a totalitarian system that will ignore the rules that are in place to guide it, and completely denounce everything the nation has stood for, for over two hundred years, in an attempt to break into our homes and take our property away from us?

Yeah, I could see how that would be a fearful thing.

Let's be realistic here, the right to own any gun you want is hardly "everything the nation has stood for", and opposition to the idea of the government taking your property hasn't stopped us from banning stuff in the past. Confiscating illegal guns is not any different from confiscating illegal drugs.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Can I just say, regardless anything else, that it's hard to be sympathetic with a side of an argument if one of the points they make is the *threat of violence* if they don't get their way?

It's not a threat. It's a guarantee. Any gun grab in the USA is going to cost lives - lots of em. I'm also not sure where you are coming from ether because both sides are threatening violence.

What if they are constitutional gun grabs?

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
So you're afraid that the US government will become a totalitarian system that will ignore the rules that are in place to guide it, and completely denounce everything the nation has stood for, for over two hundred years, in an attempt to break into our homes and take our property away from us?

Yeah, I could see how that would be a fearful thing.

Let's be realistic here, the right to own any gun you want is hardly "everything the nation has stood for", and opposition to the idea of the government taking your property hasn't stopped us from banning stuff in the past. Confiscating illegal guns is not any different from confiscating illegal drugs.

The entire point is that violence is the option to be used for when the government goes apeshit on us. As ardent a defender of the 2nd that I am, where the country to come together, and pass an amendment that takes that right away, then so be it. That is the way it's supposed to be done.

But if the plan is to go all Thomas Gage on us, then yeah, expect Concord and Lexington to occur all over again.

 djones520 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
So you're afraid that the US government will become a totalitarian system that will ignore the rules that are in place to guide it, and completely denounce everything the nation has stood for, for over two hundred years, in an attempt to break into our homes and take our property away from us?

Yeah, I could see how that would be a fearful thing.

Let's be realistic here, the right to own any gun you want is hardly "everything the nation has stood for", and opposition to the idea of the government taking your property hasn't stopped us from banning stuff in the past. Confiscating illegal guns is not any different from confiscating illegal drugs.

The entire point is that violence is the option to be used for when the government goes apeshit on us. As ardent a defender of the 2nd that I am, where the country to come together, and pass an amendment that takes that right away, then so be it. That is the way it's supposed to be done.

But if the plan is to go all Thomas Gage on us, then yeah, expect Concord and Lexington to occur all over again.

That is basically my litmus test for "Constitution Ueber Alles" types. There are lots of folks who will say that the government can take the guns from their cold dead hands after getting all the bullets first even if the 2nd is repealed or a SCOTUS ruling narrows it. And to me that shows that those folks don't care about the constitution, they only care about guns.

As if tyranny of the mob is not just as capable to oppress the people or as unlikely to happen as this Abaddon-equse ruiner of all that's good and pure you're trying you present the government as. The democratic process demands those with in it can make their say without the fear of violenece or violence being used on them. Something gun rights activist have failed on, with my example just being one.

 djones520 wrote:
The entire point is that violence is the option to be used for when the government goes apeshit on us. As ardent a defender of the 2nd that I am, where the country to come together, and pass an amendment that takes that right away, then so be it. That is the way it's supposed to be done.

But if the plan is to go all Thomas Gage on us, then yeah, expect Concord and Lexington to occur all over again.

See my previous post for why this whole idea that violent revolution is relevant in 2017 is wishful thinking at best, and murder fantasies at worst.

To go back to basics, why do ordinary civilian people want/need to own guns?

Not in order of importance:

1. Hunting (shooting, stalking, culling.)
2. Target shooting, from Olympic pistol to Clay pigeon.
3. Self-defence.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To go back to basics, why do ordinary civilian people want/need to own guns?

Not in order of importance:

1. Hunting (shooting, stalking, culling.)
2. Target shooting, from Olympic pistol to Clay pigeon.
3. Self-defence.

4. Feeling safer. Not the same than self-defence, because it's owning the gun that gives them the feeling.
5. Collection (after all, here is a forum about collecting miniatures, isn't it ?)