The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[Stavros]

An interesting overview of how the killers got their guns in mass shooting over recent years, which suggests that if US legislators are too timid to tackle gun ownership (one wonders if they care about the killings anyway), they can at least tighten up and in some cases extend the laws and regulations to prevent people from purchasing weapons in the first place. It can be done, though as the article shows it also requires existing laws and regulations to be applied more carefully so that individuals who are clearly in need of help do not express their need for it through violence.

The article intro says it all:
Criminal histories and documented mental health problems did not prevent at least eight of the gunmen in 14 recent mass shootings from obtaining their weapons, after federal background checks led to approval of the purchases of the guns used
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...ype=Multimedia

[broncofan]

I think that whatever can be done consistent with the 2nd amendment should be done. Better background checks, limits on gun ownership by those with criminal records and serious mental health problems. These are things that will have some benefit.

I also think that if we did not have a second amendment, extremely tight controls on weapon ownership would greatly reduce these kinds of crimes. There would still be an underground market but people would simply not have them around when they snap. The most effective prevention against all of these gun deaths would just be a severe reduction in the number of available weapons. This would mean that over time having guns and using them would not be part of our culture or mindset.

Of course democrats will say they want to work within the parameters of the second amendment as it is currently interpreted because expressing a desire to go further plays into the paranoia of those who think we want to take their guns away. There is no we ....but as an outlier view, I actually wish we could take their guns away and replace them with something useful. Mind you this is not me expressing the secret desire of democrats who want to confiscate all of the guns....just my own personal view that severely restricting ownership would have positive social consequences.

[buttslinger]

Fed up and bored Americans on their sofas sense that even if gun violence were reduced to zero, we would still be faced by the national debt, crime, corruption, poverty, the middle east, terrorism, unemployment, etc etc etc etc etc....................

While mental patients with guns are hard to get a handle on, the number of gun dealers who arm the criminal element is actually a pretty small percentage, and you can tackle problems like that, simply take away their licenses. Gun show loopholes and weak background checks can be changed. Let the NRA defend recklessness.

But pointing the finger at the NRA is pretty much the status quo, we've had Democratic Presidents with both houses of congress that have achieved practically nothing to change the gun culture mentality, and I don't think we ever will.

The Last Thing the first Black President wants to appear as is Black, and the last thing the first Woman President wants to appear as is a Woman. Trump has gotten attention because ha APPEARS to be a candidate that can shakes things up, I think you might find Hillary a bigger egomaniac than Trump, in the future bored Americans might actually want her to slow down and go back in the kitchen when she gets steam shooting out of her vagina throwing her weight around in national and world affairs. Unlike Jeb who wants to put people to sleep, Hillary wants to wake them up. She is back on her heels right now, this is Trump time, but she has this thing all mapped out, and the last thing you are going to see for eight years is the housewife who sits quietly on the sofa. Lord help us all. Hillary will scare lots of people.

[trish]

Whoever said tighter firearm regulation will cure the national debt, corruption, poverty, the Middle East and unemployment? (though it can be expected to have an effect on crime and domestic terrorism).

While mental patients with guns are hard to get a handle on, the number of gun dealers who arm the criminal element is actually a pretty small percentage, and you can tackle problems like that, simply take away their licenses. Gun show loopholes and weak background checks can be changed. Let the NRA defend recklessness.

Agreed. Most of the psychotic gunman of the past couple of decades obtained their guns legally. However few of them there were (or however few the dealers who sold them their guns) you only have to reflect that each of these psychos murdered in the neighborhood of ten or more people to realize that had we taken the trouble to keep a few dealers from selling them lethal weapons we would have saved at least ten times that many lives.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...dayspaper&_r=0

pointing the finger at the NRA is pretty much the status quo, we've had Democratic Presidents with both houses of congress that have achieved practically nothing to change the gun culture mentality,...

Also agree. But probably not with the intended meaning. The gun lobby (of which the NRA is a major player) is largely responsible for the Congressional impasse, not the gun culture. In survey after survey Americans generally favor tighter gun regulation. But gerrymandering renders the opinion of most American’s nearly mute, when monied special interests fill the campaign coffers.

...and I don't think we ever will.

You keep saying this but never offer any support for your expectation. So I keep saying: if it’s so in the bag, why does the NRA continue to spend almost all its resources lobbying Congress and marketing its opinion? Why has the number of gun owning households dropped from 50% to 30% over the last half century? Why do most people say they favor tighter gun laws? Gun culture, gun scmulture (okay that didn’t work). Culture, after all, is volatile. Once upon a time everybody smoked. Once upon a time, everybody was appalled by the very existence of gays. Once upon a time nobody used their seat-belts.

The gun culture isn’t even a real thing, it’s a fabrication. Yes, we always loved our cowboy movies and our cop and robber shows even before the repeal of the assault weapons ban in 2005, but no one would’ve said in 1950 that we have a gun culture. Rory Rogers never killed a single bad guy on his show. The gun culture came into existence when the Culture Wars were fabricated by political spin-masters who are in the business of convincing you that your civic duty should be a simple as matching a candidate to your lifestyle choice. Do you drive a truck? Listen to country music? Own a shotgun? The Democrats are gonna put their pinko emissions control on that truck, censor your tunes and take away your shotgun. It’s all claptrap.

I think you might find Hillary a bigger egomaniac than Trump,

Here you’re either nuts or just making shit up. I would admit that it takes an egomaniac to even consider running for president of the U.S., but no one is a bigger egomaniac than Trump.

Hillary will scare lots of people.

That goes without saying. We live in a nation where some people claim they’re afraid to leave the house in broad daylight without carrying a concealed firearm. What the name Hillary Clinton will do is polarize people. The reason I voted for Obama instead of Clinton way back when was I thought she polarized the electorate. Not so much Hillary herself, but all the politically inspired ‘investigations’ of the Clintons from Whitewater, the alleged murder of Vince Foster, the Monica Lewinsky blow job scandal and the resulting impeachment. Now add to that the email non-scandal, the Benghazi tragedy and the dynasty factor. Her campaign, if it flies at all, will encounter a lot of drag. Still, none of those negatives are real criticisms of her...they are entirely political fabrications aimed at her candidacy.

[fred41]

....... Once upon a time everybody smoked. Once upon a time, everybody was appalled by the very existence of gays. Once upon a time nobody used their seat-belts.

Change happens by generation whether people like it or not. Often it seems at a snails pace...but that's on a personal level, not a historical level. Sometimes people don't think things will change because most folks feel they are level headed, common sense type, individuals who must (surely in their own minds) represent all other level headed, common sense type folks - also known as the "average person." Kooks don't usually think they're kooks...lol. So often delusional people think they are posting prose instead of bull shit.
But generations change...people form social contacts with other people that previous generations sometimes never came into contact with...except for maybe during wartime (some white men never really had social contact with black men until they had to share a trench and cover each others butts on the battlefield...nothing's an eye opener quite like that)...
...and it's going to happen faster and faster because of the internet.
Sure, the internet can sometimes be even more polarizing: Hateful people can find other hateful people across the globe and fuel each others hatreds at an ever more combustible level...but it can also educate people that would never have had scales removed from their eyes any other way.
So, often people don't think other people can change because they themselves can't change...or continue to live in an area stuck in time (small towns can be like that) and are therefore somewhat blinded to the very changes going on around them.
Hell, I've changed..and so have some of my family, friends and coworkers.


On the Hillary Clinton thing...I don't think the Hillary of today is the same Hillary that faced President Obama,...and that Hillary wasn't the same before becoming a Senator...who wasn't the same person who came in as the President's wife. I believe she is now just a mired, establishment politician.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, unlike other folks ...people like that are often the safest to elect...but I don't agree that the scandals weren't scandals. They were probably dragged on too long - that's the political bullshit part , but I feel they were legitimately brought up. The email scandal probably has more to do with a bit of obtuseness then criminality, but that says something also. There's a reason Bernie Sanders is doing so well.
I probably should have saved that for another thread...but I don't work like that...lol

[trish]

Indeed change happens.
(I'll mostly refrain from answering the Hlllary comments here so as not to derail the thread again...except to say that Hillary's use of her email was legal and standard operating procedure in Washington until halfway through her time in office; and that her email was secure whereas it was the State Department emails that China successfully hacked. Perhaps another thread. I do like Sanders. Wish I knew which had a better chance of winning the Presidency. )

[buttslinger]

You guys can talk guns here but nothing will be done in DC til Hillary is prez, WORD.
Trump is going to drop out of the race when his ratings go down, he's an egomaniac, sure, but he's a businessman and he'll go on to something else. Hillary has had her fingernails dug into a fixation of being President for, what,....24 years?
Roy Rogers was the singing Cowboy, he makes a nice roast beef sandwich. Maybe he never killed anybody, but all the bad guys on his show carried guns.
The plot of EVERY TV show or movie revolves around some kind of conflict, be it the NFL, or a soap opera, or a war movie.
People struggle with traffic, their job, bills,.....but I've never seen a shoot-out in my life.
I read about the statistics ....I believe them. So that must mean there is some kind of gun culture here. Somekind of something.

If less households own guns and more people are in favor of gun control, who is shooting people? The NRA? Congress?
I suppose living in a flock or sheep is better than living in a pack of wolves,
I'm old enough to remember Woodstock. And Altamont.
People change, yes. But nothing will really change gun violence stats until you actually start removing guns. And nobody is talking about that out loud.
IN MY OPINION, guns and abortion will be a hot button issue for a long time.

[trish]

Gene Autry was the singing cowboy, geez and you claim to be an old guy.

Every narrative in every literary form revolves around conflict...even musical forms progress to a climax with harmonic tension and resolve to the tonic. But the NRA wasn't always about the Second Amendment, personal security and guns weren't always a lifestyle choice and a hidden accessory that you carried on your person everywhere you went. The gun-culture is an overlay that political spin doctors invented to suck the apolictical into their fold.

If less households own guns and more people are in favor of gun control, who is shooting people?

So you're disputing that fewer households own guns now than in the fifties? Look it up. Who's shooting people? Assholes who shouldn't have guns obviously. You opined in your last post that these people were few in number. If you're changing your mind, perhaps I should just take my leave and let you argue with yourself.

People change, yes. But nothing will really change gun violence stats until you actually start removing guns. And nobody is talking about that out loud.

Except the police in those cities which have buy-back programs. But look how you've changed the goal posts here. You opined the gun-culture is real and people won't change, and now you say people do change, but gun violence stats won't. I'm of the opinion that if people's attitudes towards guns change significantly, the rest will eventually follow. The very fact that this is a hot button issue means that it's a volatile issue; i.e. unsettled. It could go on like this for another decade or it could change overnight.

[martin48]

Pinched from somewhere on the Web.

[buttslinger]

I do admit the statistics are scary, I halfway expect to step over a bullet riddled body on my way to my driveway.
The only truly effective way to get our stats to Canadian levels would be to outlaw all guns, and I would not be opposed to this, I would gladly turn in my gun if it saved one kid's life. HOWEVER, I would also not be opposed to making machine guns legal. When in Rome,........
I know a few guys that have had gun collections, they were all legal, some for hunting, some for target shooting, some for collecting. I've known many more people who used cocaine, back in the day, half of them were girls who freaked when they got speeding tickets. Guilty of using narcotics!!!
How come Trish grades my posts like my 10th grade teacher grading my English paper?
I do not understand how a Nation can be so violence crazy, but coils in fear in the back of a jet while four guys with box cutters fly the plane into buildings. I am concerned that a small number of criminals and crazies dictate policy.
There are all kinds of truth. Truths. I can swing with all of them. Like was said long ago "I don't fight with the World, The World fights with Me"
If Congress enacts new gun laws, I think that would be great. But I absolutely don't believe it would effect the number of school shootings. In fact I guarantee it won't. The Laws aren't the problem. The People are.
After Columbine the teachers dissolved my niece's Shakespeare club.