The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[trish]

Conservatives are fond of saying we should just enforce our current gun laws; but they don't really mean it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/us/sheriffs-refuse-to-enforce-laws-on-gun-control.html?smid=pl-share

[trish]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/12/16/249342738/in-florida-a-turf-war-blooms-over-front-yard-vegetable-gardening

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2013/12/fl-appeals-court-rules-colleges-universities-cant-regulate-guns-on-campus.html

GO FIGURE

[buttslinger]

Let's clear the air here....
First, Santa is White,
Secondly, Jesus is most definitely White.

I saw it on the News.


Jon Stewart's Reaction To FOX NEWS' Megyn Kelly's RACIST 'White Santa' Statement Is All We Need - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kddxMhV4jT8)


For Christmas I want a Gun that shakes the earth for 25 miles.

[95racer]

http://i.imgur.com/EGqqQR9.gif


That is a blast!!!!! :dancing:

[trish]

A Christmas Special on BB Guns.

You can do more than shoot your eye out.

http://nocera.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/the-gun-report-december-12-2013/?_r=0

[robertlouis]

[CENTER][COLOR="Green"][SIZE="4"]Let's clear the air here....
First, Santa is White,
Secondly, Jesus is most definitely White.



As someone just said on twitter, Santa MUST be white, because George Zimmerman didn't shoot him when he called at Zimmerman's house last Christmas. :whistle:

[robertlouis]

Here we go again. Nevada this time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25425792

[danthepoetman]

Let's clear the air here....
First, Santa is White,
Secondly, Jesus is most definitely White.

I saw it on the News.


Jon Stewart's Reaction To FOX NEWS' Megyn Kelly's RACIST 'White Santa' Statement Is All We Need - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kddxMhV4jT8)

Delightful!

[Stavros]

This link is to a long but informative piece of investigation in the New York Times on the occasions when people with mental health problems who had been deprived of their firearms had them returned to them, needless to say there are different interpretations of the law in different states, but it does show how weak some of this legislation and its application is when people who verbally threaten to kill -often their own relatives- are given the firearms to do so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/us/when-the-right-to-bear-arms-includes-the-mentally-ill.html?hp

[yosi]

people who verbally threaten to kill -often their own relatives- are given the firearms to do so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/us/when-the-right-to-bear-arms-includes-the-mentally-ill.html?hp


that's why I say : the poeples' right to carry guns is more important than the poeples' right to live........

[yodajazz]

that's why I say : the poeples' right to carry guns is more important than the poeples' right to live........


'The right to bear arms' is not as important, as how we decide to use them in everyday life. I have a cousin who is always irritating that will be coming by for Christmas, and also alcohol will be consumed. What is the odds that we will suffer a home invasion, vs my cousin will tick me off? How about a home invasion, vs children being in my home, who are curious and resourceful? What about my significant other and I getting into a fight, vs a home invasion?

[martin48]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25726591

I blame all those guns everyone carries!

[trish]

A nicely done editorial by P.Z.Myers->

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/01/14/where-a-rational-conversation-about-guns-ought-to-start/

[trish]

Another school shooting today:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-shooting-newmexico-20140114,0,524403.story

[robertlouis]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25726591

I blame all those guns everyone carries!

'It's crazy. I never thought something like this would happen at our theatre," ABC News quoted cinema employee Leny Vega as saying.

Presumably ok to happen in another cinema. And without guns, they'd have argued, maybe even come to blows, but no-one would have died. Oh well.....

[yodajazz]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25726591

I blame all those guns everyone carries!

I think the shooter may have been hit with popcorn, thrown at him. One of the un-popped seeds could have possibly hit him in the eye and blinded him. The popcorn may have contained butter, which could have made a slippery spot on the floor. Then when the shooter left the theater he could have slipped and fallen, potentially producing a serious injury. The man was clearly justified in using deadly force. After investigation, it was found that on the 'victim's' Facebook page, he was going to go "Orville Redenbacher" on somebody soon.

[Ben in LA]

:confused::yayo:

[robertlouis]

What kind of society thinks it's ok to go and see a movie with a gun?

And now a 12-year old has been involved in a school shooting. A 12-year old

Fucked up doesn't begin to describe it.

[martin48]

It's not guns at all, it's data rage! That's alright then

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/slimy-fox-pundit-keith-ablow-kinda-sorta-blames-fl-shooting-victim-because-data-rage-and-machines

[robertlouis]

You can never be too careful. Other volumes available in this series: dogs, ferrets, hamsters and stick insects.

[bobvela]

What kind of society thinks it's ok to go and see a movie with a gun?

And now a 12-year old has been involved in a school shooting. A 12-year old

Fucked up doesn't begin to describe it.

While I agree that is tragic and horrific that a 12 year old was involved in a school shooting... you dance past a larger issue.

What kind of society thinks it's ok to go see a movie with a gun? The same society that thinks it ok and legal to engage in most of once life with a gun in a visible or concealed condition (ie most of the states (depending on permitting/licensing)).

We all know about the James Holmes attack on a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises... what I still find sad and at the same time hilarious... is that I was able to see an early showing of the movie thanks to my employer (before the shooting), a week later, I watched the film for a second time with a friend at a local theater (after the Aurora shooting), a week after that, I went to see it a third time with the wife... two of the three times armed, as I normally am.

During my second and third viewings, I happened to be carrying my normal concealed pistol... what was laughable, was on my third viewing (with my wife), her purse was inspected for weapons... not my ankle, not my hip, not the small of my back, nor any of my pockets... only one of which was carrying a legally carried and concealed pistol... which excluded most of the places she could be carrying a legally concealed pistol on her person as well then.

Shocked by her treatment, after the movie we hung out in eye shot of the ticket taker who was conducting the 'inspections' and witnessed the continued unevenness of the security theater he was engaging in. Checking bags, but not in coats or in pants, waistbands or pockets.

Like it or not, it is legal in most states to carry a concealed weapon on ones person (often requiring a permit) in most places, including movie theaters.

[trish]

What sort of sick society is it where people get shot to death in movies theaters for texting during the commercials and previews? What sort of society is it where little boys with adult bodies have to take their toys with them where ever they go? In what sort of society is it hilarious to smuggle a firearm into a space where the host requests you not do so? But most of all, in what sort of society are there dim brained idiots who pay to see The Dark Night Rises on three separate occasions???

Like it or not, regardless of its legality, it is irresponsible, childish, paranoid and self-defeating to carry a concealed penis compensator on your person in a public place (including a movie theater). If they weren't a danger to themselves and those around them, the dim bulbs who do so would be hilarious.

[broncofan]

During my second and third viewings, I happened to be carrying my normal concealed pistol... what was laughable, was on my third viewing (with my wife), her purse was inspected for weapons... not my ankle, not my hip, not the small of my back, nor any of my pockets... only one of which was carrying a legally carried and concealed pistol... which excluded most of the places she could be carrying a legally concealed pistol on her person as well then.

I think the problem might be cultural as much as legal. There are just too many pussies like bobvela around, aware of their shortcomings as men, who think that having a device that could allow them to kill people makes them a man.

Bobvela with his ankle pistol at the movie theater. His wife, with the hand grenades in her purse. Quite a pair. Finding it hilarious that the security guard doesn't know where blowhards are most likely to hide their weapons. The place has a no-guns policy, making entry conditional upon not carrying a weapon, but Bobvela doesn't care because as a real American he has a right to carry a weapon in the presence of little kids at a theater. What a prick.

None of this is meant as an insult Bobvela;). I'm sure on some level you understand my arguments.

[Stavros]

As if that isn't bad enough, Nigel Farage who leads the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) which is tipped to do well in the elections this Spring and the general election next year, wants a relaxation of the gun control laws in the UK, as stated in this extract:

The Ukip leader criticised the "kneejerk" restrictions on handguns imposed after the 1996 Dunblane massacre in which Thomas Hamilton killed 16 schoolchildren and a teacher before shooting himself.
The laws were brought in by Sir John Major, the then Tory prime minister, and extended to a total ban by Tony Blair's Labour government in 1997.
Asked about gun controls, Farage said: "I think proper gun licensing is something we've done in this country responsibly and well for a long time, and I think the kneejerk legislation that Blair brought in that meant that the British Olympic pistol team have to go to France to even practise was just crackers.
"If you criminalise handguns then only the criminals carry the guns. It's really interesting that since Blair brought that piece of law in, gun crime doubled in the next five years in this country."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/24/nigel-farage-uk-gun-control-laws-relaxed

[broncofan]

in what sort of society are there dim brained idiots who pay to see The Dark Night Rises on three separate occasions???


:D:D Hilarious. That is a good question. He was conducting an experiment to see how many times he could slip his firearms past that hapless security guard. Can you imagine such institutional incompetence. Not checking his wife for explosives, not checking him for a detonator, not doing a strip-search to look for injectable poisons.

[broncofan]

But most of all, in what sort of society are there dim brained idiots who pay to see The Dark Night Rises on three separate occasions???

This just occurred to me. Maybe Bobvela can confirm whether I'm right. He saw the movie just after the attack, fully strapped, to send a message. This movie had a symbolic significance to him given that a bunch of people were killed and he, ostensibly could have prevented the tragedy because he's always prepared for that sort of thing. By going three times, he was sending the message loud and clear that he was not afraid of James Holmes, who by that time was already in a jail cell. Fearlessness personified.

What I don't understand is how he went to one of the showings without his gun. In my view the other theater-goers have a good argument that he committed reckless endangerment by creating the expectation that he was going to protect them, and then coming completely unprepared. That would be like Superman going to the movie theater, but forgetting his cape at the drycleaners.

[Prospero]

I wonder if Bobvela had been at the screening where the killings took place would have started a gunfight... and how many more might have died in the crossfire. Just absurd that inadequates like him are allowed to carry weapons. and then boast about it.

and Stavros, thanks for your note re UKIP.

[Odelay]

Bobvela, you're such a pussy. I went to Dark Knight Rising 5 times with 5 different girlfriends. I wore a fake cast/boot on my leg so no one would think twice about my noticeable limp. And I had an AK-47 down my pant leg, every time. Had a fire fight broke out in the theatre, the bad guys would have been dead in seconds while you and your wife would have been fumbling around with your pee shooters in the dark, wondering who to shoot.

Grow a pair, dude. Ammo up!

[Stavros]

I wonder if people think the proposal in Missouri to execute condemned men by firing squad is relevant to this thread? The chemicals used in lethal injections have run out and some of the new 'cocktails' though they do kill are no as efficient. Other than doing away with capital punishment, there is talk of bringing back the electric chair and the gas chamber...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/28/return-firing-squad-us-states-execution-methods

[trish]

I wonder if people think the proposal in Missouri to execute condemned men by firing squad is relevant to this thread? Why not? It’s not like there’s any progress on the gun issue to discuss.

My own perspective on capital punishment is somewhat ambiguous. I’m against it: not in principle but in practice. It has always been applied asymmetrically to maintain the economic, social and cultural hegemony of those in position to abuse it.

But capital punishment is alive and flourishing here in the U.S. of A. One way to answer the question, “What device, poisons, procedure etc. should the State use to carry out a death sentence?” is to ask yourself, “If I were condemned by the State, how would I like to go?”

Death by bullet wound is unpredictably quick or slow. It all depends on the marksmanship of the executioners and their desire to practice that marksmanship on the condemned man or woman. Besides, a firing squad involves a whole squad of executioners in a practice of questionable morality.

Here’s how I’d like to go, if condemned. I lie down, place my head between an anvil like staging platform and the business end of a hydraulic, high-speed, industrial stamping press. When ready, I squeeze the trigger on the remote in my hand (or the executioner does) and BLAM! My brain is pressed flat in a fraction of a second and it’s all over. Over for me...not the clean up crew.

[Stavros]

I am opposed to capital punishment as a matter of principle, and because in practical terms it assumes the condemned has received a fair trial and a sentence that merits the crime when in too many cases an examination of the process reveals flaws that do not merit a death sentence.

The principle of capital punishment can only exist as an exact reflection of the crime -in which case both parties -the state and the condemned- are engaged in an act of murder. If murder is wrong, then it must be wrong for the state to practice it. The methods chosen by the state to kill are interesting in themselves. When the guillotine was introduced in France it was hailed as a swift, efficient and even humane mode of execution. By contrast, the beheading by sword is less efficient, it has been known to take even an expert in Saudi Arabia two or three swipes to completely sever the head from the body. The correlation of beheading with contemporary practice in some parts of the world I assume means it is repugnant in the USA, yet I amazed that even after the revelations of the Nazi death camps, the gas chamber was continued until its last use in Colorado in 1967.

I think this another thread anyway; and I don't approve of your chosen method, Trish, as I can't imagine you ever being condemned of a crime. But there is still time...!!

[Ananke]

NOBODY owns another person's life. Therefore it is my opinion that capital punishment can never be justified.

[broncofan]

The principle of capital punishment can only exist as an exact reflection of the crime -in which case both parties -the state and the condemned- are engaged in an act of murder. If murder is wrong, then it must be wrong for the state to practice it.
One of the most interesting murder cases we learn about in American law schools is a British case called Dudley v. Stephens. And if I remember the holding of the case, it is that the only necessity that allows someone to take a life is that which exists in self-defense. The case involved British sailors who killed their cabin boy because he was starving anyway, and afterall they needed to eat. So, they saved two lives by taking his. The court held it was murder because the boy was not an actual threat to them, so self-defense did not apply, even in the case of strict necessity.

But an act of homicide is not necessarily murder. I wonder if some argument could be made that if in a capital case the victim would have been able to take the defendant's life to save his own, the state can vindicate his interests post hoc. By killing the defendant after the fact, the state steps in for the victim and does what he failed to do in real time.

Of course, self-defense doesn't actually cover acts of revenge. But if a person can forfeit his right to live in the process of killing someone, it's not a huge stretch to say that he might forfeit it after the fact upon a careful judicial determination.

Anyhow, I believe the crown stepped in and pardoned the condemned men in Dudley v. Stephens. So, the state can and does occasionally violate individual liberties for what they view as the greater good of a community.

In Dudley, there was a utilitarian calculation that two living cannibals was better than three dead sailors. I wonder if there's a place for the state to make these kinds of utilitarian calculations in extreme cases. Does the public policy of deterring murder justify the killing of murderers?

I oppose the death penalty for the same reasons as Trish. But I don't have any moral qualms about someone being killed, if it could be determined that he/she killed someone with a culpable mental state and had no legal excuse.

[broncofan]

I just want to add that I respect the position taken by Ananke and Stavros on the death penalty. That is more of a civil libertarian position I think...there are some things the state should not be able to take from a person regardless of how compelling the need.

One interesting place where courts have struggled with the issue of necessity is in the case of conjoined twins where only one is viable. The courts have tried to make very attenuated self-defense arguments to justify the killing of the "parasitic" twin in order to save the life of the "stronger" twin. If courts have so much trouble making the argument that a doctor should be able to kill one child in surgery out of necessity, I can understand the apprehension in the case of the death penalty where the state is never executing a person out of necessity.

There's also a third possible reason to object to the death penalty. That is that you think the state should be able to kill but you don't think it actually serves any public policy. Does the death penalty deter murder? Does the death penalty provide an extra order of punishment over life imprisonment?

Edit: Last paragraph misleading. What I mean to say is that you think the state should be able to make a utilitarian calculation and kill if it increases total utility, but you don't believe it ever does. In a sense, you don't think the killing of a criminal accomplishes much of anything and maybe it comes at a great cost.

[Stavros]

Broncofan -I think this is moving away from the intentions of the thread, so it might be best to create a new one for issues like capital punishment, euthanasia and so on. Briefly, there is clearly no evidence that the presence of the death penalty has ever deterred murder.

[broncofan]

Broncofan -I think this is moving away from the intentions of the thread, so it might be best to create a new one for issues like capital punishment, euthanasia and so on. Briefly, there is clearly no evidence that the presence of the death penalty has ever deterred murder.
True. Next post in this thread on gun laws or another thread at some point for this topic.

[thombergeron]

U.S. Judge Upholds State's Tough Assault Weapons Ban (http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-gun-control-0131-20140130,0,1679703.story)

Merely the latest in a series of decisions by the federal courts, including the Supreme Court in the Heller decision, that have upheld assault weapon bans.

The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution does not guarantee the right of individuals to own an AR-15. This has been self-evident to many of us for some time, but it's nice to have courts affirm it.

[robertlouis]

U.S. Judge Upholds State's Tough Assault Weapons Ban (http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-gun-control-0131-20140130,0,1679703.story)

Merely the latest in a series of decisions by the federal courts, including the Supreme Court in the Heller decision, that have upheld assault weapon bans.

The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution does not guarantee the right of individuals to own an AR-15. This has been self-evident to many of us for some time, but it's nice to have courts affirm it.

Nobody outside the Armed Forces needs, or should be allowed to own, an AR-15. It's utterly mad.

[Ben in LA]

:loser:......:yayo:

[bobvela]

Nobody outside the Armed Forces needs, or should be allowed to own, an AR-15. It's utterly mad.

Call me crazy... but I thought they were called the 'bill of rights'... not the 'bill of needs'.

More so... you realize that the Armed Forces do not much use the AR-15... instead they use the M-16 (variants).

What's the difference? Semi-automatic vs burst fire/fully automatic. Or are you advocating to limiting the US armed forced to using only semi-automatic rifles in combat?

Lets ignore your error in definitions for a moment... we'll assume you meant an M-16...

That being said... are you aware of what it takes for a civilian (or private organization) to lawfully own an M-16 (which is legal, though difficult), thus subject to the National Firearms Act of 1934, which was expanded in the Gun Control Act of 1968, and The Firearm Owners' Protection Act in 1986?

It has long requires a Class 3 tax stamp from the BATFE which costs $200, which these days tends to take ~9 months for the BATFE to come back on your paperwork... which for an individual requires finger printing and the OK of your local chief law enforcement officer (who don't always say ok).

Even if you go the trust or corporation route, you get to avoid the local LEO signoff & fingerprinting... but still get/have to pay the $200 for the tax stamp and wait the ~9 months.

BTW... because the Firearm Owners' Protection Act of 1986 put an end to the manufacturing of 'machine guns' which could be transferred to a private owner, the prices of the limited (and alas decreasing supply) of legal 'machine guns' for transfer has only gone up... and for an M-16 you are looking at spending on the order of $15 to $20k.

Are you really worried about private ownership of such things?

Exactly how many crimes have we seen committed with legally owned fully automatic M-16's (aka 'machine guns') in the last 10, 20 or 50 years?

[martin48]

Lots of knowledge about firearms - always worrying!



Call me crazy... but I thought they were called the 'bill of rights'... not the 'bill of needs'.

More so... you realize that the Armed Forces do not much use the AR-15... instead they use the M-16 (variants).

What's the difference? Semi-automatic vs burst fire/fully automatic. Or are you advocating to limiting the US armed forced to using only semi-automatic rifles in combat?

Lets ignore your error in definitions for a moment... we'll assume you meant an M-16...

That being said... are you aware of what it takes for a civilian (or private organization) to lawfully own an M-16 (which is legal, though difficult), thus subject to the National Firearms Act of 1934, which was expanded in the Gun Control Act of 1968, and The Firearm Owners' Protection Act in 1986?

It has long requires a Class 3 tax stamp from the BATFE which costs $200, which these days tends to take ~9 months for the BATFE to come back on your paperwork... which for an individual requires finger printing and the OK of your local chief law enforcement officer (who don't always say ok).

Even if you go the trust or corporation route, you get to avoid the local LEO signoff & fingerprinting... but still get/have to pay the $200 for the tax stamp and wait the ~9 months.

BTW... because the Firearm Owners' Protection Act of 1986 put an end to the manufacturing of 'machine guns' which could be transferred to a private owner, the prices of the limited (and alas decreasing supply) of legal 'machine guns' for transfer has only gone up... and for an M-16 you are looking at spending on the order of $15 to $20k.

Are you really worried about private ownership of such things?

Exactly how many crimes have we seen committed with legally owned fully automatic M-16's (aka 'machine guns') in the last 10, 20 or 50 years?

[thombergeron]

Call me crazy... but I thought they were called the 'bill of rights'... not the 'bill of needs'.

More so... you realize that the Armed Forces do not much use the AR-15... instead they use the M-16 (variants).

What's the difference? Semi-automatic vs burst fire/fully automatic. Or are you advocating to limiting the US armed forced to using only semi-automatic rifles in combat?

Lets ignore your error in definitions for a moment... we'll assume you meant an M-16...
...

Are you really worried about private ownership of such things?

Exactly how many crimes have we seen committed with legally owned fully automatic M-16's (aka 'machine guns') in the last 10, 20 or 50 years?

It's weird that you would leave such an extensive reply when it's clear from the start that you have very little idea what you're talking about.

The AR-15 is a 5.56mm/.223 caliber assault rifle platform introduced in the late 1950s. The M16 rifle is an AR-15. Currently, the standard issue service rifle for the U.S. Army is the M4 carbine, which is also an AR-15. I was active duty Army 1988-1994, and my unit was one of the first to be issued the M4. The Marines still issue an updated M16 variant, the M16A4, though some units have moved to the M4.

In 1994, all rifles based upon the AR-15 platform were banned from civilian ownership in the U.S. by the federal assault weapons ban. That legislation expired and was not renewed in 2004. However, six states (Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Connecticut) and the District of Columbia maintain bans on assault weapons including rifles based upon the AR-15 platform. These bans mostly apply to both semi- and fully automatic rifles.

AR-15 rifles are very popular amongst spree killers. John Muhammed, the DC sniper, used an AR-15 rifle. So did James Holmes in Aurora, Colorado. So did Jacob Tyler Roberts in Clackamas, Oregon. So did Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut.

So yes, many of us are very concerned about civilian ownership of military-grade weapons. Fortunately, it appears that the courts largely agree that civilians do not have a Constitutional right to own these rifles. All we need is some leadership at the national level to re-impose the federal assault weapons ban.

[buttslinger]

"if only everyone would understand and do what I tell them, life on earth would be perfect"

A serious collector of firearms is not the problem, it's felons and drunks and kids and Lee Harvey Oswalds and George Zimmermans.

Unfortunately you can't write one law for one guy, and the opposite law for another guy, Law trumps Freedom.

It makes sense to me that people who live out in the wide open spaces like guns, and people who live in crowded cities don't.

The Jails are full of people that love Freedom more than Law. They'll fight Wars over it. It's complicated.

[bobvela]

Lots of knowledge about firearms - always worrying!

Like most liberals... or as they prefer to be called these days... 'progressives' (but all are technically more correctly labeled 'mentally retarded' in some form) who call out for 'common sense gun control' or the like... almost universally fail to recognize the degree of 'gun control' which is already on the books... laws which lawful firearms owners must familiarize themselves with said laws... which are an unbelievable minefield with regards to what is legal where, and where it is legal to carry (and sometimes when).

I carry several state issued permits which lawfully allow me to carry in a multitude of states... so it's important not only to know which states make it unlawful for me to carry in a bar (or certain parts of one), 'outdoor music festivals', or what the actual punishment is for places that place a sign saying "no weapons permitted" (hint: it depends on the state)... and that just for carrying.

I own multiple firearms (and parts) which are illegal in some states but perfectly legal in most others... and spending a night in the wrong state with such a firearm (even if unloaded & locked) can mean serious criminal penalties.

[bobvela]

It's weird that you would leave such an extensive reply when it's clear from the start that you have very little idea what you're talking about.

It's more weird that you make such a claim without specifically citing where I am wrong... and then follow up your non sequitur with a narrative which contains only partial truths at best, and bold faced lies at worst.


The AR-15 is a 5.56mm/.223 caliber assault rifle platform introduced in the late 1950s.

Here you start from a confusing point... the AR-15 as is known today... yes can often chamber a 5.57 NATO round, or a .223 Remington (note there is a difference other than just name)... did in fact start as something known as the AR-15 when built for the military long ago, whose military variant has long since has been known as the M-16.


The M16 rifle is an AR-15.

You make that claim, but again... without any specific citation.

Also, you realize don't you, that "AR-15" has been a registered trademark of Colt's Inc Corporation... since 1966... right? There by further leading to a clear separation between the two.


Currently, the standard issue service rifle for the U.S. Army is the M4 carbine, which is also an AR-15.

You seem to have missed a step... the modern M4, which is more commonly known as an M16 in civilian circles, did yes derive from the AR-15 of long ago... but if you are to say that a modern M4 is also an AR-15... surely then we can claim that a modern Ford F-series pickup is still the same as an original 1940 F-series.


I was active duty Army 1988-1994, and my unit was one of the first to be issued the M4. The Marines still issue an updated M16 variant, the M16A4, though some units have moved to the M4.

Your point?


In 1994, all rifles based upon the AR-15 platform were banned from civilian ownership in the U.S. by the federal assault weapons ban.

If you knew your law or history, you'd know that was provably false... allow me to demonstrate.

While it is true that the AWB did ban the sale/transfer of weapons/parts manufactured after a certain date which were based on certain design types of weapons to civilians, existing weapons/parts were still legal for transfer.

What's that? A fully automatic M-16 (or semi-automatic AR-15 variant) was still legal for transfer even after the 1994 AWB? Not to mention the much hated standard capacity 30-round magazines which you would have used back in the Army? That's right!

More so, with a bit of an artistic flair, it was perfectly legal to manufacture & transfer a weapon that under the spirit of the AWB was prohibited, but per the letter of the law was legal (one such derivation is called the 'thumbhole stock' which per the federal AWB is not considered a 'pistol grip').


That legislation expired and was not renewed in 2004. However, six states (Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Connecticut) and the District of Columbia maintain bans on assault weapons including rifles based upon the AR-15 platform. These bans mostly apply to both semi- and fully automatic rifles.

You keep throwing around the term 'assault weapon', yet fail to recognize that any weapon used in an assault can be classified as such... while most states still allow the lawful possession of such items that were purchased at any time... and those states (and district) you mentioned still generally allow the lawful possession of grandfathered items.

More so, California has yet to outlaw the 'bullet buttons' (a novel workaround to existing ban on certain types of detachable magazines), while not allowing thumbhole stocks on certain classes of weapons.


AR-15 rifles are very popular amongst spree killers. John Muhammed, the DC sniper, used an AR-15 rifle. So did James Holmes in Aurora, Colorado. So did Jacob Tyler Roberts in Clackamas, Oregon. So did Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut.

AR-15 like rifles are also very popular amongst civilian shooters who enjoy plinking targets... what's your point?

Know what is funny about the examples you cherry picked? Only one of the shooters lawfully possessed their weapons.

John Allen Muhammed stole the Bushmaster XM-15 in question from Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, WA, Jacob Tyler Roberts stole the Bushmaster M4 from a friend, as Adam Lanza did from his mother after she killed her.

Of your list, only James Holmes lawfully purchased his.


So yes, many of us are very concerned about civilian ownership of military-grade weapons.

Define 'military-grade weapons'... I own a couple of .45 ACP pistols... whose ammo was designed for greater 'stopping power' for the military. Depending on who you talk to, the US Navy Seals tend to prefer either the 9MM Beretta 92 or the SIG Sauer P226 (also chambering 9MM)... should all three (pistols & rounds) be on the national 'concerned' list?

I'd wager it's hard to find a round or weapon that has never been considered 'military-grade'?


Fortunately, it appears that the courts largely agree that civilians do not have a Constitutional right to own these rifles.

Citation please... because in most states it remains perfectly legal, not only to own such an item, but even to build one.


All we need is some leadership at the national level to re-impose the federal assault weapons ban.

Again, your understanding of the federal AWB is quite lacking as it only prohibited the manufacturing & transferring of NEW items... any such law today would either criminalize existing possession would be on shaky legal ground... and lucky for the country, the political will does not exist for such a fight.

[Prospero]

Phew... the gun nuts are nitpicking when the over riding truth is that the possession of guns is just plum loco crazy. They should only be in the hands of law enforcement and other appropriate personnel. Not the public. So three of the cases you cite in your long reply got their guns by theft. They could not have obtained them this way is the original owners had been prevented from buying them. Yawn.... America, otherwise in most respects such a civilised place is hugely flawed over weaponry. You need a new constitutional amendment to cleanse your streets and populace of these weapons.

[martin48]

Just some facts

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp




"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please" - Mark Twain

[trish]

Martin, don't you know only the "mentally retarded" use charts and graphs. 'Normal people'; i.e. law abiding carriers of concealed firearms find them confusing and emasculating.

Bob, limiting the legislative role of Federal government in passing meaningful firearm regulation (which is the present day strategy of the NRA) puts the onus upon the individual States to pass their own gun regulations. So obviously 'normal people' who'd rather shoot first, whine second and read later find it confusing, bothersome and a bit emasculating to familiarize themselves with the laws of all fifty States. Here's to keeping it up. Happy reading.

[martin48]

Martin, don't you know only the "mentally retarded" use charts and graphs. 'Normal people'; i.e. law abiding carriers of concealed firearms find them confusing and emasculating.



Trish, you are right. So in the well-argued concise reply I would expect from "Normal People", why don't you "Go fuck yourself." :)

[Prospero]

Fucking oneself could, in theory, be a pleasant activity were it possible. But in defence to the beliefs of gun owners why not say, instead, "go shoot yourself." They'd surely believe that accorded with your rights as a gun-owning citizen, would get right of another pesky left winger and show how valuable gun ownership is.

[martin48]

Fucking oneself could, in theory, be a pleasant activity were it possible. But in defence to the beliefs of gun owners why not say, instead, "go shoot yourself." They'd surely believe that accorded with your rights as a gun-owning citizen, would get right of another pesky left winger and show how valuable gun ownership is.

It was a cross reference to another thread, but I'll be better in future

[martin48]

Sorry, wrong picture

[Prospero]

Sex Pistols drool ok?

[broncofan]

A gun nut would take that wonderful illustrative graph posted by Martin on the last page and say, "look at Mexico". Is that not proof that guns have NOTHING to do with gun deaths.

[trish]

That is an illustrative graph. Let's copy onto this page so we can see it without going back.

[martin48]

A gun nut would take that wonderful illustrative graph posted by Martin on the last page and say, "look at Mexico". Is that not proof that guns have NOTHING to do with gun deaths.


Fine, so you Americans want your country to be like Mexico. You going to have to do your own washing.

[trish]

FUCK YEA!
I think I saw that map in my ninth grade geography/social-studies book (published in Texas).

[buttslinger]

Hey man, sure we enjoy killing each other, but the charts don't show it's mainly the lowest rung of society cleaning the bottom of the tank, taking out the trash. We also spend like three times more than the entire rest of the world on Defense; Nuclear Missiles, Cruise Missiles, jets, subs.
We're #1!!!

If you turn on the TV and there is sex and murder, that's a drama.
If you turn on the TV and it's sex and jokes, it's a comedy.

Guns have become a huge part of the US Psyche, would we be better off without them????
Of course we would.
How do you do it? Congress can't even agree to take Assault Rifles off the street!!! JESUS!!!

[trish]

http://nyti.ms/1am4ppa

Here are a few excerpts:

"it is impossible to track suicides using news media accounts — and suicides, according to the C.D.C., account for some 60 percent of gun deaths. "

"Mostly we were trying to get a feel for the scale and scope of gun violence in America. A year later, it seems like a good time to take stock.First, the biggest surprise, especially early on, was how frequently either a child accidentally shot another child — using a loaded gun that happened to be lying around — or an adult accidentally shot a child while handling a loaded gun."

"There are an estimated 300 million guns in America, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. But to read The Gun Report is to be struck anew at the reality that most of the people who die from guns would still be alive if we just had fewer of them. The guys in the movie theater would have had a fistfight instead of a shooting. The momentary flush of anger would pass. The suicidal person might have taken a pause if taking one’s life were more difficult. And on, and on. The idea that guns, on balance, save lives — which is one of the most common sentiments expressed in the pro-gun comments posted to The Gun Report — is ludicrous.
On the contrary: The clearest message The Gun Report sends is the most obvious. Guns make killing way too easy."

[trish]

In the U.S. you can be killed for playing "thug" music in your car.

http://nyti.ms/1io0CYL

[dderek123]

http://slowfacts.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/gun-control.jpg

Just wanted to share this since i found that it was an interesting point of view. I rarely agree with what this guy has to say though. He's one of those libertarian "the free market will regulate itself" type of people.

[trish]

If you're for the elimination of gun ownership, then was Stefan says may be applicable. But if you favor common sense regulation of firearms and gun ownership, you are will not favor the elimination of ownership and Stefan becomes irrelevant.

[thombergeron]

You seem to have missed a step... the modern M4, which is more commonly known as an M16 in civilian circles, did yes derive from the AR-15 of long ago... but if you are to say that a modern M4 is also an AR-15... surely then we can claim that a modern Ford F-series pickup is still the same as an original 1940 F-series.

Sweetheart, you are VERY confused. The M4 and the M16A2 are different rifles. I have carried, fired, and field stripped both. If you reference current DoD procurement policy, you will find that the U.S. military is in the process of phasing out the M16 in favor of the M4 for all service branches.

Both the M4 and the M16 derive from Stover’s original AR-15 design. But they are certainly distinct rifles. One is not “commonly known” as the other. They are different things. The AR-15 is not specific rifle, it is a class of rifle. There are MANY AR-15 variants. Most, but not all, are manufactured by Colt (i.e., see Bushmaster).

I have no idea what any of that might have to do with Ford trucks.


If you knew your law or history, you'd know that was provably false... allow me to demonstrate.

While it is true that the AWB did ban the sale/transfer of weapons/parts manufactured after a certain date which were based on certain design types of weapons to civilians, existing weapons/parts were still legal for transfer.

What's that? A fully automatic M-16 (or semi-automatic AR-15 variant) was still legal for transfer even after the 1994 AWB? Not to mention the much hated standard capacity 30-round magazines which you would have used back in the Army? That's right!

More so, with a bit of an artistic flair, it was perfectly legal to manufacture & transfer a weapon that under the spirit of the AWB was prohibited, but per the letter of the law was legal (one such derivation is called the 'thumbhole stock' which per the federal AWB is not considered a 'pistol grip'). .

You are correct that firearm manufacturers innovated ways to skirt the AWB. It is also true that the AWB reduced firearm ownership nationwide and made it more difficult to obtain these weapons, which is the whole point of gun control. Moreover, with determined political leadership, it is possible to design legislation to plug loopholes and continue to reduce the presence of these weapons in our society (see below).


You keep throwing around the term 'assault weapon', yet fail to recognize that any weapon used in an assault can be classified as such... while most states still allow the lawful possession of such items that were purchased at any time... and those states (and district) you mentioned still generally allow the lawful possession of grandfathered items.

More so, California has yet to outlaw the 'bullet buttons' (a novel workaround to existing ban on certain types of detachable magazines), while not allowing thumbhole stocks on certain classes of weapons.

Assault weapon bans typically define features that make a specific rifle an “assault weapon.” Legally, under these statutes, assault weapons are specific things, and not “any weapon used in an assault.”

It is also possible to ban specific weapons. California’s Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 banns AR-15 and a laundry list of other assault weapons by name. It was upheld by the California Supreme Court in 2000 (Kasler v. Lockyer).


Again, your understanding of the federal AWB is quite lacking as it only prohibited the manufacturing & transferring of NEW items... any such law today would either criminalize existing possession would be on shaky legal ground... and lucky for the country, the political will does not exist for such a fight.

See you’ve been drinking the NRA’s Kool-Aid, which leads you to assume that gun control means gun eradication. But as the courts have made clear, there are Constitutionally acceptable ways to limit civilian gun ownership and the proliferation of firearms in our society.

There’s Shew v. Malloy, which I linked to earlier, upholding Connecticut’s assault weapons ban. NYSRPA v. Cuomo recently upheld New York’s SAFE Act. The Supreme Court’s Heller decision in 2008 upheld Washington D.C.’s assault weapons ban.

So again, the courts have made clear that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an unlimited right for civilians to own any firearm they choose. Under the U.S. Constitution, local, state, and federal lawmakers can design common sense gun control regulations to limit civilian ownership of firearms.

You’re right that there is currently a lack of political will to do so at the federal level, but that’s because of the gun lobby’s deep pockets, not because of any Constitutional restrictions. That will change someday soon, and we will see federal legislation to limit civilian ownership of assault weapons.

[buttslinger]

Stalin and Hitler killed millions of their own citizens, it's refreshing that in a Land ruled for, by, and of the people, we kill ourselves.
The US Govt has played a large part in Civil Rights since 1964, and to be honest I am amazed how well they've gone towards eliminated smoking, but you stomp out one fire, Americans weigh like twice as much as they did in 1964. And Americans in the 1950s would have had a good laugh if Bush and Cheney ran for office. We need Education across the board.
The AK-47 is based on the Nazi assault rifle of 1944, frankly, after 70 years I'm surprised they don't have ray guns or chemical warfare guns, maybe the US Govt HAS been doing stuff we never hear about!!

[Stavros]

A few random thoughts -
1) In political theory, legitimate government is usually defined as having, amongst other things, a monopoly on the use of force. This is taken to mean that the state can impose its authority on a rebellious individual or group of individuals who are not assumed to have any popular support, although this might be challenged in some cases; organised crime would be another group attempting to live beyond the law which the state cannot tolerate. Civil wars are obvious examples of a breakdown of legitimate government in which actual state power is contested between one or more groups.
In the USA, there have been, presumably still are armed militia -they used to be in Montana for some reason- and in the past the KKK would be an example of a quasi-autonomous group who challenged the authority of the state which the state had a legitimate right to tackle using the law as well as force. Force was used in Philadelphia in 1985 by the Mayor, Wilson Goode owing to the chronic violations of the law by an Africanist sect ('MOVE') and is an example of the legitimate use of force, even if Goode's reputation subsequently sank like a stone.
Again, it might be the case that in Ohio in 1970 the suppression of the 'riot' on Kent State Campus by the Ohio National Guard was the legitimate use of force, or, what it exposes is the risk that state or federal governments take when they do use their right to use force. Were there alternatives to force that could have resolved the situations in Ohio and Philadelphia?

The oddity in the USA is that while nobody doubts the superior fire-power of the Federal and state governments, the Constitutional right to bear arms might appear to undermine the legitimacy of Congress and the Executive -except that the Constitutional right was intended to protect the USA and its Constitution from those who would seek to overthrow it (ie the British). Perhaps this means that those Americans who think their government has been 'stolen' by a Muslim from Kenya believe they have a legitimate right to overthrow the government by the use of arms. An interesting problem, election results notwithstanding.
It would seem the Federal government has a right to take away your weapons, and it does not have that right. Surely the two positions cannot both be right-? Or is it the case that if it became illegal to own anything more powerful than a revolver, agents of the state would search all homes where licensed weapons are owned, to forcibly take away those guns not surrendered by the owner, and no longer deemed legal to own?

2) Bobvela has not dealt with a clear example of where the legal purchase of weapons becomes the agency of death: for example, a sane, middle aged mother buys firearms which her son, tormented by demons, hearing voices, on medication, stops taking the pills and, convinced that only he can fulfill God's command, slaughters as many children as he can in the local school. At what point, and with what means can the licensing authority prevent arms from reaching people with mental illness? Presumably the person buying a weapon would need to provide proof that nobody in the home or likely to visit the home is on medication, has a history of behavioural malfunctions?

[broncofan]

One thing improved gun safety laws can do is have a downstream effect on the gun culture in this country. When you regulate a commercial item you are telling people it is an item to be dealt with cautiously. Gun control laws cannot deal with every instance of gun violence because people will still be able to obtain them and there will always be a black market. But someone looking at the history of the south may have been tempted to say: are you going to legislate morality? Do you think racism ends the minute you integrate schools? No, but there is an interplay between that which the government takes a stand against and decides to regulate and public perception.

There will only be a correlation between gun availability and murder rates. And legislation will not have a 1:1 effect on gun availability, but it will chip away at people's impunity in stockpiling guns and behaving recklessly.

[trish]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_new town_sandy_hook_shooting.html

[Randydude7]

Anybody who doesn't believe that governmental registration of firearms is part of a plan to confiscate our guns need only look at the handgun registration laws of 1968 which led to the registration of handguns and eventually led to the confiscation of all the handguns in America.

[Ben in LA]

This right here...

[broncofan]

Anybody who doesn't believe that governmental registration of firearms is part of a plan to confiscate our guns need only look at the handgun registration laws of 1968 which led to the registration of handguns and eventually led to the confiscation of all the handguns in America.
But Randy, who was responsible for confiscating your brain?
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mistrial-declared-murder-charge-loud-music-trial-jurors-n31231

That the jury is even contemplating a self-defense instruction on the murder charge is a terrible sign. You cannot have a reasonable fear that your life is in danger requiring the use of gunfire against someone who does not have a weapon.

Edit: perhaps there's a scenario where you could, but it's extremely unlikely. That this shmoe is pulling a gun at a gas station against a group of teens because their music is loud and some people are defending him just shows how far from reality these gun cultists have gone.

[trish]

Randy had me going up until the line, "eventually led to the confiscation of all the handguns in America." At that point I deduced he was being facetious.

At any rate, I agree with broncofan, how could a jury possibly be deadlocked on Dunn's first degree murder charge? I think it time for professional organizations to start boycotting Texas, Florida and other southern states until they revoke their stand-your-ground laws. I'm asking the organizations to which I belong to hold their conferences in non-SYG locales.

[broncofan]

At any rate, I agree with broncofan, how could a jury possibly be deadlocked on Dunn's first degree murder charge?
The terrible thing is they instruct the jury on what self-defense is. So they say, someone can use force if they have a reasonable belief they are going to be harmed. So somebody on that jury thought, "well, the music was loud and he may have been getting out of his car and he was moving kind of briskly and he was wearing a jacket that was kind of baggy." I have probably provided this kind of reasonable belief to others about 1.3 million times in my life.

But some will say this crime was just one of those horrible unavoidable tragedies. That Dunn was not looking for an opportunity to use a weapon he carried around while eyeing his neighbors with hostility.

[trish]

We've all heard the phrase, "that money was burning a hole in his pocket." I think these guys exercise about as much self control over their guns. They carry because they long to be heros. They aren't scared for their lives, they are imps of impulse.

[broncofan]

Not to belabor a point, but if it's obvious to me maybe it's obvious to others.

Does it not indicate that there's something wrong with this guy that he's complaining about loud music at a gas station? At a fucking gas station? If that is not direct evidence that he's looking to create a problem nothing is.

And then he's shocked that he ends up getting convicted for shooting an unarmed teenager. Perhaps we need a nation-wide educational program about the parameters of self-defense. No, sir, you cannot shoot someone because they make you uncomfortable.

[95racer]

This typical politician loved gun control. Makes them more valuable for his profit ;-):

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/03/27/the_california_gun_running_bribe_taking_democrat_f ormerly_known_as_a_gun.html

[Dino Velvet]

This typical politician loved gun control. Makes them more valuable for his profit ;-):

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/03/27/the_california_gun_running_bribe_taking_democrat_f ormerly_known_as_a_gun.html

That clown is all over our local radio. More douchebag, hypocritical goody-two-shoe public servants. Tug on my heartstrings while you're tugging on Bubba's cock, Leland Yee.

[trish]

His hypocrisy only underscores the difficulty and the necessity of getting some real arms control legislation passed in this country.

[Trilisser]

Playing rap "music" should be a capital offense everywhere. Rap is not music, it is a cacophony of noises just like modern classical.

[trish]

hello troll.

[Dino Velvet]

Playing rap "music" should be a capital offense everywhere. Rap is not music, it is a cacophony of noises just like modern classical.

They come for the Rappers today and the Metalheads tomorrow. I'll put up with their crap if they put up with mine.

Slayer - Raining Blood HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2htZJDY4_c)

[Ben in LA]

Playing rap "music" should be a capital offense everywhere. Rap is not music, it is a cacophony of noises just like modern classical.

Guess I'll be listening to some Jay-Z and Snoop today.

[trish]

Hey, turn that shit up, Ben. Way up. Over on this end of the country I'll be playing some "modern classical." Maybe Stockhausen. Wouldn't want to drift into Post-Modern. No telling how that would effect the psyche of our little troll from the fiords.

[Ben in LA]

Hey, turn that shit up, Ben. Way up. Over on this end of the country I'll be playing some "modern classical." Maybe Stockhausen. Wouldn't want to drift into Post-Modern. No telling how that would effect the psyche of our little troll from the fiords.

I have a $1500 aftermarket sound system in my car. Do you REALLY think I play my music softly?

[buttslinger]

Today's Rap, Metal, Country= tomorrow's salvation army 25 cent bin.

I was talking to Elvis just last week, and while he always keeps a loaded nine next to the tv remote, just incase Robert Goulet interrupts an evening of Clambake and Harum Scarum, He can't understand why Congress would bend over backwards to put guns in the hands of the mentally ill and criminals.
He says it's one reason he stays in the bunker at the compound.

[robertlouis]

Just a sobering reminder that it is now 16 months since this thread was started by somebody brainwashed into thinking that unrestricted gun ownership - and its corollary, unrestricted killing - was somehow under threat from the Obama administration.

I'd offer a sardonic laugh, but it seems inappropriate in the face of the continuing daily slaughter.

[Dino Velvet]

brainwashed into thinking that unrestricted gun ownership - and its corollary, unrestricted killing - was somehow under threat from the Obama administration.

People brainwashed in both ways many thinking that the people they vote for care about them more than keeping their jobs and becoming rich.

[trish]

Another shooting at Fort Hood.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/shooting-incident-fort-hood/story?id=23166944

[maxpower]

Playing rap "music" should be a capital offense everywhere. Rap is not music, it is a cacophony of noises just like modern classical.

Music is sound organized in time. That is all. Everything else is just an opinion.

[yodajazz]

Playing rap "music" should be a capital offense everywhere. Rap is not music, it is a cacophony of noises just like modern classical.

It's about rhythm, music (dance), and about telling stories (message). The cowboys who road the range in movies, decades ago, are now living in the inner city.

[Ben in LA]

Another shooting at Fort Hood.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/shooting-incident-fort-hood/story?id=23166944

Didn't take too long for "you-know-who" to blame "you-know-who" :yayo:
Fox & Friends Blames Obama For Ford Hood shooting - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZmHu6SWX18)

[yodajazz]

Didn't take too long for "you-know-who" to blame "you-know-who" :yayo:
Fox & Friends Blames Obama For Ford Hood shooting - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZmHu6SWX18)

Back when Bush II was making a case for war, I thought about the fact the the mental/emotional cost to those who gave up that time/life to serve would be great. I think most have missed a fact that this war was very unique in that the public was not asked to sacrifice, as in other extended wars. That means that there is less public empathy for the ones who come home, and this is also true of the vets themselves, finding it difficult empathizing with 'normal life'. What drove this point into my soul, was finding my father's ration cards from WWII. All of society was making sacrifices, not just those on the front. Speaking of which, the tax rate for the top 1% averaged over 90% during those years.

The bottom line is that murder is the ultimate act of lack of empathy. So any mechanism which increases it as a whole over society, will decrease incidents of murder.

I'm attaching a picture, whose comments stated that this taken at the end of a ban on candy.

[95racer]

Just a sobering reminder that it is now 16 months since this thread was started by somebody brainwashed into thinking that unrestricted gun ownership - and its corollary, unrestricted killing - was somehow under threat from the Obama administration.

I'd offer a sardonic laugh, but it seems inappropriate in the face of the continuing daily slaughter.


The only ones with true unrestricted ownership are criminals. They don't care about laws anyway. UK knows this well.

[trish]

The only ones with true unrestricted ownership are criminals. They don't care about laws anyway. UK knows this well.Nonsense.

If there are laws restricting ownership of certain kinds of firearms, then it would be stupid, even for a criminal, to walk down the street flaunting that type of firearm. It's stupid of you to think that's not a restriction a criminal needs to respect.

If there are laws restricting sales of certain types of firearms, then a criminal has to be careful when he buys or sells those types. It's stupid to think that's not a restriction.

If there are laws against stupid people possessing a firearm, they would have to be stupid to not to keep their firearm a secret. That's a restriction they might be too stupid to understand. But you should.

[yodajazz]

The only ones with true unrestricted ownership are criminals. They don't care about laws anyway. UK knows this well.

Actually this argument applies equally to all laws I can think of. So why have any laws at all since criminals will always break them, for a temporary short gain?

I still say the real issue is how many people really need guns for protection, vs the risks of owning a gun, for example someone with children. Most children carefully watch the actions of their parents. Odds are they will know how to access their parents weapons. Even me who is now known as a very calm level headed person, went looking for someone with a loaded gun, who owed me $50, when I was 20 years old. In the case of the Mass school shooting what was the real risk to the family of the shooter vs having a mentally unstable teen, who had been bullied? I do understand that some people are in higher risk professions. My father had a grocery store in a low income neighborhood, he actually did use it self defense.

[95racer]

Having a high risk profession makes ones life more important than someone elses? We all have the right to defend our selves regardless of income level or profession. That was the criteria before shall carry laws were finally made.

My and friends houses while growing up had gun racks complete with guns. Ours were in the basement and I knew where all the ammo was kept. We were taught proper use, handling and maintaining of firearms. I NEVER thought about taking a gun. When I was old enough to hunt or go shooting on my own with friends I always ask permission. Permission was usually granted because Dad knew he could trust me.

I involved my son early with firearms. Starting about five years old he would clean guns with me. I taught him proper use and handling (just like those nasty NRA classes). That took all the curiosity out of it. Progressed to hunter safety, now has a CPL, and attends advance training with me. Now my granddaughter is almost ready to shoot the Red Ryder BB gun that I got him. Once she sees the pink stock version I'll probably have to get one of those.

In my small circle of people that I have met there are two guys who stopped the early stages of some thugs sizing them up. One had already revealed a knife at a ATM and just displaying/ brandishing the gun convinced the punks to retreat. So ya they are used for self defense- A LOT!

Don't go looking for people who owe you money with a gun. That can cause more trouble than it's worth.

Ok, flame away on how bad I am :-)

[trish]

In my small circle of people that I have met there are two guys who stopped the early stages of some thugs sizing them up.Yeah, right. Dream on.

[kittyKaiti]

Another shooting at Fort Hood.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/shooting-incident-fort-hood/story?id=23166944

The amusing thing about the anti-gun lobby is that they are trying to take advantage of these Fort Hood shootings to further their agenda on banning civilian gun ownership despite the fact these are military soldiers shooting up bases. The problem here is that a military base is a gun free zone. Soldiers can't have guns on their person unless they are military police. So, like any gun free zone, an armed criminal knows he or she is walking into a crowded building full of unarmed victims who have no means of defense. You would think, at least of all places, that our soldiers would be able to defend themselves from spree shooters. You can thank the Clinton administration for that one.

There is a reason that police departments, gun stores and gun shows don't get shot up by spree killers.

[kittyKaiti]

Having a high risk profession makes ones life more important than someone elses? We all have the right to defend our selves regardless of income level or profession. That was the criteria before shall carry laws were finally made.

My and friends houses while growing up had gun racks complete with guns. Ours were in the basement and I knew where all the ammo was kept. We were taught proper use, handling and maintaining of firearms. I NEVER thought about taking a gun. When I was old enough to hunt or go shooting on my own with friends I always ask permission. Permission was usually granted because Dad knew he could trust me.

I involved my son early with firearms. Starting about five years old he would clean guns with me. I taught him proper use and handling (just like those nasty NRA classes). That took all the curiosity out of it. Progressed to hunter safety, now has a CPL, and attends advance training with me. Now my granddaughter is almost ready to shoot the Red Ryder BB gun that I got him. Once she sees the pink stock version I'll probably have to get one of those.

In my small circle of people that I have met there are two guys who stopped the early stages of some thugs sizing them up. One had already revealed a knife at a ATM and just displaying/ brandishing the gun convinced the punks to retreat. So ya they are used for self defense- A LOT!

Don't go looking for people who owe you money with a gun. That can cause more trouble than it's worth.

Ok, flame away on how bad I am :-)

YOU.... I like you. :wiggle:

[Ben]

Thought Experiment - Trying To Understand The Pro-Gun Perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzZ4ms60Jtk

[buttslinger]

In the military, in the police, you have to go through quite a bit of training, probably the most important rule is that you do not ever let your personal feelings come into play when you loosen the strap on your holster.

Carrying a gun around everyday hoping to show some punk a thing or two smells like a personal problem to me.

Buy a BEWARE OF DOG sign and a few chew toys thrown around the yard. 15 bucks.

I've met a thousand guys that needed a severe beating. Lots of them use to get beatings from their Dads on a regular basis, so I figure justice knows more than I do.

[kittyKaiti]

Carrying a gun around everyday hoping to show some punk a thing or two smells like a personal problem to me.


If you are hoping to use a gun on someone, that would already make one an irresponsible gun owner. People watch too much Hollywood and think that Rambo'ing a bunch of bad guys will be fun. It's an extremely high adrenaline experience to have to draw a gun on someone. And not the kind of rush one would enjoy from skydiving.

[kittyKaiti]

Thought Experiment - Trying To Understand The Pro-Gun Perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzZ4ms60Jtk

The logic of those people is horrendous.

The guy's first scenario is ridiculous. Such a scenario pertains to absolutely no real world situation. "You're in a room with three people and have three guns, are you safer? Or with no guns at all? Oh and nobody can get in or out." Wtf does this have to do with anything?

Then the woman imitates a concealed carrier responding to bad guys trying to shoot up a place by pretending to draw dual pistols. She then states people can't react properly to a shooting situation, despite dozens of CCTV videos I've watched of random concealed carriers effectively doing that exact thing. Drawing their guns in a panicked and high tension situation, in crowded public places, and firing on and hitting the armed criminals.

Then she calls gun ownership a marketing ploy and a corporate scheme to make money. This is ludicrous. We've had the Second Amendment in our Constitution and a "culture of gun ownership" for 150 years prior to Hollywood, capitalism and marketing's existence.

The entire video is merely a display of the complete and total ignorance people have on the topic of guns, based on opinions they get from CNN, the Democrats, Hollywood action movies and liberal media (all whom themselves, know nothing about firearms).

[buttslinger]

Just once did my Uncle Joe from Mississippi meet my Uncle Willie from New Rochelle NY.
My Uncle Willie said he had never heard of George Jones.
I watched my Uncle Joe's world stop for a minute in disbelief.

When WWII broke out, they sent all the Yankees to train down south, and all the Rebs to train up north.
They took advantage of the war to bring an end to the previous Civil War, which was still smoldering in many places down south.

[thombergeron]

The amusing thing about the anti-gun lobby is that they are trying to take advantage of these Fort Hood shootings to further their agenda on banning civilian gun ownership despite the fact these are military soldiers shooting up bases.

I'm professionally acquainted with a number of people active in the "anti-gun lobby," and I've heard literally zero gun-control advocates say anything at all about Ivan Lopez. Perhaps you could be more specific about who is "taking advantage."

I have heard many noted gun-lobby apologists -- John Lott, Allen West, Steve Doocy, etc. -- "taking advantage" of the latest Fort Hood shooting to argue for more guns, for expanding the market for the gun lobby.

So it seems as though what's happening here on earth is precisely the opposite of what you have alleged.


The problem here is that a military base is a gun free zone. Soldiers can't have guns on their person unless they are military police. So, like any gun free zone, an armed criminal knows he or she is walking into a crowded building full of unarmed victims who have no means of defense. You would think, at least of all places, that our soldiers would be able to defend themselves from spree shooters. You can thank the Clinton administration for that one.

This is obviously false. For one thing, the second sentence contradicts the first. How is a military base "gun free" if authorized personnel are, in fact, armed? There are many occupational specialties that are authorized to carry on post. Anyone who has actually been on base would observe armed personnel within minutes.

As it happens, I was stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in February 1992 when DoD issued directive 5210.56, which formalized existing practice regarding firearms on post for all service branches. Two things:

• Rank-and-file noticed no change as a result of this directive; base commander had already barred most personnel from carrying on post.

• February 1992 was almost a full year before Bill Clinton took office.

You have a tendency to uncritically parrot gun-lobby propaganda. You accuse your ideological opponents of ignorance, but you're clearly getting all of you information from a single source.

You're certainly not the first person to misrepresent Department of Defense policy regarding firearms on post. Neither are you the first to accuse Bill Clinton of issuing a DoD directive (that you don't fully understand) 11 months before he took office. Heck, the gun lobby's misrepresentation of DoD policy has already been covered in this very thread.

Your response to AsianG’s stalker worries a couple of weeks back was textbook gun industry marketing copy: “The police can’t help you. Buy a gun.” That's the essence of every speech Wayne LaPierre has given in the last five years.

You referred to Gary Kleck’s 1995 paper with no apparent knowledge of the 20 years of research that has occurred since then. You trotted out the very tired “other things are dangerous” argument, while failing to note that the number of people who drown or are stabbed to death is a full order of magnitude smaller than that of those killed by firearms.

I’m especially amused every time one of you gun nuts breathlessly refers to motor vehicle crash deaths. The raw number of Americans killed in motor vehicle crashes has been reduced by almost 1/2 since its peak in 1972. In terms of fatalities per vehicle miles traveled, the 2013 rate is less than 1/10 what it was in the 1940s. And how, you might ask, did the U.S. achieve such a precipitous reduction in motor vehicle crash deaths? Why, through some of the same policies that apologists for the gun lobby now claim are a dire threat to liberty: mandatory licensing, universal registration, mandatory safety devices, strict liability, etc.

It’s mysterious to me why self-styled libertarians, who are usually so keenly attuned to the influence of money on policy, are so credulous when it comes to the gun industry. Gun manufacturers made about $30 billion from U.S. consumers last year. They make that money by convincing you that their products are essential, by lobbying legislators to head off any kind of regulation of the products that they sell you, and by spreading misinformation about the empirical research that clearly shows that their products are dangerous.

It’s really not very complicated. You seem like a smart and curious person. You owe it to yourself to find some better data, think more critically, and not rely exclusively on people trying to sell you something.

[95racer]

Yeah, right. Dream on.

Dream on? More like a nightmare.

[broncofan]

My and friends houses while growing up had gun racks complete with guns. Ours were in the basement and I knew where all the ammo was kept.

I involved my son early with firearms. Starting about five years old he would clean guns with me. I taught him proper use and handling (just like those nasty NRA classes). That took all the curiosity out of it. Progressed to hunter safety, now has a CPL, and attends advance training with me. Now my granddaughter is almost ready to shoot the Red Ryder BB gun that I got him. Once she sees the pink stock version I'll probably have to get one of those.

Passed on for three generations? When will one of your lineal descendants get a reprieve from this ignorance?

Of course I don't understand this sentence but maybe it explains your interest in this site:

"Now my granddaughter is almost ready to shoot the Red Ryder BB gun that I got him"

[95racer]

Passed on for three generations? When will one of your lineal descendants get a reprieve from this ignorance?

Of course I don't understand this sentence but maybe it explains your interest in this site:

"Now my granddaughter is almost ready to shoot the Red Ryder BB gun that I got him"

Him, meaning my son. Pretty simple to understand.

[thombergeron]

I involved my son early with firearms. Starting about five years old he would clean guns with me. I taught him proper use and handling (just like those nasty NRA classes). That took all the curiosity out of it. Progressed to hunter safety, now has a CPL, and attends advance training with me. Now my granddaughter is almost ready to shoot the Red Ryder BB gun that I got him. Once she sees the pink stock version I'll probably have to get one of those.

Would you say that the instruction and training that you gave to your son is superior to that of the US Marine Corps School of Infantry? Does the NRA offer more rigorous classes than the Corps' Infantry Training Battalion? Because this Marine just accidentally shot his fellow sentry:

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20140408/NEWS05/304080073/Marine-shot-dead-Camp-Lejeune-gate-likely-an-accident-officials-say

And if U.S. military bases are "gun-free zones," why were the sentries at Lejeune armed?

[trish]

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20140408/NEWS05/304080073/Marine-shot-dead-Camp-Lejeune-gate-likely-an-accident-officials-say

Indeed, a nightmare.

[thombergeron]

There is a reason that police departments, gun stores and gun shows don't get shot up by spree killers.

Not to belabor the point, but on Monday, Daniel Yealu walked into the LAPD's Wilshire station and opened fire with his Glock pistol:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-station-shooting-suspect-assault-weapons-20140408,0,7540830.story#axzz2yPvZwEdZ

It was actually the second time in less than a year that someone shot up the Wilshire Station. They never caught the guy from last year.

And this former police officer walked into Frank's Gun and Taxidermy Shop in Pennsylvania, stole a weapon from a display case, and shot Frank to death: http://www.wtae.com/news/local/coroner-called-to-shooting-at-gun-shop/23715272

You may be right that there have been no intentional shootings at gun shows in recent memory, but hardly a week goes by without someone being accidentally shot at one. You get an auditorium full of firearms and firearm enthusiasts, you're pretty much asking for an accidental discharge.

[buttslinger]

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”
― Mark Twain

Obamacare, Abortion, Internet porn, Freedom to be as gay as you wanna be; these are Democratic experiments.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

The facts hate guns, cops hate guns, every other country in the world hates guns.

But guns are so twisted and entangled with Freedom, I say pick your battles.
Obamacare and Gay rights, gays in the military, gays getting married, these are huge.

As a people ...it is real easy to find something wrong with somebody else, but harder to find something wrong with your self. Don't go into Dino's home and take his gun. It's too similar to going into his house and taking his weed, his porn, his tranny whore girlfriends.

Freedom is fucking Dangerous. Not mine, yours.

[trish]

I adore maxims.

Curtailment and limitation is having to carry a gun where ever you go, while looking over your shoulder. In the anarchic days of our western expansion we experienced that.

Freedom is being able to walk unencumbered and without worry into every corner of the nation. We fairly recently were pretty much achieving that.

Paranoia is a virus. The NRA has weaponized it, for profit.

[trish]

http://mentalfloss.com/article/29372/10-things-mark-twain-didnt-really-say

[broncofan]

http://mentalfloss.com/article/29372/10-things-mark-twain-didnt-really-say
I love that what he actually said was wiser and more eloquent.

[Dino Velvet]

Don't go into Dino's home and take his gun. It's too similar to going into his house and taking his weed, his porn, his tranny whore girlfriends.

Are you saying by stealing my guns you'll start scratching and thinking bugs are crawling on you?

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/Auto-Pistols/SIG_P220.jpghttp://i614.photobucket.com/albums/tt221/My_Farts_Cause_Global_Warming/tumblr_m327r0ctq41r0f4y1o2_500_zps4ad4cbec.gif

[kittyKaiti]

Not to belabor the point, but on Monday, Daniel Yealu walked into the LAPD's Wilshire station and opened fire with his Glock pistol:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-station-shooting-suspect-assault-weapons-20140408,0,7540830.story#axzz2yPvZwEdZ

It was actually the second time in less than a year that someone shot up the Wilshire Station. They never caught the guy from last year.

And this former police officer walked into Frank's Gun and Taxidermy Shop in Pennsylvania, stole a weapon from a display case, and shot Frank to death: http://www.wtae.com/news/local/coroner-called-to-shooting-at-gun-shop/23715272

You may be right that there have been no intentional shootings at gun shows in recent memory, but hardly a week goes by without someone being accidentally shot at one. You get an auditorium full of firearms and firearm enthusiasts, you're pretty much asking for an accidental discharge.

LOL. Have you ever even been to a gun show? "Hardly a week goes by without someone being accidentally shot at one". I went to gun shows in Las Vegas. If you choose to bring your firearm into the show, you must check your guns at the desk, where they inspect to see if they are unloaded and then use a ziptie to keep the slide and magazine well locked up so you can't load it while walking around. There are no loaded guns in shows. Display guns are unloaded, chambers are locked or blocked with zipties or other devices, have no magazines nearby and bullets are sold by separate vendors. It's not like it's a fairground full of people waltzing about with loaded assault rifles and pistols.

That police officer was an active duty cop when the murder happened. So much for "only cops should have guns." As for the guy who shot a cop in a police station the other day... he was met by a hail of return gunfire. You can't simply walk into a building with armed people and go on a spree. You'll be put down fast by the good guys with guns. Not so much for every school, theater, church and mall shooting spree in the past few years. No one shot back. Not even armed security or a school resource officer were available... Just unarmed victims everywhere.

[kittyKaiti]

I adore maxims.

Curtailment and limitation is having to carry a gun where ever you go, while looking over your shoulder. In the anarchic days of our western expansion we experienced that.

Freedom is being able to walk unencumbered and without worry into every corner of the nation. We fairly recently were pretty much achieving that.

Paranoia is a virus. The NRA has weaponized it, for profit.

It's more the opposite.

Curtailment and limitation is having to watch where you go and worry who might attack you, knowing you are unable to defend yourself from rapists or muggers, because cops are too heavy to carry around on your hip and bodyguards cost too much to hire.

Freedom is being able to walk unencumbered and without worry into every corner of the nation, because when you are well armed and well prepared, everywhere you go is a safe zone.

Unfortunately, there are many areas across this country, that people are forced to live in, because of expenses or other conditions, where crime rates are high and merely walking out your door exposes you to gangs, muggers, sex predators and drugs. In some places, being locked inside your own home is no longer safe, where criminals or even hordes of them, are willing and able to smash down your door to take your things, even your life. And even more unfortunate, is that you can have police to help you... in about 15 to 20 minutes.

I can spend 3 minutes on the phone with 911, giving them my address and telling them what's happening and wait another 15 to 20 minutes for them to arrive while intruders are breaking down my door.. or I can draw, aim and fire in less than one second, forcing the intruders to flee.

[trish]

Armed is encumbered.

[buttslinger]

Trish: I'm going to get you for making fun of me
D V: Am I the only person on here who can't get GIFs to work?
KIT: I lived in a bad neighborhood and gangs DID break into my house.
They were like 9 and 10 years old.
Twice my place was robbed, teenagers.


Now then.....
1935 Social Security,
1964 Civil Rights,
2010 Affordable Care Act

Without 60 Senators and a majority in the House Obama would only give the NRA an Erection of Steel if he tried anything related to gun control. Yahoos who had no clue where the schoolhouse was would find it if that's where the voting was taking place this November. The battle for the USA takes place one kid at a time. In school.

There is no security, only opportunity-Gen MacArthur.

[kittyKaiti]

Armed is encumbered.

Nope.

Unarmed, I could not enter many areas without constant fear of harassment or assault. I used to have a gender therapist who had his office in a ghetto area of a nearby town. I had to park my car on the street and if my appointment was in the evening, I had to walk on that street in the dark. It's fucking scary when you are alone, unarmed and it's night out, in the ghetto, with groups of assholes walking around or loitering about. The area is the worst in my entire county. I stopped going to that therapist because of the shitty neighborhood.

Knowing I have a means to defend myself from a group of attackers increases my freedom. The burden of fear and paranoia that I could be attacked by a crackhead or mugger was gone when I had a gun on my hip. I had the ability to protect myself anywhere I went and didn't have to worry or even think about the possibility of someone attacking.

Like I've posted about other experiences in high crime areas, it is liberating when you can walk around anywhere, even in ghetto, crime ridden areas, because I have immediate defense at my side.

[trish]

Armed is encumbered, by the piece, by weight of one's paranoia and by the incessant need to justify oneself to others for carrying it.

[Dino Velvet]

D V: Am I the only person on here who can't get GIFs to work?

Just like posting regular pics except you can't upload them from your hard drive.

http://lastangryfan.com/wp-content/uploads/Nose-picker.gif http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2321941/boogergif.gif

[thombergeron]

LOL. Have you ever even been to a gun show? "Hardly a week goes by without someone being accidentally shot at one". I went to gun shows in Las Vegas. If you choose to bring your firearm into the show, you must check your guns at the desk, where they inspect to see if they are unloaded and then use a ziptie to keep the slide and magazine well locked up so you can't load it while walking around. There are no loaded guns in shows. Display guns are unloaded, chambers are locked or blocked with zipties or other devices, have no magazines nearby and bullets are sold by separate vendors. It's not like it's a fairground full of people waltzing about with loaded assault rifles and pistols.

Maybe I overestimated you; you're not acting very smart nor curious.

5 injured after firearms go off at Ohio, N.C., Indiana gun shows (http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/19/us/north-carolina-gun-show-shooting/)


That police officer was an active duty cop when the murder happened. So much for "only cops should have guns." As for the guy who shot a cop in a police station the other day... he was met by a hail of return gunfire. You can't simply walk into a building with armed people and go on a spree. You'll be put down fast by the good guys with guns. Not so much for every school, theater, church and mall shooting spree in the past few years. No one shot back. Not even armed security or a school resource officer were available... Just unarmed victims everywhere.


There is a reason that police departments, gun stores and gun shows don't get shot up by spree killers.

Plainly, police departments and gun stores do get shot up. The “gun free zone” talking point is a marketing strategy developed by the firearms industry for the purpose of expanding the market for firearms.

Similarly:


Unfortunately, there are many areas across this country, that people are forced to live in, because of expenses or other conditions, where crime rates are high and merely walking out your door exposes you to gangs, muggers, sex predators and drugs. In some places, being locked inside your own home is no longer safe, where criminals or even hordes of them, are willing and able to smash down your door to take your things, even your life. And even more unfortunate, is that you can have police to help you... in about 15 to 20 minutes.

“And the fact is, that wouldn't even begin to address the much larger and more lethal criminal class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer in every community in this country. And the fact is, that wouldn't even begin to address the much larger and more lethal criminal class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer in every community in this country.”
Wayne LaPierre, President, NRA, December 21, 2012

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, violent crime has been declining steadily for 20 years; the violent crime rate in 2012 was approximately one-quarter the rate in 1993 (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv12.pdf).(PDF)

I travel a lot for my work, but when I’m home, I live I the inner city. We don’t keep firearms here because we don’t need the added risk. We do have a big-ass dog, and we know everybody in the neighborhood so nobody fucks with us. But not everybody here is so lucky, and two young men who lived across the street from me were both killed over some stupid neighborhood beef. One was 19, and then two years later his brother was killed. He was 25. Over nothing, just because it was easy enough for some pissed off guys to get a gun.

We have made it incredibly easy in this country for crazy people, criminals, and idiots to gather up as many firearms as they want. Both you and the other gun nut of the week on here offer that same old gun nut argument: “I’m a responsible gun owner. I know what I’m doing. I’m careful. I would never handle my weapons irresponsibly.” So, fine. You’re the one gun owner who’s immune to momentary distraction. But current U.S. gun policy makes virtually no distinction between responsible gun owners and irresponsible gun owners.

Look, no one is coming to take your stupid fucking gun away. Grow up. But a responsible society makes some effort to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of crazy people, criminals, and idiots. Guns are dangerous. That’s the fucking point of guns. Mandatory licensing, universal registration, mandatory safety devices, and strict liability. If you’re actually a responsible gun owner, why would you be opposed to those things?


Armed is encumbered, by the piece, by weight of one's paranoia and by the incessant need to justify oneself to others for carrying it.

Well put.

[Prospero]

The media reports that twenty students were seriously injured in a Pittsburgh school when a student went on a rampage with a knife. All are expected to survive.


Fool! He should have used a gun in the fine old American tradition. They'd all be dead.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pittsburgh-school-stabbings-20-students-injured-in-knife-attack-spree-at-us-high-school-9248774.html

[martin48]

If the other students had had guns then they would have shot the guy. Just stating what the pro-gunners will say :(


The media reports that twenty students were seriously injured in a Pittsburgh school when a student went on a rampage with a knife. All are expected to survive.


Fool! He should have used a gun in the fine old American tradition. They'd all be dead.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pittsburgh-school-stabbings-20-students-injured-in-knife-attack-spree-at-us-high-school-9248774.html

[kittyKaiti]

Maybe I overestimated you; you're not acting very smart nor curious.

5 injured after firearms go off at Ohio, N.C., Indiana gun shows (http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/19/us/north-carolina-gun-show-shooting/)





Plainly, police departments and gun stores do get shot up. The “gun free zone” talking point is a marketing strategy developed by the firearms industry for the purpose of expanding the market for firearms.

Similarly:



“And the fact is, that wouldn't even begin to address the much larger and more lethal criminal class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer in every community in this country.”
Wayne LaPierre, President, NRA, December 21, 2012

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, violent crime has been declining steadily for 20 years; the violent crime rate in 2012 was approximately one-quarter the rate in 1993 (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv12.pdf).(PDF)

I travel a lot for my work, but when I’m home, I live I the inner city. We don’t keep firearms here because we don’t need the added risk. We do have a big-ass dog, and we know everybody in the neighborhood so nobody fucks with us. But not everybody here is so lucky, and two young men who lived across the street from me were both killed over some stupid neighborhood beef. One was 19, and then two years later his brother was killed. He was 25. Over nothing, just because it was easy enough for some pissed off guys to get a gun.

We have made it incredibly easy in this country for crazy people, criminals, and idiots to gather up as many firearms as they want. Both you and the other gun nut of the week on here offer that same old gun nut argument: “I’m a responsible gun owner. I know what I’m doing. I’m careful. I would never handle my weapons irresponsibly.” So, fine. You’re the one gun owner who’s immune to momentary distraction. But current U.S. gun policy makes virtually no distinction between responsible gun owners and irresponsible gun owners.

Look, no one is coming to take your stupid fucking gun away. Grow up. But a responsible society makes some effort to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of crazy people, criminals, and idiots. Guns are dangerous. That’s the fucking point of guns. Mandatory licensing, universal registration, mandatory safety devices, and strict liability. If you’re actually a responsible gun owner, why would you be opposed to those things?


I'm aware the crime rate has slowly been decreasing overall nationally. That doesn't negate the fact that there are many areas which crime rates are very high.

Tell me how any of these things will do anything to stop gun deaths.

Mandatory licensing: You own a gun... and a piece of paper that says you can own it. Effect: None. Person still owns a gun.

Universal registration: You own a gun... and the government knows you do. Effect: None. Person still owns a gun.

Mandatory safety devices: You mean trigger locks, magazine well locks, gun safes and lock boxes? These things exist. They can also be removed with a key. Effect: None. Person still owns a gun. Gun is stored safely when not in use. Pretty standard among all legal gun owners.

Strict liability: As in criminal charges? You mean "assault with a deadly weapon", "murder", "criminal discharge of a firearm", "menacing with a firearm", "aggravated battery"? These strict laws exist. Do you mean insurance for people who own guns? There are insurance providers that exist for gun ownership, although not mandatory. They cover property damage, bodily injury, court fees, bail and medical costs. Effect: None. Person still has a gun. Insurance will cover bills and costs. Criminal codes already exist in law.

You say it's easy for criminals and crazy people to just go out and buy tons of guns. That is false. Every state and every and each gun sale, requires a background check. This includes criminal and mental health records. There are loopholes unfortunately that can be closed up, such as gun show purchases and private sales, depending on the state. Those loopholes need to be added into background check laws. However, this is not going to shutdown black-market and underground weapons sales commonly used by gangs and felons to acquire illegal weapons. Criminals will always find ways to acquire guns, regardless if all the legal gun stores are shutdown and prohibited. And for those who want to try and throw in "assault weapon bans", these are even more absurd laws that have no effect on firearm lethality. Banning external aesthetic tactical accessories has no impact on performance or lethality of a firearm and does not change its ease of use.

The gun free zone issue is a marketing ploy? I thought it was more about getting schools to have adequate protection from armed criminals. I know that my high school I attended had an armed school resource officer. Every school should have an armed police officer or security officer. We're shitting ourselves over terrorists trying to underwear bomb our airplanes so much, we're willing to let the TSA molest our dicks and vaginas, yet we can't put an armed cop in every school?

[kittyKaiti]

The media reports that twenty students were seriously injured in a Pittsburgh school when a student went on a rampage with a knife. All are expected to survive.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pittsburgh-school-stabbings-20-students-injured-in-knife-attack-spree-at-us-high-school-9248774.html

We are only moments away from knife prohibition like you silly British people.

[Prospero]

Silly British? Taking into account the difference in size of of our populations the number of annual gun deaths here is tiny compared with the US....

[buttslinger]

The problem with these serious debates is you have to declare in the ground rules whether this is to debated on a third grade level, a high school level, college level, Presidential level.

I have no evidence that Obama is here, but that means the people with 2 Masters Degrees will win every time, even if the high school graduate doesn't realize it.
On the Presidential level, you have to weigh out gun control against the possibility of Nuclear war with Iran, 4 dirty bombs exploded simultaneously on the East Coast, Putin, China, the elections, Snowdens, infrastructure, debt, drugs, prisons, homelessness, poverty, along with Pesidential approval ratings!!!

Kaitikins, why did no one ask what your therapist thought of you bringing a concealed weapon in your purse? My psychiatrist/neurologist had like 12 years of med school. His first day with me he asked me to recite all the Presidents backwards. I made it to FDR. One time I told him one of his crazy old lady patients almost plowed me down with her car in the parking lot. He said he parked way in the back.

Even in the Gun Happy US, you can avoid gun violence totally by avoiding high crime areas. Get a nice job and move to the suburbs. Your most dangerous visitor will be a Jehovah's Witness.

Thank God you don't live in Mexico, where you can get killed so gringos can get high. I got in trouble when I went looking for action downtown, pussy on every streetcorner. I could buy a machine gun or a diamond ring for 300 bucks. I got arrested once, I got the clap once. Living la vida loca.

All the gifs I find are too big.

[kittyKaiti]

Kaitikins, why did no one ask what your therapist thought of you bringing a concealed weapon in your purse? My psychiatrist/neurologist had like 12 years of med school. His first day with me he asked me to recite all the Presidents backwards. I made it to FDR. One time I told him one of his crazy old lady patients almost plowed me down with her car in the parking lot. He said he parked way in the back.

Even in the Gun Happy US, you can avoid gun violence totally by avoiding high crime areas. Get a nice job and move to the suburbs. Your most dangerous visitor will be a Jehovah's Witness.

A few things to clarify: At the time I was seeing that therapist, I did not own any guns. I was 19. Secondly, I would never carry a firearm in a purse, and that is because of a few reasons.

#1: Carrying a loaded firearm in a purse, crowded together with dozens of objects, can easily accidentally discharge if an object (like a pen) was stuck in the trigger guard and pressed on the trigger. That would be stupid.
#2: I always carried in a locking holster. The same kind of SERPA holsters commonly used by many law enforcement officers. The holsters secure the trigger guard area from accidental discharge and keep the gun locked in so other people cannot take it from you. The release button is conveniently placed so the wearer has easy access to release the gun, but another person could not release it without a struggle, if they even know how to use a SERPA holster.
#3: Carrying a gun in a purse, even if you had a trigger guard cover, which are available to shield the trigger from accidental pulling, is a bad idea. If you need to pull a gun to defend yourself, having to spend time digging through your designer bag to find your gun is wasting valuable seconds you need to effectively ward off an attack.

"Get a nice job and move to the suburbs". Unfortunately, for many people, it is not that easy.

[kittyKaiti]

Silly British? Taking into account the difference in size of of our populations the number of annual gun deaths here is tiny compared with the US....

Correct. You have less gun deaths. But, your knife crime rate has increased drastically. Hence your bizarre laws regarding knife sales, including plastic picnic knives. You even have MP's who are trying to introduce legislation to ban kitchen knives. The problem isn't the weapons. The problem is the people and your criminal justice system. Go ahead and mandate the use of plastic or rubber sporks for the public safety. It isn't going to stop criminals from using hammers and cricket bats next.

And taking into account the differences in our populations, the UK's violent crime rate is four times that of the United States, when calculated via the standard "per 100,000 population" statistics system. It is also among the highest violence rate nations in Europe.

[martin48]

Actually our laws are quite simple. It is illegal to:

sell a knife of any kind (including cutlery and kitchen knives) to anyone under 18
carry a knife in public without good reason - unless it’s a knife with a folding blade 3 inches long or less, eg a Swiss Army knife
carry, buy or sell any type of banned knife (the list of banned knives is below)
use any knife in a threatening way (even a legal knife, such as a Swiss Army knife)

Information below is from a House of Commons Note of Nov. 2012.

During the year to June 2012 there were approximately 29,613 recorded offences involving knives or other sharp instruments, accounting for 7% of selected offences, a similar proportion to previous years. The number of knife offences recorded was 9% lower than in the preceding year.
According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSES) in 2011/12 a knife was used in 6% of all incidents of violence experienced by adults, similar to the previous year’s proportion
Over the year to the end of June 2012 there were 19,382 disposals given for possession of a knife or offensive weapon. • Juveniles (aged 10-17) were the offenders in 17% of cases. The custody rate was 10% for juveniles and 28% for adults.
A Court of Appeal judgement in May 2008 said that magistrates should normally sentence those convicted of knife crime possession offences at the top end of the range. Following this custody rates and average custodial sentence lengths have risen.
• NHS data suggests there were 4,490 people admitted to English hospitals in 2011/12 due to assault by a sharp object. The lowest level since 2002/03.


Info from a Freedom of Information request to Home Office (2013)



There has been a significant reduction (-19.7%) in reported knife crime offences from the financial year 2011-12 to 2012-13. With some boroughs notably: Lambeth, Westminster, Brent, Camden, Greenwich, Islington and Merton seeing reductions of over a third. Three London boroughs saw small knife crime offence increases, Croydon, Southwark and Barnet, with Southwark having the highest volume of knife crimes in a London Borough and Croydon the second highest volume.


Oh, do wish people would check the facts and then base arguments on them. We can all have our own views but we can't have our own facts.








Correct. You have less gun deaths. But, your knife crime rate has increased drastically. Hence your bizarre laws regarding knife sales, including plastic picnic knives. You even have MP's who are trying to introduce legislation to ban kitchen knives. The problem isn't the weapons. The problem is the people and your criminal justice system. Go ahead and mandate the use of plastic or rubber sporks for the public safety. It isn't going to stop criminals from using hammers and cricket bats next.

And taking into account the differences in our populations, the UK's violent crime rate is four times that of the United States, when calculated via the standard "per 100,000 population" statistics system. It is also among the highest violence rate nations in Europe.

[buttslinger]

"Get a nice job and move to the suburbs". Unfortunately, for many people, it is not that easy.

There was a spot on the TV news years ago featuring 5 black kids who grew up in a high crime area, they were all lifting their t-shirts showing off how many times they had been shot. They weren't even 18.
In their neighborhood everything that can be wrong goes on.

My Coke Dealer/Whore friend Diane lived there.
She got knifed to death. One time she set fire to the rowhouse she lived in. She was half American Indian, half White, sometimes she could be pretty, sometimes she looked sick. Whenever we sat in the carry waiting for the coke guy to get our product, the cops would drive by and say "Hi Diane"
She was famous for her temper. The first time I met her I came real close to strangling her myself.
One time when we were talking, she said she had no regrets about anything, she had her fun.

[broncofan]

Correct. You have less gun deaths. But, your knife crime rate has increased drastically. Hence your bizarre laws regarding knife sales, including plastic picnic knives. You even have MP's who are trying to introduce legislation to ban kitchen knives. The problem isn't the weapons. The problem is the people and your criminal justice system. Go ahead and mandate the use of plastic or rubber sporks for the public safety. It isn't going to stop criminals from using hammers and cricket bats next.

And taking into account the differences in our populations, the UK's violent crime rate is four times that of the United States, when calculated via the standard "per 100,000 population" statistics system. It is also among the highest violence rate nations in Europe.
The UK has one quarter the murder rate of the United States. So it's likely that not everyone who would kill with a gun ends up finding other means of committing murder. It goes without saying that a country with fewer guns will probably have fewer gun deaths. But that would not prove much if everyone who would commit murder if they possessed a gun ended up instead committing murder with a hammer or a knife when their guns are taken away.

But Britain, a country with dangerous cities, and as you mention, its fair share of violent crimes, has one fourth the murder rate of the U.S. It could be that it's more difficult to kill someone with a knife than a gun couldn't it? Or that some people who kill with guns do so impulsively and would not commit the murder if they did not have such an efficient means of killing.

Just thoughts.

[fred41]

I love that what he actually said was wiser and more eloquent.

Agreed...I love this quote and wish I had the ability to remember it verbatim (I don't ...too many dead brain cells). Here it is for those who didn't click on Trish's link (thanks Trish):

“When a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.”

[broncofan]

Agreed...I love this quote and wish I had the ability to remember it verbatim (I don't ...too many dead brain cells).
I know. Me too. I've decided my consolation is to remember the word unexpurgated. I can see myself at a dinner party when the subject of censorship comes up, "you know Mark Twain had quite a profound quote about this that uses the word unexpurgated."

[fred41]

I know. Me too. I've decided my consolation is to remember the word unexpurgated. I can see myself at a dinner party when the subject of censorship comes up, "you know Mark Twain had quite a profound quote about this that uses the word unexpurgated."

lol...my ex-wife used to say "say it ten times then write it on your forehead"...or something like that.

[Stavros]

Correct. You have less gun deaths. But, your knife crime rate has increased drastically. Hence your bizarre laws regarding knife sales, including plastic picnic knives. You even have MP's who are trying to introduce legislation to ban kitchen knives. The problem isn't the weapons. The problem is the people and your criminal justice system. Go ahead and mandate the use of plastic or rubber sporks for the public safety. It isn't going to stop criminals from using hammers and cricket bats next.

And taking into account the differences in our populations, the UK's violent crime rate is four times that of the United States, when calculated via the standard "per 100,000 population" statistics system. It is also among the highest violence rate nations in Europe.

I don't think the comparative statistics are a useful way of discussing this. Rather, I would like to suggest that at the core of the problem with gun related incidents that are not part of crime or terrorism, is mental health. The issue then becomes whether or not the local authority has the right to remove firearms from a household because one of its members is receiving medication for a mental illness, say, depression. I wonder how often a crime is committed by someone who has stopped taking their medication? It also means that a licence to own firearms should not be given to people in a household with someone on medication -I don't know if this is a violation of 2nd Amendment rights, or if the issue is protecting citizens that is something you need to discuss. It might sound harsh, but aside from politically motivated killings and the 'day-to-day' criminal activities of gangs, the Mafia and so on, the headline killings could have been avoided if mental health issues were recognised as being important. In the UK mental health is, and has been, a 'cinderella' service compared to the money spent on cancer treatment; yet it is problems such as depression and paranoia that can account for needless deaths, in Leicester, Hungerford, Dunblane and the Lake District.

[buttslinger]

In the USA, its where you draw the line. Tax rates. Minimum wage. Age of Consent. Age to buy booze. This is how we do it.

But there is no law that says smart people can do one thing but dumb people can't.

You can't say the the govt OKs skeet shooting at the yacht club but not in the ghetto wink wink.


There are many small towns with low crime rates where families take care of each other, and they all have guns, and they all do not like Democrats on TV talking down to them. Laughing at them. Calling them hicks, hillbillies, backward.

The majority of people that come on this site are here to gawk.
The majority of transgenders are here to squeeze a buck out of the non-transgenders. Not to win them over to their way of thinking.

Polls say the majority of people want stricter gun controls. To keep THOSE people away from guns. In one way this is like putting a lock on your house to keep the honest people out. It is also like putting bars on the windows and doors to keep the criminals out.

Everybody makes mistakes, sometimes the mistake is you got caught.
In the USA sex for money is wrong. In England it's right.
Who is correct?

[Stavros]

Maybe not who? Think of it as a legal process.
Clearly the majority of gun owners in the USA are responsible, or the death toll on a weekly basis would be unacceptably high. So the issue is not about the law per se, but the individuals who are expected to abide by the law -which is why I raised the mental health issue because it does enable you to make a distinction between people and decide if mental health issues are sufficient to suspend 2nd Amendment rights to identifiable individuals. Stricter gun controls can in fact make sense, if the argument for them is sensible.

[broncofan]

Stavros,
The Heller opinion, which is a fairly recent Supreme Court opinion, strongly implied that banning gun sales to the mentally ill and felons would be acceptable. They did not say how severe the mental illness would have to be in order for the ban to be upheld. It was in dicta, which means that it wasn't central to their decision in the case, and so they can change their mind (even if it was their holding they can change their mind, but when it's dicta it is considered persuasive but not binding as precedent).

Here's what they said (from wikipedia):
(2) "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons."

There are probably a lot of people who can answer this better than I can. Since the gun control laws are state laws, I am not sure how many states actually regulate even close to as stringently as they are allowed to under the 2nd amendment. I would guess not many.

[broncofan]

But I see you said something about banning sales to those who have a mentally ill family member in the household. Or removing the gun from the house because of it. I bet such a law would be considered too broad. The state could probably make it illegal though to allow the mentally ill person in the household access to the gun, since they are allowed to ban the direct sale to that person.

[buttslinger]

They've found that motorists will obey the traffic laws even in ridiculous traffic jams, but when it is apparent the powers that be time road repairs during rush hours, or something stupid like that, motorists will revolt and drive all over the median or curbs to get to work or get home.
It's not so much a question of whether the insane should be allowed access to guns. the question is should black males, (late teens early twenties) be allowed access to guns. Or Dick Cheney after a few friendly drinks.
You've got maybe three million people in the US, cream of the crop, they are the few people who really understand Art, or Physics, or Medicine, math, science, humanities, writing, religion.

Then you've got the three million at the bottom. The insane, serial killers, pedophiles, criminals, drug traffickers.

With the exception of the drug traffickers, all the people at the top are well educated, articulate, and usually pretty rich. And the scum on the bottom are poor and uneducated.

I used to live in a really bad neighborhood. I had to pay 4 times as much mortgage to get to a neighborhood where folks were swell.

Guns are a problem in poor areas. You can't fix that with laws. Unless you hire more Police.

If the 2% of the Country gave the 98% of the country all it's money, everybody would immediately be twice as rich, billions of problems would be solved.

I went to College with a bunch of rich kids from NYC, they really were the beautiful people, right out of an F Scott Fitzgerald book. They had their sins, sure, who doesn't? But they sure didn't eat shit at some crap job or go to public school.

Lincoln's idea for slavery was to send all the blacks back to Africa,
Hitler gassed jews and gypsies,
The French guillotined their problem children.
I'm not sure if it would be better to shoot the richest, or the poorest......
just kidding, guns are here to stay, so are the rich and poor.
people think you legislate good and bad, but really you legislate rich and poor.

Ain't We Got Fun, Great Gatsby - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1AcnI0B2-o)

[trish]

Guns are a problem in middle class areas as well. The various Colorado school shootings, the school shooting in Vermont, the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon, the shooting of Trevon Martin, the shooting in Florida over loud music, the shooting in Texas over texting in a movie theater, Cheney shooting his friend in the face, etc. etc. These incidents have no root in poverty; they are not low income, bad neighborhood crimes. They have no root in crime whatsoever, although they are crimes. They stem from idiocy, inadequate firearm regulation and laws that incentivize violence (stand your ground laws and laws that protect owners and manufacturers from libel).

[kittyKaiti]

Maybe not who? Think of it as a legal process.
Clearly the majority of gun owners in the USA are responsible, or the death toll on a weekly basis would be unacceptably high. So the issue is not about the law per se, but the individuals who are expected to abide by the law -which is why I raised the mental health issue because it does enable you to make a distinction between people and decide if mental health issues are sufficient to suspend 2nd Amendment rights to identifiable individuals. Stricter gun controls can in fact make sense, if the argument for them is sensible.

And we are. The majority of lawful gun owners are responsible. FBI and CDC statistics show that. I spent four hours going through FBI and CDC reports to create these two charts to put it into perspective for people.

When it comes to mental health, there becomes a multitude of questions. The biggest I see is, "What constitutes a disqualifying mental health disorder?" Quite obviously, a blanketing ban on persons with "mental health problems" would throw every trans-person into that mix, based on the existence of "Gender Dysphoria" and "Gender Identity Disorder", and both being considered DSM-V mental health issues in the United States.

[broncofan]

Kittykaiti,
A blanket ban on those with mental health disorders would probably be unconstitutional. It would have to be those that significantly increase the risk to one's self or others of owning a gun. This would certainly include the psychotic disorders. Sometimes bipolar disorder involves psychotic symptoms, but often it doesn't. Bipolar II involves only hypomania; it's not hypomania in my understanding if it includes hallucinations or grand delusions. I doubt they would even be able to include a ban for those with depression. Major depression can involve psychotic symptoms, but atypical depression is unlikely to.

The reason I say it would have to significantly increase the risk to one's self or others is because the law would have to be narrowly tailored since it implicates a fundamental right. A ban on owning guns for someone who has social anxiety disorder or gender dysphoria would not be narrowly tailored.

I can only imagine that such a law would be struck down if it banned those with gender dysphoria or any anxiety disorder. Barring those with gender dysphoria from owning would might even give rise to an equal protection challenge.

[kittyKaiti]

They stem from idiocy, inadequate firearm regulation and laws that incentivize violence (stand your ground laws and laws that protect owners and manufacturers from libel).

No. They stem from poor education systems, defenseless targets and Hollywood media and music that glorifies and fetishizes murder, rape, drugs, sex, hate, selfishness, greed, suicide and rebelliousness. Kids are fucked up today and they're all having kids of their own. Each generation is more violent, self centered, hateful and lacking of any decent human emotion and moral empathy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1SZurGArxE

[trish]

The retired policeman who shot a texter in a movie theater wasn't a kid, he was well trained in firearm care and safety and were the texter armed wouldn't have made a difference. Giffords never seen her assailant before she was shot, her being armed wouldn't have made a difference. The assailant was disarmed by an unarmed woman. Kids are not generally fucked up. But yes, children are immature. Can't help that. When there a guns everywhere in society, it only takes one depressed child or one angry child for tragedy to ensue. Prosecuting the people who allow their guns to fall into the hands of children would help.

[Stavros]

And we are. The majority of lawful gun owners are responsible. FBI and CDC statistics show that. I spent four hours going through FBI and CDC reports to create these two charts to put it into perspective for people.

When it comes to mental health, there becomes a multitude of questions. The biggest I see is, "What constitutes a disqualifying mental health disorder?" Quite obviously, a blanketing ban on persons with "mental health problems" would throw every trans-person into that mix, based on the existence of "Gender Dysphoria" and "Gender Identity Disorder", and both being considered DSM-V mental health issues in the United States.

Broncofan's clarification of the law, and your post raise the follow-up question to my point about mental illness, which Broncofan says is included in measures designed to prevent Americans owning or having access to firearms. And that is, what is a mental illness?

I referred to depression because it can be, and is treated with medication, although medicine alone does not deal with the problem and therapy, which can help, is expensive and beyond most people's reach. I would include paranoia in the mix as it has been an element in gun crimes in Columbine, Sandy Hook and so on, but the key point must be in identifying the individuals as suffering to the extent that they are a danger to themselves and others, and I don't know how this is done if say, a parent decides claiming to be the son of Lucifer is just a phase Johnny is going through. The same would apply to Gender Dysphoria, which raises again the question of what is a mental illness, and why Gender Dysphoria would be classified as a mental illness, when, for example in the cases of people born intersexed or with indeterminate gender markers, it is a physical medical issue, albeit one with potential psychological impacts on the person. And, as you would probably agree, many transexuals before and after SRS are actually well adjusted people and safe to be around.

The law must have the right to intervene, and it must be clear what those rights to intervene are, and the imposing authority ought to have the resources to do it. It is a difficult area because of the stigma of mental illness and the reluctance of people to enter into a debate on it. Most people who get depressed will never admit to it, not even with their friends, and though a lot of depression may not be severe enough to require medication, talking about it is a thin end of a wedge people avoid. That, plus limited resources in local authorities, and a reluctance to intervene in private lives, means that sensational acts of gun crime will recur. Not sure how you deal with that, whereas in the UK we already limit gun ownership and don't have a problem doing so.

[buttslinger]

If you ignore gang violence, almost all the murders are related to the severely depressed, the suicides, killing your spouse.

There is a thin line between the American dream and the American nightmare.

Better legalize marijuana.

[broncofan]

http://www.kctv5.com/story/25235053/shooting-reported-at-overland-park-jewish-community-center

Hate crime shooting at two Jewish community centers. Too early to tell how he bought his guns and whether it's something sound gun control could have prevented.

[trish]

Five people were shot outside two Jewish community centers in Kansas city, heartland of America. Three are now dead, a boy, his grandfather and an employee of the assisted living facility.

The alleged shooter, Frazier Glenn Miller, is a 73 year old anti-semite, founder and former leader of the Knights of Ku Klux Klan (forced to shut down after being sued for being an illegal paramilitary organization) and the White Patriot Party. He currently publishes the Aryan Alternative.

Mr. Miller has advocated (on internet forums) the extermination of Jews. In the 1980’s he served three years in jail on weapons charges and for conspiracy to assassinate Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Three years was his reduced sentence for having testified against other white supremacists.

Yes, I think the law could have done a better job of keeping firearms out of his hands. Did he buy them at a gun show? From the back of a van? Can they be traced? If not, why not? Shouldn’t the people who sold them to him have some liability?

Passover beings tonight at sunset.

[Dino Velvet]

Aside from the gun issue I wanted to chime in and say what an incredible coward Frazier Glenn Miller is. Loser, ex-KKK filth that I don't want to share the same air with either. To target innocent people who cannot defend themselves on the eve of a holy Jewish celebration is beyond unforgivable. As much of a pussy as shooting kids opening Christmas presents while they smile under the tree.

What does Holy Friday and Easter mean to you, Frazier Glenn Miller? Where will you be on those days?

[kittyKaiti]

In the 1980’s he served three years in jail on weapons charges and for conspiracy to assassinate Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Three years was his reduced sentence for having testified against other white supremacists.

Yes, I think the law could have done a better job of keeping firearms out of his hands. Did he buy them at a gun show? From the back of a van? Can they be traced? If not, why not? Shouldn’t the people who sold them to him have some liability?

He is obviously a felon and therefore disqualified from lawfully purchasing or owning firearms. I'd say 99% chance they were acquired illegally (probably from a fellow klansmen). 1% chance it was a gun show.

Can they be traced? Yes. Every time a firearm is lawfully purchased from a FFL dealer (which is where the gun had to have been bought at one point), you must fill out an ATF form, that includes the serial number on the gun. That number can be traced back to the FFL dealer it was sold from and therefore, through a search of gun sales, find the original owner. From there it's an investigation on who owned it, if they are affiliated with the suspect or if they sold the gun off to someone else, etc.

[trish]

Business Insider published the following chart showing the effect of Florida's stand your ground law on gun deaths.

[trish]

Letter we get the following addendum

Note: BI reader P.A. Fedewa (https://twitter.com/PFedewa) created an easier-to-read version of the above chart from Reuters. It more clearly shows that gun deaths increased between 2005 and 2007 by flipping the y-axis. We're adding it to this post with his permission. The original chart and graphic design was done by Reuters.

Is this a joke or what?? Nice job, Reuters.

http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-deaths-in-florida-increased-with-stand-your-ground-2014-2 (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?p=1480659&posted=1#post1480659)

[Ben in LA]

Letter we get the following addendum

Note: BI reader P.A. Fedewa (https://twitter.com/PFedewa) created an easier-to-read version of the above chart from Reuters. It more clearly shows that gun deaths increased between 2005 and 2007 by flipping the y-axis. We're adding it to this post with his permission. The original chart and graphic design was done by Reuters.

Is this a joke or what?? Nice job, Reuters.

http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-deaths-in-florida-increased-with-stand-your-ground-2014-2 (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?p=1480659&posted=1#post1480659)
Nice Romney right there...meaning flip-flop.

[kittyKaiti]

He is obviously a felon and therefore disqualified from lawfully purchasing or owning firearms. I'd say 99% chance they were acquired illegally (probably from a fellow klansmen). 1% chance it was a gun show.

Fuckin' called it

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/18/4969210/stand-in-purchase-of-guns-in-johnson.html

[Prospero]

Gun ban? Fat chance...

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/an-sofie-kesteleyn-kids-with-guns

[trish]

Thanks for the article, though I did find the closing quote, “I don’t want to be like I’m against guns or pro guns, but I do think giving a child a gun is sort of like giving your kids car keys,” somewhat amusing. Giving a child a gun is like, giving a child a fucking gun!!

On the good news side, there a very small window in which States might be able so pass legislation that would disarm spouse abusers.

http://nyti.ms/1k6Cb1v



.....

[robertlouis]

The NRA won't rest until the gifting of guns to new born children at christenings becomes compulsory.

Mark my words.

[Turlington]

This right here...

[kittyKaiti]

Gun ban? Fat chance...

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/an-sofie-kesteleyn-kids-with-guns

The girl in the first picture and the boy in the third picture need more trigger discipline. 4 out of 6 ain't bad for a bunch of kindergartners.

[trish]

Yeah, if we give children guns and 1/3 have poor trigger discipline, what could happen? Zombies and werewolves, look out!

[maxpower]

Yep, here we go again. A FedEx employee entered a company warehouse in Georgia this morning, armed to the teeth. He shot six people, three of whom were critically injured, before killing himself.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/georgia-fedex-gunman-injures-shooting/story?id=23511924

[trish]

Georgia just last week passed a law allowing secret carry everywhere in the state, including schools, churches, bars etc. Here's Santorum praising the new law explaining how it makes everyone in Georgia safer.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/27/santorum-georgia-gun-law-to-improve-safety-says-a-well-armed-america-is-a-safer-america/


Yuck, I now I gotta flush all the santorum out of my eyes.

[kittyKaiti]

Georgia just last week passed a law allowing secret carry everywhere in the state, including schools, churches, bars etc. Here's Santorum praising the new law explaining how it makes everyone in Georgia safer.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/27/santorum-georgia-gun-law-to-improve-safety-says-a-well-armed-america-is-a-safer-america/


Yuck, I now I gotta flush all the santorum out of my eyes.

At least now law abiding citizens have the ability to return fire, and kill the spree killer, instead of having to follow Department of Homeland Security recommendations to duck under desks and defend themselves with scissors (Or wait 10-20 minutes until SWAT arrives). Returning fire is the only way to stop a crazed gunman on a spree.

[trish]

Returning fire is the only way to stop a crazed gunman on a spree. Stop them from what? If you're returning fire, it means they already got some rounds off and probably shot someone.

Pull your gun out and shoot them before they get the idea to go on a spree, that's what I say.

Oh, wait. Better yet. Don't let them get hold of a gun in the first place.

[kittyKaiti]

Stop them from what? If you're returning fire, it means they already got some rounds off and probably shot someone.

Well yea, that is kinda the point of "self defense". One must come under attack to utilize force of any kind to protect them-self. Returning fire means stopping further loss of life, obviously. One person was killed, rather than a dozen or two or three.



Pull your gun out and shoot them before they get the idea to go on a spree, that's what I say.

You miss the point of nearly all of these shootings. They are premeditated spree killings. It's not like Adam Lanza decided to walk into Sandy Hook Elementary with the intent to shoot one person and then suddenly thought, "why not kill everyone?".


Oh, wait. Better yet. Don't let them get hold of a gun in the first place.

You wish it would be that easy. Unfortunately, even with universal background checks, criminals have multitudes of ways to access illegal firearms, even in countries where guns are outright prohibited like the UK and Japan. They find ways if they are that determined.

[Turlington]

..........

[kittyKaiti]

..........

All four of them are enemies of the Republic. Corruption and tyranny know no bounds.

[Stavros]

At least now law abiding citizens have the ability to return fire, and kill the spree killer, instead of having to follow Department of Homeland Security recommendations to duck under desks and defend themselves with scissors (Or wait 10-20 minutes until SWAT arrives). Returning fire is the only way to stop a crazed gunman on a spree.

What happens if your 'return fire' kills the wrong person -or people?

[Prospero]

You wish it would be that easy. Unfortunately, even with universal background checks, criminals have multitudes of ways to access illegal firearms, even in countries where guns are outright prohibited like the UK and Japan. They find ways if they are that determined.

And putting it into proportion - and allowing for the difference in scale of our nations - the numbers who died from gun offences in the UK is tiny compared with the US where the shoot-em up culture is so ingrained - and where any attempt to control them is undermined by the NRA.

But then you'll never see that since guns are sacred.

[Prospero]

This week in Leeds in the UK a teacher was stabbed to death in front of her class by a teenager. He was overpowered and restrained by other members of staff. Imagine if he'd had a gun though. He'd have defended himself and the death toll might well have been far higher.

Doubtless those in favour of guns will argue that if the class of kids had had guns they'd have shot him down.

[Stavros]

But surely in the case of the Leeds incident, the key issue, on the basis of what we know so far, is that the boy concerned was not a good communicator or gregarious, he was 'a loner', reserved, affected by his parents divorce, and addicted to violent video games. Isn't this more likely to be a shaping factor than the availability of a gun, a knife, or a pencil? The availablity of an automatic weapon might well have caused carnage in the school -had he been able to get it in without being noticed -but surely the core problem is a degree of mental instability that went unnoticed, or untreated, and has ended in tragedy for all concerned. It does raise the question, if people are addicted to violent video games, are they more likely to act out their fantasy if their mental state allows it and other factors in their environment come into play?

[kittyKaiti]

What happens if your 'return fire' kills the wrong person -or people?

That is irrelevant. The police have killed untold numbers of innocent Americans while using their service weapons to stop criminals.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/bart-officer-accidentally-shot-killed-fellow-officer-article-1.1587123

http://abcnews.go.com/US/women-accidentally-shot-cops-york-citys-times-square/story?id=20261689

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/09/08/tragic-ny-man-accidentally-shot-by-police-while-fleeing-armed-robbery/

http://news.yahoo.com/ny-police-officer-cleared-accidental-shooting-hofstra-student-163707908.html

And my all time favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxWWJaTEdD0

[Prospero]

I agree Stavros. The essential point I was making that knife incidents - whatever prompts them - are likely to be less deadly in a wider sense than a similarly troubled young person with a semi automatic weapon.

When domestic WMDs are available then the chances of multiple deaths is higher.

Which does not men we should not be taking a wider look at a culture which celebrates violece - through such things as violent video games.

[Stavros]

That is irrelevant. The police have killed untold numbers of innocent Americans while using their service weapons to stop criminals.


But it is relevant, because your post stated:
"At least now law abiding citizens have the ability to return fire, and kill the spree killer, instead of having to follow Department of Homeland Security recommendations to duck under desks and defend themselves with scissors (Or wait 10-20 minutes until SWAT arrives). Returning fire is the only way to stop a crazed gunman on a spree. "
-The issue is a member of the public deciding to use his or her weapon to intervene. Your assumption must be that he or she shoots accurately; mine is that in a situation of tension if not panic, your heroic John Citizen might just accidentally shoot the wrong person, maybe more than one person. Imagine it was in a dark cinema and a crazed gunmen opens fire during Batman -would you trust a heroic, strapped John Citizen to start firing back in that situation? And if the person accidentally killed is someone you love, would that not be 'relevant'? And if -in the US as well as the UK- policemen trained to use firearms can get it wrong, what is to say John Citizen is going to be any better?

[Prospero]

Republicans and democrats = Enemies of the Republic. You advocate guns in the hands of the ordinary citizen and see the Government as the enemy of the people. Okay Ms Kaiti... spell out if you'd care to the way you'd like to see the USA governed?

[trish]

She's quite insistent that the state governments should "authorize" the practice of propelling lead pellets into persons perceived to be life threatening, but doesn't think federal government should "authorize" the practice of buying weed killer, fertilizer and seed from a private manufacturer and using it on your private farm. I'm interested hear in broad outline what she thinks the government has the authority to prohibit as well as the distinction between authorizing and not prohibiting?

[kittyKaiti]

Republicans and democrats = Enemies of the Republic. You advocate guns in the hands of the ordinary citizen and see the Government as the enemy of the people. Okay Ms Kaiti... spell out if you'd care to the way you'd like to see the USA governed?

There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions. There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies. There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control. There needs to be a way to hold law enforcement officers accountable for their actions and the destruction of the thin blue line fraternity mentality that allows corruption and cover-ups of brutality or other crimes committed by officers to breed in police departments. There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed. The impeachment and the recall processes to remove corrupt politicians should be modified to be easier. The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues. There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying. There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).

[Prospero]

Excellent. I think you have now laid out a series of points which i am sure the Americans here can debate. Thanks.

[trish]

There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions.One could just vote them out of office. One could increase the powers of the executive branch to impeach corrupt judges and/or congressmen. One could make it easier for the legislative branch to impeach the president. Any legal action of one branch of government against another is always going to be preceded by expensive investigations and followed up with expensive hearings as we’ve seen in the past. Voting them out is the cheaper option and puts the decision directly in the hands of the voter.


There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies.As long as voters perceive drugs and drug trafficking to be a problem the DEA will continue to thrive. I believe Congress is already charged with oversight. In the past they have formed special oversight committees and hired investigators to explore various allegations against the DEA. These are always very expensive affairs. Ditto with ATF and Homeland Security.


There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control.Here it would help if you were more specific. There are some things appropriate for the state and others appropriate for the federal government. Given, for example, that we ship food across States lines on a daily basis, who would be in a better position to prohibit the use of dangerous herbicides to protect our food supply, the Federal or the State government? I know you think the Federal government dropped the ball here, but clearly you think somebody should do something about herbicide use. There is also the problem of what the separate states can afford to do without financial support from the rest of us (i.e. the federal government). If, for example, the State of Illinois wants Federal tax dollars in the form of education aid, then it’s reasonable to expect some Federal control over how Illinois spends those dollars.


There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed.There can be so strict standard for interpreting the Constitution. That’s the whole point of having a Judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court. Their job is to interpret and apply the Constitution. Some key passages of the document are notoriously and deliberately ambiguous and our understanding and application will continue to evolve. I think the electing Supreme Court Justices would be an extremely destabilizing practice. They need to be shielded from all sorts of influence and especially the influence of the majority. I would admit we could do a better job of shielding. An age limit or a term limit might be a good idea as well.


The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues.This has not worked out so well for California. Prop this and Prop that have been a social nuisance.


There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying.The influence of lobbyists needs to somehow be curtailed, but one would have to have a definition of lobbying to eliminate it, and one would have to dedicate an agency to the investigation of alleged breaches of the law. More money.


There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste,That’s almost a tautology. But what one voter sees as waste, another sees as an essential government function. I agree we could do without most, if not all, of Homeland Security. I also think we spend way too much on military projects and way to little on science and education (I also think a lot of what we allocate to education is ill-spent). You think we can cut some agencies but spending money on more oversight, investigations and impeachments is essential, and in some cases you may be right.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=kittyKaiti;1485885]
There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions.
--In principle, I agree, but what we discovered in the UK when Members of Parliament were fiddling their expenses, is that some of them thought they were acting within the rules, so what you think is corrupt the politicians might think is legal. This needs close attention to the detail of what elected representatives can and cannot do, but ought to be possible to do.

There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies.
---I am not an American so I cannot comment on this.

There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control.
---I understand the American context for States rights, but can't really comment. I think this is one of the key elements of the character (and historical development) of American democracy, but I don't really know how this works or should work on a policy by policy basis. Are there some issues, such as the right to vote, which should be determined by the Federal govt rather than a state? Do 'human rights' always trump 'states rights'?
On Guns -is this a Federal issue, or a local/state issue?

There needs to be a way to hold law enforcement officers accountable for their actions and the destruction of the thin blue line fraternity mentality that allows corruption and cover-ups of brutality or other crimes committed by officers to breed in police departments.
---We have this problem in the UK. There are no easy solutions, part of the problem is recruitment and the kind of people who choose to become police officers. In this country, class has been a significant factor, with many police officers coming from the same social background (sometimes the same schools) as the criminals. The lack of minorities in the UK police force tends to reinforce a belief that there is bias in policing -the majority of young men stopped on the street and searched by the police have been 'Black and Asian', yet the conviction rate is small by comparison. Not sure how this applies to the USA. I suspect that in both countries where gangs of Black youths are common, the fact is that the most lucrative criminals are white, and wear suits.

There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.
---No comment.

Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed.
---If you mean every American voter, a) very expensive, and will the richest Judges get better coverage and more votes?; b) could they be elected by Congress? Who chooses the list of candidates?

The impeachment and the recall processes to remove corrupt politicians should be modified to be easier.
---Again, as with the scandal over expenses, MPs were prosecuted and sent to jail, but in some cases MPs have been falsely accused when they were innocent. In the case of a government official, Andrew Mitchell was leaving Downing Street on a bicycle when the policeman refused to open the central gate, suggesting Mitchell use the side gate prompting the MP to get upset and allegedly call the copper a 'fucking pleb'. It has subsequently emerged that police officers who were not even on duty in London at the time posted incriminating evidence which, on your argument could have lost Mitchell his seat -instead 3 officers have now been sacked from the force. Corrupt politicians may not always be corrupt, just because someone doesn't like them and smears their reputation is not a sound basis on which to throw them out.

The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues. There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying.
---Imagine that a group of transgendered people decide to form a political action group to lobby their state and federal representatives to change the law so that transgendered people can change their birth certificate to reflect their new gender status. They might not have the funds the Koch brothers have, but their right to lobby is equal. I think you might want to change the rules on how lobbying works, rather than ban it outright.

There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).
-The amount of taxpayer's money that goes awol because of incompetence or duff government schemes is beyond belief. In the UK alone it is measured over the last 20 years in billions of pounds -not dollars, pounds. If elected politicians were made financially responsible for the money they allocate to useless projects, in the form of a surcharge or liability, then maybe bridges to nowhere would not be funded, and 'integrated computing' systems actually work!

[broncofan]

There needs to be methods to hold corrupt politicians under strict accountability for their actions. There needs to be increased oversight of powers given to federal agencies like Homeland Security, the ATF, the DEA, among hundreds of other agencies. There needs to be an increase in state sovereignty and less federal government control. There needs to be a way to hold law enforcement officers accountable for their actions and the destruction of the thin blue line fraternity mentality that allows corruption and cover-ups of brutality or other crimes committed by officers to breed in police departments. There needs to be a higher strict standard for following the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Supreme Court justices should be elected, not appointed. The impeachment and the recall processes to remove corrupt politicians should be modified to be easier. The American people themselves should have more direct say in issues. There needs to be an outright ban on political lobbying. There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).
Many of these changes would require Constitutional amendments. You can't change the appointment process for federal judges without an amendment as any deviation from the current process would contradict the appointments clause. Impeachment itself is also prescribed in the Constitution so if you want to change the standard for impeachment, that would also require a Constitutional amendment.

You also say you want more states' rights. That would require an amendment to the Constitution (the 10th amendment would have to be re-written or an enumerated power of the federal government narrowed). You say the Bill of Rights should be more strictly construed. Usually when the bill of rights is construed more strictly that tends to invalidate states laws that conflict with it.

The bill of rights is written into the federal constitution and incorporated via the 14th amendment to apply to the states. If you have a stricter standard for applying the bill of rights you have less not more state sovereignty. For instance, if a state wanted to ban guns and it was too broad, that state law would be invalidated by a stricter application of the 2nd amendment. As it stands, courts balance the compelling interest of the state against the challenge to the fundamental right embodied in the Constitution. With guns, they would balance the fundamental right of citizens to own guns against the state's right to control who is allowed to possess them in furtherance of their interest in the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens (the state's police powers).

But generally, by enforcing the first 9 amendments of the federal constitution you put a limit on the ability of a state to pass laws.

[Randydude7]

Gun nuts have been warning us about the upcoming gun ban for almost 50 years. Of course, I don't see any reason to doubt YOU.

[broncofan]

Many of these changes would require Constitutional amendments. You can't change the appointment process for federal judges without an amendment as any deviation from the current process would contradict the appointments clause. Impeachment itself is also prescribed in the Constitution so if you want to change the standard for impeachment, that would also require a Constitutional amendment.

You also say you want more states' rights. That would require an amendment to the Constitution (the 10th amendment would have to be re-written or an enumerated power of the federal government narrowed). You say the Bill of Rights should be more strictly construed. Usually when the bill of rights is construed more strictly that tends to invalidate states laws that conflict with it.

The bill of rights is written into the federal constitution and incorporated via the 14th amendment to apply to the states. If you have a stricter standard for applying the bill of rights you have less not more state sovereignty. For instance, if a state wanted to ban guns and it was too broad, that state law would be invalidated by a stricter application of the 2nd amendment. As it stands, courts balance the compelling interest of the state against the challenge to the fundamental right embodied in the Constitution. With guns, they would balance the fundamental right of citizens to own guns against the state's right to control who is allowed to possess them in furtherance of their interest in the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens (the state's police powers).

But generally, by enforcing the first 9 amendments of the federal constitution you put a limit on the ability of a state to pass laws.
What I was trying to say but didn't get around to is that Kitty is not recommending more fidelity to our Constitution. She is recommending strict adherence to those portions she likes, even more than the document contemplated, and abdication of those she doesn't. The result would be a government that would not have checks and balances, that would not have a strong federal government (the entire purpose of the Constitutional convention), that would not have an insulated and independent judiciary, that would also not allow for delegation by the legislature to create federal agencies, which would in turn neuter the executive branch.

There's a very good reason for Judges to be appointed. When they interpret the Constitution and the laws, they are not responding to the popular will. They are a check against majority rule that was built into the Constitution so that certain rights could not be curtailed no matter how people vote. I find it strange someone could be so big on the bill of rights and then want to make the Judges who interpret our founding document accountable to the whims of the voting public! Legislators who pass laws already are. Judges are there to say certain laws cannot be passed no matter what the people's indirect representatives vote for because they have a Constitution to uphold.

[robertlouis]

This is a rather neat dovetailing of two critical issues. Yes, why not?

[martin48]

There needs to be significant slashing of federal budget waste, like half of the currently existing federal bureaucratic alphabet agencies that have accomplished nothing (like the Department of Homeland Security entirely).

Before we discuss "waste" which always going to be difficult. Let's look at how much the average American takes home after tax. These are recent figures of the % of salary you take home for the G20 countries. US is about in the middle.



Italy - 50.59% (takes home $202,360 out of $400,000 salary)
India - 54.90%
United Kingdom - 57.28%
France - 58.10%
Canada - 58.13%
Japan - 58.68%
Australia - 59.30%
United States - 60.45% (based on New York state tax)
Germany - 60.61%
South Africa - 61.78%
China - 62.05%
Argentina - 64.02%
Turkey - 64.64%
South Korea - 65.75%
Indonesia - 69.78%
Mexico - 70.60%
Brazil - 73.32%
Russia - 87%
Saudi Arabia - 96.86% (so you take home $387,400 out of the $400,000 salary)

Interesting!


Now have a look at http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/economic-crime-survey

Discuss

[yodajazz]

My assertion is that things like this are more likely to happen, than use for protection.

http://fox8.com/2014/04/27/bride-shoots-kills-own-niece-on-wedding-day/

[martin48]

And another incident

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27243115

[trish]

And another incident

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27243115

Castle Doctrine. The name is asinine. A home is not a fortress. In most States the doctrine allows the use of deadly force against an intruder provided one surmises his life is in imminent peril from the intruder. In Montana the doctrine may have a more lax proviso.

In this case, the shooter (Markus Kaarma) claims to have been burgled twice in the past few months. He told his hairdresser that he had been waiting for the past three nights with his shotgun to shoot "some fucking kid." Sounds more like premeditation rather than fear of "immanent peril". Sounds to me, like he reasoned, before the shooting, that the punishment for theft should be death. The victim was a German exchange student named Dede. No articles I've read up to this time speculate on why Dede came into Kaarma's garage that evening. But he did, and he set off the alarms. Without shouting any warning, Kaarma fired four shots blindly into the dark of the garage in four distinct directions.

My opinion, this was a case of Bad Kaarma.

[fred41]

And another incident

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27243115

Sounds like they baited their garage like a mouse trap...seems the prosecution might be able to argue premeditation.

At least in the following case the man was found guilty,especially since he was stupid enough to include a sound recording under some surreal belief it would somehow help in his defense ...warning: the included sound recording in the article quite graphic: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/hear-graphic-audio-catches-moment-byron-smith-guns-teens-article-1.1776145

[trish]

When will Congress put the brakes on these lethal loonies?

[robertlouis]

When will Congress put the brakes on these lethal loonies?


Never, and that's the saddest and angriest word I've typed in quite a while.

[Prospero]

Sounds like pre-meditated murder to me.

[broncofan]

Every state law is different regarding this but the traditional common law rule is that you aren't allowed to use deadly force in defense of property alone. Every state law should at least comport with that. I agree with Trish (and others) that this was murder. He didn't reasonably believe he was in peril, but planned to kill someone he thought was a thief.

Most of the time there is a common sense presumption that someone in your house is a threat to your safety. However, when you suspect they have already been there without harming you and you lay in wait to kill them (in your garage no less) you effectively rebut that presumption.

Good luck getting a jury in Montana to convict under these circumstances. Fucking disgusting.

[broncofan]

Castle Doctrine. The name is asinine. A home is not a fortress. In most States the doctrine allows the use of deadly force against an intruder provided one surmises his life is in imminent peril from the intruder. In Montana the doctrine may have a more lax proviso.
.
I think we talked about this with stand your ground. Even when these absurdly named doctrines don't apply, they offer an invitation for jury nullification. They reflect a certain ethos and urge the jury to acquit based on shared values with the killer. I know I get pedantic on the legal issues so I won't get into the castle doctrine, except to say that it offers more of a rhetorical defense than a legal one.

[robertlouis]

This perhaps over simplifies it, but any law that values property above life is intrinsically and morally wrong.

[robertlouis]

Jesus Christ. Is there no end to the stupidity and arrogance of these people? Does anyone outside the armed forces actually NEED a fucking machine gun?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/03/obama-executive-action-gun-loophole-stalled-nra-opposition

[Stavros]

I was alerted by something in this paragraph to an aspect of 'gun control' that I had not been aware of before:

A plan by President Barack Obama to close a loophole which allows Americans to buy weapons such as machine guns, grenades and sawn-off shotguns without undergoing background checks is set to be delayed, due to intense opposition from the NRA and other anti-gun-control activists.

Grenades? Is this real? For self-defence? So if someone breaks into your house are you going to pull out a hand grenade and say 'Leave my house or I pull the pin'??

The article makes much of 'gun trusts' so that
individuals [becoming members of]... so-called “gun trusts” can currently take ownership of weapons regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA) without providing identifying information when registering the items with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/03/obama-executive-action-gun-loophole-stalled-nra-opposition

[notdrunk]

Jesus Christ. Is there no end to the stupidity and arrogance of these people? Does anyone outside the armed forces actually NEED a fucking machine gun?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/03/obama-executive-action-gun-loophole-stalled-nra-opposition

You don't NEED a lot of things that also affect life but they are legal. Individuals owning NFA items are a small minority in the gun community. I see the main sticking point is that it adds Chief Law Enforcement Officers (i.e., CLEOs) to the process. Currently, if an individual tries to obtain a NFA item without being apart of a trust, the CLEO has to sign off on Form 4. The problem is that a CLEO can have biases (e.g., political and personal reasons) that would cause them to not sign off on Form 4. You can do everything else successful in the process; however, the CLEO can simply say "no" without a reason under the proposed rule. It causes a de facto ban in some jurisdictions for something that is legal.

Then again, do you see rampant crime committed by NFA items? No. Why? The process of obtaining a NFA item can be tedious and long. As well, the cost to obtain them is high. For example, the cost of owning a full-auto M16 can costs upwards of $20,000. M249? Good luck finding a transferable one. If you do find one, the cost may be of a small to medium house.

[AlexisDVyne]

I was alerted by something in this paragraph to an aspect of 'gun control' that I had not been aware of before:

A plan by President Barack Obama to close a loophole which allows Americans to buy weapons such as machine guns, grenades and sawn-off shotguns without undergoing background checks is set to be delayed, due to intense opposition from the NRA and other anti-gun-control activists.

Grenades? Is this real? For self-defence? So if someone breaks into your house are you going to pull out a hand grenade and say 'Leave my house or I pull the pin'??

The article makes much of 'gun trusts' so that
individuals [becoming members of]... so-called “gun trusts” can currently take ownership of weapons regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA) without providing identifying information when registering the items with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/03/obama-executive-action-gun-loophole-stalled-nra-opposition

Think of it this way..

Hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals in america have been stockpiling these and other weapons like bazookas, RPG's etc..

They're all waiting for when SHTF (shit hits the fan)

If SHTF will you want to be without guns and body armor?

In a SHTF situation I would very much like to have a hand full of grenades and a couple disposable bazookas.. lol..

I think everyone should know how to use a firearm safely.. When the day comes that you have to use a gun.. it's not the time to learn how..

Every responsible individual should be allowed to own firearms.. here in Canada we can't own automatics.. certainly not grenades or many types of modified guns.. But after you take a couple courses you can get longarms and handguns as well as various semi-auto assault rifles..

I think background checks should be mandatory for gun licencing to help prevent whacko's from buying guns.. Firearms don't kill people.. people kill people..

My Zombie Apocalypse Gun.. Hatsan ESCORT MPA-TS Semi-Auto 12 Gauge.. I like the name and it's sexy.. Wicked kick tho with 00 buck.. lol.. :D

http://www.hatsan.com.tr/images/escort_mpa_ts.jpg

[bobvela]

Hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals in america have been stockpiling these and other weapons like bazookas, RPG's etc..

Citation please... and do try to note the sources of such things... as well is if the 'stockpiling' has been legal as things like 'bazookas, RPG's etc' generally require an ATF sign off.


here in Canada we can't own automatics

Define 'automatics'.

Do you mean fully automatic weapons?

If so, while legal to own down here in the states, the costs of acquiring one are beyond the means of most normal people (aside from the 9-12 month approve after your check for the $200 tax stamp has been cashed), the supply of fully automatic weapons that is available to the civilian population has slowly been decreasing since the passage of the Firearm Owners' Protection Act of 1986, now often commanding $20k-$30k for a weapon functionally identical to something your local Police Department can buy for ~$600.

[bobvela]

Jesus Christ. Is there no end to the stupidity and arrogance of these people? Does anyone outside the armed forces actually NEED a fucking machine gun?

Remind me... the first tend amendments to the US Constitution... what do we call those again? That's right! They aren't the 'bill of needs', they're the 'bill of rights'.

You are free to say "so and so doesn't need X, Y or Z" all you want, fear though that others push a similar view against your own life.

[bobvela]

I was alerted by something in this paragraph to an aspect of 'gun control' that I had not been aware of before:

A plan by President Barack Obama to close a loophole which allows Americans to buy weapons such as machine guns, grenades and sawn-off shotguns without undergoing background checks is set to be delayed, due to intense opposition from the NRA and other anti-gun-control activists.

Stop for a moment and recall that most 'loopholes' are already aspects of the law which have likely existed for quite some time and only now have reached your awareness because enough people in the awareness of the reporter (already a detached viewer) have been for quite some time been 'exploiting' it... then ask yourself... "Has this loophole really been a problem?"


Grenades? Is this real? For self-defence? So if someone breaks into your house are you going to pull out a hand grenade and say 'Leave my house or I pull the pin'??

Like all NFA items, the tracking of ownership of lawfully constructed/transferred items is quite carefully tracked (usually involving nearly a year waiting period for the average civilian).

'Grenades' are generally not something that are commonly available in the civilian market (where unlike firearms, when used are no longer able to be used again), though are classified in the 'destructive devices' category of the NFA for tax purposes.

I'd be more worried about flame throwers... which are far easier to build & acquire lawfully than grenades.


The article makes much of 'gun trusts' so that
individuals [becoming members of]... so-called “gun trusts” can currently take ownership of weapons regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA) without providing identifying information when registering the items with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/03/obama-executive-action-gun-loophole-stalled-nra-opposition

That's not fully accurate... and I say that as a person who controls a gun trust which controls several NFA items.

Normally to acquire an NFA item (as an individual) the signature of your local CLEO (Chief Law Enforcement Officer) is required and a fingerprint card sent off to the ATF... which can be a problem if your local CLEO refuses to sign off, or if you want a little more freedom with your NFA device... such as being able to hand it to a friend while at the local range to try (the $200 transfer tax for suppressor, SBR, SBS, DD, AoW, & automatic weapons is for 'transfers'... which depending on the mood of your local LEO, would include you handing something to a friend standing 5 feet away from you to use while you watch).

Gun trusts create a predictable level of freedom where the trust owns all such items and a very limited # of owners of the trust (identified by name and signature) each time the trust adds or disposes of an item from it's rolls when submitted to the ATF (yes, a full copy of the trust and the NFA items it owns is sent EACH TIME a new NFA item is added)).

While this not only bypasses the need for a CLEO to sign off, but also removes the necessity for a fingerprint card, but also allows for the temporary addition & removal of a temporary trustee should you wish to temporarily 'transfer' an item to someone for a limited period of time... such as you being at the range with them and wanting to let them try out your suppressor, SBR, SBS, DD, AOW, or automatic weapon... which otherwise would require a $200 tax payment and a stamp being returned to you in 12 months (given the current wait time)... of course when they hand it back, you've a similar issue ($200 & a good long time to wait for the tax stamp).

[Prospero]

Leaping through hoops to justify their sick obsession... the legalese of the last few posts is nauseating. The death of a teenage girl in Chicago at the weekend shot by another teenage girl in a row over a boy - speaks louder to basic humanity than all your weasel words of the rights to keep your murderous weapons. Oh ...and there were more than 200 gun deaths in Chicago in the past few days. Yep gangs to quite an extent - but plenty of others caught in the crossfire. Without such a torrent of weaponry this would not have happened on this scale.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/chicago-girl-14-gunned-rival-14-facebook-dispute-boy-police-article-1.1773215

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/21/chicago-police-overwhelming-gun-violence-nine-killed

Yep - I know i'm a Brit where we don't allow weaponry like this because we don't have the idiotic element of your constitution composed at a time when there was a genuine need for this to resist the threat of British power. Nowadays it is just a rich and deep evil in your culture.

The events still unfolding in Nevada offer further evidence of the streak of insanity in the US body politic.

[Prospero]

I wonder about certain people who post on HA... bobvela has 124 posts. Virtually all of them are about guns. (a handful of his earliest posts are about girls) I wonder if he is here for the real topic of the forum or if he is simply here to argue the NRA case. C'mn Bob... come clean. You are I see a self confessed Tea Prty supporter. But are you actually interested in Tgirls. If not why not go publish your offensive gun drivel elsewhere.

[Stavros]

Think of it this way..

Hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals in america have been stockpiling these and other weapons like bazookas, RPG's etc..

They're all waiting for when SHTF (shit hits the fan)

If SHTF will you want to be without guns and body armor?


But how will you know when that day has come when the SHTF? For some Americans, that day came when Obama was elected President. It is not like The War of the Worlds (which was on tv last night), where you will see giant zombies stalking the land. On the other hand, guns play a role in the mythology of America like the pilgrims and the pioneers and the sense some people may have of being isolated in a large country threatened by outsiders. But in this day and age, that is an awful lot of ironware begging to be abused....

[Stavros]

Stop for a moment and recall that most 'loopholes' are already aspects of the law which have likely existed for quite some time and only now have reached your awareness because enough people in the awareness of the reporter (already a detached viewer) have been for quite some time been 'exploiting' it... then ask yourself... "Has this loophole really been a problem?"

Like all NFA items, the tracking of ownership of lawfully constructed/transferred items is quite carefully tracked (usually involving nearly a year waiting period for the average civilian).

'Grenades' are generally not something that are commonly available in the civilian market (where unlike firearms, when used are no longer able to be used again), though are classified in the 'destructive devices' category of the NFA for tax purposes.

I'd be more worried about flame throwers... which are far easier to build & acquire lawfully than grenades.

That's not fully accurate... and I say that as a person who controls a gun trust which controls several NFA items.

Normally to acquire an NFA item (as an individual) the signature of your local CLEO (Chief Law Enforcement Officer) is required and a fingerprint card sent off to the ATF... which can be a problem if your local CLEO refuses to sign off, or if you want a little more freedom with your NFA device... such as being able to hand it to a friend while at the local range to try (the $200 transfer tax for suppressor, SBR, SBS, DD, AoW, & automatic weapons is for 'transfers'... which depending on the mood of your local LEO, would include you handing something to a friend standing 5 feet away from you to use while you watch).

Gun trusts create a predictable level of freedom where the trust owns all such items and a very limited # of owners of the trust (identified by name and signature) each time the trust adds or disposes of an item from it's rolls when submitted to the ATF (yes, a full copy of the trust and the NFA items it owns is sent EACH TIME a new NFA item is added)).

While this not only bypasses the need for a CLEO to sign off, but also removes the necessity for a fingerprint card, but also allows for the temporary addition & removal of a temporary trustee should you wish to temporarily 'transfer' an item to someone for a limited period of time... such as you being at the range with them and wanting to let them try out your suppressor, SBR, SBS, DD, AOW, or automatic weapon... which otherwise would require a $200 tax payment and a stamp being returned to you in 12 months (given the current wait time)... of course when they hand it back, you've a similar issue ($200 & a good long time to wait for the tax stamp).

You clearly have a lot of detailed knowledge of how your system -or systems- work, given that the rules seem to differ from state to state. I did post something a long time ago to point out how gun control had changed since the Civil War and how when the earlier attempts to control gun ownership were introduced, it was generated by a fear, or panic that freed slaves would have access to firearms and that the consequences of that would be catastrophic. Again, there was a time when the NRA was a leading promoter of gun control, and it was I believe during the Reagan Presidency that the NRA became more 'libertarian', although I believe it was during Reagan's tenure as Governor of California that stricter rules on the ownership of firearms were introduced in that state.

One small detail, that notdrunk alluded to in his post earlier strikes a chord -the right of a CLEO to refuse a licence to someone for who knows what reason. Can we assume that if a Black American, your equal, applies to join a Gun Trust, or applies individually through a CLEO to own a weapon, it will be given the same degree of thought that would be given to his fellow Americans? I am not persuaded that the 'checks and balances' you provide are always going to ensure that firearms do not fall into the wrong hands.

As I have said before, most Americans who own firearms must be trustworthy or your death roll would be far higher; but there are still too many people with mental health problems, politically motivated extremists, and others who, suddenly, go be berserk who have access to weapons. To combat the irrational element you need more gun control, but to seriously improve gun control, I think you need a different culture. Guns, and violence, are part of (but not the only part) American culture, that is at the root of the problem.

Now people can make their own drones, so how long will it be before someone sticks a bomb on one and sends it over to a target to make the news?

And I don't share Prospero's 'holier than thou' attitude as we have gun nuts in the UK and have had our share of mass killings, be it Dunblane, Hungerford, or smaller incidents like Raoul Moat or the man in Leicester who was given back guns the police had taken away from him at one time, which he then used to annihilate his family. Not to mention crime -the riots in London in 2011 were sparked by the shooting dead of a gangster who, the police allege, had picked up a gun on his way to commit a revenge shooting. We are not immune.

[Prospero]

It is NOT holier than thou Stavros (my contrarian friend) - it is simple statistics. Of course there are gun nuts everyplace... but the sheer volume and easy availabilty and the near religious attitude of some (many) americans to guns makes the statistical level of killing there far higher than the few, albeit shocking, examples you quote. Yes - if guns were as easily available here i am sure we'd have, proportionately, as many deaths as the US. But the fact that we don't suggests that the far more rigorous control of weaponry here does make a difference.

[martin48]

Sounds like pre-meditated murder to me.

The point is the boy is dead! What's the point of two deaths when they should have been none? Is capital punishment the sentence for looking in someone's garage?

[martin48]

Can't we combine guns with HAs? It may be just what some members want.

[AlexisDVyne]

But how will you know when that day has come when the SHTF? For some Americans, that day came when Obama was elected President. It is not like The War of the Worlds (which was on tv last night), where you will see giant zombies stalking the land. On the other hand, guns play a role in the mythology of America like the pilgrims and the pioneers and the sense some people may have of being isolated in a large country threatened by outsiders. But in this day and age, that is an awful lot of ironware begging to be abused....

When SHTF you'll know.. There'll be bank runs, war, death and mayhem everywhere with people killing each other over the last can of beans.. If you don't make it out of the cities in 24-48 hours after it starts.. you'll need firearms and luck..

Oh ya.. America the great USA.. Founded on the genocide of native Americans and then followed up with apartheid against the Africans which continued to the 70's.. Home of the Banksters and Black Death Dealers.. (oil)

As for others and their gun death statistics.. More Doctors of Psychiatry kill people with prescription meds than people with guns.. 40% of people that kill others with guns are on these drugs that have been prescribed..

Firearms do not kill people.. people kill people..

When some whacko is about to kill you with his/her gun for what ever you have would you prefer to be without a gun??

[95racer]

" When some whacko is about to kill you with his/her gun for what ever you have would you prefer to be without a gun?? "

When only a gun will do you better have one !!!

[fred41]

40% of people that kill others with guns are on these drugs that have been prescribed..


Can you please give me a link where you got that stat...I was trying to find it but couldn't.

[broncofan]

Can you please give me a link where you got that stat...I was trying to find it but couldn't.
You can find it here.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?p=1487545&posted=1#post1487545

[fred41]

You can find it here.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?p=1487545&posted=1#post1487545

lol...I got it the first time...but perhaps I have a mild case of OCD because I still hit the link three times....funny....maybe I should take some medication.

[bobvela]

You clearly have a lot of detailed knowledge of how your system -or systems- work, given that the rules seem to differ from state to state.

It is a necessary evil of being a fire arms enthusiast to travels from time to time... if I don't well understand the law where I am or where I am going in conjunction with what I may have on my person or in my vehicle... I may be setting myself up for a world of legal pain.


Again, there was a time when the NRA was a leading promoter of gun control

Define 'gun control'.

At last check, the NRA is in favor of many a restriction against ownership and possession when it comes to felons and the like, they tend to oppose other things which involve less than judicial rulings.


One small detail, that notdrunk alluded to in his post earlier strikes a chord -the right of a CLEO to refuse a licence to someone for who knows what reason.

A CLEO sign off sounds nice in theory... but actually brings us to into a rather disturbing area... where the cops can arbitrarily deny the exercising of a right to a person who has not been convicted of a crime.

Imagine a world where the local cops can deny you the right to drive, vote or speak on a street corner... not because you've been convicted of a criminal offense or have a proven track record of unlawful actions in the given area, but because they just don't like you.

Call me crazy, but I'm a fan of due process of law and not being subjected to the arbitrary whims of the local CLEO who may just have a dislike of NFA items... or the look of my shoes when I come in to get his signature.


Can we assume that if a Black American, your equal, applies to join a Gun Trust, or applies individually through a CLEO to own a weapon, it will be given the same degree of thought that would be given to his fellow Americans? I am not persuaded that the 'checks and balances' you provide are always going to ensure that firearms do not fall into the wrong hands.

I would hope that anyone showing up seeking a signature on a form 4 would be treated equally, black, white, male, female, gay, straight, tall or short.

Short of a giant super magnet in space which is set to 'illegal gun'... nothing can fully prevent guns from ending up in the wrong hands... as sometimes even a legally purchased firearm is illegally sold, then reported as stolen (http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?id=9523441).


As I have said before, most Americans who own firearms must be trustworthy or your death roll would be far higher;

Don't say that too loudly or you may loose your cred.

We are a large nation (with regards to land area, population & armaments)... yet only a fraction of a fraction of the persons or arms here commit evil acts with them.


but there are still too many people with mental health problems, politically motivated extremists, and others who, suddenly, go be berserk who have access to weapons.

Sounds nice in theory... but how do you implement such a system without creating an undue burden on those who pose no risk and are otherwise lawful?


To combat the irrational element you need more gun control, but to seriously improve gun control, I think you need a different culture. Guns, and violence, are part of (but not the only part) American culture, that is at the root of the problem.

Culture is a big part of it... but it's not just about firearms. Americans historically are fiercely independent... and the enthusiasm we have historically had about firearms is a symptom of that... not the cause.


Now people can make their own drones, so how long will it be before someone sticks a bomb on one and sends it over to a target to make the news?

In general, bomb making is not a legal activity... at least for your average civilian, but you are unfortunately right, it is something that is bound to happen... though little stops someone from building bombs on their own (http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/02/justice/minnesota-attack-thwarted/index.html) despite the laws against it.


And I don't share Prospero's 'holier than thou' attitude as we have gun nuts in the UK and have had our share of mass killings, be it Dunblane, Hungerford, or smaller incidents like Raoul Moat or the man in Leicester who was given back guns the police had taken away from him at one time, which he then used to annihilate his family. Not to mention crime -the riots in London in 2011 were sparked by the shooting dead of a gangster who, the police allege, had picked up a gun on his way to commit a revenge shooting. We are not immune.

Quite true unfortunately. Guns are but a tool, and so long as some desire to do evil, they will find a way to carry it out.

[bobvela]

Leaping through hoops to justify their sick obsession... the legalese of the last few posts is nauseating.

I'm sorry you view the law so... though you'd probably view it differently if you were under attack and seeking to find mechanisms in the law to protect you.


The death of a teenage girl in Chicago at the weekend shot by another teenage girl in a row over a boy - speaks louder to basic humanity than all your weasel words of the rights to keep your murderous weapons.

You seem to be assuming anyone, here or elsewhere is justifying such at thing. I certainly am not.


Oh ...and there were more than 200 gun deaths in Chicago in the past few days. Yep gangs to quite an extent - but plenty of others caught in the crossfire. Without such a torrent of weaponry this would not have happened on this scale.

Ok... what is your fix? Other than a giant space based super magnet that is set to 'gun'?


Yep - I know i'm a Brit where we don't allow weaponry like this because we don't have the idiotic element of your constitution composed at a time when there was a genuine need for this to resist the threat of British power. Nowadays it is just a rich and deep evil in your culture.

The Brits have long been accustomed to being subservient & obedience... it's understandable your lack of understanding of root of and the continued importance of our cultural differences, something I have long come to notice from those on the other side of the pond.


The events still unfolding in Nevada offer further evidence of the streak of insanity in the US body politic.

Yes, it is quite insane that the federal government owns the majority of the land of a state and uses that ownership to use the excuse of a tortoise (which they themselves have euthanized in mass quantities) as an excuse to apparently re-purpose some of the land for the benefit of Chinese businessmen who are bankrolling the son of the Senate Majority Leader.

Most folks don't have to agree with Bundy's views on race to see that there is much fishiness afoot down there.


I wonder about certain people who post on HA... bobvela has 124 posts. Virtually all of them are about guns. (a handful of his earliest posts are about girls) I wonder if he is here for the real topic of the forum or if he is simply here to argue the NRA case. C'mn Bob... come clean. You are I see a self confessed Tea Prty supporter. But are you actually interested in Tgirls. If not why not go publish your offensive gun drivel elsewhere.

Interesting conspiracy theory you've concocted there, shame you didn't provide specific #'s.

No, I'm not a paid plant of the NRA, nor encouraged to post on their behalf. While I have a life membership, my postings here are of my own and for my own reasons... reasons which I need not justify to you.

The fact that you call my posts 'offensive' does say quite a bit about you though and how open minded & tolerant of a person you are.

[Prospero]

Bobvela... I am extremel open minded and tolerant as anyone who reads the wide range of postings i make here will attest. you meanwhile post almost exclusively on guns.

I don't think what i posted is "a conspiracy theory" simply an observation that your primary interest in contributing to the hung angels forum is to write about guns. A smattering of early posts about the girls but since then simply gun all the way.

And what do you know about the british subservience. Please if you wish to make that allegation tell me more... the cultural differences/ i know a lot about that I am sure i have spent a lot more time in the US than you have in the UK.

I see you buy into the conspiracy theories about Bundy and Nevada. The guy is a lawbreaker and his comical commandos are a signal of the sickness of US gun culture.

And nowhere in your posts - other than a recourse to your constitution - do i actually see any over riding arguments why is is better for a society to be in possession of millions of weapons in private hands. A society where guns are kept securely out of public reach is surely a saner and healthier one.

[Stavros]

When SHTF you'll know.. There'll be bank runs, war, death and mayhem everywhere with people killing each other over the last can of beans.. If you don't make it out of the cities in 24-48 hours after it starts.. you'll need firearms and luck..

Oh ya.. America the great USA.. Founded on the genocide of native Americans and then followed up with apartheid against the Africans which continued to the 70's.. Home of the Banksters and Black Death Dealers.. (oil)

As for others and their gun death statistics.. More Doctors of Psychiatry kill people with prescription meds than people with guns.. 40% of people that kill others with guns are on these drugs that have been prescribed..

Firearms do not kill people.. people kill people..

When some whacko is about to kill you with his/her gun for what ever you have would you prefer to be without a gun??

If 'firearms do not kill people...people kill people' -then don't give them firearms!!

Plenty of American banks have collapsed since the 19th century without being part of some wider collapse -I think you may find the USA has enough resilience to withstand the apocalypse...

[AlexisDVyne]

If 'firearms do not kill people...people kill people' -then don't give them firearms!!

Plenty of American banks have collapsed since the 19th century without being part of some wider collapse -I think you may find the USA has enough resilience to withstand the apocalypse...

You don't seem ti grasp what SHTF really is..

If the power is out for 48 hours in 10 cities.. the USA will show us what chaos is.. If the whole grid goes down.. in 3 days the chaos will be beyond the control of the government and all it's troops..

When the trucks don't deliver the food to the grocery stores, the gas, etc.. what do you think will happen? 300 million people depend on grocery stores for all their food..

In rural america where people don't depend on the system it won't be as bad.. in the cities.. total mayhem, death and destruction..

You'll want a firearm.. and it's better if you know how to use it safely..

[broncofan]

Bobvela... I am extremel open minded and tolerant as anyone who reads the wide range of postings i make here will attest. you meanwhile post almost exclusively on guns.

I agree strongly with that. Somehow he has only posted 126 times. I don't know how..I feel like I've read at least 130 posts on guns and self-defense. Is it possible to have more posts about guns than total posts?

On a serious note, it is an obsession. It may seem ad hominem to talk about how much attention someone pays to one issue, or how much intellectual effort justifying it. But what about other rights? Free speech? Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment? Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure? Is the only civil liberty he cares about the right to carry a gun into a movie theater?

This focus on guns and gun training amounts to the fetishization of weaponry. It must have some deeply symbolic purpose for people to attach so much importance to something with so little relevance or utility. I'm not just saying it has no relevance because I don't use them. When they talk about the situations in which they will use guns the hypos sound either like science fiction or macho fantasy.

[broncofan]

You don't seem ti grasp what SHTF really is..

If the power is out for 48 hours in 10 cities.. the USA will show us what chaos is.. If the whole grid goes down.. in 3 days the chaos will be beyond the control of the government and all it's troops..

When the trucks don't deliver the food to the grocery stores, the gas, etc.. what do you think will happen? 300 million people depend on grocery stores for all their food..

In rural america where people don't depend on the system it won't be as bad.. in the cities.. total mayhem, death and destruction..

You'll want a firearm.. and it's better if you know how to use it safely..
In the .01% chance or so that this near apocalypse takes place you and 95racer and Bobvela may have a slightly higher chance of scavenging than other people. But in the 99.99% chance that it does not you might find you've wasted a lifetime of thought on whatever base and primitive instinct is driving this all.

[buttslinger]

I have to agree with Trish from a logic standpoint, the only real way to reduce the deaths is to reduce the guns, but as I've said before, this is a Political hot potato, and the Democrats only have so much pull, and talking about it fans the fire and brings the young rednecks to the polls this November.

Something NEW maybe that I might add is that I believe, without bothering to check the stats, that the lion's share of these gruesome murders are done by the gruesome bottom ten percent of the country, the poorest. I think this might be where the USA differs from other countries, the people you saw after Katrina, in the richest country in the World, they couldn't afford a bus ticket outta town. I'm not sure any other country has such a high standard of living, in the face of those with nothing. I used to visit these people in my whoring days, these people don't all sit in their living rooms feeling bad, they go out, have tons of friends, do drugs, commit crimes, get AIDs, go to the Emergency Room for free, this bottom rung of society is taking advantage of the fact that their lives are shit, they fuck like bunnies and get high like a mutherfucker. And it's not like they don't want to hang with the HAVES, the HAVES don't want to hang with THEM. When somebody gives them shit, they don't walk away. There's nowhere to walk away to.

So this poor percentage of society costs the country a lot of money on Police, Jails, Hospitals, Social Services, I remember being offered to buy guns real cheap on the street. Lots of stolen stuff, dirt cheap.

So I guess my point is ....uh, ..oh yeah, you can remove the guns, but the misery will still remain, it might be better to raise the minimum wage rather than ban assault rifles. It's one thing to work at McDonalds in High School, it's quite another to raise a family working there.

The Republicans seem to think if you come down hard on these trouble makers, they'll pull their socks up... , the Democrats seem to want to give them food stamps and unemployment insurance. Both sides agree they'd be better off with jobs.

So calling the stupid people WRONG, ....doesn't mean you win. the WRONG people, the RULES are what fucked them, kept them from getting good jobs. I'm guessing registered voters aren't the problem, it's the people who have never voted in their life, they think voting is for chumps and suckers. They don't come on these forums, they drop by "the corner" and catch up more action in ten minutes than you could get on Hung Angels in a month.

If you're looking for ACTION, check out the ghetto, not HARVARD. You can pick up a machine gun for three hundred bucks. It's an Enigma. Two Americas.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-shaped-by-race-in-america/

[robertlouis]

Anyone take a bet that this moron considered himself a "responsible" gun owner?

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/05/nj-man-shoots-11-year-old-nephew-dead-while-demonstrating-laser-sight-on-his-forehead/

[yodajazz]

You don't seem ti grasp what SHTF really is..

If the power is out for 48 hours in 10 cities.. the USA will show us what chaos is.. If the whole grid goes down.. in 3 days the chaos will be beyond the control of the government and all it's troops..

When the trucks don't deliver the food to the grocery stores, the gas, etc.. what do you think will happen? 300 million people depend on grocery stores for all their food..

In rural america where people don't depend on the system it won't be as bad.. in the cities.. total mayhem, death and destruction..

You'll want a firearm.. and it's better if you know how to use it safely..

Yes it is possible that bad things might happen, but the reality is that it is more likely to not happen. This is a sign of living in fear, that tends to restrict 'positive creativity', or a better way to say it, would be basic happiness about life in general. For some reason Albert Einstein, came to mind. I think of him has an older man constantly thinking about mathematical views of the universe that might help to expand man's views of it. For him there was implied a view of a positive future. Yes there a people who have a greater incidence of violence, such as trans people. but there a many ways to protect yourself with out a gun. sometimes owning a gun will introduce lethal alternatives to a non-lethal situation. I was robbed once. He got the jump on me. It didn't look like a real gun, it could have been a starter pistol. If I had a gun, it would have introduced a certain lethal struggle. I continued walking to the store at night, as it brought me healthy exercise, and beer. I was more aware of my surroundings, but not living with a big fears, still not armed with guns. Instead of thinking about human chaos, what about creating or making something that would be of service to people, and perhaps make you some cash? It is written; "As you give, so shall you receive."

[Prospero]

Here is a good rallying song for the gun folk...
Cows With Guns - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIvndWcMuAM)

[AlexisDVyne]

Yes it is possible that bad things might happen, but the reality is that it is more likely to not happen. This is a sign of living in fear, that tends to restrict 'positive creativity', or a better way to say it, would be basic happiness about life in general. For some reason Albert Einstein, came to mind. I think of him has an older man constantly thinking about mathematical views of the universe that might help to expand man's views of it. For him there was implied a view of a positive future. Yes there a people who have a greater incidence of violence, such as trans people. but there a many ways to protect yourself with out a gun. sometimes owning a gun will introduce lethal alternatives to a non-lethal situation. I was robbed once. He got the jump on me. It didn't look like a real gun, it could have been a starter pistol. If I had a gun, it would have introduced a certain lethal struggle. I continued walking to the store at night, as it brought me healthy exercise, and beer. I was more aware of my surroundings, but not living with a big fears, still not armed with guns. Instead of thinking about human chaos, what about creating or making something that would be of service to people, and perhaps make you some cash? It is written; "As you give, so shall you receive."

Well that's all good and true..

But I'm happy I know how to use firearms safely.. and if I need to..

Personally I'd never want to shoot anything other than a non living target..

My point is with all the nutbars that have stockpiles of guns and amo it might be pertinent to know your way around firearms in the event that you need to..

In many countries they have required basic military training.. everyone in those countries knows how to use a gun.. in Israel it's way more than basic training.. Obama is working on making it mandatory in the USA..

If it comes down to kill or be killed what will you do?

[Prospero]

some clear headed ideas from the NYTimes...

http://nyti.ms/1iZySvK


What Do Guns Say?
By PATRICK BLANCHFIELD MAY 4, 2014, 6:00 PM 459 Comments

Earlier this month, in Bunkerville, Nev., representatives of the Bureau of Land Management withdrew from a tense standoff with supporters of Cliven Bundy, a rancher who owes the federal government over $1 million in unpaid fees for allowing his cattle to graze on public land. The hundreds of self-appointed militia and “states’ rights” activists who flocked to support Bundy, many in full tactical gear and openly carrying assault rifles, blockaded a federal interstate and trained their weapons on B.L.M. employees who sought to negotiate with the rancher and his family. Fearful of a pitched gun battle, the B.L.M. departed, leaving Bundy and his supporters to celebrate, emboldened, with a barbecue.

Toting a weapon in a demonstration gestures as close as possible to outright violence while still technically remaining within the domain of speech.
Bundy, who does not “recognize the federal government as even existing,” has gone on to leverage his spotlight to air a variety of retrograde, racist views. But the ensuing media kerfuffle has deflected attention from the fact that his armed supporters remain, dug in.

On one level, the affair in Bunkerville can be seen as a vestige of Old West range-war mentality, opportunistically remixed with overtones of the militia movements of the early 1990s and an identity-politics firestorm that’s very 2014. But as a transaction between the state and citizens decided not by rule of law, nor by vote or debate, but rather by the simple presence of arms, Bunkerville is deeply troubling. Guns publicly brandished by private individuals decided the outcome. For all Bundy’s appeals to constitutional justification, what mattered at the end of the day was who was willing to take the threat of gunplay the furthest.

Bunkerville is simply the next step in a trend that has been ramping up for some time. Since the election of Barack Obama, guns have appeared in the public square in a way unprecedented since the turbulent 1960s and ’70s — carried alongside signs and on their own since before the Tea Party elections, in a growing phenomenon of “open carry” rallies organized by groups like the Modern American Revolution and OpenCarry.org, and in the efforts by gun rights activists to carry assault weapons into the Capitol buildings in New Mexico and Texas (links to video). According to open carry advocates, their presence in public space represents more than just an expression of their Second Amendment rights, it’s a statement, an “educational,” communicative act — in short, an exercise of their First Amendment freedom of speech. (See this, from the group Ohio Carry, and this Michigan lawsuit.)

This claim bears serious consideration. The First Amendment has historically been much harder to limit than the Second, and so extending the freedom of speech to the open display of weapons raises several urgent questions about how we understand the relationship between expressing ideas and making threats, between what furthers dialogue and what ends it.

But are guns speech? Is carrying a weapon as an act of public protest constitutionally protected under the First Amendment? And if so, what do guns say?

The courts have traditionally recognized “symbolic speech” — actions that convey a clear message — as deserving of First Amendment protection (by, for example, protecting the right of students in Des Moines to wear armbands protesting the Vietnam War). As “the expression of an idea through an activity,” symbolic speech depends heavily on the context within which it occurs. Unlike pure speech, symbolic speech is more susceptible to limitation, as articulated by the Warren court’s 1968 ruling in United States v. O’Brien. The outcome of that case, the O’Brien test, establishes a four-pronged series of qualifications for determining when symbolic speech can be limited: (1) Any limitation must be within the state’s constitutional powers; (2) the limitation must be driven by a compelling governmental interest; (3) that countervailing interest must be unrelated to the content of the speech, touching solely on the “non-communicative aspect” of the act in question; and (4) any limitation must be narrowly tailored and prohibit no more speech than absolutely necessary.

In practical terms, this litmus test suggests that you can carry a gun as symbolic speech, particularly in the context of a pro-Second Amendment demonstration. The state’s clear interest in maintaining public order can be narrowly satisfied by demanding that protesters either carry guns that are unloaded — at least with an open chamber — or which otherwise have the barrel or action blocked. Thus far, open carry protesters have largely followed this rule, notably by sticking tiny American flags into their guns. “If the SWAT team comes down and starts surrounding us with tactical gear, it only takes a minute to pull them out,” the organizer of one such event told reporters. “But that’s not going to happen.”

Seeing weapons featured in a public protest might strike many Americans as outrageous or alarming — something more out of a CNN segment from a foreign conflict zone than in a live broadcast from the steps of the local state capitol. But the courts have held that distressing and outrageous speech is still protected, and that even calls for the overthrow of the government made at armed rallies are protected unless those statements are expressly intended to provoke “imminent lawless action.” The Supreme Court has also extended protection to hyperbolic and figurative speech even when it involves ostensibly threatening the president.

The paradoxical upshot: if you and I get into a heated dispute at the local watering hole, and I say something ambiguous about how you’d best be quiet while casually pulling back my jacket to reveal that I’m packing heat, there’s a solid chance I’ve just committed felony brandishing — but if I stand outside an event featuring the president of the United States with a loaded handgun and a sign invoking Thomas Jefferson’s injunction that the “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” I’m in the clear.

But what does it mean, in a democracy that enshrines freedom of speech, to publicly carry a gun as an expression of political dissent? Toting a weapon in a demonstration changes the stakes, transforming a protest from just another heated transaction in the marketplace of ideas into something else entirely. It’s bringing a gun to an idea-fight, gesturing as close as possible to outright violence while still technically remaining within the domain of speech. Like a military “show of force,” this gesture stays on the near side of an actual declaration of war while remaining indisputably hostile. The commitment to civil disagreement is merely provisional: I feel so strongly about this issue, the gun says, that if I don’t get my way, I am willing to kill for it. As Mao understood, the formal niceties of political persuasion are underwritten by the very real threat of harm. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

We should also note that not all symbolic speech is created equal. On the contemporary stage, those bearing guns in protest are most likely to be white, right-leaning, and rural. As the historian Adam Winkler has documented, this represents a more or less direct reversal of the upheavals of the late ’60s and ’70s, when Republican politicians pursued new gun control legislation in response to armed protests by urban African-American leftists. Today, it is those most sheltered from actual state violence — from the day-to-day reality of police brutality — who also feel most threatened by the state, most free to threaten violence against hypothetical violations, and most entitled to opt out of civil discourse by reaching for their weapons. Our racial double standards for who can safely gesture at political violence are enormous. At least before his racism became public, Bundy and his supporters could point assault weapons at federal agents and be lionized as “patriots” by a United States senator and celebrated on Fox, whereas a single New Black Panther standing near a polling station while holding a billy club prompted calls on that same network for former Navy SEALs to show up in force and “fight back.”

Where does this leave us? Now more than ever, the state’s putative monopoly on violence has been counterbalanced by the free market proliferation of weapons. With over 300 million firearms in private hands in this country, there are nearly as many guns as there are Americans. By this measure, we’ve become a crude democracy not just of the vote or of the idea, but of the bullet.

Contemplating guns as speech, we confront a kind of autoimmune disorder: The tools once instrumental to the birth of our nation, and to the protection of the individual and the state alike, are increasingly turned against both. Guns historically used to midwife and safeguard the right to free speech are now growing ever more cross-wired with it, and speech cannot but be degraded in the process.

Citizens in a democracy make a certain pact with one another: to answer speech with more speech, not violence. No matter how angry what I say makes you, you do not have a right to pull a gun on me. But now the gun has already been drawn, nominally as an act of symbolic speech — and yet it still remains a gun. A slippage has occurred between the First and Second Amendments, and the First suffers as a result. The moral bravery political protest demands is no longer enough; to protest in response now requires the physical bravery to face down men with guns.

This situation is alarming, but it is also tragic. Asking after the propriety of guns in the public square ignores a basic reality: They are already there, and not just in ambiguously threatening demonstrations. We live in an era in which mass shootings have become a tacitly accepted feature of social life. Any space, public or private — offices, movie theaters, malls, street corners, schools — can be transformed at a moment’s notice into the site of a blood bath. Wherever we go, our existence as social selves — our vulnerability to one another in democratically shared spaces — is in the firing line.


Patrick Blanchfield is a doctoral candidate and Woodruff Scholar in Comparative Literature at Emory University and a graduate of the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute. He writes about American gun culture at carteblanchfield.com.

[martin48]

Prospero - A sensible piece that asks some serious questions.

[Stavros]

Yes a very well argued article, particularly in its contrast between the demand for more gun control in the 1960s (similar to that moment after the Civil War) and today. This encapsulates the problem, though some Americans may disagree:

"Contemplating guns as speech, we confront a kind of autoimmune disorder: The tools once instrumental to the birth of our nation, and to the protection of the individual and the state alike, are increasingly turned against both. Guns historically used to midwife and safeguard the right to free speech are now growing ever more cross-wired with it, and speech cannot but be degraded in the process."

[buttslinger]

I think a gun in your hand is closer to your WILL than a fist.
And a rifle with a sight clicks perfectly into the male hunting eye-brain-groove that shaped the human mind. Food on the table.

Convincing the clear headed college educated bookworms that guns are harmful is a far sight different than convincing the 9-5 working stiff nobodies.

There is a lot about the USA that is good.
And lots that is bad.
Can you pare away the bad stuff, or is it all connected like our DNA?


A large part of why the USA is #1 is because our B-17s and B-29s turned our enemy's countries into rubble, while we weren't even touched. Where's the thread on Military Spending!!?????

Maybe guns will be replaced by Drones from Amazon.com that you can make on your Home 3-D Computer Printer. Blow up your boss's house from your Lazy-Boy.

Two hundred years ago Jefferson inked the Louisiana Purchase so Napoleon could march his armies around Europe. We-uns still gots frontier blood in our veins.

[broncofan]

"In practical terms, this litmus test suggests that you can carry a gun as symbolic speech, particularly in the context of a pro-Second Amendment demonstration. The state’s clear interest in maintaining public order can be narrowly satisfied by demanding that protesters either carry guns that are unloaded — at least with an open chamber — or which otherwise have the barrel or action blocked."

It was a good article. But I think in order to satisfy the O'Brien test it would have to be a replica...something not even capable of firing. People would have a right to brandish something that symbolizes a gun but is not a gun (and not capable of functioning as a gun) in order to protest the restriction against brandishing.

In other words, if there were no second amendment concerns in preventing people from brandishing guns in public, there should be no first amendment concerns in doing the same since you shouldn't be able to use as a symbol of protest the very object whose regulation you are protesting. This would be akin to allowing people to protest the regulation of dynamite by carrying dynamite with an unlit fuse.

[martin48]

Fact: The United States has more guns and gun deaths than any other developed country in the world. US has 88 guns per 100 people and 10 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people — more than any of the other 27 developed countries.
Japan, on the other hand, had only .6 guns per 100 people and .06 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people, making it the country with both the fewest guns per capita and the fewest gun-related deaths.


Question: How does having lots of guns make the US safer?

[buttslinger]

America doesn't want to be safe. Even Obama's plan would just close loopholes and eliminate 30 round clips, stuff like that. In order to make a real gun bill with teeth you would need the Republicans to propose it.

My 800 dollar LG washing machine is great for the environment, but it doesn't clean clothes. It cuts off the hot water at ninety degrees, and the detergents no longer have phosphates.

My Honda is safe and computeresquely smart, but changing the starter costs 800 bucks and it no way no how is as fun as that old V-8 of my youth.

Mexicans are being slaughtered so Americans can have FUN with their friends smoking pot. This is no secret.

America still has a WINDOW where fortunes can be made and fun can be had. I'm pretty sure by now we all know that window is shutting, but until then we don't want to be Japanese, or British, or Chinese.

We want supersized Big Mac meals, Marlboros, Cocaine, Motorcycles, and Freedom.

I'd be glad to give up my .38 if everyone else gave up their gun....it's been over a year since I even fondled it. I'd be glad to make my computer history public if everyone else did. There are lots of FREEDOMS I'd be glad to give up, now that I'm old. Mother Nature is a BITCH.

A book with real unslanted relevant charts and graphs and Sherlockian insight about why the USA is so gun happy would be a great read, Nobody here has the time or resources to explain it without their ignorant personal nose getting in the way.

I think people here enjoy the fight more than the correctness. Get married and raise a Family, why doncha??!! ha ha ha (nobody takes someone with a tranny on their arm seriously, don't you know that?)

Don't forget how big the US is, some of our states are as big as England or Japan. I think a few of the states have low amounts of homicidal gun deaths. I'm sure Chicago has more homicides than Japan.

Curious. Indeed.

[AlexisDVyne]

Fact: The United States has more guns and gun deaths than any other developed country in the world. US has 88 guns per 100 people and 10 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people — more than any of the other 27 developed countries.
Japan, on the other hand, had only .6 guns per 100 people and .06 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people, making it the country with both the fewest guns per capita and the fewest gun-related deaths.

Question: How does having lots of guns make the US safer?

Here in Canada we have strict rules for firearms..

We also kill more people with knives than we do with guns.. often the household variety.. This year we might even see death from beatings to be higher than those of firearms..

Out death rate is .5 per 100k (half of the USA) and we have 1.9M licensed users or about 6% of the population.. we own about 7.5M firearms.. about 17 per 100 people..

Everyone must have a license and everyone must take a safety course to get it..

There's official police stats here..
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/facts-faits/index-eng.htm

We have 30 round clips here.. pinned to 5 rounds.. You cannot carry a handgun in public without a special permit.. You cannot carry any loaded firearms really.. You can carry your longarms in your hand tho and have the cartridges in your pocket.. It`s not recommended unless you want to explain yourself to the cops for half an hour.. unless you live up north where that`s kinda normal..

We like our guns in Canada.. but we`d just as soon stab you or strangle you to death by the look of things.. ;)

[robertlouis]

Fact: The United States has more guns and gun deaths than any other developed country in the world. US has 88 guns per 100 people and 10 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people — more than any of the other 27 developed countries.
Japan, on the other hand, had only .6 guns per 100 people and .06 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people, making it the country with both the fewest guns per capita and the fewest gun-related deaths.


Question: How does having lots of guns make the US safer?


Quite. You guys can debate the detail and niceties of the Constitution and its various amendments until the proverbial cows come home, but the facts speak - eloquently - for themselves.

If you can't see a relationship between the vast volumes of firearms held in private hands, with little control in comparison with other developed countries, and the daily litany of slaughter on your streets, in your schools, in your colleges, in your movie theatres, in your homes, you're either in denial, delusional or simply not very bright.

That's my last word on the matter; arguing with the wilfully deaf is a waste of breath which I could put to better use elsewhere.

[broncofan]

Quite. You guys can debate the detail and niceties of the Constitution and its various amendments until the proverbial cows come home, but the facts speak - eloquently - for themselves.

I agree with the rest of your arguments but the Constitution is not brought up as a social policy justification for widespread gun ownership. Our second amendment (the gun one) is an obstacle to passing laws that go as far as many of us would like in restricting gun ownership. I personally don't see owning guns as being much of a civil right, but I didn't write the document. There's still a lot to be said about how we can get rid of guns without offending our founding document.

One of the arguments in this thread has been does widespread gun ownership make people more or less safe. I think that argument has been won a dozen times in this thread but... It will still be revived.

[notdrunk]

Quite. You guys can debate the detail and niceties of the Constitution and its various amendments until the proverbial cows come home, but the facts speak - eloquently - for themselves.

If you can't see a relationship between the vast volumes of firearms held in private hands, with little control in comparison with other developed countries, and the daily litany of slaughter on your streets, in your schools, in your colleges, in your movie theatres, in your homes, you're either in denial, delusional or simply not very bright.

That's my last word on the matter; arguing with the wilfully deaf is a waste of breath which I could put to better use elsewhere.

The study that martin48 is talking about also included suicide by firearms in the tally. It is a fact that Japan has a higher suicide rate than the United States and most of the developed world. However, Japanese citizens use other means to commit suicide because of strict laws on firearms in their country. Since firearm laws in the United States are lax compared to other developed nations, suicidal Americans are more likely use a firearm to commit suicide in the United States than a suicidal Japanese individual. So, there is a distortion in the numbers because of suicides. A year ago, the Washington Post did article on gun deaths and it came to an interesting conclusion: White people are more likely to use a gun to commit suicide than be murdered by a shooter; black people are more likely to die from a shooter than commit suicide by gun.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-shaped-by-race-in-america/

Yes, everybody knows that the United States has higher gun violence; however, don't distort the numbers and blow it out of proportion.

[broncofan]

The study that martin48 is talking about also included suicide by firearms in the tally. It is a fact that Japan has a higher suicide rate than the United States and most of the developed world. However, Japanese citizens use other means to commit suicide because of strict laws on firearms in their country.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-shaped-by-race-in-america/

Yes, everybody knows that the United States has higher gun violence; however, don't distort the numbers and blow it out of proportion.
I don't think the numbers were really deceptive. Some people commit suicide after much deliberation and some people do it impulsively. The same can be said for murder. The more efficiently the object in question completes the act, the more likely it's going to cause unnecessary deaths based on impulsive action.

Suicide rates often vary based on cultural factors including, significantly, that culture's beliefs and attitudes towards suicide. But it is likely that the fact that Japan has fewer guns means fewer people will commit suicide impulsively. But a gun is not the only way to commit suicide or murder. Nobody suggested it was. Only that when someone kills with a gun it is far from inevitable they would have done the same thing with less efficient means.

[notdrunk]

I don't think the numbers were really deceptive. Some people commit suicide after much deliberation and some people do it impulsively. The same can be said for murder. The more efficiently the object in question completes the act, the more likely it's going to cause unnecessary deaths based on impulsive action.

Suicide rates often vary based on cultural factors including, significantly, that culture's beliefs and attitudes towards suicide. But it is likely that the fact that Japan has fewer guns means fewer people will commit suicide impulsively. But a gun is not the only way to commit suicide or murder. Nobody suggested it was. Only that when someone kills with a gun it is far from inevitable they would have done the same thing with less efficient means.

My points are don't blow it out of proportion and understand the numbers. For example, Robert mentions "slaughter" in his latest post. Slaughter is blowing it out of proportion. According to the numbers ("facts"), there isn't a slaughter in the streets. The early 90s were way violent compared to now. Most gun deaths are suicides. The most common known crimes are property crimes.

I am not saying that United States is Maybury; however, it isn't the dirty world of Serpico.

[trish]

The Second Amendment was based on a need; the need of the State to maintain a well regulated militia. At that time the State needed members of its militia to provide their own firearms when possible. That need no longer exists. Given the nature of modern weaponry it is no longer safe for the citizenry at large to arm themselves with the weapons of war. There is no longer any need to own a firearm, nor is there any longer a need for the Second Amendment. Its a vestige of day long past. Let’s repeal it before someone loses an eye.

[martin48]

Some hope!

[Prospero]

High school kids gunned down, A shooter slays people watching a movie. A soldier goes on the rampage at a military base. Militia men face down US Government employees to defend a racist thief. And on and on.

Out of proportion in using the word slaughter to discuss the US obsession with guns? I don't think so notdrunk....

[martin48]

Gun Nutter
A person that refuses to discuss any rational attempt at gun control.


A person "says we can no longer stand by and do nothing while our children get slaughtered"

A gun nutter says "guns don't kill people"


From the Urban Dictionary

[notdrunk]

High school kids gunned down, A shooter slays people watching a movie. A soldier goes on the rampage at a military base. Militia men face down US Government employees to defend a racist thief. And on and on.

Out of proportion in using the word slaughter to discuss the US obsession with guns? I don't think so notdrunk....

Every year more people die on the road than die from firearms. You can look up the numbers to verify. Of course, people don't bring up slaughter when talking about fatalities caused by vehicles. There is an US obsession with cars too. So, yes, it is out of proportion.

[broncofan]

Every year more people die on the road than die from firearms. You can look up the numbers to verify. Of course, people don't bring up slaughter when talking about fatalities caused by vehicles. There is an US obsession with cars too. So, yes, it is out of proportion.
I drive places I could not plausibly walk. Driving enables me to see my relatives and aging parents. There is a danger inherent in driving but we accept the fact that modern life is impracticable without it.

On the other hand guns have the sole function of causing harm. When used for their intended purpose they maim and kill. Their utility is limited to the rarest of circumstances and is greatly outweighed by the destruction they wreak. I can't imagine what would compel you to compare modern transportation to devices whose utility can only be defined in terms of how well they threaten, maim, or kill.

[broncofan]

I think I had this debate about a hundred pages back but it's worth noting as an analogy that people are willing to accept risks for those things that are indispensable. You see this most keenly in the regulation of drugs. If a drug saves lives then it is marketable even if it has a lot of side effects and low toxicity to efficacy.

People shouldn't object to risk alone. They should object to senseless risk. Uncalculated risk. Risk without any expected payoff. What does a gun offer for the risk that a child will accidentally blow his face off? Laughter? Bliss? A cure for disease?