Own a Assault Weapon? soon the Sheriff will be at your home

[buttslinger]

There are towns in North Dakota where everybody has guns, and there's no crime, nobody locks their door. They look at gun crime as a problem of the cities, with it's gangs, drugs, welfare checks, high cost of living, and rampant homosexuality.

[robertlouis]

There are towns in North Dakota where everybody has guns, and there's no crime, nobody locks their door. They look at gun crime as a problem of the cities, with it's gangs, drugs, welfare checks, high cost of living, and rampant homosexuality.

Gays with guns??

Only if they match the outfit, honeybunch.

[brickcitybrother]

The analogies to cars and medical malpractice don't even withstand the mildest scrutiny.

Every year millions of people undergo life-saving treatments and have surgery and the risk of death, while small in each instance, is going to add up on the aggregate. Millions of people drive cars and they need to in order to live a modern lifestyle which means living an unwalkable distance from where they work. Before airbags and seatbelts became a virtual mandate there were thousands of unnecessary deaths a year. In fact, under the Reagan administration as I've said before, the Department of Transportation misunderstood its mandate and did not want to burden car manufacturers in the name of safety.

Further, if you look at the regulatory framework in the medical field, doctors are not immunized from liability the way the gun manufacturers are. Have you heard of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act? It provides broader protection from products liability for gun manufacturers than drug companies have under Comment K of the Second Restatement of Torts. Comment k was included in the restatement of the law based on the understanding that some drugs had great risks but even greater benefits. They were therefore labeled, unavoidably dangerous. Comment K has subsequently been stripped of its protective power for drug manufacturers because it was superfluous. In short, risk-utility analysis (the previous standard) if applied correctly, accounts for this category of so-called unavoidably dangerous products.

What this all means is that big pharma is a heavily regulated industry and companies are susceptible to lawsuits even when they're creating drugs to unclog your arteries or treat cancer. Doctors do not have a good faith defense to malpractice and are held up to professional standards regardless of intent, as they should be. Gun manufacturers, on the other hand, have virtual immunity from suit even for creative actions such as negligent marketing, which would allow them to be sued for directing their advertisement of assault weapons to criminals.

Finally, to hammer home the final point. People need some form of transport just to live in urban areas. People need medical care and prescription drugs. The argument for the necessity of guns is far weaker and almost makes this entire exercise pointless because it's so intuitive.

The PLCAA-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act
Just a wiki, but why don't you see why Congress saw fit to prevent accountability in the marketplace. Immunity from suit.

Comment K of the Restatement-http://uknowledge.uky.edu/law_facpub/13/

Not a great article on comment k imo, or how it has been interpreted subsequently, but it does demonstrate that drug manufacturers are far more accountable than gun manufacturers in products liability law.

Unfortunately... you miss each point I made.

1st - There should be regulation regarding gun ownership greater than exists today.
2nd - The first point means that I am in favor of gun ownership - if the first point can be accomplished.

3rd - The numbers are important. Gun deaths are like shark attacks - they take a greater proportion of attention then appropriate. Guns are easy news stories with easy taglines that can be exploited.

[fivekatz]

I can - and you know very well which side of the debate I'm on - but would putting up the same stats for tobacco deaths make diehard smokers stop? Unlikely, I'd suggest. And it's essentially the same with the most vociferous and extreme advocates of minimum or preferably no control on guns. Some lobbies and interests simply won't listen regardless of how often you confront them with the facts.

The possible difference in this argument is that while no matter how much the media talked about the threats of smoking, die hard smokers would not quit society as a whole became very open to limiting the rights of smokers, in planes, in restaurants and eventual almost all public places and in some parts of the US within 150 feet of a building. Add to that the taxation on cigarettes made ownership and usage quite difficult.

Tobacco deaths have dramatically dropped. In states in the US like California where they have been most aggressive about dealing with tobacco use in public places and education about the dangers of tobacco use, health consequences from tobacco and the private and public health sector care costs have dropped the most as of course have tobacco related fatalities.

There is no prohibition or magic wand to end the effect of firearms on mankind or in the more limited view the citizens of the US. But a public more educated and faced to hear every day what damage our current lack of attention to firearm safety/ownership issues present the more likely that popular opinion will turn against the current belief that this issue isn't a big deal.

The tobacco industry was able to manipulate public policy as long or longer than the NRA and the gun manufacturers have and while tobacco still lives they are contained and IMHO so can firearms be contained. And if 12,000 deaths a year and countless injured can be reduced by 25% 0r maybe 75% than that would be a great step forward IMHIO.

[brickcitybrother]

One thing the car accidents are just that ACCIDENTS! They were not intended. Medical mistakes are a thing that happens, most of the time it is terminally ill patients as a last ditch effort to save their live and doctors always tell the patient and the family there is always a chance that you can die. Obesity is mostly the persons choice and the government can not tell people when and what they can't eat to force them to make them skinny, others it is in their genetic code and then no matter what they will be obese. Cancer would be cured if we stopped sending all of the new science field students to work on the new iPhone, just so we can have a jack on the bottom, or new tablets when laptops work just fine, we would probably have cancer solved by now.

Although with guns, some are accidents (probably about 5-10%). The rest are split between police and murders (90-95%). And in most cases the police need to kill because the person has a gun him/herself. The other part is conscious decisions to kill.

Car accidents are not planed in 99% of the time, medical mistakes are a risk we all take with any medical care to keep us alive and is not planned at all, unless the doctor is a psychopath. Gun deaths on the other hand if any one take a gun to use to kill it is a decision that they made, is not an accident or a risk to keep us alive because of an illness or an accident outside of our control.

The numbers are the numbers... More people are killed by knives than rifles in this country, but the media and the pols are over-concerned about AR-15s and magazine sizes.

[brickcitybrother]

Brickcitybrother, you bring up some good points as far as other things in the world that should be of concern. But that does not change the on-going debate in US about sensible regulation, registration and licensing of firearms.

Auto safety is an interesting topic to bring up. For the longest time the lobbies for auto manufactures and the auto makers themselves always claim that the carnage on the highways was human error and not the product. But after years of infighting safety standards were applied such as seat belts, air bags, better bumpers, better side body construction, superior brakes, break away steering columns were added and the fatalities per capita were radically reduced. Not eliminated reduced.

Then there is the issue of cancer and how many more people a year it kills than guns do and if one looks at what we spend on cancer research as a government versus what we spend on our military that too is shameful.

While idealistically I would love to see us become a society without guns, that is not going to happen, any more than we were going to ban cars.

So what I suggest is we treat the guns just like cars. You need to register it, you need a license to operate it and your license to operate will be controlled by your first passing a simple test just like you would to operate a car and it would be limited to what you as a citizen need to operate.

Now there aren't good reasons for the average citizen to own an assault weapon, so just like the average driver does not have a license to operate a commercial 18 wheeler, the average citizen would not have the a license to operate a assault weapon. Without a license, one should not be allowed to register their assault weapon and since registration could take place at the time of sale, assault weapons would only be sold to those who can show occupational need for assault weapons.

That little bit was just spit balling. But your car analogy was a good chance to show how industry argues a point to distract (people kill people not guns - cars don't kill - drivers error does).

You caught on to one of the points I was making ... simply regulate guns better. Get real background checks and don't allow ANY sales without them. Its a start... but not the last definitive answer.

[brickcitybrother]

Total death figures can be helpful but the other components to consider are this. What effort is required in each case to reduce the number of deaths? Cancer kills millions of people but it has been exceedingly difficult to come up with effective treatments for all of its different manifestations. The research effort continues and money spent on cancer research is still money well spent. Cars? From decade to decade they do get safer. No more Corvair impaling people with the steering column. No more three wheel motorcycles that flip over when turned. SUVs are less likely to flip because manufacturers have been sued and responded by building safer vehicles.

You also cannot look at total number of people killed by an implement without considering its utility. This is common sense. Comparing the number of deaths from transport to the number of deaths from a firearm is braindead unless you can greatly reduce the risk in our transportation system without making automobiles less useful. I don't think any reasonable person could believe that the harm to commerce caused by disallowing civilians to own assault weapons would somehow be similar to the threat of getting rid of highways and cars.

Gun manufacturers have gotten a form of legal immunity that serves no good legal or public policy purpose. Drugs are safer because drug manufacturers are liable for millions every year. Why should guns be shielded and not drugs? You want to encourage the development of prescription treatments for hard to cure diseases and discourage the development of equipment that facilitates mass murder.

Anyhow, it is tremendously disturbing that this guy was able to get his hands on assault weaponry.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...munity-leaders

Again - the 'Assault weapons are the problem' point. To which I say again - more people die from being stabbed than with ANY TYPE OF RIFLE (of which assault weapons are a subset). I think that ends the argument regarding are greater concern over assault weapons.

[brickcitybrother]

Total death figures can be helpful but the other components to consider are this. What effort is required in each case to reduce the number of deaths? Cancer kills millions of people but it has been exceedingly difficult to come up with effective treatments for all of its different manifestations. The research effort continues and money spent on cancer research is still money well spent. Cars? From decade to decade they do get safer. No more Corvair impaling people with the steering column. No more three wheel motorcycles that flip over when turned. SUVs are less likely to flip because manufacturers have been sued and responded by building safer vehicles.

You also cannot look at total number of people killed by an implement without considering its utility. This is common sense. Comparing the number of deaths from transport to the number of deaths from a firearm is braindead unless you can greatly reduce the risk in our transportation system without making automobiles less useful. I don't think any reasonable person could believe that the harm to commerce caused by disallowing civilians to own assault weapons would somehow be similar to the threat of getting rid of highways and cars.

Gun manufacturers have gotten a form of legal immunity that serves no good legal or public policy purpose. Drugs are safer because drug manufacturers are liable for millions every year. Why should guns be shielded and not drugs? You want to encourage the development of prescription treatments for hard to cure diseases and discourage the development of equipment that facilitates mass murder.

Anyhow, it is tremendously disturbing that this guy was able to get his hands on assault weaponry.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...munity-leaders

Again - the 'Assault weapons are the problem' point. To which I say again - more people die from being stabbed than with ANY TYPE OF RIFLE (of which assault weapons are a subset). I think that ends the argument regarding are greater concern over assault weapons.


PS - Thank you for raising the level of your point and the debate by implying I'm braindead. Great argument.

[robertlouis]

Again - the 'Assault weapons are the problem' point. To which I say again - more people die from being stabbed than with ANY TYPE OF RIFLE (of which assault weapons are a subset). I think that ends the argument regarding are greater concern over assault weapons.


PS - Thank you for raising the level of your point and the debate by implying I'm braindead. Great argument.

Maybe, but you can't kill 20 people in 30 seconds with a knife.

[buttslinger]

I know I'm coming off as a gun lover here, one problem is tobacco and guns have a lobby with lots of cash behind them, and in the USA, we have a President, not a King, and Obama needs a serious outcry from the public to get anything done. I still don't know why it's the ATF, Bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. does that make sense?

So while Guns have people with a monetary concern backing them up, Sane people have to convince people that there are a lot of things out there that can kill ya. Like Big Macs may kill more people than .38s

Here's the top 15 killers that topped murder in the US in 2010, according to Reuters:

1. Heart disease (595,444 deaths)

2. Malignant neoplasms (573,855)

3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases (137,789)

4. Cerebrovascular diseases (129,180)

5. Accidents (118.043)

6. Alzheimer's disease (83,30

7. Diabetes (68,905)

8. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (50,472)

9. Influenza and pneumonia (50,003)

10 Suicide (37,793)

11. Septicemia (34,843)

12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (31,802)

13. Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (26,577)

14. Parkinson's disease (21,963)

15. Pneumonitis due to solids of liquids (17,001)