Gun Laws

[Ernest Jones]

I just read that there has been a congressional ban on federal gun violence research since 1996. 

That is CRAZY. A country with ever increasing mass shootings has a ban on researching the possible causes and solutions...that is ****ing insane, people!

 

[CoachB25]

Dave, I am actually torn about this type of scenario some.  I live in Small Town USA.  So, we know who in our small town is pretty good with firearms and who is good with bows.  Deer deer season is huge.  In fact, one of our administrators wished some of the students good luck yesterday during the announcements as deer season is upon us and this is the last weekend of "firearm" season before it turns to muzzle loaders.  The second round of archery season will begin on Monday. 

Anyway, one of the parents of one of my students asked me this week why I don't have my conceal and carry permit.  I just never find the time.  However, this parent said that they would feel much better if I had one.  I know I can shoot with the best of them.  I've been doing it since I was 7.  Still,what happens when there is panic and a bunch of people running around?  I know I won't panic and I know I will hit what I shoot at.  Still, they say Police Officers only hit their target at a rate of something like 37%.  Then again, I know I can out shoot many, if not most of our police force.  How do I know?  I'm their Uncle.  (Reference Small Town)  Still, with all things considered and my reservations, I do believe I'm going to get my Conceal and Carry Permit.  If my wife was in one of these situations, I'd want someone like me there. 

Take care,

Darrell

Edited December 5, 2015 by CoachB25

[Fourputt]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

Really???? What difference does it make? People are dead. Their families don't care whether it was Islamic terrorists, bronze star winning Army veterans, Ku Klux Klan members, crips and bloods, crazed loners or serial killers. They are dead and never coming back.

Stop belittling people who don't agree with you as weak and insensitive. Neither side has shown a willingness to work together to figure out how to solve the problem. Doing nothing has not solved the problem. Current gun laws have not solved the problem. More gun law may not solve the problem.

How do we solve the problem? That is the question that needs to be answered.

The first step is to agree that there is a problem.  The NRA doesn't seem to think so, or they would not be so rabidly opposed to sitting down for a serious discussion.  All you have to do is mention any suggestion of gun control and they put up their soundproof wall and start spouting their paranoid rhetoric.  They are extremists just as immovable as the ISIS terrorists that we are about to go to full out war against.  Yet they currently have near total control of any attempt by Congress to enact any legislation trying to address the problem of the proliferation of non hunting type weapons in this country.  

1 hour ago, newtogolf said:

Where am I belittling people who don't agree?  Have you read my last few posts where I even offer compromises.  I have kids, I'd be happy if we lived in a world where I didn't have to own a gun to protect my family from criminals.

I'm okay with tightening the reigns on the mentally ill getting guns and not allowing the actual delivery of the gun at gun shows but I also want to see us enforce tougher penalties (death penalty) on those who take lives and I don't see the anti-gun people willing to make those compromises.

It's a two part problem, Problem #1 we have people who wish to harm others in our society.  Problem #2, guns are an easy method to harm people with minimal risk to ones own health.  If we make the penalty so severe (death) and remove access to their weapon of choice (guns) we may actually reduce the number of shooting.  You can't fix this by only addressing one side of the equation.

I don't feel the need to own a gun for self defense.  I've made it through 69 years without ever being threatened by anyone with a firearm.  I admit that I avoid areas where street violence is prevalent, although I've spent many an evening at a couple of bars in a "bad" part of Denver, still without any threats.

It's been proven time and again that threat of punishment, even capital punishment, does not stop crime.  Criminals don't commit crimes with the expectation of getting caught as part of the plan.  

1 minute ago, Lihu said:

If the SB terrorists decided to use pipe bombs instead of their weapons would you want to create tight restrictions on selling pipes as well?

It makes a big difference who committed the murders and why. Paris had over a hundred casualties, and SB had 14. If everyone at that party was armed and trained, it's possible there would have been 2 or less killed.

I do think that we are asking a lot of our citizens to be on a constant vigil for terrorists and prepare themselves for war, but we are at war against terror. Not just ISIS types either.

Getting rid of guns does nothing to curb violence. People will always find a way to kill others.

I never hear of a drive by knifing.  Sure, you can commit murder with a knife, but mass murder?  Not very likely.  Terrorism?  Uh-uh, not a chance.  The knife or club wielder has to get within arms reach of his intended victim to do his deed and that puts him in harms way.  

Minimizing access to extreme firearms cuts down on the distance factor, and to some extent the fear factor.  One or two unarmed men could take down a violent attacker who just has a knife - they might get a serious cut but far less chance of a fatal blow - while those same two would run and try to hide from a man armed with an M-16 and a 30 round magazine.  

I'm an advocate for controlling the type of weapon that can legally be owned and used by the average citizen.  I'm not in favor of imposing restrictions on firearms which are legal for hunting or designed for target shooting.  The average citizen does not need military firearms.  If they were not legal for the average person then anyone seen with one is immediately under scrutiny.  To even obtain one he would have to go through some sort of illegal black market source, so to even make an attempt to get one would be an actionable offense.  Contrary to the delusions of the NRA, that does not directly lead to an unarmed populous, but it does make it much more difficult for the extreme radical to obtain a weapon that can be readily used for mass killings.  

It may not be a total solution, because that would involve attacking the mindset that surrenders to violence as an answer to a perceived problem.  It would be a step in a new direction, and that has to be better than all of the time wasted shouting at each other.

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, Ernest Jones said:

I just read that there has been a congressional ban on federal gun violence research since 1996. 

That is CRAZY. A country with ever increasing mass shootings has a ban on researching the possible causes and solutions...that is ****ing insane, people!

Jason, the "ban" blocks the Centers for Disease Control from researching it.

It's not nearly as insidious as your post implies.

I don't know enough about the charter or purpose of the CDC, but at first impressions, I'd say that they should probably focus on viruses, bacteria, genetic disorders, and other such things.

Quote

On Wednesday morning, a group of doctors in white coats arrived on Capitol Hill to deliver a petition to Congress. Signed by more than 2,000 physicians around the country, it pleads with lawmakers to lift a restriction that for nearly two decades has essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.

Would you be as outraged if you discovered that NASA was prevented from conducting research on gun violence? Maybe it's really not supposed to be the CDC's area of study and expertise?

[CoachB25]

What about a drive by bombing?  What about the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski or others like him.  If a gang wants to kill, it is just as easy to make a bomb.  How about Timothy McVeigh and Oklahoma City? 

Edited December 5, 2015 by CoachB25

[Ernest Jones]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

 

[Fourputt]

Just now, CoachB25 said:

What about a drive by bombing?  What about the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski or others like him.  If a gang wants to kill, it is just as easy to make a bomb. 

No it isn't.  Most attempts by mass killers to use bombs along with guns have failed.  Either the bombs don't detonate or they simply aren't effective when they do.  This is an unsupportable argument.

[Ernest Jones]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Jason, the "ban" blocks the Centers for Disease Control from researching it.

It's not nearly as insidious as your post implies.

I don't know enough about the charter or purpose of the CDC, but at first impressions, I'd say that they should probably focus on viruses, bacteria, genetic disorders, and other such things.

Oh. I didn't realize that the ban was limited to the CDC. I understood it as a ban on any federal body conducting this research. So, who are the federal bodies studying this phenomenon? And why would they ban the CDC from studying it? I would think with the high frequency of these incidents, regardless of whether they are committed by brown people, white people, or cops, you would welcome as much data a research as possible in hopes of coming up with ways to address it.  

[Dave2512]

9 minutes ago, CoachB25 said:

What about a drive by bombing?  What about the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski or others like him.  If a gang wants to kill, it is just as easy to make a bomb.  How about Timothy McVeigh and Oklahoma City? 

It's not a good comparison if for no other reason it happens less and the measures to prevent it far more complicated. Bombers typically aren't on anyone's radar until it happens. The GC proponents aren't just concerned with mass shootings but all shootings.

[Fourputt]

1 minute ago, Ernest Jones said:

Oh. I didn't realize that the ban was limited to the CDC. I understood it as a ban on any federal body conducting this research. So, who are the federal bodies studying this phenomenon? And why would they ban the CDC from studying it? I would think with the high frequency of these incidents, regardless of whether they are committed by brown people, white people, or cops, you would welcome as much data a research as possible in hopes of coming up with ways to address it.  

Yeah.  It has to be some sort of mental defect that sets a person off to the point of killing multiple victims in a premeditated manner.  That would seem to be right up their alley.

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

The NRA…

The NRA is a problem, but please realize that "gun owners" are not synonymous with "the NRA." I don't support 99% of what they do.

19 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

I don't feel the need to own a gun for self defense.  I've made it through 69 years without ever being threatened by anyone with a firearm.  I admit that I avoid areas where street violence is prevalent, although I've spent many an evening at a couple of bars in a "bad" part of Denver, still without any threats.

Your experiences are one tiny data point. Every day, violent crimes are prevented or minimized with guns.

There's a saying in computing, too: there are two kinds of people - those who have lost data and those who will. "I've never backed up my computer, and I've never lost data" only applies until it doesn't anymore.

No, I'm not guaranteeing you'll wish you had a gun some day. Not at all. The vast majority of people won't need a gun for self protection in their lives, ever. But others aren't willing to risk those odds.

Plus, some guns are owned because people hunt with them. Or they enjoy shooting at targets. Shooting a gun can be fun.

19 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

I never hear of a drive by knifing.  Sure, you can commit murder with a knife, but mass murder?  Not very likely.  Terrorism?  Uh-uh, not a chance. The knife or club wielder has to get within arms reach of his intended victim to do his deed and that puts him in harms way.

Pedantic point: beheadings are a form of terrorism, no?

Also… http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/asia/china-railway-attack/ - 29 dead, 130 injured. From knives. First result in the first Google search I ran… I don't care enough to look for more.

I fully agree that something needs to be done about guns. I just want it to be effective, not just a gesture that wastes everyone's time and money.

And, as @RandallT pointed out, I'd like it to attack the priorities, which may or may not be different than the hot-button issues of the day.

19 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Minimizing access to extreme firearms cuts down on the distance factor, and to some extent the fear factor.

What is an "extreme firearms"? Automatic weapons have been illegal for years… decades. There are plenty of more powerful weapons used to hunt GROUNDHOGS than an AR-15.

19 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

I'm an advocate for controlling the type of weapon that can legally be owned and used by the average citizen. I'm not in favor of imposing restrictions on firearms which are legal for hunting or designed for target shooting.

An AR-15 can be used to hunt. Far more powerful rifles are used to hunt. Even, as mentioned above, to hunt groundhogs.

19 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

The average citizen does not need military firearms.

Please define "military firearm". Then please define "hunting rifle."

6 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Yeah.  It has to be some sort of mental defect that sets a person off to the point of killing multiple victims in a premeditated manner.  That would seem to be right up their alley.

I disagree. Viruses, bacteria, etc. are right up their alley. Mental illness would be "up the alley" of NIMH or something.

[CoachB25]

18 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

No it isn't.  Most attempts by mass killers to use bombs along with guns have failed.  Either the bombs don't detonate or they simply aren't effective when they do.  This is an unsupportable argument.

Tell McVeigh and Kaczynski that.  However, this post above is a pretty good example of someone who doesn't spend much time with muzzle loaders etc.  Invariable, when one loads their own shells or has powder around, things go boom.  McVeigh just need 5,000 lbs of ammonia nitrate and some gadgets.  He killed 168 people.  You live in Colorado.  You might be around farming and so that as easy to get as a hamburger at a fast food restaurant.  I'd love to see the stats behind your supportable assertion.  No one in the Middle East or these suicide bombers seem to have a problem with making thing go boom. 
 

Edited December 5, 2015 by CoachB25
Typo

[Fourputt]

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

The NRA is a problem, but please realize that I don't know many gun owners who support the NRA.

Your experiences are one tiny data point. Every day, violent crimes are prevented or minimized with guns.

There's a saying in computing, too: there are two kinds of people - those who have lost data and those who will. "I've never backed up my computer, and I've never lost data" only applies until it doesn't anymore.

No, I'm not guaranteeing you'll wish you had a gun some day. The vast majority of people won't need a gun for self protection in their lives, ever. But others aren't willing to risk those odds.

Pedantic point: beheadings are a form of terrorism, no?

Also… http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/asia/china-railway-attack/ - 29 dead, 130 injured. First result in Google… I don't care enough to look for more. I fully agree that something needs to be done. I just want it to be effective, not just a gesture that wastes everyone's time and money.

What is an "extreme firearms"? Automatic weapons have been illegal for years… decades. There are plenty of more powerful weapons used to hunt GROUNDHOGS than an AR-15.

An AR-15 can be used to hunt. Far more powerful rifles are used to hunt… even groundhogs.

Please define "military firearm". Then please define "hunting rifle."

I disagree. Viruses, bacteria, etc. are right up their alley. Mental illness would be "up the alley" of NIMH or something.

I'll give you the comment on CDC.  Don't really know what their charter sets as their mission.

I will address just one of your other points (I'm headed out of the house), since in my opinion, most of them are simply argument, not discussion.  I admit that I haven't been around the hunting crowd for a while, but when I lived in Montana, a rifle used for hunting was restricted to a 5 round magazine, not 20 or 30.  I knew of nobody who used an automatic rifle for hunting - a few guys used automatic shotguns, but not rifles.  Also very few experienced hunters would use a .223 round for hunting anything but varmints.  It simply doesn't have the stopping power with anything but a perfect kill shot.  The smallest anyone I knew used even for deer or antelope was a .270.

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

I will address just one of your other points (I'm headed out of the house), since in my opinion, most of them are simply argument, not discussion.

I don't know what that means, but if it's meant to downplay or belittle the post, then stop. I addressed points in your post and sought clarification on others. That's a discussion.

16 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

I admit that I haven't been around the hunting crowd for a while, but when I lived in Montana, a rifle used for hunting was restricted to a 5 round magazine, not 20 or 30.

That does not seem to be backed by facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-capacity_magazine_ban . (10 is the lowest limit I'd heard of, which seems to be backed by that article.) Maybe it was 5 in Wyoming at one time…? - I didn't search very long. Regardless, is magazine capacity the thing you want to stand by when I asked you to define "military firearm" and what differentiates it from a "hunting rifle"?

High-capacity magazines are available by the millions. They're easy to modify to expand their capacity. They can even be printed by 3D printers. Furthermore, if a criminal can't do any of those three things, they can just… carry more magazines around. A mentally deranged asshole intent on killing people can change a magazine out in seconds, while walking toward more victims. Magazine capacity is almost the epitome of a gesture that does nothing to solve the problem.

16 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

I knew of nobody who used an automatic rifle for hunting - a few guys used automatic shotguns, but not rifles.

Automatic weapons have been illegal for decades (and weren't used in CA or any recent mass killing AFAIK). I also doubt you knew guys who used automatic shotguns. Semi-automatic, maybe…

16 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Also very few experienced hunters would use a .223 round for hunting anything but varmints.

I hunted deer primarily with a .222. I hunted groundhog (favor to farmers, an enjoyable way to spend an evening) with a .30-06 or a 30-30… far more powerful.

16 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

It simply doesn't have the stopping power with anything but a perfect kill shot. The smallest anyone I knew used even for deer or antelope was a .270.

A .222 has plenty of stopping power. Perhaps in the plains states where you're looking to take a deer at 200+ yards you needed more power, but I hunted white tail deer quite successfully (one took a few steps before collapsing, the rest literally died before they hit the ground where they stood) with a .222. We hunt in the woods here and shots rarely reach 60+ yards.

---

So again, Rick, please define and differentiate between "military firearms" and "hunting rifle."

[CoachB25]

I did want to edit my previous post to make one clarification but too late.  Ammonia Nitrate is tacked.  However, we have had a rash of thefts in my area, it can be used for meth production along with explosives. 

[Dave2512]

Sure we get it bombs are dangerous. But the US doesn't have a bomb problem.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, Lihu said:

If the SB terrorists decided to use pipe bombs instead of their weapons would you want to create tight restrictions on selling pipes as well?

It makes a big difference who committed the murders and why. Paris had over a hundred casualties, and SB had 14. If everyone at that party was armed and trained, it's possible there would have been 2 or less killed.

I do think that we are asking a lot of our citizens to be on a constant vigil for terrorists and prepare themselves for war, but we are at war against terror. Not just ISIS types either.

Getting rid of guns does nothing to curb violence. People will always find a way to kill others.

I think you are misunderstanding what I am trying to say. I don't think it matters who commits the killings or even what their possible motivation is; ideology, rage, jealousy, revenge, etc. It doesn't matter what their religion, economic status, gender, race is either. What matters is they are willing to take another human life as a result of the motivation.

I'm not talking about protecting yourself either. I am talking about calculated, premeditated homicide. For most of us, we have a barrier that is not crossed. We don't think that way. But there is something happening with these people that allows them to cross that barrier. We need to understand why that happens and figure out a way to reduce it from happening.

Arguing about gun laws, death penalty, religious and political affiliations doesn't attack the real problem. 

If a process is flammable, we can add all the fire protection systems and sensors we can to mitigate the risk. But the risk is always there because we can never think of all possible scenarios. The only way to eliminate the risk is to make the process not flammable. BTW, I deal with this in my job.

No amount of increase/decrease in gun laws, military action, death penalty deterrents, deputizing and arming everyone, as you have suggested, will reduce the real cause of murder. We've had those in place for a long time and yet we still have this happening all the time.

We need to study the human part of this problem and figure out why. I know this is a very difficult thing to do. It feels insurmountable. But so was flying and computers and space flight and mapping the human genome and eradicating disease. And yet when we put our marvelous human intelligence behind it, we were able to solve those problems. And they all seem simple now, don't they?

[Jeremie Boop]

Seriously people, gun related crimes that are committed by those  who legally purchased the guns is in the low single digit percentage. These are just gun crimes, not even crimes that actually result in injuries and/or deaths. Do you really think increasing the difficulty to obtain weapons legally is going to have any significant impact on the number of lives lost? People who are going to commit these crimes find ways to obtain weapons no matter what. Focus needs to be on finding and punishing people who are selling or own guns illegally. That is how we reduce gun violence and death, not by making it harder for people to legally obtain firearms. That being said, I still am for the requirement of background checks at gun shows, and/or all gun sales having to go through shops with a FFL because I don't see that as making it harder to obtain a firearm legally just making the process the same across the board.