Gun Laws

[CoachB25]

39 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

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

Dave, you missed the point.  That's fine.  I'm not here to argue.  However, don't go visit some of your neighbors. (Relatives that live in Colorado)  I know them.  They have guns and they make things go boom. 

The President just made a statement that "we know that Assault Rifles were used" ...  Why does he mislead the American Public?  He has to know full well that the AR 15 is not an Assault Rifle.  Therefore, he is absolutely lying to the American People.  He would be one of those that would tell the ignorant that "AR" stands for Assault Rifle.  In fact, it does not.  The AR15 does not "fit the definition" of an assault rifle.  It is not "fully automatic!" 

Edited to add:

Just because a weapon looks like an assault rifle as does the AR15, in function it is not.  Looks don't determine the definition but people are so ignorant of the differences.

Edited December 5, 2015 by CoachB25

[Dave2512]

I am going to

21 minutes ago, CoachB25 said:

Dave, you missed the point.  That's fine.  I'm not here to argue.  However, don't go visit some of your neighbors. (Relatives that live in Colorado)  I know them.  They have guns and they make things go boom.

I didn't miss the point just don't see why bringing topics to a gun thread that don't belong in the discussion to be productive. Your angle is guns aren't the problem because lunatics use other weapons to kill. This is true but those problems are considerably smaller than gun violence.

I own guns, I have a CCW permit, I am not worried about being able to defend myself because I don't fear being a victim of a mass shooting or any other gun violence because it's probably not going to happen to me. I haven't taken guns out of my house besides to move from one home to another in a very long time.

I value my rights but I don't like the points I see others making. I don't like seeing people split on gun issues based on party lines. I don't like seeing people using other beliefs to close their minds to GC just because someone they didn't vote for calls for change. I don't like political back and forth between lawmakers stopping the conversation before it starts with fear mongering.

We should be able to admit there is gun a problem and have a better suggestion than we need more or less guns.

[JonMA1]

14 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

I don't know.  I don't have any answers other than I believe doing nothing - which we've been doing for awhile now -is the wrong solution.

And I say "solution" because I strongly believe that this is a problem.  Others do not and that flabbergasted me.  Try something - anything - and if it works, great, but if it doesn't, try something else.

I don't know what the solution is either. I can only imagine what my perspective would be if I were to lose someone I care about to a gun related act of violence. It would almost certainly be different than it is now, and could go to either extreme.

In my world, the purpose of a firearm is not to kill other people any more than a kitchen knife is. Meaning, I would use either to defend my family in the rare possibility of a home invasion (for example), but have never obtained one just for that purpose. Maybe I'm in the minority here. Having said that, if the potential for a real threat was introduced into my life, I'd hate to see that option taken away. Does that make sense? 

---

I think there have been some suggestions in this thread that most of us could live with. I would just hate to see a knee-jerk reaction passed just because "something" had to be done. If change is needed, it should be very incremental change and based on logic. 

I'm not much of an alarmist when it comes to this country going to hell in the way of an apocalypse or civil war. As such, I don't have a secret armory loaded with survival gear and weaponry. Ironically, my fear is that an issue like this - if handled improperly - could tear this country apart. Right or wrong, I hope the government realizes how polarizing this issue can be and proceeds with caution.

[Fourputt]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

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.

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.

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…

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.

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."

You know I'm not getting into this argument.  You are clearly on the pro do nothing side of the issue so nothing I say can possibly move you.  I should have just bit my tongue and stayed quiet in the first place.  I'm not a radical anti gun person, but something has to start somewhere, but as long as people keep spouting your type of arguments, nothing is ever going to change.  If you can't tell the difference between a modern military type weapon and a hunting rifle, then maybe you need to play some Call of Duty.

(And yes I know the difference between semi-auto and automatic)

[Pretzel]

59 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

We should be able to admit there is gun a problem and have a better suggestion than we need more or less guns.

This is important. In reading through the recent posts, no effective (while concealed carry usually means well, it again wouldn't work in those aforementioned "gun-free" zones) solution has been offered. Arguing back and forth over the merits of gun control is fine, but accomplishes nothing. A blanket statement of  "we need more gun control" is wrong because the gun control must be effective in order for it to b a solution to anything 

I don't know what an effective solution would be, and I think that most people are in the same boat. That is why it's such a hard issue and creates such large rifts between people.

[saevel25]

The issue is, there will never be an outright ban on guns in this country till the 2nd amendment is changed.

Since there will never be an outright ban then there will always be guns available to people who want to use them for nefarious reasons. 

This harping of gun control by politicians is just that, a political move to bolster or rile up their base of electorates. There is nothing meaningful here about it. In the end the biggest thing they could do is expand the assault rifle ban to include semi-automatic weapons as well. 

Another avenue would be to make those found to have given their weapon to someone who used it, or sold it to someone illegally is make them negligent in the crime being committed using that gun. I put a stat up previously that showed when guns were used in a violent crime a good percentage of them were from either a friend or a relative. That or they bought the gun legally. 

You will not change the buying the gun legally unless you are willing to profile, no selling guns to black males from the ages of 18 to 40 who live in urban areas. 

You will never see an outright ban of guns in this country till you get 2/3rds of the house and senate, or 2/3rds of the state legislatures to propose changing the 2nd amendment. Then you need 3/4ths the states to ratify it. 

In the end you need guns to have less than a 25% dislike to even probably have a shot. In 2010, 54% of the country wanted less strict laws or keep the laws the same. So there is a long way to go on this one. 

 

[Dave2512]

We don't need bans. We criteria tougher than having not having a criminal record. We need education and a way to determine who is qualified to own a gun. You can't get a drivers license without passing a test.

Anyone that's taken a CCW class knows it's a joke. Nobody fails and the certificate of completion nothing more than a participation trophy. 

[CoachB25]

49 minutes ago, Dave2512 said:

We don't need bans. We criteria tougher than having not having a criminal record. We need education and a way to determine who is qualified to own a gun. You can't get a drivers license without passing a test.

Anyone that's taken a CCW class knows it's a joke. Nobody fails and the certificate of completion nothing more than a participation trophy. 

Dave, with all due respect, what will the above matter to inner cities where the violence is rampant?  You're focused on these tragic events or suicides or ...  Criminals are going to continue to kill using handguns.  All of these "stats" every anti gun person cites never contains the good that guns do.  The main stream media as they shill for the Democrats and the anti gun lobby make sure the negatives are reported and the positives rarely make air time. 

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Jeremie Boop said:

Seriously people, gun related crimes that are committed by those  who legally purchased the guns is in the low single digit percentage.

Yep. People don't seem to get that.

You can't just make things illegal, because a lot of the guns and bombs and things used to do this are obtained illegally.

3 hours ago, Fourputt said:

You know I'm not getting into this argument.  You are clearly on the pro do nothing side of the issue so nothing I say can possibly move you.

Rick, that's a total complete cop-out, and it's disingenuous at best. It shows a complete inability to recognize the many false or misleading things you said, and it shows an inability to read what I've written on this in the past few days. In no way have I ever said "do nothing." That's absolutely false as I've said that I would support several changes to the legislation.

You got involved in the discussion, posted several incorrect or misleading things, and are now trying to skate away as if you're a victim of someone being unreasonable. It's a total fabrication.

3 hours ago, Fourputt said:

I'm not a radical anti gun person, but something has to start somewhere, but as long as people keep spouting your type of arguments, nothing is ever going to change.

Give me a break. Where did I "spout" an argument? I pointed out where you were clearly wrong. I asked you to clarify or define what a "military firearm" is - TWICE - and how you'd differentiate between them and hunting rifles. You've yet to do so.

3 hours ago, Fourputt said:

If you can't tell the difference between a modern military type weapon and a hunting rifle, then maybe you need to play some Call of Duty.

Cut the bullshit, Rick. Define "military firearm" and what differentiates it from a hunting rifle. That's now the third time I've asked you.

The truth of the matter is that rifles far more powerful than an AR-15 are used to legally hunt animals in this country. Even small animals like groundhogs. And contrary to your statement, you can use a .222 to hunt deer.

I support gun legislation that makes sense, but when people who don't understand guns write gun laws, you get a bunch of gestures like "magazine clip size" (which has virtually no effect on anything), or limiting stuff like a "barrel shroud" (which might "look tough" but has no actual effect on anything relating to gun violence).

3 hours ago, Fourputt said:

(And yes I know the difference between semi-auto and automatic)

Not sure that you do. Automatic weapons haven't been legal for decades, and I doubt your friends hunted with something like this:

1 hour ago, Dave2512 said:

We don't need bans. We criteria tougher than having not having a criminal record. We need education and a way to determine who is qualified to own a gun. You can't get a drivers license without passing a test.

Anyone that's taken a CCW class knows it's a joke. Nobody fails and the certificate of completion nothing more than a participation trophy. 

Laws are honored by law-abiding citizens… People who commit mass murder are not law abiding, and will likely continue to get guns any way they can.

Yes, I support these same kinds of things… but I don't think it'll have a large impact.

[chspeed]

For those who haven't seen it yet, the New York Times had a front page editorial for the first time since 1920. "End the Gun Epidemic in America" http://nyti.ms/1OE51J8

There's also an op-ed in there: "Liberalism's Gun Problem" http://nyti.ms/1SFl0FT

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, chspeed said:

For those who haven't seen it yet, the New York Times had a front page editorial for the first time since 1920. "End the Gun Epidemic in America" http://nyti.ms/1OE51J8

Eh.

Quote

It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-times-gun-control-editorial_5662644ee4b08e945fefbb50

Quote

On Saturday, The New York Times printed a front-page editorial -- its first since 1920 -- calling for greater restrictions on gun ownership in the United States. You can read the piece here, but be warned: It's deeply flawed.

Color me unimpressed. I can't even get past the subtitle I quoted up above without finding flaws. And I don't plan to read the Huffington Post article, either.

The NY Times seems to lean awfully far to the left. I avoid politics, generally, so I could be wrong, but I don't know the last time I read something from there that wasn't well into hook territory.

[chspeed]

18 minutes ago, iacas said:

Eh.

Color me unimpressed. I can't even get past the subtitle I quoted up above without finding flaws. And I don't plan to read the Huffington Post article, either.

The NY Times seems to lean awfully far to the left. I avoid politics, generally, so I could be wrong, but I don't know the last time I read something from there that wasn't well into hook territory.

I didn't comment, but I also didn't think it was very good. Although I actually read it ;)

All media leans one direction or another, it's the best/only way to get readership and advertising dollars. I regularly read both the NYT and WSJ, as well as a lot of other media covering both sides of the spectrum. Not to go too far OT, but a big problem with our lack of progress on GC and other politically charged issues is that people tend to read/listen only to media that supports their views. The internet has only made things worse, since you can easily tailor your sources. In some ways, the internet has only served to further push all media to both ends of the spectrum to attract readers/viewers. At this point, there are very few popular centrist sources in this country.

Getting back to the subject at hand, and to my feeling about it in general, is that doing something, even if it fails, is better than doing nothing at all. At least we'd learn something - and hey, may even save a few lives.

 

[Pretzel]

3 hours ago, Fourputt said:

 If you can't tell the difference between a modern military type weapon and a hunting rifle, then maybe you need to play some Call of Duty.

(And yes I know the difference between semi-auto and automatic)

The problem with this statement is that he does know the difference. If your friend hunted with an automatic shotgun, changes are very high that he had an illegal weapon. I can shoot a semi-auto .22 fast enough you might think it was automatic, but the difference would be that I am pulling the trigger for each shot versus just holding it down.

No modern military weapon, besides the Beretta M9 (which is a semi-automatic handgun that replaced the older Colt M1911's) and forms of sniper rifles, are available to the public today. Assault rifles are banned due to the automatic weapons bans, along with machine guns/miniguns. All an AR-15 is is a fancy looking semi-automatic .223. If the perpetrators of crimes were smarter, as mentioned previously, they could buy a shotgun with deer slugs or a semi-auto 30-06 (or greater) caliber rifle. Appearance =/= military type weapon. The closest you could get to a commonly used military grade weapon would be a semi-automatic 30-06, since I believe that a common rifle for a sniper or a spotter to carry is a semi-auto .308 rifle (assuming the sniper isn't using a bolt action weapon or a .50 for anti-material, rather than anti-personnel, purposes). 

TLDR; Appearance =/= military function Any of the crimes committed with an AR-15 would have been equally or more effective with a number of different consumer-grade hunting rifles. Automatic weapons are already banned, meaning the only "military type" weapons available to consumers are the M9 handgun and some of the weapons used by snipers and spotters (who often essentially use beefed up hunting rifles).

[iacas]

1 minute ago, chspeed said:

Getting back to the subject at hand, and to my feeling about it in general, is that doing something, even if it fails, is better than doing nothing at all. At least we'd learn something - and hey, may even save a few lives.

And I see that as a waste of time, money, energy, and … (I'm not going to search hard for a word that fits, so I'll just go with…) tolerance.

Study, find a solution that will help (or whose benefits outweigh the costs by enough), and implement it.

[RandallT]

A rebuttal to the NYTimes:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/12/140849.php

Quote

...

Just kidding, of course: the subject of the Times editorial was–gun control! End the Gun Epidemic in America. Because guns are like smallpox.

The Times pretends to be concerned about violence, specifically homicide. Weirdly, however, the editorial fails even to mention the fact that the homicide rate in the U.S. has been steadily falling for some years, to the point where it is at a historic low, only around half what it was in the early 1990s–you remember, the golden age of the Clinton administration. (It may have started rising again this year on account of the anti-police movement, which the Times endorses.) Many experts attribute our declining homicide rate in part to more widespread ownership of handguns, which acts as a deterrent to violent crime. But the Times–untroubled, as usual, by the facts–fails to discuss any of this.

The editorialists begin by arguing that motive is immaterial. The real issue is firearms:

[M]otives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

This is just plain dumb. The firearms industry is tiny, relatively speaking, and has zero political clout. Politicians don’t vote for more gun laws because voters oppose them and because they know such laws won’t do any good–a fact that the editorialists appear to admit a few paragraphs later.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.

All firearms can be used to “kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.” This is why we provide our soldiers and policemen with guns rather than swords, knives or clubs. It is also why many Americans prefer to rely on guns for self-defense. At bottom, it is effective self-defense of which the Times disapproves. The Times wants all of us to rely on government, all the time, for everything.

These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection.

Oh, please. “Macho vigilantism” is evidently the paper’s disparaging way of referring to self-defense. And I have seen a great deal of firearms marketing, but have yet to come across a call for insurrection.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not.

This is really extraordinary. The Times admits, I take it, that the measures it favors will do no good, but nevertheless demands that they be adopted for their symbolic value. Not only that, it viciously excoriates all those who fail to join in the paper’s enthusiasm for futile gestures.

Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them…

I have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to mean. Hey, I am old enough to remember the good old days when newspaper journalists could write.

…and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs.

It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

No more Mr. Nice Guy! Of course, the Second Amendment has to be taken into account. Doesn’t it? This is the extent of the editorialists’ discussion of the Constitution:

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

So much for the Bill of Rights. I look forward to a Republican administration’s reasonable regulation of the New York Times’s First Amendment rights. It would be fun to draw up regulations that would reduce the number of left-wing news outlets “drastically–eliminating some large categories of [newspapers] and [web sites].”

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way….

The editorialists don’t, of course, define what they are talking about in a clear and effective way. From the reference to “slightly modified combat rifles,” I assume they mean AR-15 style firearms. As for ammunition, I have no idea what types they want to prohibit. But it seems that what the Times has in mind is a re-institution of the ban on “assault weapons” that existed from 1994 until it was allowed to lapse in 2004. It was allowed to lapse because it did no good whatsoever.

This is partly because there is no such thing as an “assault weapon.” The federal law was an embarrassment. It banned semiautomatic rifles that had two or more mostly-cosmetic features out of a list of ten or so. If the Times has something better in mind, it doesn’t say so.

The paper’s fixation on rifles is inexplicable. Of all murder weapons, rifles are the least popular. The FBI has now released its homicide data for 2014. The table on murder weaponsshows that rifles (all rifles, not just the ones the Times thinks are scary) are used in around 2% of homicides. Knives are used six times as often. Blunt objects are used nearly twice as often as rifles, and bare hands nearly three times as often. Also, the incidence of homicide involving rifles has declined by 32%, just since 2010.

In short, the Times’s obsession with certain types of semiautomatic rifles is, from a practical perspective, goofy. The editorialists continue:

…and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

You can just about see the editorialists holding their breath and stamping their feet. But is there any possibility of their demands being met? Of course not. Not even a Democrat would vote for an attempt to confiscate millions of semiautomatic rifles. The sheer logistics are impractical. There are no very reliable numbers, but Americans own several million AR-15 style rifles, and millions more semiautomatic rifles of other types. The Times thinks it is logistically impossible to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, or, for that matter, any. But mass deportation is an easy task compared with a house to house search for millions of rifles.

Likely the editorialists would say that they don’t actually contemplate a search of 123 million U.S. households. Rather, they would rely on the honor system. Let’s think about how that would work. I own an AR-15, and if Congress passed a law requiring me to turn it in at the local police station, I probably would comply, assuming proper compensation were paid pursuant to the Fifth Amendment. But what if I were a terrorist, a career criminal, or anyone else inclined to commit murder? Would I turn in my AR-15? No, I most likely would keep it. As to that category of firearm, at least, the Times would create a bumper-sticker world in which only outlaws have guns. And they would have plenty of them.

....

Posted without commentary. 

[Lihu]

8 minutes ago, RandallT said:

A rebuttal to the NYTimes:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/12/140849.php

Posted without commentary. 

My only commentary is that he's got a nice pistol group from 7 yards.

 

[JonMA1]

All of us want to see the violence reduced. Hopefully, you can believe that @chspeed

Doing something that has logic behind , yes - it is better than doing nothing at all. Doing something that is only symbolic and serves no logical purpose towards solving the problem, is likely no better than doing nothing, IMO.

If you want to do more in the way of advanced background checks or stricter punishment for those who break existing laws, etc., you'll get less argument than proposing a rifle be outlawed because of how it looks.

There's a reason this point keeps getting brought up. These are not NRA-brainwashed, backwoods gun nuts holed up in a shack who keep giving this argument.

Let's try to agree on changes that might do some good.

[chspeed]

32 minutes ago, iacas said:

And I see that as a waste of time, money, energy, and … (I'm not going to search hard for a word that fits, so I'll just go with…) tolerance.

Study, find a solution that will help (or whose benefits outweigh the costs by enough), and implement it.

It might be all those things. And I know that it may not be the right word, but if it is, I think tolerance is rarely wasted.

I have studied. As have many other people much smarter than I am. But like all theories, you can't know if it will work until you try.