Can anyone explain to me...

[Nintendesert]

The only thing that is going to make any real change to the real gun violence on the streets of America's cities is a revisiting of our drug policies. The gang violence is completely fueled by the illicit trade of drugs into America. People on both sides of the isle however have little desire to change what's been hammered into their heads about how bad drugs are. The real damage drugs have caused is in the power its given the Mexican drug cartels and the influence over the American street gang that the cartels hold now.

 

[PrinceofWands]

I don't think it can be argued that guns laws are ineffective.

Japan has the most draconian gun laws around and their murder rate is at 0.4 while we here in America have a murder rate of 4.8. 10 times higher. If you look at the gun homicide rates, Japan's gun homicide rate is 0.02 compared to our 3.2. 150 times higher. So extremely strict gun laws ARE efffective. The question is are you willing to trade some freedom for safety?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

Except that you're totally wrong in everything you say. The NAS and CDC studies confirmed that there is not a single provable positive impact from any form of gun control ever attempted, nor a single provable negative impact from any amount of firearm proliferation (at least given the available data, which is ENORMOUS). Unless you can prove here and now that you are smarter and more knowledgeable than the entire body of the CDC and NAS then we will dismiss everything you say on this subject.

 

[OverVolt]

You don't know much about Japan.

Japan also has a prosecution success rate of 96% against murders. Do you know why? Its because in Japan unless they are 100% sure who had done the murder, they don't even investigate.

In Japan it is hyper-competitive for jobs, and numbers like prosecution success rate determines how good of a police officer you are. So the police only go after murderers if its an easy crime to solve. The hard to solve ones go un-investigated and officially unrecorded. Its not in the police officers best interest.

Its from a Netflix documentary on Sumo wrestling cheating in Japan. Maybe someone has seen it and remembers the title. It was high up on the popularity list of documentaries.

Crime stats from different countries are hard to compare. USA is probably more honest about its murder rate than Japan. Plus we have borders, so there is smuggling crime and shootouts along the Texas border. Being an island gives a reduction in the murder rate. All island countries have lower murder rates compared to their bordered neighbors. The UK has a lower rate than Spain/France, New Zealand has a lower rate than Australia, etc.

"You know nothing!!!" :awe:

 

[MtnMan]

Gun control laws are not about guns, but about control.

Bleat bleat, your papers comrade.

 

[bshole]

Except that you're totally wrong in everything you say. The NAS and CDC studies confirmed that there is not a single provable positive impact from any form of gun control ever attempted, nor a single provable negative impact from any amount of firearm proliferation (at least given the available data, which is ENORMOUS). Unless you can prove here and now that you are smarter and more knowledgeable than the entire body of the CDC and NAS then we will dismiss everything you say on this subject.

How about another angle then. Here in the United States, the death rate due to fully automatic weapon fire was through the roof (during Prohibition). Since then the regulations on machine guns have become extremely draconian. It is EXTREMELY difficult for a person to get their hands on a machine gun in the united states. The murder rate in America due to machine guns has been basically zero for decades now. I think this demonstrates rather conclusively that if the gun restrictions are strict enough, they can be effective. Perhaps not immediately, but definitely eventually. The real question is, would you trade some of your freedom for more safety? Some would, some wouldn't.

OF course Franklin said that anybody who would trade freedom for safety deserves neither but I don't necessarily buy into that.

 

[Lithium381]

How about another angle then. Here in the United States, the death rate due to fully automatic weapon fire was through the roof (during Prohibition). Since then the regulations on machine guns have become extremely draconian. It is EXTREMELY difficult for a person to get their hands on a machine gun in the united states. The murder rate in America due to machine guns has been basically zero for decades now. I think this demonstrates rather conclusively that if the gun restrictions are strict enough, they can be effective. Perhaps not immediately, but definitely eventually. The real question is, would you trade some of your freedom for more safety? Some would, some wouldn't.

OF course Franklin said that anybody who would trade freedom for safety deserves neither but I don't necessarily buy into that.

give me a guarantee that no individual, group, or governmental agency will try to harm me I'd consider it. but because you cannot give me that guarantee, i deserve a chance to defend myself with an effective tool.

 

[OverVolt]

OF course Franklin said that anybody who would trade freedom for safety deserves neither but I don't necessarily buy into that.

Yes I'm sure its because of his lack of experience first hand with tyranny.

 

[Fenixgoon]

How about another angle then. Here in the United States, the death rate due to fully automatic weapon fire was through the roof (during Prohibition). Since then the regulations on machine guns have become extremely draconian. It is EXTREMELY difficult for a person to get their hands on a machine gun in the united states. The murder rate in America due to machine guns has been basically zero for decades now. I think this demonstrates rather conclusively that if the gun restrictions are strict enough, they can be effective. Perhaps not immediately, but definitely eventually. The real question is, would you trade some of your freedom for more safety? Some would, some wouldn't.

OF course Franklin said that anybody who would trade freedom for safety deserves neither but I don't necessarily buy into that.

care to provide data to back that up? and care to provide proof that citizens who legally obtained fully automatic firearms were those committing crimes? prohibition gave great power to the mobs.

because as far as i can tell, FBI reports from the past 20 years show declining firearms crime and overall violent crime. furthermore, a DOJ memo states that most firearm homicides are committed with illegally obtained handguns.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

How about another angle then. Here in the United States, the death rate due to fully automatic weapon fire was through the roof (during Prohibition). Since then the regulations on machine guns have become extremely draconian. It is EXTREMELY difficult for a person to get their hands on a machine gun in the united states. The murder rate in America due to machine guns has been basically zero for decades now. I think this demonstrates rather conclusively that if the gun restrictions are strict enough, they can be effective. Perhaps not immediately, but definitely eventually. The real question is, would you trade some of your freedom for more safety? Some would, some wouldn't.

OF course Franklin said that anybody who would trade freedom for safety deserves neither but I don't necessarily buy into that.

It still doesn't work. We're talking organized crime during Prohibition which was the equivalent of drug cartels today. If every projectile weapon had been banned in the US they still could have full auto. I suggest you look at the VT shooting rate which is lower that any of the most restrictive states, yet has no gun control laws at all.

 

[WackyDan]

I would argue that in Japan, the low gun crime rate is more of a result of the culture and less a result of the laws.

And a big ocean.

 

[Genx87]

If you have been paying any attention at all you will know that nothing does. One of the chief features of being blind is the lack of ability to see anything. It's like telling the brain dear they are brain dead. They always react, not with what can I do to reboot my brain, but with, Geez that hurts my feelings. It is probably why back in the day when people cared more for what is real they used to put people in a dunce chair and make them write on the black board a hundred times. It's just a fact that I am brain dead and I promise I will try to reboot. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Perfect practice makes perfect, I once heard. I am a dunce so I never give up on them X 100.

Is that why you cant see the easy to use quote feature of the website?

 

[zsdersw]

Whenever that is true for me I say nothing so once again, you reveal to me your childishness.

Such revelations exist only in your head... like almost everything else you type on this forum.

But, come, come!!! Don't you agree that the points you made in the OP were so mind numbingly obvious that the proposition that you sought confirmation defies credibility? I mean, come on. Why not start one on 'how could anybody think it's a good idea to drink potty water'.

The OP is a challenge to those who support the most recent infestation of gun control laws. Starting from the well-established premise that the use of government and law to curb criminal behavior is, at best, only marginally effective... I challenge the supporters of such additional restrictions to justify themselves.

But tell me how much sympathy do you have for the dumb fucks whose children were blown away. Any suggestions about how to improve the mental health of the nation or are they just stepping stones to build on for your forum prestige?

More gun laws aren't going to bring their children back, nor are they going to prevent similar situations in the future. Mental health and economic conditions are things we can fix... the criminal mind is as persistent throughout human history as things like fire. The criminal element will always remain, but if we're going to use blunt tools (government and law) to fix a problem let's at least use them to fix the proper problems; the right tool for the right job.

 

[bshole]

and care to provide proof that citizens who legally obtained fully automatic firearms were those committing crimes?

I think the point is that fully automatic weapons are extremely difficult to obtain legally and effectively impossible to obtain illegally. Criminals get their illegal weapons by stealing from legal owners. If there are very few if any legal owners, the ability of criminals to get illegal guns goes away. I agree that state/city wide bans are kind of nonsensical because the criminal can easily get their weapons from the adjoining states/cities. To be honest, as a hunter and gunowner, I don't want to see guns banned, but the evidence out there has convinced me that nationwide gun restrictions that are equivalent to the machine gun ban would be effective.

Kind of off topic, what did you think of the rent-a-cops in LA? 7 officers shoot up a truck with 2 small latina women with 100 or more rounds because they thought the unarmed women were the black suspect. The fact that this story is now buried and those officers are not in jail troubles me greatly.

 

[Stone Rain]

The short and sweet answer is: less than nothing. Banning guns disarms the good guys, meaning crimes will go up.

Look at Chicago; banning firearms sure reduced crimes there, right? Right!?

Political authorities who hate the idea of a populace that can cause disturbance and/or resist unfair laws are simply using tragedies as an excuse to railroad laws through.

 

[Matt1970]

How about another angle then. Here in the United States, the death rate due to fully automatic weapon fire was through the roof (during Prohibition). Since then the regulations on machine guns have become extremely draconian. It is EXTREMELY difficult for a person to get their hands on a machine gun in the united states. The murder rate in America due to machine guns has been basically zero for decades now. I think this demonstrates rather conclusively that if the gun restrictions are strict enough, they can be effective. Perhaps not immediately, but definitely eventually. The real question is, would you trade some of your freedom for more safety? Some would, some wouldn't.

OF course Franklin said that anybody who would trade freedom for safety deserves neither but I don't necessarily buy into that.

Are you refering to the prohibition that ended in 1933 and the extremely draconian law passed in 1986 for fully automatic weapons? You have a 53 year gap in your arguement.

And why is is the answer to the gun problem is to start with leagally owned guns rather than illegally owned guns? Backasswardness at it finest.

 

[bshole]

Are you refering to the prohibition that ended in 1933 and the extremely draconian law passed in 1986 for fully automatic weapons? You have a 53 year gap in your arguement.

No. I am referring to the National Firearms Act of 1934. The law that effectively ended machine gun murders in the United States.

The National Firearms Act (NFA), 72nd Congress, Sess. 2, ch. 757, 48 Stat. 1236, enacted on June 26, 1934, currently codified as amended as 26 U.S.C. ch. 53, is an Act of Congress in the United States that, in general, imposes a statutory excise tax on the manufacture and transfer of certain firearms and mandates the registration of those firearms. The Act was passed shortly after the repeal of Prohibition. The NFA is also referred to as Title II of the Federal firearms laws. The Gun Control Act of 1968 ("GCA") is Title I.
All transfers of ownership of registered NFA firearms must be done through the federal NFA registry. The NFA also requires that transport of NFA firearms across state lines by the owner must be reported to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF, or BATFE).

The purpose of the NFA[1] was to regulate what were considered "gangster weapons" such as machine guns and short barreled shotguns.[2] Originally, pistols and revolvers were to be regulated as strictly as machine guns; towards that end, cutting down a rifle or shotgun to circumvent the handgun restrictions by making a concealable weapon was taxed as strictly as a machine gun.
Conventional pistols and revolvers were ultimately excluded from the Act before passage, but other concealable firearms were not: the language as originally enacted defined an NFA "firearm" as:

A shotgun or rifle having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length or any other weapon, other than a pistol or revolver, from which a shot is discharged by an explosive if such weapon is capable of being concealed on the person, or a machinegun, and includes a muffler or silencer for any firearm whether or not such a firearm is included in the foregoing definition.[3][4]
​

Under the original Act, NFA "firearms" were machine guns, short-barreled rifles (SBR), short-barreled shotguns (SBS), any other weapons (AOW or concealable weapons other than pistol or revolver) and silencers for any type of firearm NFA or non-NFA. Minimum barrel length was soon amended to 16 inches for rimfire rifles and by 1960 had been amended to 16 inches for centerfire rifles as well. In recent years several SBRs, Winchester and Marlin "trapper" rifles made before 1934 with 14 or 15 inch barrels, were removed from the NFA (Title II), although they are still subject to Gun Control Act of 1968 (Title I).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

No. I am referring to the National Firearms Act of 1934. The law that effectively ended machine gun murders in the United States.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act

It ended them by making transforming them into unobtanium for anyone who isn't well off, effectively banning them to ordinary citizens based on the ability to pay.

Sure, you can say your aren't banning guns and put a million dollar tax on them. You'd be lying too.

 

[bshole]

Oh there is no doubt that it was a ban. It was also effective. I was countering the argument that bans are inneffective. Bans can be effective if they are implemented in the same manner as the machine gun ban...... of course at the expense of personal freedom.

 

[Moonbeam]

M: Whenever that is true for me I say nothing so once again, you reveal to me your childishness.

z: Such revelations exist only in your head... like almost everything else you type on this forum.

M: I don't think so. You may know or not know the saying that the answer to a fool is silence. If you are truly unaffected by something you don't even notice it. But then I am particularly sensitive to the fact that what we think and think we think isn't what we feel and mostly we don't notice this because of unconscious bias.
------------------------

M: But, come, come!!! Don't you agree that the points you made in the OP were so mind numbingly obvious that the proposition that you sought confirmation defies credibility? I mean, come on. Why not start one on 'how could anybody think it's a good idea to drink potty water'.

M: The OP is a challenge to those who support the most recent infestation of gun control laws. Starting from the well-established premise that the use of government and law to curb criminal behavior is, at best, only marginally effective... I challenge the supporters of such additional restrictions to justify themselves.

M: You just did it yourself. Such laws may be marginally effective, say 15 dead kids instead of 30 or one less mad man who avoids a background check, etc. And I addressed some of this in my original post you claimed had no answer to your question. And as I also said, you can't tell what good a law does because there can be no evidence for things it prevents because they will never happen. This is not a defense of such laws, only an argument against the kind of argument you make against them.
------------------------

M: But tell me how much sympathy do you have for the dumb fucks whose children were blown away. Any suggestions about how to improve the mental health of the nation or are they just stepping stones to build on for your forum prestige?

z: More gun laws aren't going to bring their children back, nor are they going to prevent similar situations in the future.

M: We weren't talking about total prevention, were we?

z: Mental health and economic conditions are things we can fix...

M: But there are several things wrong with this. They are not the only things we can do. I see no reason why gun registration and background checks of potential buyers can't do better at screening out crazies at least to the degree they have become noticed in public records and that we should do this. I also said that the obstacles to better employment are politically log jams, that no progress can be made until the party with the greatest gravitational pull for the gun nuts who don't want any gun regulation stop is not the same party that blocks job stimulus efforts by promoting more social inequality for the poor as a means of achieving austerity, somebody else's austerity than their own.

z: the criminal mind is as persistent throughout human history as things like fire. The criminal element will always remain,

M: Do you know the cause of the criminal mind? I believe you do not because I don't believe it is fully understood by modern science by a long shot. Therefore whatever claims you make to its permanence or not are only personal opinion. When you tell yourself a story and believe it, you limit your reality to your personal story. I am not going to buy into your story until it is scientifically confirmed by testable explanations.

z: but if we're going to use blunt tools (government and law) to fix a problem let's at least use them to fix the proper problems; the right tool for the right job.

M: I believe that folk who live a life of meaning don't shoot children and that a good economy helps people find productive meaning. But I think we can also walk and chew gum like intelligent infrastructure repair, etc., and improved gun registration, to name two.

I would also agree that the mental health issue is the only real issue that truly needs fixing but that it won't be for reasons I already listed. I believe that we have a culture of gun violence because we have a culture that is violent and that we are in love with it.

To know the problem and to know the solution are two completely different things. In actual fact, therefore, the efforts of the gun grabbers whose efforts you describe as anemic, will prove no less anemic than anything you may propose to fix our mental health disaster.

Where you are going will lead you down the rabbit hole you may not really wish to go down. What you may find there could cause you to look as crazy as me.

So, how are we going to use government to fix mental health? I do not know the answer. I'm damn sure, at times, I have a long way to go with my own.

Thanks for answering my posts. I care about what you think. My objection to your OP was what I perceived as a dismissive attitude to the concerns of folk who are desperate to find a way our of their pain. I believe that to expect rational reactions from them in a state of pain improves when there is both sympathy for that pain and some evidence there may be hope. I believe also that you have your own pain that makes you angry at them. I think my pain made me angry at you. I appreciate you hanging in there long enough for me to see that.

 

[zsdersw]

Thanks for answering my posts. I care about what you think. My objection to your OP was what I perceived as a dismissive attitude to the concerns of folk who are desperate to find a way our of their pain. I believe that to expect rational reactions from them in a state of pain improves when there is both sympathy for that pain and some evidence there may be hope. I believe also that you have your own pain that makes you angry at them. I think my pain made me angry at you. I appreciate you hanging in there long enough for me to see that.

Part of the reason to have a republic instead of a democracy is to ensure there is a filter between the brash and often contradictory desires of the public and the laws that get enacted that everyone must follow. The families and friends of victims of all sorts of tragedies, including gun violence, can be as irrational and emotional as their loss commands... but of the people who make the laws I expect more objectivity, more reasonable, more balanced thinking and approach to crafting policy. That's why we have a republic... where we elect the people who make the laws, instead of a democracy.. where the people make the laws; overreactions and emotional contradictions on the part of the public tend not to find their way into law.

 

[Moonbeam]

Part of the reason to have a republic instead of a democracy is to ensure there is a filter between the brash and often contradictory desires of the public and the laws that get enacted that everyone must follow. The families and friends of victims of all sorts of tragedies, including gun violence, can be as irrational and emotional as their loss commands... but of the people who make the laws I expect more objectivity, more reasonable, more balanced thinking and approach to crafting policy. That's why we have a republic... where we elect the people who make the laws, instead of a democracy.. where the people make the laws; overreactions and emotional contradictions on the part of the public tend not to find their way into law.

We have a House that is designed to most reflect the voice of the people and a Senate where more deliberative thought, it was hoped by design, would prevail. A republic was by design was meant to reflect both so as to both provide an avenue for the exuberance of the people and to tamp it down, balance, not exclusion or contempt for one or the other. A sustained popular revolt will eventually become the established opinion. We are what we are because of revolution.

 

[Gardener]

Oh there is no doubt that it was a ban. It was also effective. I was countering the argument that bans are inneffective. Bans can be effective if they are implemented in the same manner as the machine gun ban...... of course at the expense of personal freedom.

Don't allow yourself to be sidetracked.

The machine gun ban is the rational argument.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Oh there is no doubt that it was a ban. It was also effective. I was countering the argument that bans are inneffective. Bans can be effective if they are implemented in the same manner as the machine gun ban...... of course at the expense of personal freedom.

and that would make it unconstitutional. you still haven't provided any evidence, to my knowledge, that the NFA reduced deaths from legally owned, fully automatic firearms.

the cheapest fully auto firearm is about $5000 from what i've read everyone talking about on AT.

making any firearm similarly expensive is equivalent to banning all firearms, which would infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.

 

[MrColin]

... how all the gun restriction laws being proposed or passed in various states and at the national level are going to make any difference, at all, in preventing the tragedies out of which they spawned?

I just cannot fathom how they're going to at all be effective. In many ways, imposing round limits on guns is as stupid as NYC's ban on huge soft-drinks; you can still get the same amount by buying two or more smaller drinks... and with guns you can bring more clips. Of course, drinking large amounts of soda isn't illegal (yet, if the nanny-staters get their way), so the large soda ban is merely to get you to think twice about consuming so much... but why would that work with crazy unstable people and guns? Do you seriously think they're going to care how many clips or rounds they have to bring to accomplish whatever they want to accomplish?

Rather than treating the symptoms, if any further government action is to be done it should be focused on treating the disease: mental health and the economy.

Gun control isn't about making us safer (like the politicians say). Its about disarming us to make way for future tyranny.

 

[Lithium381]

Gun control isn't about making us safer (like the politicians say). Its about disarming us to make way for future tyranny.

Do libs deny this becuase they don't think it's true, or they want to keep it "hidden" as if everyone isn't already on to it already.