Real gun law changes to be done?

[Zorkorist]

What's really scary is spaghetti. Too many lashes are deadly.

-John

 

[Pulsar]

We had real gun law changes. They didnt reduce gun crime.

As for whackjobs: You could kill WAY more people with bleach and ammonia. Those are available for purchase all over the place. And I dont know if theres an age requirement either.

Someone with serious issues who wants to inflict pain is going to do it. Laws wont stop them. In fact Red China and the Soviet Union had super strict societies. Plenty of psychos managed to do harm.

Lets look at the cause of the problems instead of treating the symptoms.

Please don't say shit like that. The Federal Government is so hell bent on protecting us from ourselves, if you point out what ammonia and bleach do they'll soon be illegal. It's a pain in the ass to get decent flu/cold medicine now, and you can't buy more than 1 package at a time. The list goes on and on.

 

[FerrelGeek]

But I think this is the point of the quote in that pic that I posted. If one truly values another person's life, disagreements shouldn't lead to 'might makes right' and 'let me get my gun'. I disagree with many on here, as you well know (and I'm sure the feelings about me are the same ), but I wish no one on this board any harm no matter how much I disagree or how flat out idiotic I think some of their viewpoints are.

I'm not in the NRA, but I believe we need to hold onto ALL of our rights vigorously and diligently. I'm not by any means an alarmist of paranoid, but I know fully well that there are people in government that would love to see private gun ownership seriously restricted. Problem is, gun restrictions would do about as much good as our current war on drugs, and we all know what a rousing success that is.

I've stated it before, the big problem is how to keep guns out of the hands of people who are genuinely mentally unstable. And all the gun laws in the world won't keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

Snip

I disagree that it's just people who don't hold life as sacred. It's this culture of the gun we have here. This might makes right, let me get my gun and see if you'll say that again, culture we have. The terrorist hate group known as the NRA does it's best to push a gun nut culture instead of a reasonable gun owner culture and they get people like that Cat Scratch Retard to open his big, hate-filled, crazy as shit mouth to speak for them. I've known quite a few gun hoarders in my lifetime and to the last one, every damn one of them has been racist as shit. And it's groups like the NRA that feed that behavior. Remember Wayne LaPierre's comment a couple months back "Eight years of one demographically symbolic President is enough". Right there he managed to make a short sentence show the racist and sexist mentality the NRA is supporting.

 

[latentprints]

Our nation was founded on a few principles that frame the purpose of the Second Amendment. Samuel Adams, in The Rights of the Colonists, wrote:

"Among the natural rights of the [People] are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature ...

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave."

Adams spent most of his essay affirming the principles of John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government, where he stated the following:

"If the innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has, for peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered, what a kind of peace there will be in the world, which consists only in violence and rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors. Who would not think it an admirable peace betwixt the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf?"

He also states:

"... The people are at liberty to provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative, differing from the other, by the change of persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for their safety and good: for the society can never, by the fault of another, lose the native and original right it has to preserve itself, which can only be done by a settled legislative, and a fair and impartial execution of the laws made by it. But the state of mankind is not so miserable that they are not capable of using this remedy, till it be too late to look for any.

To tell people they may provide for themselves, by erecting a new legislative, when by oppression, artifice, or being delivered over to a foreign power, their old one is gone, is only to tell them, they may expect relief when it is too late, and the evil is past cure. This is in effect no more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of their liberty; and when their chains are on, tell them, they may act like freemen. This, if barely so, is rather mockery than relief; and men can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no means to escape it till they are perfectly under it: and therefore it is, that they have not only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it."

It was under those two principles the Declaration of Independence was written, stating:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

As the police and surveillance state continues to rise and it becomes more and more apparent that the American people are the true target of our government's faux war of terror. Any attempt to repeal the Second Amendment and/or mass confiscation will only serve to bring about what Samuel Adams described as the great end of society. We have an inherent right to self-defense which the Second Amendment doesn't discuss, it was written for the sole purpose of defining the limitations placed on the government, not on the people. It was to remind the government that we still retain the same rights that were used to form the general government and it is an inherent right.

 

[Chiropteran]

These "massacres" are tragic and sad, but the politicization of the events just makes me sick.

If you want to save lives, it's time to outlaw swimming pools. They are far more dangerous than guns, and are *not* constitutionally protected. They just don't get the same media attention because a single kid drowning at a time, which happens almost daily during the swimming months, isn't as shocking and newsworthy as an occasional massacre where 6+ people are killed at once.

Of course, if you start looking at cause of death, even more so than swimming pools are cars. Mandatory robot controlled cars for everybody would save a lot more lives than even an imaginary scenario in which all guns could be permanently erased from citizen's hands. 92 people died EVERY DAY, on average, during 2012, in traffic accidents.

9 dead in a church in a tragic event seems like a big deal only because we have totally tuned out the far more deadly things in our daily lives.

Besides all that, removing guns from citizen's hands wouldn't really make a significant difference, because most of the gun related killing is being done by police officers.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-kill-citizens-70-times-rate-first-world-nations/

 

[fskimospy]

These "massacres" are tragic and sad, but the politicization of the events just makes me sick.

If you want to save lives, it's time to outlaw swimming pools. They are far more dangerous than guns, and are *not* constitutionally protected. They just don't get the same media attention because a single kid drowning at a time, which happens almost daily during the swimming months, isn't as shocking and newsworthy as an occasional massacre where 6+ people are killed at once.

Of course, if you start looking at cause of death, even more so than swimming pools are cars. Mandatory robot controlled cars for everybody would save a lot more lives than even an imaginary scenario in which all guns could be permanently erased from citizen's hands. 92 people died EVERY DAY, on average, during 2012, in traffic accidents.

9 dead in a church in a tragic event seems like a big deal only because we have totally tuned out the far more deadly things in our daily lives.

Besides all that, removing guns from citizen's hands wouldn't really make a significant difference, because most of the gun related killing is being done by police officers.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-kill-citizens-70-times-rate-first-world-nations/

Swimming pools and cars (especially cars) both bring large, positive gains for society with them. As has been gone over in previous threads, evidence currently indicates that ownership of a gun actually increases the risk of injury or death to the owner and their family, and self-protection is the primary stated purpose of gun ownership.

While I fully support automated cars, trying to compare them to guns is silliness.

 

[Chiropteran]

Swimming pools and cars (especially cars) both bring large, positive gains for society with them. As has been gone over in previous threads, evidence currently indicates that ownership of a gun actually increases the risk of injury or death to the owner and their family, and self-protection is the primary stated purpose of gun ownership.

While I fully support automated cars, trying to compare them to guns is silliness.

Nonsense. It's much more healthy to walk or bike to work rather than drive a car, and if you can't do that then public transportation is both more economical and more environmentally friendly than owning a car. Cars have dozens of negatives and no positives, if you ignore personal preference (which is entirely why people buy guns).

 

[edro]

Are there any legitimate ideas for keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill?
Or is that just a diversion?

I don't see how it is remotely possible to categorize people as mentally ill enough to put them on a "no-gun" list.
And even if there was such a list, haven't many of the shooters obtained guns from family members or other illegal means?

Edit: Nope, looks like most guns were legally obtained.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/

 

[fskimospy]

Nonsense. It's much more healthy to walk or bike to work rather than drive a car, and if you can't do that then public transportation is both more economical and more environmentally friendly than owning a car. Cars have dozens of negatives and no positives, if you ignore personal preference (which is entirely why people buy guns).

You have not thought this through. People travel to lots of different locations, a large portion of which are not efficiently accessible through public transit. To say they have no positives is obviously wrong if you take even a few seconds to think about it.

If your argument is that cars would have few positives in an America with a robust, 24 hour public transportation system then perhaps that would be a better argument, but 1. that country doesn't exist and 2. they would still have positives then for areas that cannot be efficiently serviced by public transit.

 

[DrPizza]

Compulsory liability insurance, esp. for pistol ownership.

Okay. Let's suppose we did that. The vast, vast, vast majority of gun owners are never liable for anything that happened with their guns. So, what do you suppose the annual insurance cost will be? $1? Or, are you simply proposing a fee?

 

[Chiropteran]

You have not thought this through. People travel to lots of different locations, a large portion of which are not efficiently accessible through public transit. To say they have no positives is obviously wrong if you take even a few seconds to think about it.

They do these things because they want to. Just like I want to own a weapon that could take out a hostile attacker from 200 ft. If you argument is that you can supersede my desire to own a gun, then my argument is perfectly valid in that I can supersede your desire to have the freedom a car provides.

You *can* get along fine without a car, you just don't want to do it.

 

[fskimospy]

They do these things because they want to.

People want to move more freely, yes. Greater freedom of movement also carries with it numerous cultural, economic, and societal benefits. I don't get why you would try and ignore these, as they are pretty large and obvious.

Just like I want to own a weapon that could take out a hostile attacker from 200 ft. If you argument is that you can supersede my desire to own a gun, then my argument is perfectly valid in that I can supersede your desire to have the freedom a car provides.

Of course we can supersede your desire to own a gun or someone's desire to own a car. That's what laws are for. The question is if doing that with gun ownership or car ownership makes sense. As I mentioned above, car ownership carries numerous societal advantages with it, especially since our society's transportation infrastructure is currently built around them as the primary method of movement of people and goods.

As I mentioned before, no such benefit appears to exist with guns. People who own guns overwhelmingly cite self-protection as the reason for ownership. Studies indicate that such ownership actually makes you and your family more likely to be injured or killed. While there is a certain entertainment value with shooting guns, that could easily be accommodated in other ways.

You *can* get along fine without a car, you just don't want to do it.

Right, which is irrelevant for all the reasons I mentioned above.

By the way, I DO get along fine without a car. I haven't owned one in about five years.

 

[DrPizza]

Swimming pools and cars (especially cars) both bring large, positive gains for society with them. As has been gone over in previous threads, evidence currently indicates that ownership of a gun actually increases the risk of injury or death to the owner and their family, and self-protection is the primary stated purpose of gun ownership.

While I fully support automated cars, trying to compare them to guns is silliness.

I believe you're overlooking some huge cultural differences between large cities and the rest of us. If you look at the support of NY's Safe Act, it was almost exclusively from NYC and Albany. The majority of people in the rest of the state were strongly against it. How people see guns seems to vary quite a bit between cities and other regions.

I think it would be very easy to argue that here in Western NY, guns have brought more large, positive gains than swimming pools. I know very few people who claim that the primary purpose of their guns is self-protection. For most around here, it's for hunting. For many more, it's sport such as trap shooting.

 

[fskimospy]

I believe you're overlooking some huge cultural differences between large cities and the rest of us. If you look at the support of NY's Safe Act, it was almost exclusively from NYC and Albany. The majority of people in the rest of the state were strongly against it. How people see guns seems to vary quite a bit between cities and other regions.

I think it would be very easy to argue that here in Western NY, guns have brought more large, positive gains than swimming pools. I know very few people who claim that the primary purpose of their guns is self-protection. For most around here, it's for hunting. For many more, it's sport such as trap shooting.

As of 2013 here's what Gallup had to say on the matter:

As for overlooking differences, I don't think so. The type of gun used for hunting is much different than one used for self defense. Furthermore, guns used for hunting and sport don't need to be kept in the home nearly as often.

 

[Chiropteran]

As I mentioned before, no such benefit appears to exist with guns.

“To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.”

There is that whole "keeping a tyrannical government in check" thing, which is why guns are a constitutionally granted right. I guess that isn't important to you, though.

car ownership carries numerous societal advantages with it, especially since our society's transportation infrastructure is currently built around them as the primary method of movement of people and goods.

You keep saying that, but you don't specify what these societal advantages actually are. How does it benefit society that Chad can go out drinking late at night with his buddies even when no public transportation is available?

For all legitimate useful purposes, there is public transportation. Where it falls short is primarily due to lack of demand. If cars were not such an easy convenient crutch, then the demand for public transportation would be higher. Outlaw cars, and people certainly would start riding the bus or train more often, and over time more buses and trains would be built.

 

[fskimospy]

“To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.”

There is that whole "keeping a tyrannical government in check" thing, which is why guns are a constitutionally granted right. I guess that isn't important to you, though.

I like when confronted with the fact that your argument was nonsense instead of re-evaluating your idea you basically responded with "fuck you, commie".

You keep saying that, but you don't specify what these societal advantages actually are. How does it benefit society that Chad can go out drinking late at night with his buddies even when no public transportation is available?

For all legitimate useful purposes, there is public transportation. Where it falls short is primarily due to lack of demand.

Are you kidding? Have you ever lived in a city other than one on the East Coast? Try telling someone in 90% of the country that for all legitimate useful purposes they should just take public transportation. Watch them laugh in your face.

Great example would be back when I lived in San Diego. I could get from my apartment to the base in about 15 minutes by car. It would easily take me an hour and a half by bus. I know people who live in Athens, where not only does the bus only run once per hour in most places, it transit stops at 10PM, meaning if you want to be doing anything after then you're shit out of luck.

I guess we should just tell them that they don't need to worry about it because there's no legitimate or useful thing you would want to do after 10PM.

If cars were not such an easy convenient crutch, then the demand for public transportation would be higher. Outlaw cars, and people certainly would start riding the bus or train more often, and over time more buses and trains would be built.

This is what I alluded to in my first post, which was that rather than try and make an argument that was ludicrously wrong in our current country you would be better off trying to say in a magical America that doesn't exist cars might be less useful. There would still be tons of places that are low enough density for public transit not to be economical, but at least you wouldn't have been wrong about literally everywhere.

 

[Chiropteran]

Are you kidding? Have you ever lived in a city other than one on the East Coast?

Why is that even relevant? You don't need to live in a sprawling mess of a city, but maybe you want to. But hell, I want to own a gun. If want has anything to do with it, it nullifies both arguments equally.

Great example would be back when I lived in San Diego. I could get from my apartment to the base in about 15 minutes by car. It would easily take me an hour and a half by bus. I know people who live in Athens, where not only does the bus only run once per hour in most places, it transit stops at 10PM, meaning if you want to be doing anything after then you're shit out of luck.

I could easily defend myself in 5 minutes by opening my safe and pulling out my gun, and loading it. It might take an hour or longer for police to show up.

The difference is in your case you are talking about a minor inconvenience of waiting a little bit longer for a bus, while in my case it could be a life or death situation.

edit: and I don't see the societal benefit of you saving 30-45 minutes by driving and causing more traffic, more pollution, and more road deaths. Society doesn't care if you sit at the bus stop for an hour.

 

[CPA]

Studies show that greater gun control laws reduce gun violence. You could do it in any one of a number of ways, from stricter licensing all the way up through repealing the second amendment and confiscating them.

Again, you can say we won't do those things or we don't want to do them, but we could, and gun violence would go down.

have you shown those studies to the good folks in Chicago?

 

[fskimospy]

Why is that even relevant? You don't need to live in a sprawling mess of a city, but maybe you want to. But hell, I want to own a gun. If want has anything to do with it, it nullifies both arguments equally.

It's relevant because your statement that anything that people would legitimately do can be reached by mass transit was ludicrous. If you had ever lived outside of one of the only sections of the country with well functioning mass transit you would never have said something like that.

Hell, even in the NYC metro area there are plenty of places that are not economically accessible through mass transit.

I could easily defend myself in 5 minutes by opening my safe and pulling out my gun, and loading it. It might take an hour or longer for police to show up.

The difference is in your case you are talking about a minor inconvenience of waiting a little bit longer for a bus, while in my case it could be a life or death situation.

As mentioned before, research indicates that gun ownership is associated with an increased risk of death, so it appears that you're actually making your own death more likely by owning one.

edit: and I don't see the societal benefit of you saving 30-45 minutes by driving and causing more traffic, more pollution, and more road deaths. Society doesn't care if you sit at the bus stop for an hour.

Society most definitely cares.

That extra hour and a half an individual would spend commuting each day translates into approximately 16 days a year where an individual has elected to engage in non-productive activity instead participating in culture/economy/whatever. That's a huge per capita cost.

 

[Chiropteran]

It's relevant because your statement that anything that people would legitimately do can be reached by mass transit was ludicrous. If you had ever lived outside of one of the only sections of the country with well functioning mass transit you would never have said something like that.

Hell, even in the NYC metro area there are plenty of places that are not economically accessible through mass transit.

You are confusing need and convenience. Sprawling cities don't need to exist, they are an artifact of cheap gas and government subsidized roads that hide the true cost of cars. Given cheap car ownership costs, why not live 30 minutes from work where you can have a big house and lots of yard? It makes perfect sense for the individual, because the individual doesn't pay the true cost of pollution, auto accident deaths, road maintenance, etc.

If individual human-driven cars were outlawed tomorrow, sure it would be a mess for a few parts of the country in the short term. But in the long term over 30,000 deaths per year would be prevented, and public transportation would quickly fill the newly growing demand.

Just as, if guns were outlawed, you would see a lot more knife, fire, or poison related murders.

As mentioned before, research indicates that gun ownership is associated with an increased risk of death, so it appears that you're actually making your own death more likely by owning one.

Correlation only, not proof of causation.

That extra hour and a half an individual would spend commuting each day translates into approximately 16 days a year where an individual has elected to engage in non-productive activity instead participating in culture/economy/whatever. That's a huge per capita cost.

Not really. For most, it just shifts 1.5 hours of sitting in front of the TV time to sitting on the bus watching a tablet or cell phone. For some, that time sitting on the bus can be used for productive writing or email response, actually resulting in a net gain in time compared to driving.

 

[DrPizza]

As of 2013 here's what Gallup had to say on the matter:

As for overlooking differences, I don't think so. The type of gun used for hunting is much different than one used for self defense. Furthermore, guns used for hunting and sport don't need to be kept in the home nearly as often.

It doesn't appear that the gallup pole differentiates between those in bigger cities and the rest of the people. Again, to illustrate the difference in how guns are viewed,

And, I would bet that the majority of people who own guns for hunting would also say they would use those guns for personal protection. Heck, if you watched the news when the next town over from me was swarming with hundreds of police and troopers looking for the escaped convicts, there was no shortage of people holding up shotguns and rifles claiming they would protect their property. But, what was absent, was people doing the same with handguns.

 

[piasabird]

Before even considering real gun legislation, there should be a study that shows what types of weapons are used most in acts of murder and violence. What I am trying to say is that it does not do much good to ban assault weapons if most crimes are committed with pistols that fit in a pocket, etc.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

You do not understand the constitution.

He barely grasps the concept of the English language, you expect him to understand the constitution?

 

[piasabird]

Don't look at who buys guns, but at who uses them.

 

[piasabird]

http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/GUIC.PDF

This is a quote from a report about the types of firearms used in committing murder or deaths.

A study by the Virginia Department of
Criminal Justice Services reviewed
the files of 600 firearm murders that
occurred in 18 jurisdictions from 1989
to 1991. The study found that handguns
were used in 72% of the murders
(431 murders). Ten guns were
identified as assault weapons, including
five pistols, four rifles, and one
shotgun.

Interesting part here is what they consider assault weapons. This included pistols, rifles and a shotgun. Only 4 rifles were used and only one shotgun. The term assault weapon is too ambiguous to make sense. Paint a knife black and it is an assault weapon. The government just confuses people with the term assault weapon.

I wonder how many people use a firearm to commit suicide. I had an uncle that used a shotgun.