I don't think gang members committing drive by shootings are going to care that the law says they can't legally have a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.
So at least you'd be willing to admit that you want to ban something more along emotional lines, big guns are scary/THECHILDREN!, than any actual factual basis? "Assualt Weapons" are low hanging fruit, that's it? Ban something that has a negligible effect on homicide rates because what exactly?
It's not a matter of it being emotional, or at least not directly. If any gun is going to have a positive safety side effect, it's the handgun, so it's the one non-owners are most sympathetic to. You pass the laws you can actually pass. You and I both know that handgun restrictions would never make it at the national level. That's not a reason to (assuming one were in favor of fewer guns) to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The question is not really "Is this the optimal way to prevent gun death?" It Is "Does this law make shooting deaths more or less likely, and is it at an impermissible cost?" Presumably everyone can afford that the first answer is "less likely," even if it is only be a small amount. The latter point is where reasonable debate will center.
No I totally agree that handguns are in no fear of being targeted (except high capacity clips used in them). I am trying to explain how ridiculous going after "assault weapons" are when faced with the actual problems. edit: Not to say mass shootings aren't a problem or that nothing should be done BUT the bans being floated are more of the same reactional nonsense that isn't dealing with the actual problems.
Speaking of those fucking nut jobs, apparently they plan to protest/demonstrate at all the funerals and memorial services. That makes me almost as sick as the shootings themselves.
Take the words “Gun Control” off the heading and replace them with “Massacre Prevention” and you will be taking the correct path. In Australia we had a knee jerk reaction and tightened gun control incredibly. It hasn’t made any meaningful difference, some argue we haven’t had a large scale massacre since Port Arthur some 15 years ago which triggered the crackdown, although to be fair outside gang wars and early settler ethnic cleansing we had never really had any anyway. It got the PM voted back in though, so win? One question to all you “preppers” on here, have you or any of your friends ever had to use your semi auto shottys and glocks in home defence? Because it does come off as a wee bit paranoid sometimes.
Yes it has worked wonderfully for us, now the only people who have guns are the police and criminals. Its just brilliant.
IF you could produce some facts to back up your claims that these murders in Chicago are being perpetrated with some insanely high rate of rifles or the use of high capacity magazines I might think your argument holds some water. In all likely hood a vast majority, like the national numbers, is probably handguns. Why are people killing each other at the rates they are in Chicago? What are the root causes that could be worked with that might provide a situation where socioeconomic pressures aren't leading to an unduly high rates of murders? As for gun buy backs, like the article you posted states it made the specific weapons ownership illegal. I have a feeling quite a few Americans would risk becoming a criminal on this front.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike. - Plato, The Republic Though many are using this tragedy to further their own agendas, this tragedy ultimately is the result of one thing: Freedom. But first, let me dispense with a few of the many red herrings in this thread: Guns: guns kill. That's why we give them to soldiers. Guns don't build anything except cemeteries. They never have, they never will. They are produced specifically with that purpose in mind. You don't go to the gun show and say 'wow, I need a way to fix my toilet, let me buy that Glock.' Unless you're retarded. To say guns are produced with any other real purpose is an argument proposed by gun advocates to justify ownership of guns. However, this justification is unnecessary, because: Gun Control doesn't work. It never has, it never will. The only 'gun control' that has ever worked is the complete ban of all guns. Would mass murders still occur? Sure. They'll be a lot less of them. And a lot less dead bodies. But the whole 'semi-automatic' versus 'handgun' versus 'how many bullets in a clip' argument is angels on the head of a pin. Doesn't matter. You still end up dead. Motive: I see a lot of people wondering about motive. First, I've spoken with murderers, seen them allocute to their crimes, and many times their motive makes no sense to anyone but them. Turn it around, is there any motive that this kid would have had that would make you say 'Oh, yeah, I can see why he did this.' If there is a motive that would make you say that, then you're probably a mass murderer. He did it. Doesn't matter why. Mental Health: well, this is getting scary. According to a report on NBC news last night, approximately 1 in 17 Americans have a diagnosable mental health disorder. Of course, this is meant to scare you. Again, turn it around. If there are that many folks with mental health disorders, shouldn't there be a hell of a lot more of these types of incidents? Yet, there are folks that are suggesting that we start 'diagnosing' these people in order that they be allowed to own guns. Really? Which brings me to: Minority Report. As much as we wish it otherwise, there is no way to tell if someone is going to commit this crime based on such a diagnosis. The diagnostics I've heard in the news did not have violence as part of their make up. But all the arguments above are the result of the failure of people to want to admit the following (though we all know it): Freedom necessarily means that horrible things will happen. Freedom and tragedy are two sides of the same coin. You don't get one without the other. Sure, we could live in a political system that removes all potential freedoms, but that doesn't get you the safety. And ultimately, tragedies such as this (and it IS a tragedy, please don't take anything I've said to indicate that I don't think it is) remind us that we live in a world where there are no guarantees. Hence, the Ben Franklin quote. To think that restricting freedom is going to buy you safety is an illusory form of control that allows people to ignore the fact that bad things happen, and they happen to good people for seemingly no rhyme or reason. "If only we could have predicted" or "If only we allowed hunting rifles" or "If only people that pass a mental exam could buy weapons" are essentially forms of the trading freedom for security illusion. You will not get more security, but you will lose your freedom. My review of history indicates the following: You can give freedom away easily, but it must always be bought with blood. Jefferson said essentially the same thing: "Occasionally the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants." Now, I will give my personal opinion: 1) I hate guns, I've had a loaded one pointed at me, and wasn't a fan of them before that. I would never own one, have one in my house, or allow someone into my home with one. 2) Gun control is a bad idea. It doesn't do what proponents of it think it will do. For instance, let's say the guy had only two revolvers (because his mom wasn't allowed anything else) do these kids wind up any less dead? I don't think so. And finally: Recognize that these incidents are the cost of having freedom. I'm not telling you you should gladly pay it. All I'm saying is if you truly, and by truly I don't mean 'Fourth of July, sing the National Anthem, buy 65 guns because I can' believe in freedom, then recognize that there is a downside. This is the downside. Me personally? I go back and forth as to whether freedom is worth this price. I don't know, but ultimately I think that's the real question that we (Americans) need to address: how much are we truly willing to pay for freedom? Now that you know the price, are you still willing to pay it? I don't know.
This is interesting. Hasn't freedom been around in this country much longer than the proportionate amount of mass public killings that are occurring now? It's not as if the technology to mass kill people is new. Semi-automatic weapons aren't new. (I own an M1-carbine, standard military issue from WWII) Crazy people aren't new. Has the human condition changed? Why would freedom be the cause of this effect? EDIT: Or are mass killings even on the rise? Just saw these numbers. If this is true, why do we believe that mass killings are on the rise? http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html Whatever you think about O'Reilly, I am a fan of Krauthammer. He is, by the way, a psychiatrist.
Because by it's nature, freedom includes the ability to act in a way that is detrimental to other citizens. I'm NOT saying that to exercise freedom, one has to act contrary to the good health of citizens, what I am saying is that freedom grants that ability to do so, if one so chooses. And the largest mass killing in a school in the U.S. wasn't by guns. It was in 1927, in Bath, Michigan.
Yea, yea we've seen that. Danger Boy posted that pages ago. Tell me more about your idea of the nature of freedom and why it seems to be taken so much more liberally now by some people with absence of thought to the people around them not doing mass killing exercising their own. Like I said earlier; the guns aren't new, the human condition isn't new either. What's new?
I'm struggling to find statistics at the moment (don't know what to Google), but the vast majority of gang murders are done with weapons that are illegally obtained. That's with the laws that are already on the books.
I'm a little curious why we don't see more on ammunition regulation rather than type of gun. From what I understand shotgun slugs, 30.06, high caliber handguns, and other large caliber ammunition (my gun knowledge is obviously basic) are basically fatal if in the midsection. But, if you shoot someone with a low caliber handgun (9mm?) you basically need it to be very accurately placed for a single shot to be lethal. What if you allow Mr/Mrs. Home Protection/hand gun enthusiast to have a low caliber handgun that's very difficult to be lethal with, but still allows for the purpose of self defense? If someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting, I don't think people are concerned with the caliber and it's going to fulfill it's purpose. For Mr/Mrs Hunter or long range gun enthusiast, they get the stopping power and a more thorough psychological test. Crimes of accessibility in the seemingly more common first case would likely happen just as much, but with less total damage. Criminals will have access to whatever they want. I suppose if there truly is a government uprising we would have to rely on the second group. I mean, you still have the option to shoot people more times it's just more work. Whatever, I just don't get the whole 'stopping power' obsession with gun owners. It seems so mall-cop, when in reality if you start shooting a motherfucking gun at someone, they won't be doing the lethality odds of a 9mm vs a .45. How many scenarios are truly changed by the caliber of a hand gun or rifle except the odds for fatality? If you shoot a motherfucker in the leg, pretty sure the home invasion or personal attack is over. If not, shoot them again.
This is definitely true. That being said, illegal guns are typically legal guns, somewhere else owned by someone else. They by and large aren't falling off the backs of trucks.
A few points: 1. These high-profile mass shootings are obviously tragic. But they're virtually the only gun crimes committed with legally-obtained rifles. Frequently they aren't even technically legally obtained, as often the shooter steals them from a friend or family member who obtained them legally. But even when they are, they tend to have been acquired for the express purpose of committing these crimes. Someone posted a few pages back that rifles account for 300-400 gun deaths a year.....even if you assume that figure only accounts for murders, mass shootings account for some of those and the rest are probably "dude comes back from a hunting trip to find his wife in bed with the neighbor" type cases. The majority of gun crimes in the US use illegally-obtained firearms. 2. The rate of gun deaths in the US is as low as it's been in a long time, and while the murder rate is higher in the US than in most other industrialized countries the overall violent crime rate is lower than many. 3. I love the "the US has a democratically elected government and hasn't had to overthrow its government in over 200 years, so you don't need guns" line of argument. Think that might be because, oh I don't know, WE'RE ARMED?!?! Democratically-elected President decides after 8 years or after losing an election that he doesn't feel like leaving office after all. American citizens bearing AR-15s inform him that he might want to respect their wishes after all. That's the idea. The fact that we've never had to actually overthrow the government doesn't mean that an armed citizenry is not a huge fucking deterrent.
Where did I say there was anything new? In fact, quite the contrary, this debate has gone on for thousands of years, and will continue to go on. This isn't just 'my idea' of freedom. Political thinkers for thousands of years have discussed and written about the balance of personal freedoms versus the good of a society. If there's anything new, maybe it's the 24 hour news coverage? Statistics are now more specific and better kept? Mass killings aren't new at all, they've gone on for as long as there have been people. Maybe it's more advertised now? I don't think there is anything new about any of this, except for the re-emergence of an age old question (about personal liberty versus good/safety of citizens/society in general. And based on the video you posted, I'm not sure it's happening more now. I think maybe it's more covered widely now.
I'm not either. Did anyone else here have the idea that mass killings might be on the decline? http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html EDIT Krauthammer. Comments?