Like yourself, most of those people are under the false assumption that "more laws = less crime." It's unfortunate that many members of Congress hold the same view. It's obvious that I am a gun owner, but I have no problem with our various governments enacting laws that target criminal behavior and are actually effective, even if that means I have to go through a little extra work if I buy another gun. This discussion was prompted by the Sandy Hook massacre, and nothing you have mentioned would have prevented it. That's the problem I have with almost every proposal that has been put forth - they would be inneffective at preventing any crimes. The "assault rifle" ban of 1994 did nothing to affect the crime rate, yet here we are talking about implementing it again. Like last time, it will have no effect. I've mentioned this before, but the greatest irony in the history of gun regulations is the Brady Bill. If it had been in effect in 1981, it would not have stopped the man who shot James Brady and President Reagan from purchasing his weapon. Why do we spend so much energy passing laws to make people feel better while doing nothing to prevent any crimes? It seems that everyone wants to add more layers of restrictions for people who buy guns through legal channels. Why don't we try to dry up some of the illegal ways criminals buy guns? Why isn't there a mandatory 10 year prison sentence for anyone convicted of using a gun in a crime? Look at the success of the NRA-backed Exile program in Richmond, VA. The media loves to parrot the "gun show loophole", but if it's such a problem, why is nobody being arrested? It is already illegal for any person to sell a gun to someone who is not eligible to buy it, regardless of their FFL status. If it really is a problem, there should be lots of people to arrest and prosecute under existing law.
I believe Florida has such a law called the 10-20-life law. From wiki, "The law's name comes from three main mandatory sentences: 1) producing a firearm during the commission of certain felonies mandates at least a 10-year prison sentence; 2) firing one mandates at least a 20-year prison sentence; and 3) shooting someone mandates a minimum sentence of 25 years regardless of whether a victim is killed or simply injured. The maximum penalty is a life sentence unless the defendant is charged with felony murder or first degree murder in which case the maximum is the death penalty." Additionally, "In addition to the "10-20-Life" rule itself, the law also established or increased other mandatory minimum sentences:[2] At least a sentence of 3 years in state prison for felons who possess a firearm; At least a 15-year prison sentence if the offender is in possession of either a machine gun or a semiautomatic gun with a high-capacity box magazine while committing a crime listed under statute 775.087; At least a 3-year prison sentence for aggravated assault with a firearm; At least a 3-year prison sentence for aggravated assault on a police officer;A,B At least a 3-year prison sentence for aggravated assault on a person aged 65 years or older;A At least a 3-year prison sentence for aggravated battery on a person aged 65 years or older;A At least a 5-year prison sentence for aggravated battery on an officer;A,B At least an 8-year prison sentence for possessing a machine gun, or semiautomatic firearm while committing any type of battery on an officer or person aged 65 years or older." With this law in place, I'm not sure its still a deterrent against would be criminals down there.
It will likely be as cost-effective, goal-effective, and intelligently executed as its successful predecessors, The War on Drugs and The War on Terror. Forgive the overflowing cynicism, but I think people like to simply have an excuse to trick themselves into feeling comfortable. That, and the average US citizen isn't smart enough to think much further than "more laws, more safe." As a country, we have become extremely used to giving up freedom and privacy in exchange for the illusion/b] of security. The government passes a law, but it's ok because it protects us, even if it really doesn't, as long as something is being done, that's all that matters, because then we can call the issue solved and go on with not giving a fuck. It comes down to fear - fearmongering media that plays up fears which are then conveniently soothed by government passing dumb laws/regulations that do nothing to solve the issue, and we do it again and again. We've done it with terrorism, we've done it with childhood obesity, and now we're doing it with guns. But hey, we've been doing stupid/wrong shit to make ourselves feel safer since World War II, so why change the pattern now. In regard to the impending executive order, ODEN is right on. Or hey, maybe I'm just an unbalanced cynic.
This is why I'm hoping that any executive order consists of telling the justice department to do a better job of enforcing the laws we already have on the books.
Interesting article by Sam Harris, a running theme of it being what I think is a very sad truth: America is truly fucked on this issue. Getting killed with a gun will always be many times more likely in America than any other modern/wealthy country. It's just the way it is. I know I was making fun of you guys for considering this an intractable issue, but I take that back. It's too far gone (for the U.S. only). That "arm the teachers" is not only put forth as a serious solution, but is already being implemented in places, proves this (among other things). It's so defeatist, and counters what I think is the real, positive stereotype of American Can Do-ness, but it's the unfortunate reality. Serious question: I agree that psycopaths target places where people are less likely to be armed (not always though), but if your best solution is "everybody arm up!", where does it end? If all schools have guards, they'll pick supermarkets. Guards there? Head to a mall. Food court has cops? Move on to churches. Priests got guns? Well that would be kinda funny, but still, you see where I'm going: armed guards everywhere seems 100% reactive, not preventative, and would, it seems to me, make America look a lot more like the places in Mexico where tourists shouldn't go, than a country that apparently values freedom more than the rest of us. This whole thing has got me watching cable news for the first time in a long time, which somehow adds to an already depressing topic. I do so mostly in the hopes of seeing the reasonable arguments from the reasonable people on the pro-gun (for lack of a better term) side, but holy shit, where are they? I'm not saying there aren't crazies on both sides -- there certainly are -- but I've yet to see the gun control equivalent of Alex Jones (someone who wants to ban any and all guns, let's say), and I've yet to see the pro-gun equivalent of Mark Kelly or General McChrystal. Ben Shapiro seems close, I guess, but even his whole case revolves around "T'rannical guv'ment gonna up and take our guns any day now, so everyone should have access to any and all guns, always." For anyone who strongly agrees with him on that point, I have to ask: what has your government done to you that makes you so paranoid? I'm no history buff, but from what I can tell, Americans (who weren't black) have enjoyed quite the run of freedom. Shit, a large percentage of you made it difficult for the government to even give you free healthcare. Do you guys really think a well-armed militia is going to be even remotely needed, let alone effective...ever? From Harris' article:
Part of the reason why you will rarely see reasonable people on the pro-gun side of this debate is that most of the newsmedia are on the anti-gun side of things. They have ratings to keep and viewers to hold onto. The people watching those stations tune in to hear the opinions that they already feel. They aren't there to have their thinking challenged or to be swayed from their feelings. If they were to put a reasonable person who makes good points and doesn't come off as a complete lunatic, it would work against the agenda. Its the same reason that Piers had that raging 1776 guy on. It makes the pro-gun people look like him. And having a reasonable anti-gun person makes his point even better.
You know how the saying goes: Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. I agree; at this juncture in our society we don't need a well regulated militia to protect us from our own government. I don't know what the future could hold. How could I impinge upon the freedom of future generations of Americans without knowing what adversity they may face? Perhaps they face an event or series of events where: How will they face those events if I have helped remove their ability to do so?
Ask yourself: if Americans were, as a majority or a large plurality, heavily in favor of gun rights, would it be in the economic advantage of news media to be near-uniformly "anti-gun"? Did any news media that you know of say "You know what? Let's not even cover the NRA" during LaPierre's press conference? Has the Drudge Report stop getting hits? Right-wing talk radio gone off the air? The Wall Street Journal's editorial page been taken over by Occupy Wall Street? The Washington Times stopped publishing? Krauthammer been bound and gagged so he couldn't publish at WaPo? McArdle stop writing? You'll find no shortage of pro-gun-rights editorials and coverage across the media as a whole. The right's media persecution complex is tiresome. The media looks largely like we do: right or left depending on source with a pervasive centrist and sensationalist bias.
I actually identify myself as part of the left, believe it or not. And typically, I blame Fox for most of what I find to be wrong in journalism. And I haven't actually watched their coverage at all concerning this topic. But it's like you said. People are going to watch and read the coverage that speaks to their own biases. I was merely observing what I've seen on most of the other stations.
Saying that we should repeal/disregard the Second Amendment because the US government has historically respected the democratic process and most of the basic human rights of the electorate (unless you were black until the 60s, an Indian until the early 20th century, etc.) is no different than telling someone they should get rid of their car insurance because they've never been in an accident, so they obviously don't need it. The citizens of Australia and the UK, among other countries, have voluntarily disarmed themselves over the past couple decades. And their governments continue to be democratic and their societies relatively free. For now. But the fact of the matter is that your governments could decide tomorrow that that whole democracy thing is for the birds, we're just not going to have elections any more, and anyone who doesn't like it is going to the gulag. And there's not a damned thing you guys could do about it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the government of a country whose populace is unarmed wields absolute power even if said government was democratically elected. A populace that has forfeited its right to self-defense exercises its other basic human rights only at the mercy of the state.
The above is funadamentally what i see as wrong with this disccusion, and as an Australian i feel compelled to post as I so rarely do. The idea that the second amendment is still a bulwark against tyranny is a joke. If and when Tyranny comes, it will come with the armed forces (because without the armed forces it can't possibly succeed). And if you think that your semi-automatic assault rifle and your pistol are going to do a damn thing against the marvels of modern military technology, you live in a fantasy world. We had one terrible mass shooting in this country, and we reacted by banning semi-automatic rifles, pump-action shotguns and handguns. We havent had a single mass shooting since. The conservative Prime Minister John Howard called gun control his greatest achievement. is there still gun crime? Yes. But saying we couldnt eliminate it completely so why bother doing anything wasn't an option. Farmers and hunters still have access to bolt action rifles, and i believe (though I may be wrong) in certain circumstances pump action weapons. i simply don't get the American attachment to their guns.
The Taliban seem to be doing pretty well and their most effective weapons are home-assembled bombs and mortars and Soviet-era rifles. Granted there is a difference between the battle hardened Taliban and the American public, and the specifics of another American civil war are pointless to argue over, but there is an ongoing example of what you say to be impossible.
This point comes up a lot, and it should be addressed because its a valid one. Correct, a citizenry armed with semi-auto rifles and small arms would be no match for a full military onslaught, at least not the US military anyway. But then the solution is what, then? Don't bother at all? It's been said before in this thread, but what people other countries don't seem to grasp is, Americans have a very different cultural point of view than you do. Our entire existence and structure of our laws is based around distrust of our government. Hell, it's why we exist. Most of us, don't want to surrender all control to the government, and it's kind of shocking so many nations, especially in Europe, don't have a problem with given their long history of tyranny.
Yeah, this line of logic is being bandied about by gun control advocates and boggles my mind. I just read an article that basically read, it took the Russian military 7 million soldiers to defeat Nazi Germany, what chance did the Jews have if they would have fought back if they had personal firearms? Yep, give up your rights to self defense, you have no chance, better to be lead to the slaughter than die fighting against it, it seems.
See, the problem with this line of thinking is that it is such 1800's thinking. I mean, it is 2013. You're living in the past and clinging to anachronisms that no longer exist in today's society. That is the thing. Reality is progressive. Technology and society move forward, and you can either adapt or you can cling to past anachronisms while screaming about how things haven't changed. They have. The 2nd amendment comes from a time when news took days, if not weeks, to spread throughout the country. Now it takes seconds for news to travel that the President has declared himself "emperor of America." There would be national rebellions within MINUTES of that announcement, and a shitstorm of epic proportions. He'd have no country to control. Besides that, it depends on three very, very HUGE assumptions. First, it depends on the assumption that either A) Congress and the President can work together to eliminate elections, and gain enough support and power to make it happen (considering we can't agree on budgets or, you know, fucking ANYTHING in congress, this seems pretty unlikely) or B) That the President can amass enough power and support to declare himself emperor of everything. Second, it assumes that the United States military would simply line up behind the President or Congress or whomever it is that just said "fuck democracy." I cannot imagine a scenario where the United States military, or at the very least most of its members, didn't immediately rebel against that kind of tyranny. Without the United States military to enforce their declaration of being emperor or king, or enforcing the whole "take democracy away" thing, it can't happen. They're just a crazy person ranting into a microphone. Third, if the military DID fall in line behind the new emperor president, you and your militia and your AR-15s and AKs or whatever likely aren't going to stand much of a chance against their tanks, drones, bombers, airplanes, and their technology. In this (exceptionally) fictional world, I'd imagine that the emperor president would no longer care about civilian casualties (if they're evil enough to declare themselves emperor and take over the country by force, they're evil enough to kill civilians), therefore they'd have no problem bombing the shit out of anyplace that rebelled, and your guns would be basically useless against unmanned drones or bombers. The 2nd amendment is a relic from a time when "Arms" meant inaccurate muskets and even more inaccurate single-shot hand guns that fired (if you were good) 2 rounds a minute. Now, "Arms" refers to semi-automatic weapons that can fire off 30 rounds in less than a minute, with exceptional accuracy. Reloading used to take 30 seconds to a minute. Now, it takes 5 seconds to switch between 10 round (or more) magazines. It comes from a time when guns were a necessity for survival; when hunting was an absolute necessity to obtain food and survive on the frontier. Now, guns are primarily used (when used legally) to shoot at pieces of paper for fun. It is a relic from a time when it was at least conceivable that someone or some group could amass enough power to take over the Capital, and it would take days for word of said takeover to spread across the country, and even longer for a military or militia to move on the Capital and attempt to take it back. Now, we're talking minutes for the info to spread, and hours (at MOST) for military action against the usurpers to take place. The reason other countries gave up their guns and don't have an issue giving up guns is because they have come to understand the reality we live in TODAY, and they're not stuck in the past like we are in this country. There is absolutely zero chance, in a modern, first world country (not some 3rd world country like Afghanistan), that any single individual or group could amass the kind of power necessary to take over the Government, or that any Government official (President or even a group) could amass the kind of power and military support to simply take over and eliminate democracy. In today's modern society, given our technology and communication capabilities, it is virtually impossible. Too many Americans cling to the past rather than look to the future, and it only harms us in the long run, because we refuse to accept reality as it is today. They're still pressing for laws as if it was 1800, not 2013. Learning from the past is good; clinging to those anachronisms as if they still exist today is simply silly. Reality is progressive. We move forward. If we, as a country, refuse to move forward, the rest of the world will catch up, and we will start falling behind (which, I don't know if you've noticed, is already happening).
German Weapons Act 1938 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Germany Soviet Gun Control 1929 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism Chinese Gun Control 1935 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong Cambodia Gun Control 1956 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot Ottoman Turkey Gun Control 1911 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide