Guns And Mental Health
Another mass shooting and the outcries that we must do something return.
I do think we need to do something and I am a fan of more gun safety regulation.
But we also need to enforce the laws that are on the books already.
I would imagine that the Las Vegas shooter used an illegal weapon last night.
Why can’t we enforce the laws that are already on the books?
And the people who commit these horrible crimes are mentally ill.
Anyone who could turn a gun on innocent people is clearly not right in their head.
So while we fight for more gun safety laws, a fight that is hard and where little ground has been gained in recent years, we should also fight for better healthcare for mental illness.
Comments (Archived):
Sometimes I’m outraged at these tragedies and sometimes numb. Today is numb.
Yup. No words. Just saw on Twitter that ISIS is claiming responsibility. There is no proof for their claim. Doesn’t matter to the victims of the shooting.I agree with Fred-we need better healthcare for mental illness.
Our healthcare for mental illness is not the problem. We have wonderful psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, clinics, etc. It’s the healthcare systems and policies around mental illness that discourage taking advantage of those providers that is the problem. If you know seeing a psychiatrist even once may result in you never being able to get life insurance, why risk it?
I’m tired of the numb feeling.
I agree 100% that we need more gun safety regulation and enforcement and that we also need better healthcare for mental illness. No disagreement on that (within reason as always).That said there is no way that we are going to be able to prevent aberrations like what happened in Las Vegas or similar. To many people. And as anyone involved in healthcare knows (and life for that matter) people don’t always do what is in their best interest regardless of whether it involves money or their own initiative. And mental health is not fixed in a point in time either. I know of people who own guns (who had valid reasons for having them and are licensed) and that were stable at the point of getting those guns. Now they appear to be unstable and potentially could be a danger. Not in a very clear way either but potentially for sure (had life changing circumstances let’s say). You are simply never going to able in a free society to root out threats like that. Just like you will never be able to take steps to prevent all terror threats unless you spend an outrageous amount of money and restrict all sorts of freedoms.That said better healthcare for mental illness is for sure a good idea. Also recognizing that it is a disease and not some kind of choice.
.Before we do anything else, we need to enforce existing laws. In Chicago, we have 519 murders by the end of September 2017.The gun laws in Illinois and Chicago make every single one of these murders preventable if gun laws were enforced.I think there is legislation to be considered, but, first, we need enforcement.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Guns in Chicago do not come from Chicago, they come from neighboring states where gun laws allow them to be purchased and resold pretty much anonymously. I can cite sources later if necessary but this is very much the problem, similar to drugs. No one is growing heroin in Chicago either.
.I would be surprised if even a fraction of the gun deaths in Chicago involve legally acquired guns.Point of fact — a state only allows its legal residents to purchase guns. So, a Chicago resident cannot go to a neighboring state and acquire a gun legally.When in Colorado, as a resident of Texas, I cannot buy a gun legally.In both the instances you cite, it is the possession and redistribution of the offending item which is relevant.As an aside, Texas is at an all time high in legal gun ownership and CHL while being at an all time low in murders. This in spite of enormous parallel population growth.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Here are two sources that show a direct correlation of guns from other states being used to commit crimes in Chicago. Over 60% aggregated are purchased out of state. Note it’s not that Chicago residents are going to gun shops out of state – it’s that gun laws in other states are less strict which allows those guns to be resold or trafficked to Chicago.https://www.usatoday.com/st…http://www.nytimes.com/inte…
.I am not doubting the accuracy of your assertion. I am pointing out that buying guns in other states and transporting them to Chicago is illegal as is simple possession in Chicago.The solution is to lock up people who illegally own guns in Chicago.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Which occurs but there is often no way to know if a person has a gun until they’re stopped for another crime – often a violent crime where said gun is used. This solution isn’t enough.We need a larger focus on prevention.
.It is a start. A 10 year addition to crimes using a gun would also be a good start.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Why not impose a mandatory minimum 25-year sentence for illegal possession of any lethal weapon and 50 years for illegal sale? Surely that would only impact people who are already criminals.If the right to bear (small) arms is asserted as a failsafe against a tyrannical government, where is the right to bear shoulder-fired AT weapons, SAMs, etc?A modern illustration can be found in a visit to what used to be Georgia (the country) and is now “South Ossetia.” You can ask the small arms bearing Georgians who were attacked by Russian regulars and paramilitaries in tanks and choppers how effective they were at stopping a tyrannical government force that seemed to mushroom out of their midst.Most arguments in favor of gun ownership do not convince me, especially when there are non-lethal but highly effective alternatives, either already existing or at least feasible. Surely we possess the technology to make rapid-fire stun guns with incapacitating “follow up” tranquilizers. Surely we would give up lethal weapons in favor of possibly more effective non-lethal ones. Surely we can agree that single-shot bolt action is sufficient for hunting any game found in North America. Surely we can agree that pistol shooting for sport can mean the gun is kept at the range, and in the event we own a large enough property to shoot on for sport, that the pistol is equipped with mechanisms to prevent toddlers from shooting their mom or each other.The only people I have heard argue that they believe possessing a semi-auto .556 rifle as a countermeasure against a tyrannical government are ex-infantrymen who either stay in incredible shape and in constant touch with like-minded veterans, or have an overinflated assessment of their prowess.Nothing else makes sense, logically. Leaving the emotions completely out of it.
I saw that Tribune article on it, with the cool graphics. Very good reporting!
In Chicago, we have 519 murdersAgree. But you know why that is not a front burner issue? Because it primarily impacts poor people and poor people living in the midwest for that matter.And importantly the media and the megaphones don’t care about ‘far schlepta crenks’ (long standing illnesses). They care about acute problems and in particular things that could impact anyone at any time. This is also part of the reason why most people don’t seen to care about what is happening in Puerto Rico. And along those lines they were all excited about opening up travel and opportunities in Cuba than they do in a place that is essentially similar in many ways and already part of the US. And a great place to vacation as well. That needs the money and the investment.
So it’s the Media’s fault? We live in an era where everyone is The Media!
Yes it’s in part the media’s fault.We live in an era where everyone is The Media!All animals are important but some animals are more important than others. Way more important.If you don’t think that stories running non stop on CNN, major networks, ‘papers of record’ have more impact than people tweeting shit and blogging please consider again. It is legacy legitimacy.Ny Times has even taken this further in recent years with their ‘your morning briefing’. As if we are all in the fucking situation room and ready to make decisions for the day as opposed to honestly just being infotained.Have you ever been featured in major media in a story? I have. Everyone comes out of the woodwork and then wants to do a story as well. Small papers, larger papers everyone thinks you are then worth of attention. Just because you appeared in a paper of record. (WSJ and NYT is the example I had experience with but their influence is obvious on it’s face if you pay attention).Impact and influence of major media is undeniable.NYT ‘all the news that’s fit to print’ (actually all the news that they can sell advertising for’. Now ‘the news and stories that matter’ (because space is not an issue anymore). https://uploads.disquscdn.c……
I disagree with you. Big Media is owned, sure. Yet if telling the story of gun control was profitable or interesting, they would. There have been documentaries and stories about Columbine and other mass shootings. No one watches them. The problem is that it is a story no one cares about – because it is too hard (whine) – until it touches a voter personally.
In general, the media doesn’t get enough blame for societal ills. A large portion of society is directly influenced by the media narrative and they’re often to blame for shifting it or misrepresenting it to a huge section of the population.
What that boils down to is: People are Sheep, easily influenced by both Media and Social Media, mainly due to a lack of education and critical thinking n society today. Personal responsibility left the room along with the educated voter a while ago, I guess.
No, IMHO, people want to fit in, or, like you said, they want to be in a herd of sheep.
Don’t leave out polarizing people. Go watch Fox for 30min and then CNN. Wow, if you have certain leanings you love Fox and then CNN will only act like a bellows to fuel the fire in your heart, and just the opposite for others.
Here we go: Chicago!
I agree with your points here. The shooter was a licensed hunter and fisherman. Probably your typical “outdoorsy” fellow who collected guns for decades, enjoyed using them. Had a normal job, a marriage. No red flags. Throw in a divorce later in life, retirement, facing old age, and who knows what made him snap? He could be diagnosed perfectly sane by most standards. When a person is really good at concealing sick desires to unleash automatic weapons fire into thousands of people, what can we do?
.He was a pilot with a current instrument rating which requires proficiency, a test every two years, and a physical every 3 years. Part of a flight physical is a review by a doc of your mental state.The guy was an auditor. Something happened we don’t know about yet.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Looks like the shooter’s father was the real deal criminal. Not many folks make it to the FBI’s most wanted list for almost a decade. He was even smart enough to break out of prison. Top it off, he was diagnosed psychopathic and a professional gambler. It’s eerie how the shooter lived the “perfect life”, cloaking his murderous psychosis for all of those years. I wonder what the trigger was.
.New info.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Would you take away their guns now that they own them (akin to cars and ability to drive as one ages)
Would depend on how clear cut the issues are. But the problem is that ‘taking away’ would literally take a court of law and with effective advocates would be near impossible to prove in many cases. So I think it’s probably a non-starter. Only way around that is if the system were setup similar to drivers licenses. But that’s never going to happen.
Ummmm many states basically have that. Look up MD. Much easier to get a drivers license than to purchase a gun. An automatic which that guy was using? Basically impossible. Now did he modify a gun? Yes.Should he be banned for his father as people suggested?? I would ask anybody that suggests that to agree that they pay for the sins of their relatives.
banned for his father as people suggestedI must have missed the person who said that. That is an entirely ridiculous idea. And has nothing to do with how clean your relatives are or not. I think the absurdity stands on it’s own.That said of course people definitely shun people whose parents have committed crimes instead of thinking of them as actually victims.
Check this out. When I first saw the story (on another site just a minute ago) thought surely it was made up. But apparently unless they duped Fox it is true:http://www.foxnews.com/ente…
If you look one of the first things that Germany did in 1938 is to ban Jews from owning guns: http://www.politifact.com/t…The Warsaw uprising only happened as Jews got and stole guns.Israel would not exist without their ability to make some of the best guns ever and have their population heavily armed.I do not understand how any Jew would be opposed to the second amendment.
That is truly unbelievable. It just shows how bad the media has become.
Story of course was true.In this case I side with CBS who fired her.Not for what she said. If she was overhead in a restaurant that’s free speech.If she is stupid enough to broadcast it on twitter or in any public venue it shows lack of judgement. Plain and simple. She is an attorney not the receptionist after all.
An attorney…….how stupid. I respectfully disagree with many people on this board, but to say that people deserved to be killed?Wow.And to be dumb enough to do it on your Facebook page?You should be fired for many reasons including pure stupidity.
Hatred is rising to the surface in so many arenas.
Technically Corruption of the blood and expressly illegal via the Constitution, though most in government try to bury that thing as entirely too useful and sensible unless it is a distortion that no one ever intended.
Good points. In Austria (Where I live), you have to re-certify periodically to maintain your gun license. The healthcare is centralized (and everybody on it has an identity related to it) so I’m guessing it’s relatively easy to find out if somebody has been afflicted with a mental condition.
A while back I read an illuminating article on a similar subject, https://www.theguardian.com….The basic summary is, stop blaming mental illness (and thereby cultivating the stigma associated with it) for every violent incident that we cannot attribute to people whose core beliefs are not explicitly different from ours. It is often a cop out for explaining why people who look like us do things that we wouldn’t. Attribution bias is often unintentional, but has lasting consequences.
stop blaming mental illnessI am not sure how someone intentionally going out and killing multiple people (who they are not even associated with; eg ‘not ex wife who cheated so you are angry’) could be considered anything but mental illness.Sure it’s unfortunate that that word happens to cover people who would not do that. So if you want come up with a different word to describe it. In the mean time I think it stands on it’s own that anyone who would do something like this is more than just ‘doing things that we wouldn’t’. If this is not an illness of the brain (what happened yesterday) I don’t know what is.(and thereby cultivating the stigma associated with it)I will continue to use it. If I want to. Reminds me of how I am not permitted to use the word ‘retard’ anymore. That it’s apparently always assumed that it’s offensive and we need another word that says the same thing but hasn’t been around long enough to be offensive. When I was growing up a long time ago there was a kid in the neighborhood named Ernie that was retarded. Everyone, every kid, parent and school teacher called him retarded. Because he was. It was simply a statement of fact. So sure maybe people adopted that word as a negative on people who weren’t the same for impact or derision or whatever. To make a point. But you know what? If I were to use the word ‘retard’ (or dotard now) directly at you or someone you love you have the right to call me out on that and I will suffer the consequences. That is fair game. But I don’t feel (you can do what you want obviously by my argument) that it’s right for you or others to decide that I can’t use that word (and actually I don’t use it I am just arguing another side of this) or that we all should just stop using that word.
You’re entitled to your opinion of course. There is plenty of published literature that examines the issue (a quick web search using the terms violence and mental health brings up numerous resources). There are also plenty of well known examples of violence that are primarily attributed to political and religious fanaticism, substance abuse, or unpent rage.I don’t quite get the relevance of the ‘retard’ anecdote. And I’m not trying to convince you personally. The difference between this post by Fred, which places the blame for a shooting by a caucasian male on mental illness, and the one last year (http://avc.com/2016/06/the-…, which places the blame for a shooting by a non-caucasian male on hatred, is what stands out to me.
Very much this. Frankly, I think anyone who kills another, moreso several others, is suffering from some kind of mental illness, whether the pretext is religion or not (there are plenty of very religious people who don’t kill others).Recent incidents in France have always been by mildly criminal, mildly disaffected young-ish males. Clearly with socialization, probably psychological, issues, prior to their latching onto religion as a pretext.This makes the systematically biased commentary that any colored mass-murder is a religious zealot, and any white mass-murder a crazy, very disturbing. Exposes our own bigotry, I guess.
I agree with you
“If this is not an illness of the brain (what happened yesterday) I don’t know what is.” Actually I do not believe you do know what the cause was.”Never react to an evil in such away to augment it” “Ernie that was retarded” A N!!!!! is a , A Queer is a is a, A Bastard is a, A motherfucker is a, A Kike is the same as the other derogatory terms that take away ones dignity in the eyes ones children.
Sure you are entitled to use whatever word you want. But if you care about the feelings of other people, you will take into account how your choice of words impacts them.For example, “retarded” started out as a clinical term (slowness of mind or mental development), but in common-speak now usually just means “stupid”. The noun form “retard” is nearly always used as a pejorative, either calling someone stupid, or (when actually referring to someone with a disability) to call attention to a mental disability in a negative way. I have never once heard anyone call someone a “retard” who meant it in a kind way.You might think, “no, don’t paint me with that broad brush – I’m among the 10% of people who don’t mean anything negative by it.” But most of the people who don’t mean it in a negative way have moved on to use other words. So you are left in the crowd that use the word in a mean-spirited way.So if a mother hears you calling her child a “retard” – what is she most likely to think? That you are a kind man who simply doesn’t want to update his vocabulary – or that you are making fun of her child’s mental disability? Guaranteed to be the latter. (My family runs a foundation for autism, and I’m very familiar with how these parents perceive such comments.)I know you don’t actually use the word “retard” – you were just bringing it up as an example. My response continues with that example to illustrate that word choice (and how people interpret your word choice) matters. It’s true that often PC wording guidelines are overdone, but sometimes it makes a big difference to the person you’re interacting with and what kind of a day they will have. And kindness requires you to take such things into account in your word choice.
Frankly the only people who have much basis to comment on the use of the word “retarded” are those of guardianship of someone who is a mentally retarded/disabled, or those high functioning mentally retarded/disabled adults who may be able to understand the nuance of the terms.As of two weeks ago I have (joint) custody of my mentally retarded/disabled sister in Maine, so as her guardian let me say that I think it would much better for us to reclaim the word “retarded” on people like my sister’s behalf, and maybe even take some of the juice out of “libtard” as well, than turn into another “n-word” where we have to say “r-word” all the time.Here’s some background on my sister btw. I wrote this 4 years ago and don’t intend to update it to use “mentally disabled” instead of “mentally retarded” so as not to offend people the PC police.http://tumblr.robunderwood….
I don’t know how you “reclaim” a word, but that would be a great outcome if possible.I will note however that there is a huge difference between saying “my sister is mentally retarded” and saying “that person is a retard”
I really don’t want to go too far down this road as the comparison is not a perfect one, but isn’t use of the actual “n-word” by people of color part of a deliberate effort to reclaim that word by the very people the word is meant to insult and demean? Similar too to the use of the “s-word” in the “s— walk” events to protest rape and sexual violence towards women. These are conscious efforts to reclaim words and in the process neutralize at least a bit their impact when used by those who mean to demean with words.And I also think that those of us best positioned to reclaim the word “retarded” can also do another service by hopefully disarming the word “libtard” a bit too. I am surprised actually that people on the left haven’t been more assertive on turning that word around against those who use it instead of just letting it be another point of outrage, another micro-aggression. The only thing that all the outrage around the word “libtard” shows is how easily the left is taken to get distracted with silly words and manipulated to lose sight of the bigger issues. We are so easily played and those on the right know it.
Out of curiosity, do you ever use the (exact) expression “my retard sister”, or “my sister, the retard”? You have already discussed your feelings on the word ‘retarded’ quite clearly.
No I don’t. When I describe her I say she is “mentally retarded” unless I really think about about it and remember to say “mentally disabled”. When I was growing up “mentally retarded” was all we used at school and what my parents said too. My mom was a special ed teacher for 30 years and I think she too has to really remember to use “mentally disabled” instead of “mentally retarded” when talking to people who might be triggered or consider use of the latter term a micro-aggression of some sort.I’ll say this too — no one knows the stress having a mentally retarded/disabled child has on parents and siblings. We used to be kicked out of stores because of my sisters — business owners wouldn’t allow us to come in with her. The kids, every single one, in our hometown – Kennebunkport, Maine – were all great and kind to my sister but many adults treated her and my family poorly. It would be really swell for folks to ask those who are closest to these situations about their feelings before they just start speculating on terms and outrages.
OK, let me ask you (genuine question): how would you react if you overheard someone talking about your sister saying, “Hey I saw Rob’s sister last week… yeah that’s right… the retard.”
Similar question: how do you feel when you hear someone using the word “retard” as a generic term for “stupid”.For example, “Dude, don’t act like such a retard!”Most of my family and friends in your shoes are genuinely hurt (and angered) when they hear that – I’m curious if you are different.
Yeah, that sounds offensive.But who is using the word in the first place changes it too. I wouldn’t choose to use the word in that context, but my use of that word, as guardian/advocate of my sister – someone with the legal power to speak on her behalf – is different than your use.
Your sister is beautiful, in part cause she has someone like you in her life. I think we’ve come a long way with dealing with and accepting people w/ mental disabilities like your sisters, but there’s still an awful lot of ignorance and insensitivity out there.
I agree you are mentally ill. Also you managed to procure an illegal firearm and use it because you are mentally ill. I agree with you, I can wrap my mind around shooting somebody you caught in bed with your wife, or somebody that stole from you.Not right.But random people?
LE:If the killer was any other religion or ethnic group (Middle Eastern, minority, Muslim, etc.) Mental illness would be the last narrative pushed. Reread JoeK post.This term is one 90% or more will reject because Stephen Pollock looks like them. Stephen Pollock was a White Terrorist. Just like the shooter in Dallas was a Black Terrorist.
You can say whatever you want, but you don’t get to decide if it’s “offensive” or not. So when somebody says “you should’t” or “you can’t”, just take it as awareness training and move on.I know that’s what you just said, but you’re basically railing for the right to let people think you’re an asshole if they want to. And that is, indeed, your right.
I think calling someone a retard is too often used as a hurtful insult (hence the rise of libtard and reptard, etc.). We ought not do that.I have a cousin who is mentally retarded. That was how, years ago he was clinically diagnosed. He’s a nice guy, but he has limits on what he can do. But he deserves the same respect and kindness we afford all others.The best analogy I can think of is calling someone a cancer at work (or school). Would any of us cringe if we heard our child called a cancer by a coach or a teacher?
Interesting thoughts, but it’s the guns https://youtu.be/bX4qUsgHa4Y
Sadly, yes.Repealing the Dickey Amendment would be super helpful in guiding policy while allowing people to own guns.Despite the NAACP, there’s a middle ground. Most gun owners want some regulation, it’s not like they LIKE mass shootings.
.The Dickey Amendment is an annual amendment (like the Hyde Amendment) which is appended to the spending bill every year.The prohibition is really not on research, it is on gun control — whatever that is. The big hurdle is the funding.When the Dickey Amendment was passed, it was offset by funding specific research initiatives such as traumatic brain injury.There is no particular reason why the Dickey Amendment should not be removed, but nobody has really championed it recently.What is the role of the NAACP?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Typo on a mobile. Should be the NRA.How can you say that about the Dickey Amendment – The US can’t even legally create a computerized database of all gun owners. The federal government and most states governments don’t have a database of crimes committed by guns, based on type, location, ect. All the data available is from researchers painstakingly putting together information from stuff local police stations and newspapers put out. That should change if we want legal gun ownership while also having regulation that work to prevent people who should not have guns from having them.
.You’re wrong on that.Take a look at an ATF Form 4473. It lists the seller, buyer, weapon by serial number. That is aggregated by the ATF into a database.ATF has existed since 1972 and every legal transaction has been recorded and is accessible. When the cops say they are going to “run the serial number” this is what they are talking about.What you are talking about is requiring current gun owners to provide information about their existing ownership.We currently have a legal framework in which to own guns. You are talking about something altogether different. One has to ask — toward what end?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
A paper database. Your local library has a more searchable database of what books it has than what the ATF uses. It’s illegal for the ATF to use a computer to search dealer records. The ATF only has the equivalent of the card catalog to each dealer’s book of records digitalised and searchable. They have to manually search each record after figuring out what the dealer records section is. So as a result, there’s no way for the ATF to search based on gun owner (or potential owner), or by date, or the many ways you normally search for other things.https://www.cio.com/article…
Serious? This can’t be true.
Yup. While technically they’ve scanned some of their records, those records aren’t searchable, and basically, the scans are whatever the digital equivalent to microfiche is. ATF even had to delete dealer records when they were given them in a searchable format by dealers.https://www.thetrace.org/20…
YesSee this article for more informationhttps://www.thetrace.org/20…
Too often mental health is conflated w/ mental illness. Chronic anxiety is vastly different than schizophrenia. If someone has been admitted to a psych ward, for example, they should never be allowed to own a gun. Same for felons and even certain misdemeanors, or perhaps felony charges that have been dropped to a misdemeanor. It should be a privilege to own a gun, not an inalienable right. There are ways to add clarity to a debate on mental health vs. mental illness, if truly desired. Lines can and should be drawn in the sand, as subjective as they may be. A Constitutional right, plain and simple, is bs in a modern world.
.Perhaps you’re picking the wrong fight. Rights are held within boundaries but banning or confiscation is in direct conflict with rights.The state has a legitimate police authority — witness building codes as an example which mandate certain safety standards v design criteria.Further, the Constitution, by design, is able to be amended. We are way overdue for a constitutional convention, a convention of the several states, to deal with such issues.The Founding Fathers in their wisdom anticipated this.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
It’s too easy to circumvent state by state laws, less so at the fed level.
.That depends entirely upon the state. In Texas, we have The List. You have a 5-day waiting period. You must receive affirmative permission to buy a gun. All data related to the buyer, seller, gun are captured and registered.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Texas still allows for variations on straw purchases that the Supreme Court did not ban, which is why Texas is a hotbed of places for Mexican Drug Cartels to buy guns to import into Mexico (which ironically has stricter gun sale laws than the US)http://www.gao.gov/assets/6…Stricter gun laws in Texas would cause that rate to plummet.
.You are mixing apples and oranges.The weapons identified in the report are “legal” weapons which may have been purchased by a straw man, but are more likely to have been stolen from a legal purchaser.Texas will have the most such weapons because it has the longest border and the most points of entry — legal and illegal.Most of the weapons taken by Mexican bad guys to Mexico have been obtained illegally. The favorite of gangs for a long time was to rob pawn shops. There was a cycle of legal purchases, pawns, and thefts.What will assist greatly in illegal export of weapons to Mexico would be building The WALL, Donald J Trump’s wall.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I’m paraphrasing elements of the GOA, which comments that about 53% of weapons that ended up in cartel hands were bought but had incomplete records at the point/time in sale.. It’s not just the length of the border that matter, ease of crossing plus ease of obtaining guns also matters. parts of California have better places to cross in terms of ease, but it’s harder to buy in California so less guns go through the California border.This is from a local San Antonio paper, even they comment that Texas law isn’t helping themhttp://www.mysanantonio.com…http://www.npr.org/sections… nor says the same about the study. Basically if it were harder to sell guns, especially on the border, the guns wouldn’t get to Mexico.Also, a wall wouldn’t stop the guns from moving, especially a wall that’s not going to be built. That cargo from a cartel perspective would be too valuable. If you want to stop the guns, you’d basically have to make it so difficult and expensive that it wouldn’t be worth it to the Cartels to try and game the legal ways to buy guns.
Blaming mental illness and easy availability of powerful guns are NOT mutually exclusive reasons. It is more like a funnel where the former is the pool of people with potentially bad intent and the latter is a means to fulfill it. Solving the problem involves dealing with BOTH.It is shameful for any one to claim that easy access to semi automatic guns are not a part of the problem given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
“better healthcare for mental illness”?Good idea, but how, given that the current administration is doing its best to dismantle the entire healthcare system, mental and physical. This is the sad reality of American society.
i wonder if he now expands the travel ban.
.Predictable — Trump’s fault. Well reasoned comment.Why no angst about the Obama admin’s failure to introduce gun control when they had all the levers of power in their hands?Interesting enough, Pres Trump has come out several times in favor of gun safety regulation — not gun confiscation.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
i was quietly encouraged by trumps demeanor today. these are truly trying times. I was trying to highlight the absurdity of some of our country’s positions – in the face of the glaringly obvious problem we have here with guns.
It seems attempts to prevent the mentally ill from accessing firearms is futile. A more worthwhile exploration might be to ask, why is America producing so many mentally ill people?
I like that question. I’m not sure it’s really true, but I like the question.
Does the U.S. really “produce” more mentally ill people than other countries? Seems a wild assumption unless you have the stats to back it up.
Substitute mentally ill with mass shooters if it works better for you.
Any other western democracies that have elected the likes of D-Trump ?Yes circumstantial evidence to be sure 🙂
Nothing “seems futile”, it hasn’t been tried yet. The gun lobby has done its utmost to prevent a national gun registry, universal checks… these are the fruits of these policies.I can’t help but think US voters have been willingly putting powder in the keg they’re sitting on. Actions, consequences.
.States, like Texas, have a disciplined gun purchase program. There is a 5-day waiting period and a requirement for a affirmative action to allow purchase.Texas created and still uses The List required by the 1994 AWB. One cannot buy a gun in Texas for many reasons including having been admitted to a mental health hospital.Every gun sold in Texas requires the recording of the gun’s serial number. Guns without serial numbers are subject to confiscation.The regulation of guns may be a national responsibility — not prepared to agree to that just yet, but the creation of gun ownership and purchase laws is a state responsibility — just like driver’s licenses.Some states do a better job than others. Illinois v Texas?It feels to me like Texas is doing exactly what you suggest.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I wasn’t aware Vegas is in Texas.Maybe it’s no coincidence that Nevada has some of the very laxest gun laws ? https://qz.com/1091855/las-…
.Las Vegas has legal prostitution, gambling, and obscene dinner buffets. Of the three, the dinner buffets are the worst. JKThe point was it can be done if the legislature wants it done.Nevada is a weird state which is barely civilized.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Well, it seems guns kill more than all of those, combined. Obviously, you don’t care.Enjoy your massacres. You’re responsible for them.
.Yes, of course. Perfectly reasonable utterance.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Please tell me more about how people are responsible for crazy people being crazy. By your logic, Mama Merkel is responsible for Charlie Hebdo, the Paris Attack, and Nice.
When you let guns flow freely, you’re responsible when a crazy gets a hold of them. Same as when you have a gun in your home, you’re responsible when a toddler gets a hold of it.
Nope, there is no gray area on this topic. America has too many guns. https://youtu.be/bX4qUsgHa4Y
And the stark reality is it always will. You are never going to pry away guns from gun owners.It’s one of the major reasons people own them. Because people don’t want them to, and therefore they know not to trust those people.If you did come for them, then you would see what they would be used for by people that don’t use them for anything else……a major uprising.Seriously.
The guy who sold Paddock a gun in Utah does his video interview in front of a wall w 5 assault rifles, one w a clip that holds 30 rounds.If you need that, you’re fucked in the head and by definition we should keep you away from that armament.The 2nd Amendment is 200 years out of date, 150 at the very least.Since the ‘70’s, 8 major manufacturers & the NRA are responsible for more deaths than WW2.I grew up rural, w guns. My Pops owned one of the few M1s in Canada. It was a collectors item, he never fired it.I don’t have a problem w open carry handguns.Assault weapons and assault clips should carry 10 year prison terms for civilians.
I actually have a problem with open carry handguns. They are meant to intimidate. Inside your house or store, no issue. Walking around? That is just baiting people.
I am w Jim Jeffries on the motivation for gun ownership – it’s bullshit ego based. If you are respobsible, a gun at home is locked up & of no perpsnal protection use.Carry it on your hip and use it, I am Ok with. Most assholes don’t have the guts to pack.Sell them at Walmart so assholes can tell themselves they would get into a fire fight when the feds come to Seize their 5 acres….not so much.The asshole factor here is what no one of the left has the stomach to talk about. They have been cowed.
Umm Walmart stopped selling handguns 15 years ago.Umm no personal protection use. Have you heard of a cordal safe? Or RFID safe or fingerprint safe??Respectfully I think people from other countries have no business commenting on gun laws. They are unique to the United States.
Heard a guy on NPR call in say ‘getting ammo ‘ @ WM. Assumed they still sold firearms.Have you watched Jeffries stand up on guns? His apartment in Manchester England was home invaded. He was tied up and threatened w a machete. He was naked when it happens, so even an Open Carry might not have helped him, he says.Arguing the point with you or Jeff is hard, b/c you are the exact opposite of the guys that are the problem: advanced stage D&D types, who buy military stuff because they aren’t military grade. That creates a consumer market for stuff that consumers have no business owning.Semi-autos, huge clips – there is no domestic rationale for them that is not rooted in Loser Male Ego fantasy.
The problem is there so much misinformation that people get their hackles upI don’t think you could really buy a non semi automatic handgun. Maybe if you said a revolver was not but you still pull the trigger and it advances to the next round.Most do not have safeties because people don’t want them much less some biometric systemJeffries argument is as dumb as people that argue guns in schools will make them saferBtw. Here is a clip. You are talking magazines. Tape them or snap them together and your rule is irrelevant https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Then ban magazines.
Harder you push the more I pull, that is why nothing gets done.
I’m only pushing to make it harder for crazy people to shoot 1000 rounds in 10 minutes.That’s an easily non-partisan issue.I have yet to have anyone counter this argument with a pragmatic rationale for a civilian to have that ability nor that any restrictions I am suggesting are unreasonable.I know you are just mirroring a mindset out there, but that mindset is dogmatic and unreasonable (see PwrSerge w ‘any restriction is unreasonable ‘).No civilian needs to be able to shoot more than the 6 bullets that a revolver holds. No civilian needs a butt magazine or a magazine on a long barrelled firearm. No civilian needs a semi-automatic.
And here is a well written accurate non bullshit article. This is Loser Male Ego fantasy: https://www.wired.com/story…Those should be illegal. Federal Prison illegal. This is the problem I have with politicians being a bunch of lawyers. Just put in a law: “Anything that makes it faster than a finger pulling a trigger is illegal”I wondered what this crazy was using. I think I now know (I will say not sure, not stating a fact). I now know why he had so many up there. Still wonder how he got them up there, and the maid didn’t see. I guess several trips with big bags.Does not change my views but it does on this stuff.
Is there an estimate of what % of gun transactions get marked on the list?
.In Texas about 35% of all proposed gun transactions come up for a human review of the transaction.There is a lot of confusion on this subject as people don’t seem to realize that every gun transfer in the US is subject to a NCIS background investigation (Form 4473). People continue to rail for background investigations, while they are currently required.Less than 1% of properly filled out Form 4473s are denied.The thing is when people see what is required by the form and realize it is going to the FBI, the forms are usually correct.Here is a decent article on the subject. Note the reasons why a request can be denied. It is very close to what many people advocate.When you see that list and are in a gun store and don’t qualify, it is unlikely you proceed with request.https://www.thoughtco.com/d…JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
So let’s go through the practical funnel(s) — you are teaching me which is good and helps me come to compromise as I definitely start this debate closer to the other end of the spectrum than you.I’ll ask my questions in hopes you answer both because I hope you can provide answers faster than I research my self and maybe others learn along with me.- Does this get check get applied to all legal gun transactions? In stores, gun-shows, etc? Secondary purchases?- Does the purchaser walk out the store with the firearm they’ve purchased same day of purchase? Or must they wait three days? – What % of applications get a response? Get a response within three days?- What % of the responses that do not get a response in 3 days ultimately end up being flagged?- If purchases walks out the store with the gun, then what happens should they be flagged? Within three days and after three days? If after three days, who holds liability for chasing the person in possession given the store seems to be absolved of their responsibility?- The article references, 59 approvals that should have been rejected but out of how many? If the baseline is either the samples of 309 or 447 listed above then that is a bad rate. I assume it is a different sample.This process looks like the beginning of something fair, but is it practically effective?
.I can only do so much AVC.com homework and I only know about Texas.1. All gun transactions undertaken by a Federally licensed gun seller must conform to an ATF Form 4473. The “gun show” loophole is long since closed. I have not seen anybody who is not a Federally licensed gun seller at a gun show in decades.The Feds say if you sell 3-5 guns a year, you have to be licensed.2. Nobody walks out with a gun the same day. It takes at least 5 days in Texas and is nothing to take longer if the FBI NCIS gets busy.3. About 35% of all Texas applications get pinged. Sometimes it is for simple things like your middle initial v your full name. This happens quite frequently as they check military records and the military records always use middle initials. If you have no middle initial, the military lists you as “NMI” — no middle initial, guaranteed to mess up the system.4. Nobody walks out with a gun without having an affirmative action on the application. I have seen gun stores call the Texas POC and get a verbal approval and it still take another month to get the paperwork.5. Every weapon recovered in a crime is run back through the ATF database — where all the info goes from the app showing seller, buyer, info — and stolen weapons are found all the time.6. I like a Beretta 380 (fairly new) and a Walther P-38 (WWII vintage) and researched the Internet. If you buy a gun on the Internet, it gets shipped to a Federally licenses gun dealer. You have to go through the same process as if you bought it at that store.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I appreciate this information.Without having to dive into the answers, I think the next logical question is what legislation could gun owners, NRA, etc. accept that would make a meaningful impact on reducing these events?(Meaningful is subjectively objective here. I can wrap my head around not stopping all of these terrible accounts and the anecdotes people use to support that statement. I cannot wrap my head around accepting we cannot reduce the number of gun deaths and mass shootings.)If you answered this elsewhere in today’s comments, I apologize and would ask you please just point me there.As always, thank you for taking time to answer and the (to the degree we can get there) objective answers.
.The first thing men of good will could do is to create The List which was required by the 1994 AWB law. It deals directly with the issue of mental illness and domestic violence.Of course, the liberal states like California and the liberal activists like the ACLU fought it. Texas finished its list.I think the country could also embrace the use of Big Data to smoke out the guy who buys 20,000 rounds of ammo in one week.This is done today with the pre-cursor chemicals to meth and for ammonium nitrate (the OKC bomb).JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I think you could have a Federal Standard. After all the Second Amendment is a Federal Amendment.First you have to affirmatively confirm the right for people to own guns. Then you need to confirm that we don’t want any more than this.Then you need to do what my state does which is to buy one you have to have an card. To get this card you need to be fingerprinted and go through four hours of personal training and evaluation (I think this is waived for veterans). To get a concealed carry is very tough. To carry a loaded weapon outside your house except at a range or while hunting (you are limited to three rounds in the magazine while hunting and have to have a plug) is a felony. If your guns are not locked up? You are responsible.To prevent these events is just tough. Look at Paris. It’s impossible to own an AK there……except if you are a crazy person. I mourn those 55 people, but right now there are 25 people that have died and 165 that have been shot in Wilmington, DE a city of 71k.No law is going to prevent this. And what has gun owners scared of any laws is the fact that there are people that say we should ban guns and once they get one hook in they will continue to push, we know this. So they get nothing.
What’s prohibiting a Federal standard as you’ve described?
Oddly it is the people that want to see guns abolished, or that think they know better than you what you should or should not own, or how much ammo that you can buy.You know a major reason why people buy guns? Because people that deem themselves “smarter” or “more enlightened” don’t want them to. Seriously.These “smart and enlightened” people use incorrect terms like “clip” and confuse automatic and semi automatic. There are guns that have clips but they are all WWII and earlier. Basically to buy an automatic is nearly impossible and super expensive and they can’t make them anymore for civilians since like 1985. Why do you need ammo? If you actually practice you are going to use 50 rounds in a half hour so for twice a week with your son and wife you are going through some ammo.The best salespeople for guns are these people. AR lowers (A lower is what is the licensed part of a gun, the part that contains the firing pin) plummeted after Trump because they made so many in anticipation of HRC.Let’s be real, even all I have described would probably not prevent this horrible incident. I don’t know what was going on in this guys head.Do I think there are certain states that have laws that are too lax? Yes, most are out West where they really value their freedom, and seriously really hate “enlightened” liberals as much as they distain them. I do not think you should be able to carry a loaded gun in your glovebox without serious reason. I don’t think anybody carrying a gun would have prevented this incident (it didn’t).I think incidents like Travon Martin are where two idiots collide one is emboldened because they are carrying, one is looking for a fight but doesn’t realize that Colt made all men equal, and the result is a total and utter mess.But if you want to responsibly own, I have no issue.
I fall in the class of people ignorant to guns as you describe (and perhaps in the class of “enlightened liberal”). I find the proposals you find a good starting point.Hopefully not misclassifying you, but it appears you fall further to the “guns” part of the spectrum than I, and you came up with these ideas I am agreeing with.How do we get people to come to an agreement like we just did? I imagine there is a way once the fear/yelling/mob quiets down on both sides.
It’s really hard. The problem is you have Senators that say things like “if I could take everybody’s guns away I would” “It has a 30 caliber clip that can shot thirty bullets in a half a second” No it is a magazine, no caliber is the size of the round, and no human could pull a trigger at a rate of 60 rounds a second.So when you get people like that it is a real problem.And the thing is I did not come up with those ideas. Those are laws where I live.Now the problem?? Is once they got those in, they started pushing for more. They had to mandate you could receive your weapon five days after purchase because bureaucrats where slowing down the approval process to 90 days (if you want to go hunting there is a closed window)People in some states have no trust in the government or “enlightened liberals” with cause. So you get tooth and nail.
I am sure people who see it my way have similar starting points and thoughts about the “opposition.”
Now I learned something today from a quality well written Wired Magazine article: https://www.wired.com/story… This is the way people should write this with actual knowledge and facts.What a gat crank or bump fire stock are.Owning or selling one of these is total bullshit. I mean felony go to Federal Prison bullshit. There is no reason to own one of these. None.
I learned a lot too. Definitely more than you given my starting point.My biggest takeaway is if a semi-auto can be so easily converted to a fully auto, then why are semi-autos still legal? (Or, at a minimum, why are they not much harder to get?)
Again in most states not easy (please try, just ask the process in your state) to get and if you do something illegal to it that is illegal. You can’t saw off the barrel of a shotgun.There are many things that you can do bad things with: Diesel Fuel and Fertilizer, a box truck, etc.It does blow my mind that somebody would make, market, and sell these devices.That is where somebody like the NRA needs to step in and say whoaaaa this is going to end badly, we can’t do this.
Has the NRA taken a stance like this? I see how others describe many of the positives they do yet all I can see as an outsider are the crazy videos they put out with Dana Loesch. It would be nice to see them as more than the talking point I know them as, but from afar it is hard to do so.I think this discussion is to try to get a Federal norm, so that the “in most states” argument cannot be made. Taking guns across state borders appear to be too easy, especially with a strong legal secondary and black market (two separate markets). Further, I think most want consistency and not have to have this argument 50+ times. It is hard enough to have once.The “do bad things” with argument doesn’t fly with most. It is much easier to do harm with the other things you mentioned. Further, their intended purpose is not to inflict harm on others, even for self-defense.Again, I do not comprehend the need for a semi-automatic. I am trying to understand their utility. I can understand that for non-automatic guns (excuse me if my nomenclature is off…I’ve already admitted to knowing little here.)Trying to empathize first as we try to come to consensus. As I read what you and @JLM write, it doesnt sound impossible. IDK where within the pro-guns spectrum you lay, but it feels like in a spot where after everyone stops yelling and screaming a compromise could be reached. Now we just need to get there…
You would not be free without the greatest engineer in history.Sorry the greatest: John Moses Browning. Every single major firearm today is designed by him.Born in 1855 died in 1926 at his drafting desk. Was famous for having his secretary bring him three meals a day at his desk.128 Patents. Every modern gun made has his touch on it and many are still his original designs including the current U.S. Sidearm, Shotgun, and Heavy Machine Gun. Think about that.Devout Mormon. Was exiled from Nauvoo, IL and moved to UT. See what happened in IL. The Mormons could not take the violence, and went to UT.You wonder why Westerners want guns.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Nobody has made anything really than semi autos since WWII The only bolt actions are very high powered made for shooting at long range.
https://www.washingtonpost….
My point is that someone who is going to commit mass murder is going to procure the weapon by any means necessary.A parallel comparison is the heroin trade. The outright ban of heroin has done nothing to stop its supply or demand.
Funnily, both point to overwhelming supply creating the problem. the US’s opioid crisis (mostly not present in other countries) was created by opioid overprescription and wide distribution. Same for the gun problem.As for the war on drugs not working, it isn’t designed to work, it is designed to keep the conservative base excited (an admission by the very man who started it). The war on guns did work in Australia: https://www.theguardian.com…
Portugal would disagree with you about the drug trade, banning, and what to do. Making drugs highly regulated without an outright ban brought down the addiction rate and got addicts into treatmentThe US has tons of guns and little empirical data about how they are used, criminality, ect. That’s due to the Dickey Amendment, and we should move to an appeal to figure out what to do.
.The ATF has a comprehensive database of every gun transferred legally subject to an ATF Form 4473 since its inception. We have the best database in the world for guns.What we do not have is a good database for guns prior to 1972. We have almost half a century of gun data from the manufacturer to the vendor to the buyer.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
America produces the most free people. Which is why everyone wants to come here. America has a second amendment. Put the two together and you have this unfortunate side effect.Mental illness is not unique to America. In fact, we probably have more safety nets than any country in the world.
How is that relevant to the dead
I was simply trying to make the point that when you have a free country where people can carry guns – this type of tragedy is bound to happen. That is the downside. But that is the fact of the US Constitution.When you look at these shooter situations and try to reverse engineer a prevention scheme – it is impossible. We have thousands of open-air community events every day in the US.
I do understand your point However it is not relevant to the dead. One cannot blame the US constitution ? Most other democracies solved the unsolvable. I have family in the US, people talk about the gun lobby ? I am sure the families of those who died in the last three mass killing would allow the postal service stamps to print the faces of those who died as commemorative stamps in honor of the constitution.”try to reverse engineer a prevention scheme – it is impossible”Close all open-air community events on the grounds of NRA health and safety concerns due to mentally ill people with access to semi automatic weapons. Of course it will not happen but time surely to get up stand when all one has left is an image on the mantelpiece ?
I’m not sure I understand your point. The only thing relevant to the dead now is prayer. (Like President Trump said beautifully yesterday.)But I agree with you: The US will never accept the idea of closing down public gatherings. They are at the heart of Democracy.
” They are at the heart of Democracy.” as are mass killings. ” this type of tragedy is bound to happen. That is the downside. But that is the fact of the US Constitution” Possibly the saddest epitaph I have ever had the misfortune to read.
The only reason you are able to make such outlandish comments in an open forum is because of the US Constitution. Don’t ever forget that.Without it there is no internet, no web, no Facebook and no Discus. These are all products of American Democracy.
“outlandish comments” ? I promise never to forget that: All there is is meaning and mechanism. Events are decisions.
“America produces the most free people””freedom-to” or “freedom-from” America does not have a monopoly on optimally balanced freedoms”America has a second amendment”so that amendment is some kind of immutable physics not a political choice?”Mental illness . . . / . . . we probably have more safety nets than any country in the world”Now that is simply and demonstrably untrue !
I don’t think we have a problem with flint lock muskets.
One could argue that the USA problem of mental illness *treatment* is somewhat unique – while there is a lot of mental health treatment happening in USA, most of it is allocated to wealthy people for comparably less threatening issues and not available at all to people with debilitating problems for financial reasons. Saying “we probably have more safety nets than any country in the world” in regards to availability mental illness treatment is quite ridiculous when USA is quite lacking in this regard compared to most other wealthy countries (though better than much of the developing world); the USA health industry funding model and a policy of deinstitutionalization has resulted in quite large numbers of “should-be” mental patients that are also significant contributors to the homelessness problems (San Francisco homeless population is quite different from e.g. London homeless, in large part due to differences in mental health policy) and, in many sad cases, the prison recidivism problems, where a person who can’t afford treatment will be refused treatment until/unless they do something horrible and go from the healthcare system to the penitentiary system.
Point taken. Probably could have used better analysis.My main idea: So far in all the coverage, no ‘expert’ has been able to say why more mass shootings are occurring. Personally, I don’t think “more crazy” people is the complete answer. And the gun situation has remained pretty constant. Broken homes? Social media? ISIS? My guess it is a confluence of things that are overall, going to be very difficult to stop.
What tires me about these situations is how reactionary we are, on all sides. The internet rage machine will spool up and we’ll have months of mindless debate following mindless violence.This is also another one of those times when we’ll begin to see how important freedom is to each of us. Freedom vs. safety. Freedom vs. safety. They aren’t entirely exclusive, but these arguments that begin with “but if it just saved one life…” are understandable but sad.We all define freedom so that it doesn’t cross our own particular chalk lines on the driveway.
“but if it just saved one life…”Exactly. Thinking like that is always rooted in only looking at upside and not downside of any decision that we make.
No words.Cue the next round of second amendment apologists that will work to deflect this.Sickening sickening sickening. This is not the america i want for my children.
.Rather than railing at the moon, why don’t you articulate a proposal which could obtain wide support?Do you have one.I am in favor of The List and the use of Big Data to identify high probability individuals before they commit a crime.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
The List will degrade into us not letting people board airplanes who have ever taken Prozac. No thank you.
.Actually, I think it may require us all to take Prozac or Xanax before boarding. Point in fact many people do already.The comment you made is exactly why Texas ended up finishing The List IAW the 1994 AWB and California did not.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Folks advocating for a mental health database are not thinking through the secondary consequences. We’ll end up with a massive database of people who have ever visited a psychiatrist or prescribed a Xanax being prohibited from boarding a plane. Folks will spend years trying to prove their sanity to federal bureaucrats just so they can fly on a plane to St. Louis for Thanksgiving.I get my assertion sounds like hyperbole but this is a very slippery slope in a society that about for many things (other than guns of course) takes the approach of “you can never be too safe”.Whenever I hear folks taking about some giant mental health database controlled by the federal government I am dumbfounded.
.I am advocating for the creation of a database which subsumes mental health. I also want violent people, road rage people — anybody who should be given extra consideration before getting a gun.We can either deal with mass murders or inconvenience.Let people drive to St Louis for Thanksgiving? JKI do think a Xanax or a Prozac before flying is not a bad thing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I have a proposal: If you’re not a professional, a collector, a hunter, or you don’t have a dangerous job, you cannot buy a gun. You cannot buy a gun for a generic self defense. If you say so, you should go to a psychiatrist, unless you live in the middle of nowhere and the police cannot reach you in less than 30 minutes. And take the 2nd amendment from the historical perspective, when was making some sense.
.The heart of the discussion as it relates to concealed handguns is similar to what you outline — “must issue” v “may issue” logic. Again, concealed handguns.Using a bit of common sense, doesn’t the category of “professional, a collector, a hunter, or you have a dangerous job” plus self-defense sort of cover the entire waterfront?I think the better policy is to develop a national list of people who should be considered as high risk for gun ownership. Interview those people, but some never get a chance to own a gun — felons, domestic violence, etc.The record keeping on the purchase and sale of guns is quite stringent — varying by state. In Texas, we have The List, you have to wait 5 days, every bit of data about you, the seller, the gun is codified and registered into a database.The Second Amendment exists within the framework of the Constitution as a provision which is subject to modification. The means to modify the Constitution — including deleting the Second Amendment — is spelled out in the Constitution itself.That, too, suffers from a common sense hurdle — nobody thinks you can get it past the states.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
No, it doesn’t cover the waterfront, as you say. Professionals are trained and interviewed to carry a gun. If you claim a generic self defense, like the majority of gun owners, this is the effect of mass hysteria perpetrated by the NRA. About the second amendment, where is the logic that no States will agree to abolish it? Nobody seriously tried, so there are no data about that…
Is that why there are ~500,000 defensive gun uses in the US per year? (According to the CDC)
I know many people don’t by just one gun, so those 500k guns not necessarily reflect the number of people buying a gun
Ok… I’m going to try to be nice here…Defensive GUN USES. Not SALES. Please try to keep up.If we’re talking about sales, there are between 20 and 30 MILLION guns sold every year.https://www.fbi.gov/file-re…
1) the study you cited by the CDC disagrees with you about guns and Public healthPage 11″By their sheer magnitude, injuries and deaths involving firearms constitute a pressing public health problem.”http://www.ncdsv.org/images… (preprinted version)2) the CDC also says that 21,386 of the 42,826 successful suicides in 2014 were by firearms. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fa…So you could cut the successful suicide rate massively by making guns less available.
.The largest subdivision of gun owners are hunters. Hunting is legal in every state of the United States.As to the Second Amendment, I was referring to the requirement for 3/4s of the States to ratify a Constitutional Amendment.You are not likely old enough to know about the ERA (22 Mar 1972) which failed to be ratified during the ten year period for the ratification of any Constitutional Amendment. It is a high hurdle.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I think hunters never caused mass shootings, they are pretty reasonable and stable people. And they know how to use and take care of their guns. They are just scared that any restrictive law on guns selling will affect them, and this is wrong. The NRA must stop creating this fear.Unfortunately I’m old enough to say that we are not in the ’70s anymore. Things changed and we don’t dance with discomusic. Maybe now will be easier to cancel the 2nd amendment. Let’s try a referendum, or the NRA is too scared?
.Article V of the US ConstitutionThe Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.2/3s to propose a change3/4s to ratify a proposed changeThe Founding Fathers anticipated how to change the Constitution. What the NRA thinks is irrelevant. We do not have a provision for a voter referendum as it relates to the Constitution.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
And that’s the problem. The Founding Fathers were great people of their time, when voters were only white men owning lands and the most disruptive firearm was a musket. Again, things changed.
.The principles of hunting, self-defense, militia did not change.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
This seems like positive v. negative enforcement. Not sure I am using the right terms, but by positive I mean you do things in order to get a gun (e.g., register, license, etc) and by negative I mean should there a lists/reasons precluding people from getting guns.In the latter, you just need to prove you aren’t “dangerous” to get a gun. In the former, you have to prove you are a “responsible citizen.”Could the NRA and pro-gun crowd accept any type of positive enforcement at the Federal level? If so, my guess is this is where agreement can be found. (And if this already exists, I’d love to know.)PS – I’d argue The List is negative enforcement.
.Seems like distinctions without differences. Why in something this serious do we care about what you perceive as positive v negative enforcement?I think we start with the presumption that you are Constitutionality entitled to own a weapon and pick off the people who are thereafter disqualified.The NRA is on record of being supportive of The List. This is after they fought the 1994 AWB legislation.The NRA is the largest purveyor of gun safety and instruction. Their handgun instruction is as good as the military. It is a graded exercise.As long as the NRA does not suspect they are being tricked, they would be easy to deal with. I even think the NRA would agree, long term, to mandatory gun instruction, particularly, if they were the instructor.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I’d argue something so serious requires us to care about (what I perceive to be) positive v. negative, again using terms how I’ve defined them. I do not believe it is a distinction without differences. It determines the margin for error and how easy one might be able to slip through the cracks.I agree on your starting point. Mandatory gun instruction would start there, qualify as positive enforcement, and (at least if you ran the NRA) be acceptable to the NRA.I’d ask for more positive enforcement (e.g., registration, insurance, continuing education). You’d probably push back. But you and I have seemingly already made progress, which is needed.
.You are making a classic negotiating error — assuming you know what the other side wants before they articulate it.The NRA is gun enthusiasts. They actually want to own and use their guns. Very few are collectors in the sense they just want to look at them.Therein lies the opportunity.When you go skeet shooting or bird hunting, there is one guy who swings his gun better or who is more skillful. Therein lies the opportunity — focus on skill and eliminate those who are not suitable to participate in the skill.Use the skill training to upgrade safety, identify shitheads, and take action.As to The List — that is low hanging fruit. Lives will be saved by getting The List done and working. Virtually every mass murderer in the last 20 years would have been on The List.Once you agree on The List, then the hard work of denying those people guns begins.Registration doesn’t really accomplish anything unless you are going to do something with it, while The List actually identifies the threat.Tie The List to Big Data and identify anybody on The List who is suddenly buying 20,000 rounds of ammo, send a detective to see him, take action.In the end, the question has to be — what actions can be done and which ones will save lives the quickest?If we are not able to save lives, then it is not worth doing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I agree with everything you write from what some of the tactics should be as well as what should be ultimate goal. The List and training are not mutually exclusive. And by definition a negative enforcement like the list should be easier to implement, so sure we can out that in effect first.I agree registration as a stand alone is only worth so much and has a quick half-life. Paired with training it becomes meaningful, no? Can you have training without registration? How do you know who to train?I am not sure of the negotiating mistake you say I’ve made. I’d take this as a great learning experience if you could help me identify it. I don’t believe I have presumed anything. (Perhaps my last comment of I’d ask for more and you’d push back may have something to do with this.)Only comment you’ve made that I cannot agree upon on the surface is that The List by itself would have stopped every major mass shooting. I’d ask you to defend it because until it can be proven or accepted by the other side then the other side will keep asking for more restrictions.
http://www.theonion.com/art…
The only thing that scares me committing people with mental health issues is that it is so subjective, and so easy to abuse for political reasons. I’m actually younger than Fred, but can remember when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. I prefer commitment for mental illness being a relatively more difficult process.Once I hear how the shooter got his weapons (not easy to buy an automatic weapon–did he modify a semi-automatic)?, It’ll tell us if the problem was enforcing existing laws or something else.
If doing the same thing and expecting different results is a sign of mental illness, who is crazier – the shooter or everyone in this country for allowing the NRA to keep us in their thrall? Consider the fact that the CDC is not even allowed to track gun violence as an epidemic and I think you’ll have your answer. http://www.latimes.com/busi…
No question the murderer.I go to the range (state owned) with my son twice a week.I understand regulations, and there are many people here that have never bought a gun and do not understand what it entails to do it legally. (Digital Fingerprints, Four Hour personal consultation and instruction, etc)Now with that being said this is like abortion, you don’t have to approve of it but it is here.It’s not going away. As JLM says owning a gun in Chicago or NYC? Illegal, but where to we have murders.Why did the Founders enact the second amendment? They knew that nobody including Britain was able to take over and hold a populace that was armed and opposed. Nobody not since our Revolution. Not the U.S. either. Iraq, Afghanistan?Sure if you were France in WWII, but what did we do? Airdrop guns.You will never get rid of guns in the U.S. when you face that reality and say ok, I accept your right…..then you might get action, but until you do you will just get opposition.How did things go down in France this Summer????Look, I understand being opposed just like I understand being opposed to abortion, lives are involved.But the NRA rightfully feels that the opposition wants an all out ban just like Roe v Wade fans rightfully feel about their opposition, and therefore they fight tooth and nail.Affirm my right and you might get support.
NRA is worried about the slippery slope which is 100% a valid concern and strategic move which, to their benefit, has worked (for gun owners). Same as Israel and their issues. (And look where they are at now with past agreeements).What’s amazing is how we can’t do things in this country that essentially are guaranteed in a way that people would feel comfortable ceding some ground. And being reasonable. On the other hand we can do things like agreeing with foreign governments to not invade Cuba and also things like open space initiatives which are pretty much not reversible from what I can tell. Point being people are worried about things being re-negotiated and more change in the future.Maybe the idea is to simply agree to some rules but to only have those rules in place for X years and then renewal subject to ‘good behavior’. In other words short term and not permanent laws so there is less claustrophobia with the slippery slope. So you agree to increased gun laws but only for a short period of time and then it has to be agreed to be renewed as opposed to defeated. Key difference in strategy to get a deal done.
.As an NRA member, I can tell you with certainty that the NRA has no basic problem with eliminating people from the rolls of eligible gun owners based on facts and due process.As an example, the NRA is not opposed to the creation of the 1994 AWB database which was to have gathered the name of everyone in the US who should be subject to further consultation or outright banned.The NRA is not going to be in favor of the country turning in their guns.There is a huge difference between responsible gun safety regulation and gun confiscation.The NRA is quite supportive of gun safety training (the largest such trainer in the US currently) and categories of ownership (e.g. hunters, legitimate war trophies, collectors, CHL) with different rules.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
The fact that I, as a non owning person, don’t know of what you are saying above is telling me that the NRA is doing a poor job on purpose of saying they are doing something and that they care. I can then infer that they can’t do that for fear of offending core members of their base.For example if you support a politician (financially or otherwise) because they appear to support Israel you are not typically interested in hearing that they are willing to cede any ground at all against ‘the enemy’.Is this part of the reason? It seems to explain the strategy.What you wrote above seems to be at a quick glance nice copy for an advertisement by the NRA. Even tobacco companies did things like this as many corporations with their BS PSA’s. But they don’t have to worry about offending their base.
Sorry bro, but the NRA has very little to do with lobbying for gun companies. In fact, the NRA has driven many gun companies out of business when they started acting against the interests of the NRA’s membership. (i.e. supporting a government position of “guns for me but not for thee”) Just take a look at what happened to S&W when they got onboard the Clinton gun control bandwagon. Their stock price tanked and the company was bankrupt not a year later.
.The big issue which separated the gun manufacturers from the NRA was a desire for a wholesale protection of liability for gun manufacturers. They wanted a sell and forget policy.The NRA opposed that idea as it hurt their membership.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
The NRA is preventing small gun manufacturers from opening up by trying to prevent new companies that want to make smart guns from legally selling, due to a NJ law.
No one has ever said turn in guns. And if the NRA actually WANTED to do something, they own Congress,it would have been done already. But they make more money in the status quo
.Sure they have, Peter. The left constantly refers to the Australian Experiment which is governmental gun confiscation.The NRA is not going to propose gun regulation. They will not oppose some things, but they are not going to propose it.There is an understandable lack of trust from both sides. People demonize the NRA. In fact, the NRA is the largest gun safety trainer in the US. It is a powerful force for responsible gun ownership and operation.The NRA is a 501(c)(7) meaning it can take in more than it spends in a single year without declaring the excess as a taxable profit. Donations to the NRA are not tax deductible.The NRA takes in about $350MM annually, most of which is expended on its programs including gun safety and training. They operate courses in every state in the US.Their political activities have been funded by a total of $85MM in donations since 2005. The average donation to its Victory Fund has been $35.The political power of the NRA is vastly overrated. Where it does have power is in its messaging using the garden variety media. This resonates with conservative non-members, but as a political force, it does not have the financial clout. It punches way above its weight class.To put that into perspective, the annual revenue of Planned Parenthood is more than $1,300,000,000.PACs affiliated with PP (using PP in their name in individual states) donated more than $12MM to candidates in 2016. All of those funds went to Democrats.Planned Parenthood is far more powerful than the NRA.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Obama has never advocated for taking your guns. The Left knows that would never pass. It IS the NRA that pushes that message out. And the NRA members and non-members bought it because it fit their own narrative. It is this very narrative that prevents sensible gun laws.I couldn’t give a hoot what the NRA does or how much money they have. Their execs make big $$$. Until the NRA pushes sensible legislation, this continues. It demonizes the NRA (and its members). It polarizes Americans. But it is profitable. As you pointed out, PP brings in some big $$$ because of the Hot Button issue for the base.Abortion and Guns — that’s American voters at its foundation.
.Not sure how former Pres Obama crept into the discussion, but, yes, he advocated for the Australian Experiment on several occasions.As to NRA exec comp, I agree they make too much at $972,000 for Wayne Lapierre. The NRA would be quick to note that the average for such organizations is 4% of gross revenue. The NRA has about $350MM in gross revenue. It receives no gov’t funding.The NRA (founded in 1871) finds itself wedged into the greater classification of deplorables. It wields some perceived political clout, but as I noted, it punches way above its weight class.There is no question that gun ownership and attacks upon it by liberals are a rallying cry that works.Abortions and guns both kill innocents.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Planned Parenthood PAC is legally and financially separated from individual planned Parenthood because of how insurance billing works with medical nonprofits. If I donated to my local planned Parenthood, that money wouldn’t go to the PAC at all. https://www.plannedparentho…In fact, I can earmark funds to a planned Parenthood locally, say for free breast cancer screenings -I can’t do that if I donated to the National Planned Parenthood PAC, because they’re technically separate organizationsNot the case with the NRA. Their legal structure and the fact that they don’t do anything medicine related means that the national NRA has money flowing to them through dues payments to local chapters.https://donate.nra.org/donateThis is why you can tax deduct a donation to planned parenthood and NOT the NRA. The miracle of tax law!
.Apples and oranges.Both the PP and the NRA have affiliated PACs. A PAC is a either a SSF (separate segregated fund) or a nonconnected committee. This is simple FEC law.[There are variations on the theme in the form of Super or Hybird PACs.]A SSF can be administered by the sponsoring entity.A nonconnected committee cannot.In the case of both the PP and NRA they have SSFs. The PP has several of them — up to 20.When the NRA solicits contributions as per the link you showed, they are not soliciting funds for their SSF PAC, they are soliciting funds for their core business.The NRA is slightly complicated from a legal structure perspective as they are made up of:1. the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund,2. the NRA Foundation Inc.,3. the NRA Special Contribution Fund, and4. the NRA Freedom Action Foundation.The NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) is its lobbying arm, which manages its political action committee, the Political Victory Fund (PVF).One of the rules relevant to SSFs is you can only solicit your own membership. The NRA has 5-6MM members.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
The NRA donation page specifically says it’s not tax deductible, because they are a 501(c)4whereas pp’s explicitly says they are a 501(c)3, and a tax donation is tax deductible. The NRA does have subsidiaries that are 501(c)3s, eg, Rings of Freedom, The NRA Foundation. Planned Parenthood Does have a subsidiary 501(c)4, however due to the laws about donating to a medicine 501(c)3 with a subsidiary 501(c)4, none of the money donated to the clinics can go to the PAC at all (it’s illegal) http://www.politifact.com/t…The NRA has the exact opposite corporate structure. By having the 501(c)3 as subsidiaries of the 501(c)4 they have far more flexibility on taking in money and using it for political uses, since a limited amount of pass through accounting is allowed. http://www.nonprofitlawblog…Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with the NRA’S corporate structure. It’s just different than planned parenthood, and it also means that it has less restrictions on money than planned Parenthood. So I could donate in one shot to the NRA for both its more classic nonprofit activities and political work, but it means I can’t take the tax deduction, but it also means the NRA can be flexible in what it spends that money om. I can’t do that with planned parenthood, I would have to donate 2x, once to the clinics, and once to the PAC, But this also means can restrict what they spend my money on.
.Pure gibberish.The complexity of dealing with a C4/C3 or a C3/C4 is the risk to the tax exempt status of the parent.In both instances the issue is the degree of political activity which they both meet head on by having PACs.There is nothing tax deductible to any core mission NRA contributors and there never has been.Much ado about nothing.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
I trust the tax lawyers who specialize in nonprofits more than you. I trust you more about real estate investing than a nonprofit tax lawyer (who mentioned that issue of losing nonprofit status in their writing) This doesn’t change the fact that the planned parenthood clinics are far more circumcised legally than the NRA vis a vis money
.Haha, I didn’t realize that PP provided circumcisions. I thought they were more into abortions.The NRA Political Victory Fund is their primary political effort.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
They provide lots of things. Why is it strange that they would do something most obs offer since they primarily do lots of ob/gyn work.?They’re top of my list for finding a new ob/gyn for my next PAP smear, since the volume of patients they see means that the doctors there are statistically less likely to make a mistake (volume of procedures is apparently a huge factor for if your doctor makes a mistake irrespective of practice area, so the fact that planned parenthood does a ridiculous amount of paper smears since they are generally the low cost provider in an areais attractive to me as a patient)A lot of friends of mine used them in college because they had better well-women services than the university clinic for students, and were comparably or better priced for drugs.Why do you think most people go to planned parenthood? Abortions? Not really…
.You mean other than the 350,000 abortions they provided in the last 12 months?Factoid: I used to coach Lilly Richards, the daughter of Cecile Richards, Pres of PP. I think she was 6-7.Her grandmother, Gov Anne Richards, used to come to the games and accuse me of putting Lilly in whenever she walked into the YMCA gym.I used to all the time.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Religion with a gun, same as it ever was.
Why is the Constitution considered so sacrosanct. It isn’t the Bible, yet it’s almost treated as such. The “right to bear arms” doesn’t give people the right to kill innocents. Does anyone believe that’s what the Framers had in mind when drafting the 2nd Amend, or if they knew that perpetual misuse of arms would occur they would have crafted different language? People and legislators continue to evoke a person’s “constitutional right,” but how does or should that supercede personal safety? State laws vary considerably. A federal mandate is long overdue. Not everyone should be entitled to gun ownership. Will it stop the killings? Not entirely, but currently we make it far too easy for their occurrence. There is no spine in DC. Every time there’s a tragic event like this their hands are dirty. “Warm condolences” do abso nothing.
The Federalist Papers will give you a good idea what the framer’s hand in mind. https://www.congress.gov/re…Impossible to interpret exactly what was going through their minds, but that’s why we have first principles and courts. I suspect the right to bear arms had to do with individuals being a part of a local militia, being able to defend their property (founders had a strong sense of property rights) and being able to defend against a tyrannical government.
There is no “right” to personal safety because it’s not something that can ever be guaranteed. The reason there’s no “spine” in DC is because we don’t live under a tyrannical junta that thinks they have the authority to declare what is and is not a right at the drop of a hat. I, for one, am very happy for that. An armed populace with the occasional crazy going off the rails is far preferable to most of the alternatives we have observed in the 20th century.
There’s a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” I’d assume that personal safety, up to a point, would be guaranteed by this and amendment 10.Otherwise the FDA would be in big trouble, since the whole premise of the FDA were issues like patent medicine sales that killed people on the drug side.
Serious question.Have you bought one legally?Now no law that you can pass matters if you do not follow the law.If you have not, then pretend you are and back out.
No, I have never purchased a weapon. It’s simplistic to say if people just followed the law, then there’d be no prob. They don’t and many never will. If the laws don’t protect innocents, then the laws need to change. It’s plain common sense. We live in an imperfect society, that will never change. There will always be outliers. But our laws should be designed to retard or diminish the ability to commit a crime, and in this case they don’t. No one should have in their possession the number of firearms and rounds this guy possessed. No one.
Incorrect. Laws are designed to punish people who commit crimes taking the place of personal vengeance. Prior restraint laws on constitutional rights are invalid on their face.
The Constitution is an imperfect document, crafted under a different time w/ a whole slew of unanticipated consequences. It is not a sacred document. The Framers would never have written it as is if they anticipated such misuse. Protection against militia and invasion of home ownership is hardly a modern day occurrence.
Irrelevant. It is the highest law of the land. There is a procedure to change it. Feel free to try, 3/4 of states will tell you to get bent.
Not sure if you put this to a public referendum the outcome would be as you stated, certainly not based on polling data. The problem is those elected to enact our laws don’t always represent the will of the people. They’re beholden to outside influences, partisan politics and ulterior motives. That’s neither leadership or governing.
A public referendum is irrelevant. The will of the people is irrelevant. There is a procedure for how to change the constitution. A plebiscite is not it. The CotUS was written specifically to protect the rights of the minority from “the will of the people”.
If the public referendum was binding to delegates going to a constitutional convention, it wouldn’t be.
Minorities are most often the victims of gun violence, no? If the will of the people is irrelevant, then how are their interests being served?
The smallest minority is the individual. The individual, under our constitution, has a right to own and carry personal weapons for any lawful purpose, including self-defense. That interest is served by protecting that right. If you want to try to change the constitution so that this is no longer the case, good luck, you will need 2/3 of both the House and Senate as well as ratification by 3/4 of the states within seven years… Good luck. I don’t see 38 states signing on to this sort of absurdity. If 13 states hold out, you lose.
You said the “Constitution was specifically written to protect the rights of minorities from the will of the people.” I don’t fully agree w/ that statement, but will give you the benefit of the doubt for this discussion. I’m quite sure, regardless of how you define minorities, by ethnicity, race, religion, gender, wealth, health or sexual orientation, they’d nationally pretty much all be in favor of stronger gun legislation.
The minority, aka the people without direct political power. The modern SJW definition of minority takes a back seat to the liberal definition of one. At the end of the day, gun control is unconstitutional. You know what you need to do to change that.
Since gun control has racist roots and is used to put minorities in jail, you would be wrong.
Care to clarify, you lost me.
“I’m quite sure, regardless of how you define minorities, by ethnicity, race, religion, gender, wealth, health or sexual orientation, they’d nationally pretty much be in favor of stronger gun legislation.”Gun control puts minorities in jail in places like NY and Chicago and DC. The black codes forbade blacks from owning guns. The Sullivan Act was enacted to prevent newly arrived immigrants from obtaining arms in NY. Gun control infringes on the inalienable right to keep and bear arms while doing nothing for actual crime.
On a side note, I said “the minority”, not “minorities”… There’s a very important difference. The minority is those that are on the losing side of the democratic process. The CotUS guarantees rights that cannot be taken away by simple majority vote.
Yes you did, I stand corrected, but you certainly don’t gain any merit badges by characterizing or framing this issue in a context of winners or losers. A majority of the American public is in favor of gun legislation. Period. No point in slicing and dicing by minority, minorities, blue/red, urban/rural, Dem/Rep to fuel an agenda. States can choose how they want to handle gun regs for their constituency, but there needs to be better overarching oversight at the fed level, at the very least to mollify the masses. Isn’t that how a healthy democratic system is supposed to work? This guy, or any guy or gal for that matter, should never be allowed to amass that many rounds or weaponry. In this case, personal wants (and rights) should be trumped by broader societal needs/wants.
Feel free to move to one of the dozens of countries where public outrage trumps fundamental constitutional right… have you checked out property prices in Venezuela?The 2nd amendment is one of the most fundamental parts of our body of law. It creates a society where every citizen has the ultimate recourse of rebellion available to them. I like living in a country where a potentially corruptible government has that particular sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
Yeah, I derive great comfort in knowing anarchy is potentially around the corner. Provides great comfort. I’m a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment, I just don’t believe in unconditional enforcement. I also think you can get right now really good RE buys in Venezuela, but I’m quite happy living in our increasingly fractured country. Maybe Catalonia will be a trend setter.
If California wants to secede, I think most of the country would be more than happy to show them the door. The democrats wouldn’t win another national election for generations. California would, however, find out that having an annoyed foreign country controlling your power and water supplies is not so good for your economy.
Minorities also commit the majority of murders. So….. now what?
Consequently I’m pretty certain they’d be way out in front on gun control.
They are the fastest growing demographic of gun buyers.
What does that mean, Blacks are pro gun? Meaningless statistic. Black gun owners are a minority w/ in the black community. The community at large is far more likely to be for gun control than other minorities given the high incidence of gun violence w/ in their community. You honestly think the majority of citizens on the south side of Chi aren’t in favor of gun control?
The vast majority of citizens are also liberal democrats that have no problem voting for the same people that enacted gun control laws and use those laws to put them in jail on minor infractions, turning misdemeanors into felonies. So… when they become educated as to their rights, they do become pro-rights. The process has just begun…..within the last few years. The McDonald case was only a few years ago. And Chicago has been fighting it hard, trying to keep black people disarmed.
I implore you to come to the state range with me. I am never, ever the racial majority there. In a state with 12% black population.You are wrong. Completely wrong.It is this complete wrongheadeness that means nothing will happen. Normally we can discuss things rationally between us, but when I see comments like this I know I need to dig in my heels and give to the NRA which I really don’t agree with.
Although I don’t own a firearm, I’m actually pretty good at shooting trap. I’ve shot at many gun clubs, and enjoy it immensely. I think gun clubs and public ranges are great, but I don’t conflate that aspect at all w/ what’s happening on the street. One is healthy, emphasizing respect, responsibility, safety, etc., the other, well let’s just say considerably less so. All gun owners aren’t created equal, and that’s a big part of the prob….they can’t and shouldn’t be treated equal, as responsible ownership and usage isn’t universal.
That could be an interesting way of how to amend the Constitution, even if the referendum was indirect
Guns cause shootings llike flies spread disease from garbage.America has too many guns – https://youtu.be/bX4qUsgHa4Y
Vox is rather absurdly disingenuous in this video, here’s a rebuttal.https://youtu.be/IULSD8VwXEs
You guy Crowder is thorough, but my point remains: gun culture and proliferation makes mass shooters easier.Crowder pulls a fast one at the end too – saying that the only thing they are after is a gun ban.I agree with him that poverty & gang violence need to be addressed. But a consumer market for large magazines and semi-autos makes no sense.Oh, and a centralized DB of all ammo purchases would be a good idea.The point isn’t to take away guns,But to make it 100x tougher for one sock person to fire 1000 rounds in 10 minutes.
Nope lost me again. Great rebuttal video.
So, you are in favour of it being easy for sick people to accsss easily converted semi-autos and 1000 rounds of ammo?http://www.khou.com/mobile/…Rhetorical, obviously. But, do nothing isn’t a solid answer.
How about we ban box trucks too? Don’t infringe my rights because there are crazy people.
Yeah…1. I don’t trust the government with a centralized database of anything. I’m not registering jack.2. The point of a database is so that you can take the guns later, look at CA for example after example.3. The 2nd amendment is about the citizenry owning the same weapons as the government so that they can fight the government. A market for military equipment makes perfect sense.If a few mass shootings per year prevents the next Stalin from rising to power, it is a small price to pay. It would take millennia for mass shootings to match the body counts of a Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot and they got their totals in a few years.Quite frankly, I’m more interested in why nobody is mentioning that the shooter was an anti-Trump leftist terrorist. But I suppose then the left would need to sit down and shut up while the adults are talking.
Gun registry is Canada is 20 years old.# of ‘ Govt. Coming to take My Property & Guns ‘ incidents = 0.John Birch Soceity Membership line forms to the right Serge.
Does the Canadian Firearms Act ring any bells?https://www.nraila.org/arti…
Come on Serge.https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Did you bother to read the article? Was any part of it factually incorrect?
Almost all of it.
So you deny that the Canadian government outlawed a good chunk of legally owned pistols with the stroke of a pen and then used existing registration records to force the uncompensated surrender of said handguns? We’re not going to get anywhere if you deny simple historical fact.
That is what happened.Also, people like you lost their shit during the whole process, raised holy hell, threatened all kinds of violence……and then everything went nicely, we don’t have mass shootings like you do, we took their easily concealable handguns away, we burnt a whole shitload of records, long gun were never registered and all your other conspiracy theory night tremors never came to be.Come on.Move to an island if you don’t want to be part of a reasonable community of people. I have dealt with people in my family that have your approach (family property issues):’ I won’t sell, I won’t buy but i’m open to hearing what you have to say and to other suggestions. ‘What the fuck, just say you aren’t going to change anything and fuck off already.Arguing to make your intransigent position more palatable to you is a waste of my time.Deal with your emotional issues. A reasonable infringement on gun owners rights is exactly what happened in Canada. No problems, no fascism, no socialist dictatorship……….deal with it.Your fears are in your head and not supported by any reality of any other western democracy that has imposed reasonable limits on gun owners.
I like my country the way it is. Americans aren’t the sheep that Canadians are. We have a long tradition of shooting tyrants.
No, America doesn’t. You have one instance, maybe two (and in the second one, CDN Sheep kicked your ass, dipshit).You should trust the Founding Fathers more, they were way more attached to reality than you, had actually personally suffered some of the abuse you daydream about and designed a system that allowed for the common good to infringe on individual rights, without devolving into totalitarianism.You say things to make yourself feel better about your views.You should deal with reality.
You’re the one having a problem with the reality that there is no way you’re going to get a constitutional amendment passed to justify what you’re trying to do. Again, you would need 3/4 of states to get onboard. Given the results of the previous few election cycles, I find that highly unlikely.
I told you several comments ago that America is ruled by a tyranny of minority gun owners who live in the 18th century. You are one of them.You’ve made the point that you are unable to change.I have told you I have experience with people who argue their intransigent PoV incessantly. My conclusion is that they are emotionally damaged and are wasting my time to try and make logic cover over their emotional wounds.I have shown you where your logic doesn’t cover your emotional issues.Enjoy the preventable deaths.
Again… Please tell my great-grandfather how fear of a tyrannical government is irrational. Oh, wait, you can’t. A tyrannical government dragged him out into the street, shot him in the head, dumped his body in an unmarked grave, confiscated his property, and then shipped his family to gulags.You can live in your collapsing socialist paradise, I’ll live in a country that respects individual rights…Though I do find it funny how you have no problem understanding that the actions of a random terrorist don’t reflect on all muslims despite their ideology enabling him, while at the same time holding all gun owners responsible for the actions of another (left wing) terrorist.
There is nothing funny about your inability to see the heinous injustice in restraining the rights of individual American citizens, reasonably, to protect all innocent American citizens from nutcases who are part of the global Islamic community while doing nothing to protect all innocent Americans from nutcases who are part of the global ‘guns make me feel good about my emotional issues’ community.As an added bonus, it fuels racial and cultural prejudice, on top of the loss of innocent lives and the horrendous, preventable injuries suffered by thousands of innocent people.Your great-grandfather suffered an immeasurable cruelty but their is nothing I nor anyone else can do about your personal history.Its a much smaller tragedy, but a tragedy none the less, that your personal history holds you captive and makes you incapable of change.
It makes me willing to fight anybody who would set the stage for a repeat of what happened to my grandfather. I’m not interested in changing that.
As I have stated several time, your ability to judge the actions of the community around you accurately and your decision to draw the line an take action on this issue defines whether you are a functioning member of any society or whether you are psychopath.Mull that over a bit.
pls don’t talk about killing people here at AVC. i find that kind of talk repugnant and i believe so do others. i would like you to edit that out of your comment and also if you do this again i will ban you from here
Excuse me? You think it’s wrong to kill people who facilitate genocide? Really? You will pardon me if I don’t find that position convincing given that MY FAMILY WERE THE VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE.
i am telling you to tone things down if you want to be here.otherwise you can take your inflammatory language elsewhere
Oh, and FYI, the Vegas incident had exactly nothing to do with “mental health” and everything to do with a leftist like the lynch mob on “your blog” graduating from “punching Nazis” to “shooting Nazis”.
You are doneI am banning you from AVC SergeYour inflammatory language is not welcome here
Oh, and it’s a bit hypocritical of you when demanding gun control implicitly demands that the government kill anybody who does not comply with your demand to disarm.
this is my blog. i can do whatever i want to here. you are my guest. get in line or you are gone.
Well, if you want to promote an echo chamber, feel free. You can have all your moral outrage and be shocked when nobody cares.Here’s the difference between me and you.I believe that people with different opinions have a right to speak and I don’t have the right to silence them if the don’t break the law. I believe that people have a right to defend themselves and their families against petty tyrants and actual ones. I believe that calling for the government to kill people because they don’t kneel to your world view is morraly no different than threatening to do it yourself.I am not your guest smart one. You’re on a soap box in a public venue called “the internet”. I am the guy at the edge of the crowd poking holes in your demogogueery. It may be your blog, but if you ban me, you just admit that you don’t have a counter to my arguments and I will just take one of my half dozen shadow accounts and mock you endlessly through a vpn.Quite frankly, I care more about what I’m going to have for breakfast than your opinion. You can’t stop the signal smart one. Good day.
On a side note, saying that a gun ban is not a priority for the left is complete nonsense. I refer you to Charlie above.
R v W is 40+ years old, and our Constitution 200+. Neither will change soon!It’s a lifetime full employment situation for people who want to start “non profit” lobbying groups to change either of those two!
I usually never comment back, but that is a totally correct and brief statement.
Right, for the Constitution, IRCC, have to get 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rds of the Senate, and 3/4ths of the states. On Roe v Wade, in 40+ years no one has gotten to even one of those three. For the SCOTUS, Gorsuch explained, with reference to a 500 page book, just how and why the SCOTUS is so reluctant to reverse something like Roe v Wade. Net, Roe v Wade is more solid than any concrete.
.ATF (The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, part of the DOJ) has been tracking gun violence since its inception. The issue with the CDC is political and mission (meaning enabling legislation).The ATF requires the tracking of every firearm manufactured in the US. This is where law enforcement runs down the serial number of a gun to find out who owns it.Stolen guns are reported and that fact ends up in the hands of the ATF.Much of what people talk about in regard to gun control already exists.Sellers of guns are Federally licensed. Every seller must report the sale of every gun.People are not being killed because of inadequate record keeping.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
.The 1994 AWB (Assault Weapons Ban, actually the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act 0f 1994) prohibited the manufacture of “assault weapons” which fell under an exhausting, tortured definition of what was an assault weapon.It also banned high capacity magazines.The enactment of the law during the Clinton Admin was not a two handed dunk shot. It passed 52-48 in the Senate.A bit of unknown gun control folklore is the 1989 Geo HW Bush prohibition of the import of assault weapons. This prohibition never finds its way into the convo. Its importance is that it was enacted by a sitting Republican President thereby demonstrating with hard evidence the willingness of the Republicans to deal with the subject.Part of the 1994 AWB was a provision to create a national database of those who should be screened carefully before allowed to purchase a gun.The national DB was to be created by each state creating their own list.The list was to include, among many other classifications, felons, violent criminals, criminals who used or possessed a weapon in the course of their crime, persons who committed domestic assaults (even if not convicted), users of drugs, users of certain psychotic legal drugs for the treatment of mental illness, mentally ill persons, persons admitted to mental hospitals — the list goes on.States like Texas started and completed their list and delivered it to the Feds. [To this day, if you apply to buy a gun in Texas, you will be screened under the current version of this DB during the 5-day waiting period which is enforced like gravity in Texas.]States like California did not. They further linked with the ACLU to contest the necessity for the list and its constitutionality.[Side point — the AWB stood up to the most common legal challenges: Second Amendment, Ninth Amendment, bill of attainder, Commerce Clause, Equal Protection Clause, vague construction. There was really no problem with the law.]The AWB had a 10 year sunset provision and while it was in force for ten years, it failed to win an extension in 2004.The reason this is important is that the creation of THE LIST should not be controversial. It was America’s liberal left and the ACLU (I know, redundant) which forestalled its creation.It is interesting to note that the NRA is a supporter and proponent of THE LIST. I am a proponent and supporter of THE LIST.There is one other element of the debate which deserves discussion — the role of Big Data in community policing.There is no reason why when someone buys ten weapons, 20,000 rounds of ammunition, a local detective should not be notified and drop around to have a chat with the person. That happens right now when anyone buys the precursor chemicals for making meth or explosives (ammonium nitrate based bombs like Oklahoma).Unfortunately, the statistics show that the AWB did not do anything. But, THE LIST, a national list could be a worthy outcome.Responsible gun owners are in favor of responsible gun safety regulation. They are not in favor of gun confiscation.Even the NRA is in favor of The List. I am, personally, in favor of The List and consider it to be a perfect bridging bit of legislation which could have good results. Call the ACLU.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Stop confusing people with the facts!A nice rundown of the history of gun control in the US.
There is no reason why when someone buys ten weapons, 20,000 rounds of ammunition, a local detective should not be notified and drop around to have a chat with the person. That happens right now when anyone buys the precursor chemicals for making meth or explosives (ammonium nitrate based bombs like Oklahoma).What is the point of the chat exactly?I think there is perhaps one difference. If I am buying chemicals to make meth then I am worried about being discovered because the meth making is a for profit enterprise. So it’s like being worried about cheating on taxes or doing a ponzi scheme let’s say. But if I am buying ammunition and ten weapons most likely (as has been shown) I am willing to die and I am (to repeat what I said before) mentally ill. So is there really a (practical) point to that type of identification? You’d have to then detain people and have an apparatus to do something after the visit.I think all this would be is yet another government cover your ass don’t say we didn’t do our part farse.What I’d rather have? Honestly? A ban on large scale media coverage of mass events. No question that is putting ideas into crazy people’s heads. Not going to happen but copycat is a big issue with certain types of crimes.
.A seasoned detective can smell a mug from ten feet away.The Aurora, Colorado mass murderer was an obvious problem with his weapons, ammunition, personal situation, his apartment, tactical clothing, etc.A good cop would have smoked this guy out in five minutes.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
“…thereby demonstrating with hard evidence the willingness of the Republicans to deal with the subject.”Jeff wouldn’t you agree that Republican personnel and their program of 1989 differs markedly from the party today? IMHO this statement is void of any material substance and doesn’t prove anything.”Harry Truman’s intervention in the Korean War provides hard evidence of the Democratic party’s willingness to forcefully deal with the North Korea problem head on…” would be an equally empty and misleading comment.Do better.
I don’t have data, but I don’t think the US are producing more mental illness than Europe. So why there are more mass shootings in the US than Europe? Because of the politicized stand of the NRA. They lobby our representatives to block the CDC to study mass shootings as epidemics. In Europe you must have good reasons to buy a gun (you’re a hunter, you’re a collector, or a cop or part of the armed forces, or you own a jewelry). Access to firearms is not easy in Europe. In the US this access is very easy. And don’t start saying that if we stop selling guns at Walmart there is always the black market. The black market is for criminals, and I never heard they were part in a mass shooting. Access to black markets, for normal individuals, is not that easy…
You may want to define your terms. A few incidents every couple of years is hardly an “epidemic”. From a social policy standpoint, the deaths from a “mass shooting” are a rounding error.
This is a really tough one. In a free society, any nut job with enough time and money can probably get an illegal weapon (or even a legal one that can kill en mass.) I have no idea how to intercept these people on the fringes of society. Nor have I ever seen a piece of legitimate legislation aimed in that direction.One unfortunate feedback loop is in operation: The more the media covers these events, the more they seem to happen as the crazies seek to go out in a blaze of glory.”Family Snapshot” by Peter Gabriel – over and over again.
Depends on what you call a free society. France and the UK just had terrorist/loony incidents too…. turns out scum/crazies can kill a lot fewer people with knives or acid than with automatic assault weapons.
.Private ownership of “automatic” weapons has been banned for almost a century (1935) a century in the US.You are likely meaning “semi-automatic” weapons.Automatic weapon — pull the trigger, gun keeps firing until you release the triggerSemi-automatic weapon — pull the trigger, gun fires a single shotJLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
NV gun laws pretty relaxed. I think that you can legally own full-auto weapons.
.Nobody can possess an automatic weapon with a very small number of exceptions, many of which require the firing pin to be removed for individuals. This is Federal law.Having said that, semi-automatic weapons can be modified by a competent gunsmith to fire automatic.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
That’s not entirely correct. It’s just that getting an operational machine-gun anywhere in the US is about a difficult (and as expensive) as getting an operational tank. In fact, it takes some of the same paperwork. (The tank would fall under the “destructive device” category in the National Firearms Act, the same law that transfers machine-guns.) The only difference is that you can buy a brand-new tank, you cannot buy any machine-gun manufactured after 1986 unless you are a police agency (agency, not officer), military, or a dealer selling to one of the above. Those are called “dealer post-samples” and are the only exception to the general post 1986 ban. However, if your gun dealership closes, you must get rid of the guns in inventory, either by selling them to other dealers or handing them over the the ATF.Quite frankly, legal machine-guns aren’t a problem in the US and never have been. Even before the registry was closed in 1986, the ATF testified that there were a grand total of 2 violent crimes committed with registered machine-guns since 1934. (One of them involved a police agency gun.)While I’m a 2nd amendment absolutist, I don’t see a problem with the National Firearms Act regulating machine-guns if the registry was open and state laws were not involved. I own half a dozen devices regulated under the Act and the paperwork, while annoying is not absurd for a machine-gun (a suppressor is another discussion, but that’s neither here nor there).
Looks like the shooter used converted AR17’s. How difficult is it to convert from semi-auto? Like you point out, machine guns are rarely used in a crime. The shooter could have probably done as much damage on semi-auto, but that’s just a hunch. What do you think?
AR-17? Do you mean an AR-15? If so, it’s not easy. Automatic fire requires numerous precision components that aren’t sold commercially and will not fit in 90% of commercial AR15s. In fact, just owning most of the components is itself a felony. Could I do it? With a desktop CNC, yes. Without one… it’s not something that can be done. It would be easier to built an open-bolt MG from scratch than to make the precision parts to make an AR-15 run full-auto.As for how much damage he could have done… A prone shooter from an elevated position against a crowd where he almost literally could not miss? He would have done just as much damage with a bolt gun. Would have been harder to find as he would not have set off the smoke detector in his room due to the mass venting of gas from the gun. It would have taken hours to track down the one window from which he was shooting. IF the shooter was smart, he would have shot out a bunch of windows which would make locating him all the harder.
No doubt the shooter was smart. But I was thinking this afternoon that he should have hammered out every window in his suite for airflow, come up with an effective strategy to quell the fire sensors, and even smuggle up a fan or two. But, his mistakes probably helped save a lot of lives. Given his advantage like you point out, the body count could have been much worse. After pumping off a couple hundred rounds in a closed hotel room, he probably was inundated with smoke and gasses that were very disorientating.
I’ve run the op for in counter-terrorism simulations. This guy played out something very close to one of my scenarios. Realistically, had he been smart and used a bolt-action rifle, he could have had the entire strip locked down for hours. The strip is almost a perfect venue for a highly trained sniper. Tens of thousands of lines of sight, lots of concealment, etc… quite frankly, I’m thankful it was a random maniac and not an ISIS cell that would have put some serious thought into it.
Not that I’m qualified to agree with you but I do. Thank you for your input. I hope that smarter criminals don’t get any ideas from this whole nightmare.
Well ISIS did try to claim responsibility. I can guarantee you they are taking notes. No amount of gun control would stop them, look at Paris.
I have a 30 year old friend with an Ak-47. It’s really not that difficult if you wanttto own an automatic weapons to obtain it.Weirdly it’s locked up and he only uses it in gun ranges. Also he’s a vegan. Just weirdness
Ask your friend. It is not automatic. It is semi-automatic. This is what drives people nuts when just wrong info is put out there.
his was changed from before the ban on selling them as fully automatic, so it was grandfathered in. It’s fully automatic.He basically uses at a range once every 2-3 years and as a showpiece.
Double check. Seriously was never legal to change. It was legal to buy one but they are huge bucks and if he is only 30 he paid much more than $10k for it and has a bunch of paperwork that was done, unless it was passed down, which takes away the money but not the paperwork.
He comes from a super wealthy family and used to have his own hedge fund, before shutting it down and starting a super successful startup. Money isn’t an issue for him.
he has the money for it, and I know people who went shooting with him with said gun
You would be wrong. NV gun law is irrelevant. Transfers of machine-guns are covered under the federal National Firearms Act. While it is possible to get a full-auto machine-gun there are more than a few hurdles.1. They are expensive. With the total available supply being capped in 1986, the prices for machine-guns that can be sold to civilians are astronomical. A beat up, 30+ YO M16 will cost you ~$30,000 if you can find one. A brand new AR-15 will set you back $500.2. You better have a spotless criminal record. Unlike a normal transfer of a firearm, every NFA item (lots of things besides MGs, but we’ll stick to them) requires a detailed background check application submitted to the ATF including pictures, fingerprints and affidavits. The transfer application starts at six pages and can go up quite a bit.3. Be prepared to wait. The ATF takes between 8 and 12 months to approve a transfer. That’s for every single step in the process. Dealer doesn’t have what you want? 8-12 months to get it to him and another 8-12 and another set of paperwork to get it to you.All of this is rather absurd given that a NFA registered machine-gun was used in exactly 2 crimes between 1934 and 1986 according to congressional testimony of the ATF director at the time. While I don’t like the National Firearms Act for a lot of the other things on the list (Gun mufflers, short rifles, ect) I could live the law if the registry was open and I could get a brand-new machine-gun. After all, according to the ATF, the system was working just fine before the registry was closed.
Federally regulated.
are you sure ? “According to the National Rifle Association, in Nevada you can own, purchase or sell a machine gun that is registered according to federal regulations, which means that you can own a machine gun that was manufactured before 1986.”from https://qz.com/1091855/las-…
.Here is the exact detail as to exceptions to the 1934 ban as codified in 1986.”The first exception to the federal machine gun ban is that machine guns lawfully possessed prior to May 19, 1986 may continue to be possessed and transferred, provided they are registered in accordance with requirements of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA).””The second exception is that machine guns may be transferred to or by, or possessed by or under the authority of, the federal government or a state, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof.”There are about 320,000 machine guns in America. All but a handful are in the hands of museums, military schools, law enforcement.The key is that it has to be owned by the same owner since before 19 May 1986 and it had to be registered at that time. Weapons owned before that date, but not registered are routinely confiscated to the tune of 2,000 per year. Most of them come from estates.The transfer authority is used between the seller and a buyer who is typically a museum, military school, or law enforcement.The requirement to own the weapon prior to 1986 is immutable.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
So, you admit you lied.And now you’re trying to confuse the issue. there are hundreds of thousands of machine guns (fully automatic) than can be bought and sold in the US.And then, on top of that, all supposedly semi- automatic weapons that can be easily modified to fully-automatic.Enjoy your massacres ?
“Easily”? Have you ever seen the mechanics necessary to make an AR run full-auto and not explode in your face?Also, registered MGs have been used in less than a handful of crimes in almost a century (2 as of 1986, according to ATF congressional testimony.)Oh, and “enjoy your massacres” is a non-argument. In 2015 France had more people die in mass shootings than the US despite having a fraction of the population.
http://www.slidefire.com/Nice clip with an obviously very manly man, lots of bass… every looney’s fantasy. And fully legal.
Ok… You can’t be serious… Slidefire is a great way to turn money into noise. You’ve never actually fired a gun, have you?
.How does my comment on machine guns make this my massacre?You are sounding more than a little odd, friend.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Actions have consequences. Supporting guns, and lying in a public forum about gun laws, leads to more massacres. Hence, you own them, friend.
Nobody “lied” smart one. If you have an argument, make it. The reality is that buying a legal MG is so hard as to be impossible for the average gun owner. Just like buying a private jet fighter is so hard as to be practically impossible. Both can be done, but as a rule, it’s a non-topic.
Another lie.”To buy a machine gun under the 1934 National Firearms Act an individual needs to submit the following, and this procedure remains relatively unchanged even today: first, pay a tax of $200; then, fill out a lengthy application to register your gun with the federal government in duplicate; then, submit fingerprints, submit passport photographs, get your Chief Law Enforcement Official to sign your application, which is no longer in place, and then wait for the results of your background check to come back approved.””For example, one can get an AR-15 for $600 to $700 dollars in the United States, but I’ve seen converted automatic registered AR-15s sell for $17,000 and up.Factory Colt machine guns can go for $25,000 and up.”( from http://www.thefirearmblog.c… )I think a private jet costs a bit more than $17k.
Depends on what you’re looking for. However, for most people, there is little difference between coming up with $17,000 in cash and $170,000. No bank will let you finance an NFA item. I make an absurd amount of money and even I don’t own a registered MG. (Other NFA items, yes, an MG, no.) Do you know how rare it is for a registered MG to even come up for sale?In the real world, registered MGs are practically never used in crimes. As of 1986, the total stood at 2 since 1934 according to the ATF. To me, that seems like an indicator that the pre-1986 system was working just fine.
But that has no impact on the 2 lies 1- there are hundred of thousands of fully-auto weapons circulating in the US, not “zero” has was said.2- buying one is $200 plus some forms, not “as expensive as a jet”.I chose to dig on that topic. I think the lies set the tone for the whole debate, and establish credibility. Or the lack of it.
1. “circulating” is hardly the correct term. Do you know how many MG Form 4s the ATF processes in an average year? Go look it up, it’s public information. There a less than 300,000 in a country of 350,000,00 people most of which are sitting in private collections and aren’t for sale for any amount of money.2. Some are… Have you priced a M113 minigun lately? The last one that went up for auction sold for over $100,000 for that amount of money, I can easily get a pocket jet.Again, you’re digging at rhetorical details that have no impact on the discussion. I would bet you any amount of money that the number of times a registered MG is used in a crime is far lower than the number of times a private aircraft crashes and kills a bunch of people.
hey, there are meals that cost over $20k and have several weeks waitlists, so using your same rhetoric, machine guns are easier and cheaper to get than meals !2 can play your hypocritical game…
That’s what we call a straw man. Literally nobody is arguing that.Here are the facts…1. Registered MGs are used in crimes so rarely that the number can be rounded to 0.2. Registered MGs are so absurdly expensive compared to their semi-auto counterparts that the actual price doesn’t really matter. 3. When I served, I almost never used automatic fire from my M16A4. It served very little practical combat (or in this case criminal) purpose. Aimed fire is far more effective. Even from a bolt gun.4. Gun bans are a dead issue. The Supreme Court has handed out their decision and you have to live with it.
And yet you and your colleague felt compelled to lie about that strawman. Twice. I wonder what is going on is the non-strawman parts of the discussion where the stakes are higher….Edit: also, you try to sweep the company that sells those fully-auto addons under the rug.
It’s not a lie, it’s a rhetorical device close enough to the facts to make no practical difference. Now, do you have something useful to contribute to the discussion or should I go ahead and quit responding to you?No matter what you do, points 1-4 won’t change. The law is settled, precedent is set.
Yes “fully auto guns are illegal in the US” and “and they cost more than a jet'” were 2 lies.You can stop responding to me, I don’t have time to double-check all you spew.
Well, congratulations, you just lost the argument. At the end of the day, I will be keeping my guns and there is nothing you can legally do about it.
You have your own definition of winning and losing. I didn’t lie, you did.Enjoy your massacres !
Enjoy being the guy we point to when gun control advocates say “nobody wants to take your guns”.
Happy to be. You, enjoy being the guy we point to tomorrow, when another gun massacre happens. You’ve done your share to enable it, congrats !
Don’t care. Crazy people doing crazy things are not my problem or my moral responsibility.
When they’re using the guns you’re enabling them to get, they are. Actions have consequences, making guns ubiquitous and easy to get mechanically results in crazies with guns. You can choose to be blind to that, but you’re not tricking anyone.
I’m not tricking anyone. I just don’t care. My rights trump your fee fees.
And you bullets trump many thousands of lives each year.Enjoy your massacres !
If you believe in the social contract theory that the US Constitution is based on, then it is your moral responsibility. That was the whole point of Locke.
What did you do in the military? you were in the military for 6 months, not even enough for a deployment, (the smallest which is 6 months after basic training, which takes a minimum of 10 weeks and a maximum of 16 if you’re going for Infantry and Armor OSUT.) you either had the US’s shortest deployment or your not speaking about your entire military history.
.I support the Second Amendment, hunting, law enforcement, gun laws, National Guard, and self-defense.I also support common sense gun safety regulation, but not gun confiscation. I support the use of mental health as a discriminator in gun safety laws.I am perfectly comfortable with that stance and it has nothing to do with any massacres.I hope you do not own guns. You sound a bit unhinged, amigo.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
The second amendment says that militias can have muskets. I support that too.Anything beyond that is your personal, self-serving interpretation.
Yeah… and the 1st amendment only covers quills and movable type presses used by licensed news outlets. Please surrender your PC, cell phone, and any other forms of mass publication to your nearest FBI office.The Supreme Court has already thrown out that argument. Your opinion on the matter is irrelevant. It’s settled law. Get over it.
.Read the Federalist Papers. You owe it to yourself to break out of the shallows and into the deep water to understand the Founding Fathers. They were looking way over the horizon.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
In addition to JLM’s clarification below – don’t forget about cars. Turns out that an automatic transmission car can kill lots of people too. Going to be tough to ban those.
In addition to cars also violent video games. And movies and song lyrics with violence.Actually that raises an interesting question. Are there video games which use cars to mow down people? If so how would people react to that?
I am trying not to identify blame elements – but I don’t think video games can be ignored. Society (starting with kids) is being desensitized to violence.The video games are very violent. And users get “rewards” when they kill someone. My son loves them – and we are constantly trying to monitor and block.
Same here my stepson plays some type of shooter game and is totally addicted to it. (Just asked him he says ‘cs’ which is ‘counter strike’)And separately the addiction to me is worse than porn addiction. Why? Because with the video games you never reach the point of satiation. So in other words you can easily spend literally an entire day playing a video game and that night and the next day (like casino gambling) but I don’t think that is probably the case with internet porn.Also to your point ‘desensitized’ means ‘doesn’t bother you that much seems normal’. For example my wife is totally grossed out by a live lobster and/or the idea of eating or getting the meat out of one (ditto for crabs). I (and I am sure @philipsugar:disqus ) find that actually appealing and part of the ‘sport’ of it. Having a plate of meat that someone else prepares isn’t the same ‘pleasure’. So you don’t find it automatically repulsive.
Not to make light of any of this – but yesterday I told my son “If we all still had to kill and process our own beef, there would be a lot more vegetarians.” So I get it.And the whole discussion started because he can “virtually” shoot an animal and have steak magically appear in the video game.
At least cars have another use than killing people.But that’s fine, you don’t care if there are more massacres, that’s your right I guess.
That is a completely obnoxious and ignorant comment. Just because I don’t 100% agree with your narrative means I want mass killings to continue? That is standard left-wing nonsense. Demonize the messenger when you don’t like the message. Please.
You mean, more obnoxious and ignorant than your comparison between cars and guns ?And yes, the time has come, either you’re for very strict universal gun control, or you’re supporting mass shootings.
Ok… I’m going to say no. How are you going to force me to obey you? The courts will tell you to go take a hike and the police will laugh in your face. You going to strap on some SWAT gear and come raid my house?This is settled law. You can either contribute to the discussion or you can keep threatening people with the confiscation of their legally purchased property. The former might incline some to listen to you. The latter will just make you into a useless laughingstock.You’re not banning anything. Get over it.
And laws can’t be changed ?I’d rather be a laughing stock than a crying stock, which is what your indiscriminate advocacy for guns makes you.Enjoy your massacres ! Over one mass shooting per day ! Congrats !
If you want to take a run at a constitutional amendment, feel free. It requires individual state approval, something you will never get.
Good luck with that. That should bring both sides of the debate together.
The time to bring both sides together has passed. Now you’re either pro gun-control and restrictions, or pro massacres. There’s no middle road.
That is the kind of divisive rhetoric that causes one side to hate the other – and pushes some people over the edge into violence. Liberalism is far more dangerous that any physical weapon.
What’s liberalism’s body count in the US ? Guns’ is 34,000 in 2015. That’s about 100 per day.Enjoy your massacres !
Still waiting on liberalism’s body count, to compare it to guns’ 100/day, Mr. False Equivalency….
Your’re missing the point, “Mr. Liberal Talking Points Name-Calling I don’t have any Facts”. You are part of the problem – not the solution. The need to divide people into black and white categories – as you are doing – is what is ripping this country into piece.One of Fred’s blog rules is this: “Criticize ideas – not people”. I made a simple point (supported by facts) that cars can be used as mass weapons. Then you start the hate launcher. Accusing me of wanting people dead, calling me names. Seriously, grow up.
The correlation of guns in circulation to body count, and the causality, are clear, established facts. The comparison to cars, and the inexistant liberalism body count, are false equivalencies (and a lie).This is not rhetoric, it’s facts. You’re the one using rhetoric to try and muddle facts.You accuse me with 0 supporting evidence of a) being a liberal and b) as such, being responsible for deaths because, sic, “liberalism is far more dangerous than any physical weapon”. When called out for a body count for liberalism, you again try and muddle the issue.Guns kill people. Guns advocates kill people. Anyone not seeking a drastic change to the gun situation in America is complicit to each and every gun death.
Fred is assuming “illegal”. In NV you can own fully automatic weapons, aka machine guns.
It seems likely (based on the initial evidence) that this was illegal or modified to become illegal. Lots of people with military experience (or gun knowledge) can make these changes.
I took a firearms training course many years ago just outside of Vegas. We all got to shoot fully auto guns. You can’t run a school and let your clients shoot illegal weapons! It will be interesting to find out what the shooter used. Unbelievable.
.Once a year, the local Sheriff invites me and others to shoot weapons including Thompson submachine guns. They used them for training purposes and would let us shoot them on full auto with both a large clip and a drum.They are illegal for private ownership.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
He appears to have enough guns to arm a gang in his hotel room.
And how much did it cost you? A shit ton because….legally getting a fully automatic gun is really, really hard and expensive.
Getting a machine-gun in NV is no easier than getting one anywhere else. Those guns costs tens of thousands of dollars and take literally months of paperwork to transfer. The absurd part is that for a fraction of the money you can buy a desktop CNC and turn out dozens of machine-guns.99.9% of the time, when a full-auto weapons is used in a crime it is an illegal one. There are a grand total of less than 300,000 such guns legally owned in the US. Nobody is going to spend the time and money to get one so that they can use it in a crime. It’s much easier to just make your own.
We like to say things like “there is no shame in getting help for … such and such a mental illness”. But it’s a bit like saying “Failure is good” and “It doesn’t matter where you go to college.” It makes for a nice platitude, and we might wish it were the case, but it’s just not true.Getting mental health treatment in the US is a high risk affair. If you have health insurance and use it to pay for mental health treatment you’ve created both a pre-existing condition record (e.g., if you’re diagnosed with, say, depression and especially if you prescribed something) that could both limit your ability to get affordable health insurance in the future and absolutely will immediately limit your ability to get life insurance, likely for the rest of your life, provided of course you don’t lie on your life insurance application.This is why most people in the know do not use their health insurance for mental health visits and insist on paying in cash — to reduce the paper trail. Another tactic is to avoid psychiatrists (medical doctors) and go informally to alternatives to psychiatrists like social workers, ministers, etc. But the root cause is the form of severe negative sanctions our system and society applies to those who seek any support or treatment. I recognize that some very well known and wealthy people are very forward about their mental illness, which is admirable, but that’s a luxury and privilege of being that wealthy. Most people can’t take that risk.And of course if you don’t have insurance or don’t want to create a record of yourself, you then have to find the cash to pay for a weekly visit.The likelihood that we’ll create a system where we don’t apply severe sanctions to one’s ability to get both health and life insurance based on their mental health treatment is about as likely as us putting in place modest gun control – zero to none.We are a society ill-equipped to have the nuanced, complicated deliberations required. So nothing will change except the increasingly volume of the tower of babel that is social media.
.It is virtually impossible for an individual to self-diagnose mental illness. It is not like having a broken ankle.Mental health ebbs and flows. The classic example is something like PTSD which lies dormant until triggered by an outside event.My father, after WWII, used to say, “Every time I walk across a field, I look at the tree line to see if there are any Krauts.” At first, I never got it. After I was in the Army, I got it.We both used to want to jump up in a war movie and scream, “Spread out. One artillery round will kill all of y’all.”I hate to say this, but the only normal people in the world are the ones we don’t know very well.There is no question that being treated for mental health — even in a preventive manner — carries a stigma. I went to therapy for three years and used to field odd looks when I told people. Funny thing is it was one of the best experiences of my life.Insurance is a problem as insurance wants to be able to estimate a total cost and an outcome when a patient is “cured.” Mental illness may never be cured.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Get some help, see a psychiatrist, maybe get a prescription and you’re risking never being able to get life insurance and potentially affordable health insurance as well.It’s just too big a risk, especially for parents who need life insurance, to take just to see someone — the risk of being uninsurable. These are policy considerations we need to discuss when we talk about the “stigma”. We never discuss the realities of our health and life insurance policies around how they applied to people who get mental health treatment. That’s a big missing part of the story.
.If one fails to reveal something on a life insurance policy, it is not enforceable.I knew someone who collected on a key man life policy when the insured was very young and unlikely to die.It took six months to clear the policy. They interviewed me about the guy and asked a litany of questions which were clearly intended to invalidate the policy.So, yes, this is a problem.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
It’s a boolean. Get mental help or be insurable. In most cases, unless you’re very wealthy, you need to pick one or the other in the US.
How do we fix that? https://www.regrouptherapy…. is doing stuff in mental health.
I don’t think there’s anything we can do. It would require a regulatory reform akin to what Obamacare did around pre-existing conditions for health insurance but this time with life insurance. It’s a non-starter.But if you are reading this and considering getting mental health help — just know that if you’re not really careful about how you pay and what records are kept (and not kept) you’re making yourself uninsurable, at least in terms of life insurance.And HIPAA is bullsh*t. A medical record is a medical record when you are applying for insurance, whether that’s notes from a podiatrist about your bad arches or a psychiatrist about your deepest family secrets — it’s all the same and all something the life insurance companies can and will demand if/when you apply for life insurance. You can’t just not disclose just as you can’t not disclose the details of your bad arches on your left foot. Not only might the life insurance company 1) say no, and 2) put you in the uninsurable DB that is shared among life insurance companies, but they also get to see your most personal intimate details that you may have shared with a psychiatrist.So, if you want to get mental health treatement, caveat emptor. And we need to discuss these realpolitik polices as these are part of the “stigma”.
There needs to be more regulation around guns – specifically guns that are easy to modify to become fully automatic – regardless of the modification used.There needs to be more regulation around ammunition. Specifically clips that hold more than X number of rounds(whatever X is determined to be) and ammunition sales over X rounds per Y timeframe.There needs to be increased scrutiny around individuals making multiple gun purchases.I’d argue that we need mandatory ongoing gun and health checks for individuals owning weapons, just like a driver’s license. You have to show up and take a test to prove that you’re still capable of owning and using a gun safely – safely meaning in a way that’s not dangerous to society at large.Regulation of firearms has not caught up with their devastating consequences and our society’s increasing frequency of using them for such. It’s time to change that.*Also in no way is this “Take away the guns”. It’s mandate responsible usage of deadly weapons.
CONTRIBUTORS:”I would imagine that the Las Vegas shooter used an illegal weapon last night.” – FredThere will be assumptions made before the investigation is complete. Narratives to fit our preconceived thoughts.ISIL is even attempting to take credit for an unassociated horrific massacre that has no ties to their unIslamic theology of misguided hate. (Based upon FBI press conference Paddock had no known ties or connections with ISIL)Stephen Paddock white 64 year old male lived in a 400K home. (Doesn’t fit the narrative so he is just crazy, any other usually suspects it would have a thousand other excuses for a Mass Serial Killer that usually has the exact characteristics.) The chances of him possessing illegal guns in minimal.We all will need to be patient until the investigation is complete. (Not holding our breath on holding the assumptions and conspiracy theories that will be concocted)
follow the money:https://qz.com/1092003/las-…
Saddened and speechless.
This is the most appropriate comment today. Thoughts are with the people killed and their families.
I have to say after internalizing all this today and the death of one of my all time favorites Tom Petty, I am a bit overwhelmed,Deeply. Uncharacteristically. Fatigued and saddened in a completely new way for me.
I love Tom Petty.
Yup.So distraught. Had to Skype a buddy in New Zealand who went with me last time we saw him with the Heartbreakers at the Fillmore in SF.Great band. My kinda rock and roll.
He was younger than me but was not randomly shot while he was young sorry to read your distraught
Sad that he won’t be coming ’round here no more.
A sad reminder that our decision to vote in every election and who we vote for matters a lot.Why the hell do we even allow for semi-automatics to be sold to the general public? What potential hunting or self defense use case can justify the downside?
.You betcha! Pres Obama had a perfect opportunity to advance legislation on gun control and failed to do it when he had the House and Senate. Why?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Because he had a filibuster proof senate for like 12 weeks due to the long delay in Franken’s election counting and certification and then Ted Kennedy dying and being replaced by Scott Brown.
I may have a gun! I’m not sure! If I do, it’s in my brother’s house in Knoxpatch! I had a gun, a single shot 22, I got when I was about 12.I’m okay with guns. And in the big picture, in history there have been too many times when the government was so bad the citizens needed guns. It could happen in the US.But for terror, look, the Boston Bombers didn’t use guns. The Iraqi insurgents used a lot of improvised explosive devices set off with a phone call to a cell phone with its ringer circuit wired to a bomb. Net, guns are not nearly the only way a terrorist, idiot, etc. can kill people. Or, as is totally obvious now — the dirt bags can just get in a car and drive fast toward a crowd of people.Stopping guns is at best a single brick to block an Interstate highway, one sandbag to stop a hurricane surge.The solution has to be to build a decent society where the chances of such people “going postal” are much lower. We are a long way from a decent society because in too many ways we are just sick-o.
Saddened and biting my tongue.
Which laws specifically if enforced would have prevented this?
No law can prevent crazy people from doing crazy things. Only punish them after the fact. However, since murder is already illegal, more laws would not serve that end.
We can statistically identify who is most likely to become a murder- people who commit domestic violence. In many states, committing domestic violence will not be a legal barrier to buy a gun., because it’s classed as a violent misdemeanor as opposed to a felony..We could make gun buying harder for those who commit domestic violence, irrespective of how different states classify domestic violence as a crime. We don’t.I wonder how many murders would be prevented if it was harder to get the tools to murder.
.”In many states, committing domestic violence will not be a legal barrier to buy a gun, because it’s classed as a violent misdemeanor as opposed to a felony.”Every gun purchase in the US requires the submission of an ATF Form 4473 which is run through the NCIS database for a background investigation. This is a Federal function.The Feds are agnostic as to whether domestic violence is either a misdemeanor or a felony. You can be denied a gun purchase application (made by the state) for simply being charged with domestic violence.If it is in the database, you will be reported.I know of several such denials in which the case was not fully adjudicated. Law enforcement is super sensitive to the issue of domestic violence.People who are prone to domestic violence should not be allowed to buy guns.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
It’s an uncomputerized database, and violent misdemeanors may not be covered because of state by state regulations. Only if there is a current domestic violence order against you will you be prevented from buying a gun. While technically domestic violence is covered, most cases never get to court.So if a guy was the subject of a protective order 2 years ago, then his exgf dropped the charges, and now this guy has a different girlfriend, it would be perfectly legal in many places for him to buy a gun. He’d pass the background checks. He’s still statistically likely to commit a murder though.https://www.justice.gov/usa…
Oh, I assure you it is digitized and computerized, and his exgf cannot drop charges.
If the exgf decides to personally drop the accusation for whatever the reason, no DA will prosecute, and typically the abuser will be made to to therapy. Otherwise the DA will be forced to compel a witnesshttp://thelawdictionary.org…Black’s legal dictionarySo effectively unless you have a really interesting DA who is willing of compel, charges are dropped. Most cases of domestic violence are therefore not prosecuted.
First sentence from your citation: “Regardless of the reason, contrary to popular believe, the victim of a domestic violence crime cannot simply decide to drop the charges in most cases.”Let me very assuredly tell you that is on your permanent record. Have you ever had a background check? Ever? I have. Many times. Very many times. They have digitized all records including a transgression I had in 1985 in college where there was no warrant and therefore no ability to prosecute in a fraternity house underage drinking incident. Ever hear of character recognition??? Seriously, lets have a discussion but not a clueless one.
“Therefore, the DA is the one who possesses the power to dismiss the charges, but convincing the prosecutor to do so sometimes proves difficult.”There are so many “ifs” and “buts” in this entry that it’s laughable and hard to believe it was approved. I would like to see some stats about the percentage of cases investigated that actually go through to prosecution. Then we can talk about the technicality of dropping charges versus common practice among police, DAs and prosecutors.
I can tell you out here in the country that is one thing that is not tolerated. While we are on topic of guns in the last five years we had two incidents. One where an ex husband broke into his ex wife’s boyfriends house when he was angry and drunk to drag her back, the second was when a boyfriend who beat up his girlfriend who took refuge at her Dad’s came over to give her some more.Nobody went to trial in those cases. They were both solved by a gun.
They background check you and if you have an arrest…..that is not a conviction or even been charged……they know.
An arrest isn’t enough of a ding to legally prevent someone from buying in some states, especially because in our system of justice, from a legal standpoint, innocent until proven guilty. So if you get off from a violent crime on a technicality, or charges dismissed it’s not enough to prevent a seller from selling. Furthermore, the private sale loophole/gun show loophole/Brady bill loophole still exists- so having a prior conviction can be circumvented in some states (including Nevada)FYI, my fiance will eventually buy (another, he got rid of his previous ones) gun. He likes to shoot pheasants and then eat them. Neither of us think that the current gun buying system is sane. (And we’re talking about a guy who at one point was licensed for a concealed weapons in CHICAGO!). Neither of us think that the current licensing system is sane, especially after a friend pulled a gun on him at point blank range when they were both drunk, when he was living at home and working in Boulder. Luckily my fiance has great reflexes and his friend wasn’t drunk enough to take the safety off and pull the trigger, but it was a situation where gun handling while drunk is less enforced than drunk driving. His friend stopped carrying his gun for a while after that (and was extremely apologetic) but had my fiance been shot he’d be just another statistic.And it’s basically because we don’t talk about guns, gun culture, and gun usage in the US. That frightens me and bothere me. It bothers me there are no legal requirements for owning a gun in Colorado (I just moved here), especially since I know I’m a poor shot, with very little training and literally no one can stop me from buying a gun here. I can’t do that for a Tesla, even though that car self drives. Meanwhile, I can take both across state borders. Why is it that we think it’s OK for this situation to happen – it’s as if we only care about drunk driving and not gun safety, despite the fact that drunk driving and not gun safety, despite all vehicular deaths (not just drunk driving) kill as many people as guns. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fa…
In my state having a gun while drunk is a felony, I’d have to look at CO. I would not ever, ever, be with that person again. Ever.Ummmm. I’d look up the laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…Edit: I think allowing a loaded handgun without a serious permit in the car is f’ing crazy. Just crazy.
in philosophy of law under legal realism, enforceability is a critical decisor if something is or isn’t a law. The mere fact there in a law on the books isn’t enough, since if it isn’t enforced, it’s meaningless. Drunk walking around with guns is not a very enforced crime, compared to drunk driving. That it happens to be a felony on the books is meaningless if people don’t get charged and go to jail for it, especially on a regular basis.Furthermore, in the situation above – it was in the privacy of the owners home in the basement, which had a private tap I believe.
And the laws about our gun registration is very explicit – no searchable databases. Also you have to mail or fax requests to ATF (no computerized forms)https://www.thetrace.org/20…ATF works at a level you’d find personally maddening. It’s a huge waste of money, time, and it prevents us from actually creating policy gun owners and non gun owners can agree on that would work
People who have been convicted in a court of law of domestic violence CANNOT buy guns. Regardless of public or private sales.
And if the charges are dropped, not unusual for many people who are in a domestic violence situation.
.You do realize I was quoting ShanaC?Of course nobody convicted of domestic violence should ever touch a weapon.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
“People who are prone to domestic violence should not be allowed to buy guns.” so true, but the law has a “default allow” provision if the check is not completed, I believe. Or does anyone know different information?
You are plain wrong. The only way domestic violence charges get dropped is they determine it was not credible or you were not convicted. Abused women cannot agree to drop the charges. They can not cooperate, but they cannot drop the charges.Look it up.And for the people saying look at his Dad……Holy crap, if we go to ancestors behaviors that is a slope I never want to go down, and I’m sure you don’t either.
The reality is that no law you can pass can un-invent a thing. Machine-guns are rather simple machines. I can make a WWII style sub-machine-gun with hand tools and a little effort. With the advent of desktop CNC machines, there is literally no way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. All you can do is punish the millions of people who are not criminals.To go into a more detailed explanation… A sub-machine-gun is literally a hollow tube with a barrel welded to one end containing a spring guided reciprocating weight with a firing pin built in. The “trigger” is just a catch that holds the weight at the back of the tube with the driving spring in a contained space. With a desktop CNC and a $100 welder I can churn out guns functionally identical to a M3 “grease gun” with very little effort. It’s just a matter of going down to the hardware store and finding the right springs, a few blocks of steel to machine, and chopping down any gun to get the appropriate barrel.As for mental health… this entire mess started when we decided that institutionalizing the mentally ill was “wrong”. Recent evidence shows what happens when you let the crazies out of the asylum and expect them to behave.
the clock is already counting down to the next slaughter. when a society is awash with guns nothing can stop it.how many times has Fred written a post in response to such events? i’ve lost count. as a European i would be reluctant to live in the USA. too many extremes.
As and American, I’m much more disturbed by the regularity of terrorist attacks in the EU. The seem to be happening about once a week. US mass shootings are about as rare as major terrorist attacks in the EU. For example, the Niece truck attack killed more people and didn’t involve a firearm at all.The idea that the US is “awash in gun violence” is complete garbage. The overwhelming majority (80%+) of homicides are either drug or gang related. If you aren’t a criminal, you are, statistically far safer in the US than in the EU. The occasional crazy person doing crazy things is unavoidable. The question is, why should we attempt to pass more laws that have been shown to have no impact on major incidents. For example, France has every gun control law you can think of, yet the Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks still happened.Laws exist to punish people when they commit harmful acts. They cannot magically prevent evil people from doing evil things. If a bunch of illiterate Pashtun tribesmen can make military grade hardware in caves lit by burning camel feces, what makes you think that a properly motivated crazy person won’t do the same thing?
France has 1/5 the murder rate of the U.S.
Not if you don’t count criminals killing other criminals. For example, 90%+ of the “gun violence victims” in Chicago in 2015 had prior criminal records. So if you look at non-criminals, the homicide rate is actually lower in the US.
This is true.
i said it was awash with guns. i did not say it was awash with gun violence. it’s too easy to get hold of a gun in the USA. it’s very difficult in the UK. there are very few legitimate reasons to have a gun here.”If you aren’t a criminal, you are, statistically far safer in the US than in the EU.” what statistics? i find that very difficult to believe.
Not really. There’s a reason why Chicago has less than 20% of the population of Illinois, but almost 90% of the homicides. That’s where the gangs and drug dealers are. If you don’t believe me, look at the CPD annual report and look at the demographics for the alleged “victims”. Random murders happen, but they are rare.
Often the US is a tough place to be. In many cases Europe has shown how people can be very civilized. Alas, Sweden didn’t appreciate what they had and are now busy bringing in people who won’t fit in for 500+ years. But, often Europe has had its rivers running red with blood. There is a claim that NATO, heavily from the US, has brought the longest interval of peace to Europe since … the Romans?It’s a mixed situation: The solution is for each sick-o country to get smart and well.
Do you know why you don’t speak German? Go to Normandy and find out.
It seems that he had bought those guns legally. Whatever, laws we have on the books are clearly not working.
I doubt it. Do you know what a half dozen registered machine-guns would cost?
So far they think that he has purchased those guns legally.http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/…Not to mention Nevada has the most laxed gun laws in the nation.http://www.mercurynews.com/…
Which is irrelevant. MGs are covered under federal law in all 50 states.
Huh? At this point it is believed he bought those guns legally. Nothing you’ve said shed light to the contrary.
Which is, again, not relevant to the conversation. Buying a gun legally does not make it legal to convert it into a MG. That’s a major federal felony. (10-20 in federal prison major)Given how rare registered MGs are, I seriously doubt it was a real one. Even if it was, there is little you can do to make them more difficult to own.
As noted, whatever laws we have in the books clearly aren’t working. What is not relevant is you going off topic. I think you need to read the original topic Fred wrote but I am done chattering with you. Cheers.
Given that legal MGs are practically never used in crimes, they seem to be working just fine. What are you going to do? Make building an illegal MG more illegaler? As I pointed out, you can’t un-invent things. If I wanted, I could make a WWII style machine-gun in my garage and there is no practical way to stop me from doing so.
Heard he was a pretty rich guy.
The supreme right is the right to live.
Which is why the 2nd exists…to defend your right to not be murdered.
That was a valid hypothesis in the social and political context of the 18th century. Totally questionable today by the people of the 21st century, which have better ideas for our time.
Completely not questionable. Defensive gun use is always a valid activity. It is an inalienable right to keep and bear arms.
I didn’t see any “defensive gun use” yesterday, didn’t work. How it is supposed to work? Do you have to take your weapon to the concert?
Oh..is it supposed to work every single time in every single instance? And if it doesn’t, that negates the possibility of it never working? Is that what you are trying to say? Really?And yes…I’ve taken a weapon to concerts.
I don’t know, that is why I am asking you. My first impression about the idea that everyone should carry their firearm with them, as a 21st century citizen, is that it is a very bad idea. It would be better, safer to disarm everyone and let the trained specialists, the police to handle the conflictive situations. That is a better idea.
Everyone should have the option of carrying. In some conditions, it is helpful. Other times, you bug the hell out. You cannot disarm everyone. They have the inalienable right to keep and bear arms. Chicago and DC disarmed everyone…..leaving only the criminals and police armed. See their crime rates. In this case…..at the concert, there was nothing that an armed bystander COULD do. Thus… the police were better able to handle it.
As Early As Next Week The GOP Wants To Pass A Law That Would Allow Guns To Go Silent. Would We Have Caught The Nevada Terrorist If This Law Had Already Been Passed?https://www.yabberz.com/pos…
Yes, because suppressors aren’t magic. A suppressed rifle is still louder than a jack-hammer. Mostly, they are used to prevent hearing damage in either enclosed spaces (where even ear protection is not enough to keep the sound from damaging your hearing) or hunting without ear protection so you don’t accidentally shoot someone because you can’t hear them.
I’d rather terrorists be detectable from an extra block away, than hunters be prevented from killing each others or practice shooters also having to suffer the consequences of their own actions.Edit: I don’t mind gun users hurting/killing each others. I mind when innocents are caught in the crossfire.
Nice to see your priorities. Would it help to know that gun induced hearing loss costs medicare billions of dollars every year?It’s interesting that you would rather see millions of people permanently disabled rather than make a minor change that would have no practical impact on what you claim.I also find it interesting that you find a hunter accidentally shooting a hiker because he couldn’t hear them to be an acceptable side effect.
You have an issue with people shouldering the cost of their choices ? Want the nanny state to protect them with regulations ?
No, I want the nanny state to get out of the way of people using safety products for their intended purposes. Would you be against mufflers on bikes because you don’t ride a bike and think that bike owners deserve what they get?A suppressor does not make a gun appreciably harder to find. It just makes it so that a person who uses one doesn’t blow out their ear drums.
But what if the really safe thing to do about guns is regulate them away ? You want the users safe, not the victims ?
Well, you can’t “regulate them away” because the right to own firearms for defensive purposes has already been confirmed as a right by the SCotUS. Now are you interested in finding a real solution or are you just going to keep throwing spittle at your keyboard? Because, frankly, a gun ban of any kind isn’t going to happen in the US. The laws are going in the exact opposite direction and the overwhelming majority of states will tell you to go to hell if you tried to reverse their policies.
I’m not going to look up the totally obvious, but there is the Constitution with something about militias and right to bare arms. That’s what we’ve got. There are upsides and downsides. Net, I believe that we should keep the “right to bare arms”.Why? I don’t fully trust all our government and that because I have overflowing contempt for the politicians and news media. The politicians have government really bad now, and if they move to make it a lot worse — and such as happened frequently in history — then the “right to bare arms” is something of a boundary; if the politicians get bad enough and go way too far, and there’s a lot of history of that, then some people will start shooting back. It is, if you will, another way to vote, an expensive way to vote but in some ways uniquely effective.Next, we should go for the core problems, and heavily we are not and, instead, are working really hard to make the problems worse. “When you find yourself in a hole, first step is to stop digging.””Mental illness”? Or, to paraphrase, “Anyone who remains sane under the current circumstances just doesn’t understand the situation.” Or, there are a lot of really bad situations out there, a lot of super-sadness, a lot of tragedy, disappointment, fear, anxiety, and stress out there.Bluntly, the bottom line is, we’re not supposed to be living this way or anything like this bad. For all of the good we can point to, including for the US, now, there’s also a lot of really sick-o bad. Again, we’re not built for this. So, people lose it; usually we don’t see it; sometimes the sick-o stuff comes out and makes the headlines. Some people will just thinkI’m not going to take it anymore but will take some of them with me. That situation places some limits on how bad our society can get.The most recent event aside, the sick-o stuff remains. The ideas of new gun laws and more mental health care treat the symptoms instead of the problems.Sick-o? We should be working effectively to have a decent society, but, net, we are not. Yes, there’s a lot of effort to have a decent society, but there’s also a lot of effort to have the old “dog eat dog and may the devil take the hindmost.”, etc. In many ways, it’s a bloody jungle out there.E.g.? The newsies believe that for large aspects of our society, they should do everything they can to destroy them, to get “scoops”, headlines, etc., and with some brain-dead, wildly overly emotional, irrational political bias. In simple terms, the newsies want Big Daddy socialist or communist government to solve all the problems and provide security for everyone. What we get is wildly overstimulated, brain-dead irrationality or just light, formula fiction style entertainment.E.g.,? Far too many politicians spout total BS, no facts or facts ignored, just run that sick-o stuff up and see if some people like it.My meager understanding of people and society tell me that, really, we can have decent people, decent political leaders, and a decent society. But, as in one movie with a comment about NYC, “Decent people shouldn’t live here.”. I agree and not just for NYC but for way too much of the US.Sick-o? Our society is getting a grade of at best D-. Evidence? On the crucial, central point, our birth rate is so low we are going extinct, literally.E.g., I very much wanted to get (1) a good STEM field, that is, useful, education, (2) get married, (3) have a career, (4) buy a house, (5) have a family. I tried hard, did NOTHING wrong, and essentially always pushed right to the limits of my physical strength and health.I did well with (1) education.I did (2) marriage; after two years, due to the stresses, from our days together but mostly from some in her family going back to the Great Depression, the marriage looked bad; I kept trying; eventually she killed herself from the stress. If I could have supported here as a traditional wife and mother, then she could have been fine, at least while the children were young. She would have been bitter from the Betty Friedan Communist sabotage of the US family, the feminists, etc., but that would have been tolerable.For (3) career, that worked for some years around DC, and otherwise it was not nearly good enough for a house and a family.E.g., for nine years I was a research scientist at long “the most admired company in the world”, but a house cost 5+ as much as my annual salary. Then the most admired company went nearly bust.So, I have to start my own business. Okay. The parts unique to my business are fast, fun, easy, no problem; some aspects of the rest are a total pain.For (4) house, once I came close but, net, never could. It was no problem for my father; it was a grand, near impossibility for me and, net, so far impossible. I can’t buy a house. If my startup works, then I’ll be able to buy houses by the dozens; in the meanwhile, flatly, I can’t buy a house.I have one of the best STEM field educations in the history of the world and would even sweep floors and clean toilets if necessary to buy a house, but I can’t buy a house. Ordinary houses keep costing 2 to 10 times what I can afford to buy.For (5) family, with the career not good, my wife sick, and no house, no chance of a family. So, no family. So, alone on Thanksgiving and Christmas.Net, for me and too many others, it’s too hard. Our society is sick-o. Or, our society is not fertile ground, that is, can’t support family formation even to keep the birth rate up, and I’m not nearly the only one.Again, the birth rate is so low we’re going extinct, quite literally and fairly quickly. Due if only just to that birth rate, our society gets a grade of flat F. Period.For me, life is like being in a foxhole with bullets going six inches over my head; they haven’t hit me so far! I’m getting by and, against various absurd obstacles, doing my work, but, net, the ground is not fertile, for me and similarly for way too much of our society. Even if I get successful, my approach will not be a good grade for our society as a whole. Did I mention, our society is sick-o?What to do about it?(1) Try to have a decent society.(2) Tell the media in irresistibly strong, blunt, and stark terms that they need totally to clean up their act. So, no more fake news. No more rivers of deliberate lies. No more baseless gossip and accusations. No more distorted, misleading headlines and stories. No more meaningless or misleading statistics. No more graphs with grade of F according to freshman physics lab report standards.Instead, get the quality up close to the writing of, say, good work in applied math, physical science, engineering, medicine, law, and finance. Lower than that, and I don’t want to see it.On the media, e.g., for my part, flatly, my considered opinion, and no exaggeration, is that the NYT on paper can’t compete with Charmin and on the Internet is useless for wrapping dead fish heads. With that, you can guess my willingness to pay for their writing. And, if on the Internet I get a link to a news article, click on the link, and see that it’s the NYT, then I immediately close the article unless it is just a signed essay by someone I respect or a transcript of some kind. If the piece is from the NYT, then I flatly refuse even to look at it. Same for WaPo. Same for all the news on ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and Politico — the “mainstream media,” MSM.E.g., I have three really good TV sets; I use one to watch some VCR movies, and otherwise I haven’t had one on in years. For the MSM, I flatly refuse to give them my eyeballs. They get no subscription or ad revenue from me. I wrote the publisher of the NYT and told him what I think. I was fully serious and have not changed my mind.And IMHO, the MSM is one of the most serious causes of our sick-o society. The MSM is essentially vicious sabotage of our country. The sabotage hurts; it has hurt; it still hurts; people are hurting; the sabotage goes a long way to explaining our sick-o society.Why? Because for our current society, to get rid of the sick-o and have a decent society, we need “informed citizens”. Now we don’t have that. Instead at best the citizens smell a big stink, know our system is rotten, but don’t have enough details to see the truth.Occasionally some of the truth or shadows of it leak out. Apparently the first problem is money, follow the money. So, some people with big money and power have the MSM as their devoted propaganda arm. So, the MSM give us shocking headlines and some formula fiction light entertainment but not the solid information needed by informed citizens.(3) For the politicians. You know when Nasty Nancy, Paul Ryan, Chucky Schumer, and Mitch McConnell are lying — you can see their lips moving. People put up with this sewage.E.g., I wrote Chucky Schumer: He’s a bright guy, but he’s doing a lot to hurt the US, give us our sick-o society. He is so capable he is doing a lot of harm. So, net, we’d be better off with some incompetent half of a brain of a half-wit, usually drunk and otherwise asleep, who at worst would do only a little harm, and I told Chucky that, and I still believe it. For anyone who wants to run for Chucky’s seat, I’ll give one vote and a bottle of vodka.I mean, Chucky, first, I flatly don’t believe you in your statement that you got Trump to say he’d give up The Wall or some such as the filthy MSM reported recently.Next, Chucky, just what is it why you are so against The Wall? I want to know just what you have against The Wall. My working hypothesis: You are being paid off by some business interests who want a new version of slave labor. Did I mention sick-o? That’s just part of where it comes from.Chucky, you are fighting but just against Trump and not for the US. You don’t want to improve the US. Instead you just want to get rid of Trump. So does your sweetheart Nasty Nancy. You want to fight a civil war. The usual revolution is to kick in the rotten door, and you want to make the door so rotten you can kick it in. You are out to sabotage the US. You are doing great harm.Harm? Yes: E.g., it was plenty clear enough from Barney Frank that the main ideas of ObamaCare were (1) pay off some special interests and (2) destroy US health care so that we could have the Barney Frank dream of “single payer”. So, make the door of US health care rotten so that could kick it in for the revolution. Sick-o.Enforcing immigration laws? There an “across the isles” deal: The Republicans want immigrants as a new version of slave labor who work but don’t vote, and the Democrats want the immigrants as welfare cases who vote but don’t work. Meanwhile US citizens lose their jobs and have to pay for the welfare, police, education, etc. expenses of the immigrants. And Chucky is voting for that — trying to make the door rotten so that he can kick it in.Okay, Chucky, if you want to fight a civil war against Trump, then you should be paid by the DNC. But you are being paid by the US taxpayers to play a, let me find the word, CONSTRUCTIVE effective (strange word for politicians and DC) role in our government and country, and on that you are getting a grade of S for sabotage.I wrote Chucky essentially that. I asked him to work cooperatively and effectively with Trump, our elected POTUS. I asked Chucky that if he had any evidence that Trump’s ideas were bad or if he had better ideas, then to speak up and, otherwise, work as I mentioned with Trump.That’s what I want. It’s what I should want. We should all want that. We don’t want another civil war. Instead we want to solve our sick-o problems.For some of those problems we need, shocker, to enforce our immigration laws. WOW! Enforce our laws! Such a SHOCK, for a lot of paid off politicians. And, to enforce our immigration laws, really, totally obviously, we should have The Wall.So, for an example of why we are so sick-o, just what the heck is the reason, the huge, mountain of a reason, we can’t have The Wall? Does the MSM inform us? Heck no. Chucky, Nancy, Mitch, and Paul very much don’t want The Wall. Why? Inquiring minds want to know. Informed citizens need to know. A priori, the answer is, follow the money. Or Chucky, Nancy, Mitch, and Paul and the MSM have all been bought off, big time, by big bucks from big people with big power who want a new version of slavery, and that is hurting our country and is part of the sick-o.The Wall is a small thing but a big symptom of a big problem: Our media and government have been bought off by big money and power who are getting what they want and don’t mind the current sick-o.So, we have, did I mention, the low birth rate. We have 94 million people out of the labor force. China is basically buying us up (there’s an old Buffett essay on that, a story of two islands — look it up). Dumb Ding Dung Dong Ill Uno Little Rocket Boy is trying to make that sick-o guy in Vegas look like a small bug on a gnat, and paid off Chucky, Nancy, Mitch, and Paul are ignoring it, and the MSM has not been keeping our citizens informed. I don’t see anything about even lithium deuteride anywhere in the MSM. Dumb, brain-dead, silly MSM. ISIS and Ayatollah Kockamamie are close to wanting to do the same, but going way back 8, 16, 24 years our citizens were not well informed, and we acted like total fools — threw away US blood and treasure and ended up with some things much worse.Our economic growth rate totally sucks, and that’s one of the main reasons for the low birth rate and sick-o society.As in a recent article on knife laws in NYS, our big political powers believe that we should have police acting like Nazi Brown Shirts against some poor people who, as they are arrested from nonsense knife laws, were doing nothing wrong that day. Then the sick-o lawyer prosecutors and judges go along; another poor person is set back again and loses another big chunk of their life; our taxes go up; and we are sick-o. And Governor Cuomo likes that situation. Apparently so did Chief Kelly. It’s wildly illegal and unconstitutional; it’s Nazi Brown Shirts attacking people they don’t like; it’s trashing our Constitution; and politicians, prosecutors, and judges LIKE it. Sick-o.NYS and NYC are a jungle. In a jungle, the smart animals stay out of places with potential attackers. If the smart animals are in such places, then they stay out of sight of potential attackers. Generally they stay out of sight and try to look strong enough to deter attackers — standard jungle animal techniques. In NYC, some of the worst attackers are the police, prosecutors, and judges. Sick-o.We’ve been told for decades that we have to get the big money out of politics. It’s time we listened and, as voters, SAID SO and made it happen. The bought off MSM won’t tell us.We’re not a decent society. We’re sick-o. It’s not really about either gun laws or mental health care. People are NOT naturally this way. We CAN have a decent society. How?(1) Have the voting citizens raise a big stink to get the money out of politics and, thus, give the power back to the citizens, the voters, and the leaders they elect to help the US. In effect Trump gave us a good start as he used his own money to get elected; he can’t be bought.(2) With the money out of politics, we can get the money out of the MSM and have it provide the solid information our citizens need to vote.(3) Then with good government and good information, we can come together quickly to do at least the long, totally obvious things we need to clean up the deliberate sick-o and have a decent society.Anytime we want to have a decent society, we can.I’ve done my part, here and elsewhere. If a lot of others will do the same, then we can be successful. Success is sitting right in front of us, on a platter. All we have to do is just not drop it and not let the big money and power special interests buy off the MSM, Chucky, Mitch, Nancy, and Paul.
You took a wall of text to advocate mob rule. The exact opposite of what our constitution is supposed to support. We are not a democracy. The rights of the minority trump the will of the majority every time and twice on Sunday. If you don’t like that, feel free to move to a country where this is not the case. We shan’t miss you.
I did no such thing. You are reading things into what I wrote that are flatly not there and not true. I can’t respond because you didn’t explain your claim of “mob rule”. My guess is that the nasty MSM put that sick-o Kool-Aid in your hand and you swallowed it. You have been profoundly misled. The sick-o MSM has done you in much as I explained.
In my personal opinion the following seems like a no-brainer resolution to the problem. – There should be a requirement to have a license to own a firearm of any kind- All firearms should be registered and catalogued- There should be a buy back of firearms that are anything other than hunting rifles by the state- If you want to own a firearm you should have to apply for a license to own a firearm that requires the following; • A full background check • Application that takes 6-12 months to be approved • All regulatory fees paid for by the applicant • Required to renew every 5 yearsHunting should be the most expense sport in my humble opinion.
Ok… I’m going to say no. What do you propose? Sending people with guns to round up hardware from the millions of people who tell you to get bent?What other constitutionally protected rights would you be ok with applying the same restrictions to? Voting? Press? Jury trial?
Gun buyback with heavy finacial penalties if you are caught with a gun you shouldn’t have would work
And if you still don’t allow confiscation?
You probably could do limited confiscation if associated with cause (like a protective order or you’ve walked around drunk with guns too often) but gun buyback plus fines worked on the local level extremely well at reducing illegal gun ownership
No..they don’t. Even the cops have stopped doing buy backs. Criminals don’t bring in any guns that they plan to use. The only “illegal guns” are those by otherwise law abiding citizens like granny bringing in a .38 previously owned by her husband and kept in a shoebox.
.People do not seem to know the current status of gun ownership. Much of what you note is current law.1. In every state, there is a license requirement for concealed carry.2. Every state has a requirement to conduct an ATF Form 4473 NCIS background check on every applicant to purchase a gun. There is no more complete check available.3. Every gun sale is documented as to seller, buyer, weapon. All weapons are identified by unique serial numbers. This information is cataloged in an accessible database. People may pretend there is no gun registration in the US, but there is.4. The ATF operates a database of all gun information. When somebody says, “Run the serial number,” this is a request to ATF for info on that gun by serial number.5. All applications can take as long as they take. Places like Texas can process a “clean” application as quickly as two days including an NCIS fingerprint background check. [Note: The FBI does not allow anybody to use their database of fingerprints. It has to go through the FBI.]6. Concealed handgun licenses require training and proficiency testing and periodic re-testing. This is controlled by the states and there is reciprocity amongst states.7. Hunters are required to obtain hunting licenses. Game wardens obtain info on animals killed when tags are involved and some states obtain the identity of the hunter as well as info on the weapon used.8. Game wardens routinely inspect hunters, verify their licenses, inspect their weapons, and ask for their authority to hunt on private land.Hunters are not really the problem as it relates to mass murders. They are fairly well regulated.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Ok JLM… In the interest of fairness, I am going to debunk some of this.1. Not true. About a dozen states require no license of any sort to own or carry a gun. To date, those states have some of the lowest violent crime rates in the US. The perfect example is Vermont, where there are exactly zero laws on the books and it has one of the lowest homicide rates on the planet.2. It’s not a state requirement, it’s a federal one for federally licensed dealers in the business of selling firearms. If I sold off my collection to a bunch of random people, no paperwork is required. (Not that you’d be able to enforce it anyway.)3. Incorrect. The databases are kept by the original manufacturer, distributor, and seller. Basically, the FBI has to ask each, in turn for their specific records. I consider this a good thing. It is not the government’s business to know what guns I do or do not own.4. See above.5. Actually, Texas is a “cash and carry” state. Under federal law, possessors of a TX concealed carry license can bypass the normal NICS check and walk out of the store with the gun in minutes of completing the 4473. (No NICS check is run.)6. Not in all cases, in addition to the states in example 1 above, most states just require you to fill out a simple form every few years and verify that your license has not been suspended due to criminal acts. Quite frankly, this is the heaviest acceptable burden for a constitutional right. Go look up prior restraint as a legal doctrine.7 + 8. Generally correct.The reality is that the US doesn’t have a gun problem. What it has is a gang and drug problem which people are unwilling to address. The overwhelming majority of gun homicides are either drug or gang related. Deal with the gangs, and we will be just as safe as the EU which does not have an extensive welfare supported criminal underclass.
.We have a few differences.1. You are absolutely correct there are some states which do not require a license to carry a lawfully owned weapon — concealed or in plain sight.Those states still require a lawful purchase of whatever weapon is possessed — as an example Vermont requires a licensed gun dealer to make a record of the buyer’s name, address, occupation, age, height, weight, hair, eye color.This info is coupled with the weapon’s make, name, model, caliber, manufacturer, and serial number. These records are held for no less than six years and must be produced to law enforcement.2. Everything related to initial enforcement is administered by the state. The ATF Form 4473 is a Federal form which the locals use for their own purposes.3. The ATF has maintained a copy of Form 4473s since its inception in 1972. All that info is digital. This is where a law enforcement agency goes to “run a serial number.”4. Same as above.5. A TX CHL/LTC holder who buys a weapon is relying upon the NCIS check conducted at the time of the issuance of his CHL. I did this not long ago, so I know it is correct.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Going to dispute you on #3 . The records are not digitalhttp://www.npr.org/2013/04/…
.I stand corrected. They are a lot close to a paper database than a digital. Not as bad as 2013 but not digital either.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
3. Actually, it is illegal for the ATF to maintain such a database. The procedure is as I described, they have to follow the chain from the manufacturer.
.https://www.thetrace.org/20…There is a political reason why it is called a data center or a database v a national gun registry, but still it exists.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
The trace is a propaganda site run by a rabid gun control advocacy group. Their information is highly suspect.
.Huh, they partner with Slate, HuffPo, and The Atlantic. The point being on this subject they are likely to be erring on the side of the gun opponents.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
You’re just digging deeper. All three of those sites are either left wing echo chambers or known to have a very strong pro gun control bias.
I actually was not stating that hunting, nor sport shooters are the problem. They definitely are not.I feel my main point from above was…- There should be a buy back of firearms that are anything other than hunting rifles by the stateThere is no need for an individual to own any type of firearm other than a rifle. You want to shoot for sport. Go to the shooting range. If you want to hunt, hunt with a hunting rifle.There are controlled arenas for this.Take the majority of guns away and the number of incidents will fall dramatically.
So… Again… What part of “shall not be infringed” do you seem to not understand? The SCotUS has already ruled that what you propose is unconstitutional.In reality, the real problem is gangs… What you propose isn’t working in Mexico, why would it work here?
.The US has had a number of buybacks with good success. They have been “no questions asked” type buybacks which has resulted in acquiring a number of weapons used in crimes.They have used cash and grocery gift cards. A number of them have been privately funded. Boston was giving $200 for any gun which garnered a lot of $50 SNS (Sat Night Specials).There is a legitimate self-defense reason for an individual to own a handgun. Today, concealed carry programs require a background check, classroom/range instruction, a proficiency test, and a periodic renewal.There is no reason why a guy like me — veteran, holder of a high security clearance, trained user of weapons, proficient shooter, CHL holder — should be denied the right to own a legitimate war trophy or civilian pistol in my home, in my car, on my person.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
>There is a legitimate self-defense reason for an individual to own a handgun.I personally feel that I have yet to have heard of a good reason for self-defense. If there are no guns, there is nothing to defend against.>There is no reason why a guy like me — veteran, holder of a high security clearance, trained user of weapons, proficient shooter, CHL holder — should be denied the right to own a legitimate war trophy or civilian pistol in my home, in my car, on my person.I feel you should be able to enjoy shooting for sport in a facility that is highly controlled where you can enjoy it. I do not see the reason why you need it at home. That’s just my opinion.
“I personally feel that I have yet to have heard of a good reason for self-defense. If there are no guns, there is nothing to defend against.Yeah, because criminals are so likely to obey this law, right? Criminals will not have guns, right? They’re freakin’ criminals, Guy.[Send me a good headshot, I want to check for the lobotomy scars.]You are talking to a guy who has twice been directly involved in using a weapon to prevent physical harm to an individual. Neither time did I have to discharge the firearm. It was persuasive simply by its presence.How about if I have a ranch and want to be able to kill snakes, coyotes, hunt deer, target shoot? To me, it’s just a tool, a way to put meat in the freezer.Nah, your opinion is so extreme as to be the exemplar of why we will not get common sense gun regulation. You want to confiscate guns which is not going to happen without the Second Amendment being repealed.We have to crawl, walk, run. Gun confiscation is not the play.Further, it does not demonstrably work — Chicago, New York.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
>Yeah, because criminals are so likely to obey this law, right? Criminals will not have guns, right? They’re freakin’ criminals, Guy.Do you hang out with criminals? Why are all these “criminals” around you so much that you need to protect yourself from them? I would probably guess that you don’t really run into a lot of criminals. I’m sure you’re fine. I’m sure you don’t need a gun to protect yourself.>You are talking to a guy who has twice been directly involved in using a weapon to prevent physical harm to an individual. Neither time did I have to discharge the firearm. It was persuasive simply by its presence.That sounds like you have bad luck. I am very sorry to hear that. You seem like a nice guy from the years of our chatting on here. But odds are that it won’t happen again. So you’re good to go. :)I grew up, literally, in the worst neighborhood in Canada. No the crime rate was not as high as the worst neighborhood in the US but there was a lot of extreme crime. I am assuming you do not hang out in as worse of a neighborhood. The only time I got myself into a pickle was when I was hanging out with people whom I probably should not have been hanging out with. And only a few of times I had the need to physically defend myself. I did not ever need a gun to do it.I’m sure you’ll do fine without one as well.>Further, it does not demonstrably work — Chicago, New York.I live in NYC. Guns are not needed here.Just my opinion.
. Bit of condescension?I live in a very expensive house in the nicest neighborhood in ATX — home values in the $2-6MM range. I was the head of our local neighborhood ass’n, so I got to see all the police reports, and guess what?Criminals like to come to nice neighborhoods to steal stuff. Why did Willy Sutton rob banks? Cause that was where the money was. Same deal on expensive neighborhoods. That’s where the jewelry is.We have MS-13 in ATX and they dig home invasion.Why would I ever allow my safety or the safety of my family be held hostage to your opinion when I can take care of it myself by having a CHL/LTC?The NYC/Chicago death rates indict your cavalier comment.I think we’re better off with guns as long as the bad guys have guns. What trumps a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun.Hey, I want to see that head shot, Guy.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
>Bit of condescension?>I live in a very expensive house in the nicest neighborhood in ATX — home values in the $2-6MM range. I was the head of our local neighborhood ass’n, so I got to see all the police reports, and guess what?Oh boy. 🙁 Sorry you took that so fare @JLM:disqus I would assume everyone in this community is doing very well for themselves. No need to go and publicly announce your wealth.It sounds like there are other things at play here. I will leave it at that.It was great debating this topic with you sir. (hat tip)
Well, that would be relevant if Obama’s CDC hadn’t found that guns are used to defend victims of crime more than 500,000 times in an average year. People who do so, have a markedly lower chance of being injured in the incident. At the end of the day, just because you don’t feel that you have a use for a right does not give you the right to make that choice for tens of millions of other people.In any case, that’s irrelevant. The Supreme Court has already ruled that keeping a modern firearm in the home for self-defense purposes is a constitutional right and many circuit courts have ruled that carrying a firearm OUTSIDE the home is a constitutional right. Given that the circuits are split, the SCotUS is expected to take up the case in its next session. I don’t think anybody is doubtful as to what their ruling will be given the wording of D.C. vs Heller.The only lawful recourse left for those wishing to ban the ownership or carry of guns is to propose a constitutional amendment. You will need 2/3 of the House and Senate (good luck) and you will also need 3/4 of the states to ratify said amendment in seven years. (Given that the GOP controls the overwhelming majority of state legislatures, again, good luck.)Given that your only lawful recourse is barred, you have two choices. You can accept that the law is decided and isn’t going to change, or you can keep throwing public hissy fits and continue to alienate the vast number of people in the US who own guns. (Estimated to be 50% of households as of this year.) The war is over. You lost.
1. Some states do not require a license to carry open or concealed.2. That check is on commercial sales only.3. Where is this data base? That info is held by the dealer.4. The ATF has to track the serial number to the manufacturer. They tell them which dealer got the gun. That dealer shows them their book. 5. The NICS check is usually over in minutes and cannot, by law, be longer than 3 days.6. You are correct, IF you must take a class. All I had to do was present my DD-214 to get that waived. Some states do not require a permit.7 and 8: Correct.
.https://www.atf.gov/resourc…The ATF is promulgating a program of digital access to all dealer records. This has been under way for some time now.In essence, the ATF is operating the search function with the actual records held by the FFL dealers.An NICS check can be delayed whenever there is any derogatory information discovered. As an example, question 11e of the ATF Form 4473 deals with marijuana usage, a potentially disqualifying condition for an applicant.There is a penalty for false info on an app.I am not familiar with the DD-214 status of other states. In Texas, it doesn’t really get you anything but a discount. In some states, there is a requirement that it provide evidence of specific weapon training. Mine is a few decades old by now.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Registration leads to abuse by gov’t and does nothing to protect people.There cannot be a “buy BACK” since the weapons never belonged to the gov’t.No license required to exercise an an inalienable human right.
>Registration leads to abuse by gov’t and does nothing to protect people.I disagree. Also as stated the firearm holders are the ones to pay for the regulation.>There cannot be a “buy BACK” since the weapons never belonged to the gov’t. No license required to exercise an an inalienable human right.I used the wrong term. Not “buy back” but “purchase” the firearms as an incentive for people to sell their firearms.
1. Why should I pay for someone to abuse my fundamental constitutional rights?2. That’s ok, there are plenty of people who will be more than happy to make more and you have no legal authority to prevent them from doing so. Oh, on a side note, you going to cough up the cash to pay for my guns? I could buy a nice vacation home with their actual market value. Or more probably, you’re going to implement some sort of draconian tax that, in effect, takes money from me to pay me for my property. Not going to happen.
>Why should I pay for someone to abuse my fundamental constitutional rights?Maybe it’s time to review it? Seems like there are solutions to keep it but amend it for the times we live in today.
Good luck with that. I already gave you the procedures necessary to amend the Constitution. There is no way you’re going to get 38 states to sign on to a constitutional amendment repealing the 2nd. Right now it’s settled law and you don’t have a legal leg to stand on anymore.
You may disagree, but wherever is has been instituted, abuses have happened. Confiscations and bans.Why should firearm owners pay for their own abuse?The gov’t has no business buying arms except in an absolutely voluntary manner. And private buyers will pay more.
Not sure where you live. I’m guessing as a wealthy person in the city.Do you know most people out here in the country hunt? Take a guess? It is to put meat on the table.Do you know what some of us do that don’t need all the meat? Donate it to a church food locker after paying to have it butchered.How many deer hits a year in the U.S.? 1.5mm reported likely triple that for those not reported.The problem is when I come across people like you I lose my thoughts that we should have Federal regulations (see my comments) I instead think…..I really should renew my NRA membership.
>Do you know most people out here in the country hunt? Take a guess? It is to put meat on the table.Perfect. No need for rifles at all then. 🙂
Yeah… Too bad that you don’t have the right to dictate to others how they choose to exercise their constitutional rights.
I suggest getting some facts right: Less than 3% to 5% of US crimes involve people with mental illness, and the percentages of crimes that involve guns are lower than the national average for persons not diagnosed with mental illness. Databases that track gun homicides, such as the National Center for Health Statistics, similarly show that fewer than 5% of the 120 000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness. There has been some research done on this and related topics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…If people who commit those crimes are mentally it, then ‘people’ (or authorities) who declare war on innocent people are also mentally ill?!. Is the US military just a big psychiatric facility and the Pentagon it’s control center?
To be fair, less than 3% of homicides involve a long-gun of any type, much less an “assault weapon”. Very little of this conversation has anything to do with facts.
Things more regulated than buying guns in the USA https://www.mcsweeneys.net/…
Which would be relevant if owning a gun wasn’t a constitutional right on par with voting. The right to keep and bear arms should have the exact same restrictions as the right to vote. Given SCotUS precedent, that’s not an argument you’re going to win.
Please, please go into a store and say you want to buy one and you want to know what you have to do to buy it.Seriously, go to a store. Get back to me.The reason you can’t get more regulations is because of people like this person.When you realize that the side wanting more regulations is totally and completely ignorant you rightfully become fearful…..which is why gun and ammo sales are off the charts today.
Fred, my opinion is that mindfulness and self-awareness practices provide the counter-narrative both to homegrown and foreign terrorism and if you do a Funding Friday to an initiative that teaches children in schools how to notice their physiological reactions to stress (“I notice that my jugular vein is popping out of my neck, hmm…maybe I need to cool off for a second”), how to pay attention to their breathing (“I noticed that I’ve been holding my breath just now. Am I nervous about something?”), and generally how to come home to the self and “be with” ourselves when nobody else can be with us, then you’d be targeting the heart of the human condition, our fundamental disconnection from ourselves.
Fred – this is the second time in a few months that you make a direct link between mental illness and mass killings. Please stop. It is as insulting and misguided as linking Muslims and terrorism or Black people and street violence. As long as “mental illness” is used to describe anyone who exhibits deviant behaviors, those who have mental illnesses that have nothing to do with violence will be stigmatized. Why not use something like “psychopath”? I am sad that someone educated and progressive as you keeps making this glaring, offensive, and bigoted mistake. Please stop!
In many ways, the US is a tough place to be, a jungle with “dog eat dog and may the devil take the hindmost”.Well, in that jungle, some people lose out, conclude that they have nothing more to lose, and want to take others with them. Guns or not, mental health care or not, Vegas or not, as long as the US is such a jungle with too many people losing out and giving up, there can still be attacks. Vegas? It’s where a lot of people who are losing out go for a last chance. Same for Nevada.Guns are one means of attack, but there are other means without limit. E.g., look at what some of the insurgents, who felt they had nothing left to lose, did in Iraq: Take a cell phone and wire its ringer to an explosive. Plant that pair someplace, go away, maybe a long way, and call the number of the cell phone. An explosive? Gotta be a really bad high school chemistry student not to be able to figure out some. And again, “there are other means without limit”.We’re not supposed to live in a jungle like that. Heck, even the people who DO live in jungles, say, in the upper Amazon, do NOT live like that and in that very important sense are more civilized than we are. Long the Scandinavian countries didn’t live like that and were especially civilized. Heck, IIRC, in Finland, they treat the criminal prisoners better than the US treats a lot of its citizens who are losing out. All around the world, there are small communities where people don’t live like that.Heck, a few years ago, there was a guy in NYC losing out. To try to make some money, he sat on the street and sold cigarettes one at a time. A violent gang of cops put him flat on the sidewalk, put a knee on his neck, kept it there as he complained with his last breath that he couldn’t breathe, and killed him. The guy wasn’t doing anything really super seriously wrong, but the violent gang of cops, with all the power, just killed him. No good reason; they just killed him. Why? The cops didn’t like the guy. They killed him for the jollies, hate, whatever. Heck, even the animals in the jungle are not that dangerous — they don’t get into life or death fights just for their jollies. The violent gang of cops got off; we have a sick-o society.I was wrong: Calling our society a jungle is unfair to jungles.Why is our society sick-o? Because we do a lot of bad stuff that makes people, who would be much more civilized in a jungle, sick. The sick-o part is a direct result or just a by-product or side-effect we largely forget about.So, sure, one way we are sick-o is we have a lot of losers on the streets trying to get bay as criminals.Then another way we are sick-o is we respond to the criminals by putting a lot of vicious, nasty, violent cops on the streets, and these cops just for their own jollies seriously hurt or kill people.One biggie way we are sick-o is we are far too willing to throw people out of work. Then they can lose their house and family. The children suffer. Heck, that doesn’t happen even in the Amazon jungle: If a house is destroyed, then they can put up another one in just hours. Here a house can be a lifetime struggle, and still some people don’t get one. In this way we have 94 million people out of the labor force.Here’s one: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are big on the DACAs. Just yesterday I saw a media story where Nancy and Chucky were together proposing to help the DACAs.Okay. But, I’m sure that both Nancy and Chucky know full well that the DACAs can’t vote. So, Nancy and Chucky are not going for the DACA vote. And, the DACAs do three things voters don’t like: (1) They take jobs of US citizen voters and throw those citizens out of work. (2) The DACAs raise the cost to taxpayers of welfare, education, and policing,. (3) The DACAs are illegal and break down our system of laws.Yet, Nancy and Chucky are highly determined to support the DACAs against the interests of the voters. That’s picking a fight. People aren’t supposed to live that way.So, somehow Nancy and Chucky are highly motivated, even to piss off the voters. What the heck could their motivation be?Okay, consider the first of “the usual suspects” — “follow the money”: Likely Nancy and Chucky are being paid off, big time, by big bucks, from rich, powerful people, who very much want our immigration laws not enforced.Who? Why? Special interests who want a source of cheap labor, a new version of slave labor. And Nancy and Chucky are saying, even very publicly, “Damn the voters; take the money and full speed ahead”.The media, we give them special rights to help US citizens be informed. So, does the media explain how Nancy and Chucky have been bought off? Nope.That situation is all part of our sick-o society: The media and politicians get paid off by special interests and, then, work against the interests of a huge majority of the voters. Then a lot of people lose. It’s a big fight, a war, with losers. That situation is worse than in a jungle.If we want a decent society, then we need to clean up situations like Nancy and Chucky. In short, we need to get the special interest money out of politics and the media.How to do that? First, sure, vote, vote Nancy, Chucky, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, etc. the heck out of office.Return to government by citizen votes, not special interest money.Else the next losers in our worse than a jungle could be you.Ah, you are safe in your job? Are you sure? Intel is on the way to 10 nm and below with now a big push to FPGAs. These things can be cheap, dirt cheap, McDonald’s Big Mac cheap. Literally. We’re automating things, as fast as we can. The Internet? It’s killing TV. A big fraction of the NYC economy is from TV. Bye, bye TV and that part of NYC.I mentioned Amazon: With some irony, there is also the US version of Amazon, the company, headed by Jeff Bezos. It drove a lot of book stores out of business. It’s driving a lot of retail stores out of business and even closing down shopping malls. How? The Internet, high data rates on the Internet, enough to send lots of really good pictures, really well done, fast Web sites for lots of information on the products, fast, easy check-out, huge selection, beyond any store or mall, millions of different items, etc.Are you sure your job is safe?For me, I’m doing a startup. Yes, there’s some software in it, 24,000 programming language statements in 100,000 lines of typing, that all runs, now in alpha test and apparently ready for beta test (currently I’m reinstalling all my software on my computer that got sick).But I don’t trust just software as a barrier to entry. Right, in a jungle, nearly all the animals have some good means of defense.Instead, for the solution I have for the problem (I believe is huge) I’m solving, the crucial core is some original applied math I derived based on some advanced pure/applied math prerequisites. That math is my barrier to entry.If I’m successful, then a lot of Internet users will get happy but, really, some Internet ad rates will fall and some people living off Internet ad rates will be hurt a little.My work likely won’t actually throw others out of work, but there can be much more along the lines I’m pursuing that might.You have to get Nancy, Chucky, Mitch, Paul, etc. turned around because otherwise the next big loser could be YOU.
No, I told you what you need to do to change them. I also told you that I will fight you tooth and nail to prevent you from taking away my rights and my legally owned property. The reality is that 50% of US households have guns. 10% of US citizens have concealed carry permits. We’re not just going to stand by and let the left use leftist terrorism as an excuse to push the very agenda the terrorist in question was supporting.Isn’t it funny how every time the house gets close to voting on a bill repealing decades of unconstitutional tyranny some random berniebro goes off and starts shooting people? Your argument is basically “our psychos are shooting people, let’s disarm you so that it’s going to be easier for the next liberal nutjob to kill more people”. You will pardon if I don’t hurry to surrender my only means of self defense to the very party whose members are shooting up congressmen and concerts.The bottom line is that I don’t trust you. I will never trust anybody who claims that socialism is a good thing. Why? Because my family has seen this before. First you confiscate the guns, then you confiscate the property, then you start rounding people off and either executing them or sending them off to the gulags. Well, if you want to confiscate my guns, you better bring quite a few of your own.
>The bottom line is that I don’t trust you. I will never trust anybody who claims that socialism is a good thing. Why? Because my family has seen this before. First you confiscate the guns, then you confiscate the property, then you start rounding people off and either executing them or sending them off to the gulags. Well, if you want to confiscate my guns, you better bring quite a few of your own.That’s quite the imagination you have there. Sounds like it is getting the better of you sir. Great debating with you. Signing off.
Yeah… Tell that to my great-grandpa… oh wait… you can’t… Why? Because socialists confiscated his farm and dumped his body in an unmarked grave.
Sounds like you two were close. I’m very sorry to hear that. My apologies.
I was close to his son. My grandfather. He spent his entire life with a KGB handler because he was a “son of an enemy of the people”. He wasn’t even allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union, hold a government job, etc… So, you will pardon me if I doubt that socialists who want to take my guns have my best interests at heart.
But that was communism. Not socialism. Canada and Sweden are more socialism. The Soviet Union was definitely communism.Also, that is a different society all together.Anyways.. I’m sure your grandfather has some terrible stories under a communist regime. Have quite a few Russian friends so I have heard a few..
I grew up under that regime. I have stories of my own. There are quire a few horror stories coming out of Canada and Sweden these days as well. You will pardon me if I don’t want to work 50 hour weeks so some lazy welfare leech can get free healthcare and a 4kHDTV.
… and no. The Soviet Union was most definitely not communist. It was dictatorial socialism. More or less exactly what Bernie would have in the US.As I said elsewhere, when the entire left side of the isle starts supporting domestic terrorist groups like ANTIFA and BLM, while ranting about how it’s ok to assault people whose opinions you don’t like, I get more and more convinced that this is, in fact, true. Worse, when a berniebro goes on a shooting rampage, somehow the solution is to disarm his would-be victims.
[face palm]
What part of what I wrote is factually incorrect?Do you deny that a berniebro shot up a bunch of congressmen?Do you deny that the left side of the isle supports ANTIFA?Do you deny that the left side of the isle supports “punching fascists” while labeling everyone they don’t like as a “fascist”?
Here’s the problem… The left is almost monolithic in sweeping their own responsibility for these incidents under the rug. Interesting how everyone forgot that only a few months ago a berniebro shot up a congressional baseball practice. Nobody even heard about how a black supremacist shot up a rural church just last week. I’d bet you that nobody on this site is aware of the fact that the latest psycho has positive links to the anti-Trump left.When people on the right see these incidents and immediately hear about “common sense” gun law “reform”… they hear “well, one of our psychos shot up some people on the right, time to disarm those people so the next psycho has less to worry about”. Worse, you have cretins like Charlie below who outright admit to wanting to disarm people. Well, you’re not going to get many takers with that sort of attitude. When the left stays silent about a genuine domestic terrorist organization coming out on their side, when the left insists that it’s “ok to punch a fascist” and then proceeds to label everyone who doesn’t agree with them as fascists, you more or less confirm what rational people worry about.Quite frankly, the reason I own guns is to protect myself from people like you. Why? Because I come from a family that lost 2/3 of a generation the last time a bunch of socialist busybodies came to power and started murdering “enemies of the people” for their own good. (Coincidentally, they started doing this right after they got their hands on all the guns.)
The idea that you cannot ban assault rifles based on the 2nd amendment is absurd, aside from you know, the part about Well regulated and militia, arms is any form of weapon, so if banning semi automatics is unconstitutional, so is banning nuclear weapons.
These AMERICA HATING LIBERALS want to ban my CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BEAR NUCLEAR ARMS. I need to protect my family, in case of a rogue government, or zombie apocalypse or yuppies, threats in equal measure. How do I hunt without a grenade launcher- my vision is going bad.
There were lots of people killed, injured, and many more scarred for life that these things happen is a reflection on the deep troubles in our society; because it is a primarily American phenomenon.
I’ve been utterly convinced by the constitutional purists in this thread. We must go back to literal text and original intent. Also, guns are good and make us safe. So,- “people” meant at least those able to fight ie join the army ie 16 year olds, 15 with parental authorization. Let’s restore the right to bear arms to that age, anything else is the nanny state oppressing its people, and untrue to the god-inspired all-seeing geniuses that wrote the constitution. I’m unsure whether blacks (sorry for not using the appropriate period term) should count as people is that context.- “arms” clearly meant whatever arms the government’s police and military use, since the goal is for the people to be able to resist those. So military, assault, full automatic, bazookas,… are of course OK, otherwise the people are basically bringing a sword to a gunfight, the founding fathers would be appalled at such an imbalance. With the current limitations, the people have 0 chance of resisting the army or even just the police.- the constitution says nothing about mandatory classes, checks, bans for felons and domestic offenders etc ….so clearly those are legislative overreach and must go.Actually, because guns make the world so much safer, I think we should fully realize the intent of the founding fathers and give a fully-auto rifle to any person reaching for their 16th bday. That way we’ll all be very safe. And free.
It’s the guns https://youtu.be/bX4qUsgHa4Y
Well, that’s an argument you’re not going to win. The Supreme Court has already ruled. Precedent is established. Any blanket ban on modern firearms useful for self-defense is illegal on its face. If you want to change that, the procedure is getting 2/3 of the House and Senate to pass a constitutional amendment and get 3/4 of the states to ratify said amendment in 7 years. Good luck. I can think of at least 13 states that will tell you to pound sand. Your outrage is irrelevant. State laws are irrelevant. The reality is that the Democrats control less than 1/3 of all state legislatures that would be necessary to ratify such an amendment and I doubt more than 1/2 of all Republican state legislators are willing to fall on their swords for a party that has been demonizing them for decades. You lost. Deal with it.Oh, and your advocacy for ignoring the CotUS is putrid and reprehensible, it disgusts me that you are willing to ignore the only document that gives our government any legitimacy, and that you care more about your ivory tower moral grandstanding than the inalienable rights of your fellow countrymen.
Good luck with that. Thirteen states require no permit or check of any kind to own or carry a firearm. They aren’t going to turn around because a bunch of whiny entitled socialist mass murder apologists decided that it’s too hard for their berniebro terrorists to kill a bunch of armed people.Oh, and nobody is calling for a constitutional amendment because they know they will be laughed out of the room. I’ll keep my guns regardless of any laws you pass. I don’t recognize your right to disarm me or to take my property. Pro tip: It’s rather hard to get an armed man into a box car.
I will be keeping my muskets, my rifles, my grenade launcher, my shotguns, my handguns, and everything else currently found in my armory. If you don’t like that, you can strap on some body armor and try to come and take them. I would recommend bringing some friends.
There is a sound legal argument that you are not a functioning member of American society, with that view.
No, you are quite right. When the law changes – and laws do change, even fundamental laws like the constitution – you will likely die.
You would be surprised about how little that bothers me. I’m not in a hurry to be a “functioning member” of a society that feels it has the right to violate the human rights of others.
Given my equipment and training as well as the quality of my opponents, I like my odds. Especially given the tens of millions of heavily armed people on my side. If you think that tens of millions of Americans will sit back and let you repeal the 2nd amendment, you’re delusional. Trying to do so will kick off a civil war. A civil war that you will lose.
That’s the tipping point.How many people are willing to die over a reasonable infringement on their 2nd Amendment rights is an extremely important unknown. I am not expert enough to give you a number but my sense is that your 10M number has a lot (95%, 99%??) of BS Tough Guys who would hand over their gun the moment a well organized outfit showed up at the door.I am aware that you would be tough to take out and doubt that it will come to that……as you are likely right that no one will ever pass those laws. Politicians are cowards.Even if I am right and 99% of your 10M are paper tigers.Which means America is ruled by a tyranny of the minority. A minority of people who hold extreme views due to their unusual experiences.I hope you can feel the impact of the random carnage your views make more common, as you are unwilling to do anything to assist in making them less common.An odd outcome for someone of your bravery and commitment to action.Oh, other than conspiracy theory ‘they are coming to take the guns’ lunacy, I am happy to have you list rationale(s) for the need(s) that a civilian gun owner has for magazines or semi-auto armaments.
The point of a constitutional republic is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. If you feel that having to respect the rights of others is too much of a burden, feel free to go somewhere where you are not required to do so. Might I recommend North Korea?A few pointers…1. Only 3% of American colonists took up arms during the Revolutionary war. 3% of gun owners represents a larger force of men under arms than any military on the planet with a much better teeth to tail ratio.2. The point of the 2nd amendment is to give the citizenry the tools necessary to violently overthrow a government that has become tyrannical. Think of it as an anti-Stalin safety feature. FYI, the idea of the American government putting American citizens into camps is not as far fetched as you believe. It already happened once. So the “it can’t happen here” argument is already false. It has happened here. Given that point, the 2nd amendment obviously protects any military grade equipment necessary for such purposes. To include mortars, machine guns, RPGs, etc… and having those weapons out in the hands of the citizenry to oppose a potentially tyrannical government is rather pointless if the tyrannical government in question inherits a list of who has what.3. Given the body counts of 20th century socialist dictators, a few mass shootings per year to prevent their rise is a bargain. In two years, Stalin starved several million Ukrainians to death, and that wasn’t even the worst thing he did.
I know you PoV.Reasonable infringement of rights is not socialist tyranny.This discussion isn’t useful as you continue to make that reactive emotional leap and then camo it with logic.Between gangs and nut cases, more people have died in the US via guns, since WW2, than both sides lost in all of WW2.Its not theory. Ask any of the families of the victims of random mass shooters.You could do something about it but your own irrational fears stop you.
I don’t consider fear of something that has happened half a dozen times in the 20th century alone to be irrational. Again, let me know when we hit Stalin’s body count and you might have an argument. In any case, your numbers are only true if you include suicides, which have nothing to do with the conversation. Oh and criminals killing other criminals is not a problem, it’s a public service. It saves us the cost of incarcerating them.
That’s a great response, split hairs on my numbers.Also, name the western style democracy that devolved into one of your half dozen examples, with mature institutions and a professional military?You don’t live in Eastern Europe anymore.
The weimar republic comes to mind immediately. Given the catastrophic nature of the possible failure, it’s low probability is not an argument to ignore it. Oh, and nice job ignoring the simple fact that the US government has already put US citizens into concentration camps.
Not exactly a mature, western style democracy, the Weimar Republic – https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…Hyperinflation, total economic devastation, massive cultural issues.I’m done.
http://www.latimes.com/nati…
Yeah… Because economic collapse can’t happen, right?
That’s supposed to be an argument? Please.