Gun-control!

A lot of people (including like in this thread) talk as though "gun control" is either letting everybody have guns or getting rid of the 2nd Amendment, which obviously is unrealistic. Part of the problem is that the NRA refuses to engage in the debate, at all. When asked by a (liberal) president to weigh in on proposed gun control legislation, they do not even bother to show up. I am not a gun owner, but I know many, all of them responsible, law-abiding citizens. But here's what I need gun owners to acknowledge: not everyone is as responsible as you are. For everyone out there who practices adequate gun safety, we have some percentage of wannabe vigilantes who shoot boys wearing hoodies in their own neighborhood, and guys who open fire into parked cars with loud music, and then leave the county. As far as legal tests go, I think something without a "substantial legal use" should be banned. As you said Tricky, there is no real reason for assault rifles, so why should they be out on the streets?

I agree with your second point, but that's a far harder problem to fix. Not even as a technical solution, as a political one; getting people better access to medical/psychiatric care gets a lot of resistance not because the opposition can win political points by shouting about "socialism."

 

What's an "assault rifle?" I don't like using the term because it's one coined by the media. In fact, the distinction between this and other rifles is arbitrary much of the time. For instance, a gun that goes from having a wooden stock to a metal one may be renamed as an assault rifle. Seriously.

Why own these guns? Because they're fun to use at the range. That probably won't satisfy you, but maybe the following will. Citizens still organize into militias. You could probably find state militias easily by performing a quick search. It seems to be a common mistake that people make in assuming that they no longer exist since we've formed a professional military. Militias will still want these guns for the sake of securing the nation in the event of a homeland invasion. I'm not saying that I either agree or disagree with this, but rather, I'm arguing from the standpoint of whether owning these weapons is constitutional. Some would say that the founders of this nation didn't have semiautomatic weapons in mind when drafting the second amendment. I'm not sure that I agree.

 

The point of the 2nd amendment is so we could have a revolution using the guns against our government. That's the whole argument that keeps me from wanting guns banned at all. There just has to be a better way to deal with assault rifles. maybe you can only use them and keep them in designated zones like shooting ranges. They need to be regulated like a controlled substance. I'm thinking in the vien of how a pharmacy holds on to prescription drugs so that folks can't just abuse them. Maybe assault rifles need to be handled in a similar way.

 

Well, it was certainly one of the points, and I'm glad you've mentioned it. I think that militias could serve a dual purpose in that regard.

Another point I want to bring up is this: These so called assault rifles are one of the major areas of introspection when it comes to our current gun policy. However, generally speaking, how many gun incidents are going to involve these types of weapons? In terms of common crimes involving weapons, handguns are the ideal choice of tool due to their ease of concealment. They are also lightweight, conveniently sized, and I would imagine, cause one to incur lesser penalties should a person get caught using one illegally. You might know better than I do, but are these "assault rifles" really as bad as people are making them out to be?

 

every one of the major gun shootings in the last 5 years were all from the same rifle used in the CT one. The same gun. . .

 

Yeah, major ones. But are they the most common? I'm a bit confused as far as semantics are concerned. By "major shootings," are you referring to the most famous ones? The ones with the largest death tolls? You might know something that I don't, but I'm thinking that if you added up all of the deaths from crimes involving handguns over the same period of time, the figures may show that they contribute to more deaths overall.

 

I'm talking specifically about the killing sprees of the lone gunman type. The V tech shooting and the Batman theater case were both using the same rifle as this guy from CT.

If you would like to compare handgun kills to AR kills you'd need to just seclude it to people who are going killing sprees and not just random gang violence or burglaries. These AR cases are situations where the guys aren't trying to rob you, they aren't trying to fight for turf, they just want to kill people and off themselves. I haven't heard of any of those types of sprees involving hand guns.

 

I've heard people saying the reason behind proposing restrictions on assault-rifles or fully-automatic weapons is that it limits the amount of destruction one person can do. If you have an AR, you're able to fire thirty bullets in as many seconds. If you only have a handgun, you're firing a lot slower, and are limited to 10-15 bullets (I think?) before you have to reload.

The idea isn't to stop hardened criminals from accessing weapons in order to perform bank robberies, 'cos people like that are going to get them if they really want them. Rather, the idea is to make it more difficult for the average angst-teen to get emotional, raid their parents' arsenal, and go on a rampage. If the maximum amount of devastation-per-weapon is limited, surely that's a good thing? If we can reduce a situation from 20 children dying into only 10 children dying, shouldn't we? I'm not saying either is acceptable or that it solves the problem, but if we can achieve it, if we can prevent half as many tragedies and save lives, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Personally, I did like the idea of more personal accountability. If your firearm is used in a crime, you should be considered an 'accessory' to whatever crimes they commit - it might make people more pertinent when it comes to securing their firearms. Only problem I see is in the case of theft. If someone breaks into my home and steals my weapon, am I then responsible for their crimes? If so, for how long? If not, what constitutes theft vs negligence?

 

T

Tricky wtf are you talking about . Get your facts straight . In Virginia tech and the Dark Knight rises case the psycho killer used dual semi automatic pistols. And to guy from Europe, Unicorn I think it was , Americans don't have fully Automatic rifles. They have Semi-automatic rifles. There's a way to convert one to full auto by adding a sear, but if you do it wrong it's liable to blow up in your face.

Anyway , the Gabrielle Giffords case, the DKR case and V tech proves one thing, banning semi auto matic rifles would accomplish nothing. Those psychos used pistols. Guns aren't the problem, psychos and criminals are the problem.


Next some asshole politician will want to go back to prohibition because of the amount of asshole drunk drivers who kill people every year. And we should ban the Internet because of hackers and piracy. And we should ban abortion because some sluts can't stop getting knocked up and refuse to use birth control. The fact is it's fucking retarded to punish law abiding , sane, responsible people because a few crazy assholes keep fucking up.

Banning semi automatic weapons isn't the answer. Limiting clips to seven rounds isn't the answer. Do you actually think having. 7 seven round clip is going to curb a psycho's behavior? They do need nation wide regulations , stricter background checks and they need to get rid of the gun show loophole. And for Christ's sake start putting psychos on a national watch list like they do with sex offenders. They should be red flagged and never allowed to buy a gun.

 

semi-automatic = assault rifle in american political circles. I don't know much about guns. To make things easier, I'm talking about the guns that shoot real fast and have huge clips.

Most of the so called psychos aren't the ones who own the guns. They get them from irresponsible gun owners.

 

You tried walking into a school and taking out 20+ people with a knife? ...it's not going to happen.

 

These people can come up with homemade improvised explosives. Just saying.

EDIT: Also, if the number of people who may be killed via less dangerous weapons (knives, etc.) are significantly less than with firearms, that would be reason for them to devise different means. An example would be organizing groups of people to participate in the killings. 8 people killing 20+ people with knives is very possible.

The point I'm making is that people can always devise other means of performing murders. Gun control has worked and it has not worked. I just want to bring out other facts and theories.

 

That's still a whole lot harder to pull off and a higher chance of them getting caught while collecting and building the supplies.

 

You can get instructions on how make home made bombs with simple household goods on the internet seriously so you don't have to be an elite level martial artist expert etc that trained many styles of deadly martial arts to kill 20+ people with something that isn't a gun. All you have to do now is a simple google search. I find that quite troublesome sometimes

 

No, but I believe it will limit the amount of carnage that 'psycho' can do. Like the fact to which Feck alludes, a less-destructive weapon is less destructive than a more-destructive weapon.

It'd be hard for a person to waltz into a mall/school/random institution and knife 20 people to death. It'd be harder to shoot 20 people with a non-automatic weapon than with an automatic weapon.

The more destructive the weapon, the more destruction it can do. Limiting the amount of destruction one person can do is, in my opinion, a good step. Yes, it's treating a symptom and not the disease, but when the symptom is loss of life, I believe it's a good one to treat, whilst also looking at ways to cure the underlying problem.

There has to be a cut-off point for what weapons people are and aren't allowed to own. To go to the extreme, you're not allowed to own a nuclear weapon because of how dangerous it is. On a smaller scale, you're not allowed to own a rocket launcher because of dangerous it is. It's not too much of a leap to apply the same logic to fast-firing rifles because of how dangerous they are.

 

It takes a completely different frame-of-mind to make and use a bomb than it does to grab a gun and go on rampage. In a fit of rage, someone can easily get a gun and do something horrible - a bomb takes time, resources, dedication, commitment etc.


EDIT:

Now you're moving into organised crime, and yes, if people are fully-determined to do something like this then not much will stop them. But again, it takes time and effort, a completely different mindset, and a high-risk of being caught, to get a group of people to go ahead with a mass-knifing massacre.

The idea (at least to me) on limiting certain weapons is to prevent the amount of damage one person can do.

 

What you say is true in theory. The problem lies in the negligence of parents who even allowed children to enter schools with weapons in the first place. In the case of the Columbine shooting, the guys were sawing the barrels of shotguns in the basement... and the parents didn't know! It's mind boggling to me how that can happen. Now, if that kind of stuff can go undetected, then surely the procurement of data and supplies for explosives, as well as their construction and transport, could also go undetected. Now, as a matter of difficulty per se, I agree with you. It should be much harder to acquire explosives than to procure a firearm. But considering the fact that there are parents negligent enough to not keep weapons under lock and key, as well as oblivious enough not to notice their children modifying weapons and devising plans for murder in their own households, I think the difference is rather negligible when dealing with people who will spend the time and effort to plan and execute killing sprees.

 

Are you being silly on purpose here?

I went about in a roundabout way and I can't really talk about the legality of guns in the US but all I meant is that crimes like the ones being discussed here are going to be easier to pull off when guns are easily available (legally or otherwise).

Yeah sure, that's plausible ...but imagine 8 people with guns.

 

Partly.

Yep. But the purpose of what I said was to bring out ways in which criminals can adapt to changes made to gun laws. There's not as much reason to add participants when one person with a gun can get the job done. Furthermore, I don't think that adding many people to a killing plan with guns is a good idea. It just increases the odds of getting caught when there are more people acquiring and transporting guns. But when knives are used instead, it's much easier to remain discrete.

Now, this kind of thing can go on and on. An argument will always be devised to counter an argument. My official standing on the whole gun control issue is that I don't know where I stand. I'm worried about making things worse, especially since the US has a multicultural atmosphere where expectations of how other people may act are cloudy.

 

This is my rifle this is my gun . This is for shooting, this is for fun. My man you can't tell me you don't know the difference between a rifle and a pistol. The common thread in these atrocities is they involved crazy demented fucks who had nothing to live for. The V tech student killer was an expelled student who wanted revenge. The DKR killer was an expelled med student or a med school drop out. Yes they need stricter gun laws, stricter regulations and better background checks and those changes should be Nationalised. By the same token people suffering from mental illness should be more closely monitored, just like potential terrorists.

Cut the bleeding heart liberal bullshit. They profile blacks in their own neighborhood, they profile certain groups because they may be terrorists. All this is done under the excuse that it is to curb street crime and in the name of national security. They should extend the umbrella to monitor and deter insane people from harming others and themselves. How long ago was Colombine , 17 years ago? Clinton was in office then and they did have a ban on some semi-automatic weapons. During the Clinton Era you could not own a gun with a clip larger than 7 bullets. Memories are short. Attack the real problem: mentally unstable people.