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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On December 15 2012 12:57 Nazarid wrote:
I have been with the military for over 10 years, i love guns and hunting; being able to provide for my family and close friends with a very low cost is awesome. the fact of the recent shootings in the last 5 years makes me wonder whether or not civilians should have legal access to weapons. I have looked at many different sources of gun ownership statistics on many countries with and without weapon control laws. sadly America comes to the top of the list in violence associated with projectile weapons, this alone makes me sad. The recent elementary school shooting makes me weep as a father, I literally cannot imagine what these parents are going through even though I myself am a father of 3 amazing children.
This attack of children(recent news go to any major news page you will find it.) have brought me to the conclusion that if guns all guns, aside from single shot rifles or shotguns for hunting purposes only should be in civilians hands, being some one who uses guns every day this is an serious issue in the United States of America today, my stand on guns has forever changed for civilians. I can no longer support any owner ship of a fire arm, aside from hunting(IE: no Semi-Automatic weapons or Fully Automatic weapons)weapons for civilians to own there is so much information out there showing without the ability to own a weapon legally the crimes that happen pertaining to fire arms is much lower than so many ignorant people believe. (I will not link sources as there are to many; with 10 minutes of you're own time you can find all that's needed to understand me)
My heart truly goes out to those who have lost love ones today; the recent tragedy makes me sad.
(poorly worded; forgive a jar head)
That's exactly the kind of situation we have in Australia... the hunters and gun owners are happy and responsible. What few unlicensed guns are left are often in the hands of people who are already wanted for things (offenses etc)
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On December 15 2012 13:29 Focuspants wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:24 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 13:18 Focuspants wrote:
Any step in the right direction is better than sitting around saying that nothing should be done because the situation is complicated.
The danger is that rash action in the wake of tragedies like the on today will lead to steps that aren't necessarily in the right direction. Shootings can be motivators to address the issues more actively, but shouldn't be the trigger for a policy change, in my opinion. Policy changes need to be the result of studying the issue and understanding what the ramifications will most likely be of changes to the law. I agree laws shouldnt be reactionary to a single event, but there seems to be an epidemic. You are now perpetually in the wake of one of these sorts of disasters. When you look at the cumulative body of events which have occurred over the past few years, you should see that as motivation to start figuring things out rather quickly.
Its not An epidemic its a natural deviation of human actions. there will always be horrifying things done by people. There have been 2 shoot shootings in norway in the past 5 years. Statistically for that to be even in america there should be 120 school shootings. Just because we have more people means we're going to have more events like this happen in our country.
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On December 15 2012 13:29 Nagano wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:22 Saryph wrote:On December 15 2012 13:15 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Eishi_Ki wrote:On December 15 2012 13:03 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:00 Defacer wrote:On December 15 2012 12:52 Destro wrote:On December 15 2012 12:47 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 12:42 Destro wrote:On December 15 2012 12:39 Nagano wrote:
[quote]
Schools are firearm free zones. She wasn't allowed to have them on the premises. So you are not actually refuting his point that having a firearm there would have helped. It would have. This is in Israel (http://i.imgur.com/Ts1So.jpg). Do I advocate what is in that particular picture? No. Maybe locked in a safe in the closet. But it is not as absurd as you imagine it to be. O.o i have no words... Either i don`t understand just how terrible and dangerous the USA is or how freaking afraid americans are I'm not quite sure how to break this to you, but Israel is not in the USA. Thats not what i was going at... The fact that he finds that not so absurd... Assuming that arming everyone in every circumstance would make the world safer is just as ridiculous and inactionable as banning guns outright. And if I had to choose an 'extreme' to live in, I would chose the latter. I don't want to live in a world where I can see a zit-faced barista's gun tucked into his shirt as he's stirring my fucking coffee. Lmfao, I agree. Owning a firearm =/= carrying it everywhere with you. Reasonable restrictions are best, but an outright ban is just nonsense. Also, just clarifying that I said I didn't agree with being armed in every, or even most, circumstance. Just the right to own. Why is an outright ban nonsense? I hear the rest of the first world's doing a-o-k without them Start on page 191-192 and go from there. Banning firearms in the U.S. has the opposite effect of what you might expect. It's counter-intuitive. The argument is flawed because there have only been bans in certain areas of the country, or even areas of states. Look at cigarettes for example: taxes are really high for them in New York, but if you drive down to Virginia you will find them at half the price, and can easily drive a car full of them home, as there are no stops at state lines. The same problem exists when you can drive to Virginia and buy a gun at a gun show without having to register it or have a license, and then take it back to whatever state it is illegal to own it in. However, if you were to have one set of laws for guns at a national level they would be much more effective. At the same time though in MY opinion, such laws would take decades to have a major impact, as there are so many guns already in the population. You would need to implement a plan, such as a tax rebate for trading in your guns, to diminish the amount of guns already in the populace. Gun bans have been found to be unconstitutional District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) McDonald v. Chicago (2010)
What's the point of this post? Should we just close the thread since courts have ruled on the answer to the question of this thread?
I do have a question though, how was the decision made where the line is drawn between weapons that civilians can and cannot own? Obviously there is a limit on the second amendment.
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I highly suggest you read up, a good resource in 1 stop would have to be this .pdf. If you're for gun control, this is a must read.
http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/6.1/gun_facts_6_1_screen.pdf
It is a complete compilation of myths and facts. You are free to screen all of the sources at the bottom of every few pages. They are all legit and if you have a problem with them let me know which specifically.
I cannot attest to the pictures you sent me, it looks as if it's from Ezra Klein's blog, that the phrasing seems to be gun-related injuries by state per capita (NOT gun-related violence). Also gun ownership is at an all time high. The picture you sent is percentage of households with at least 1 gun in it. This does not take into account background check hits from the FBI, which is used to count each time someone registers a firearm, which has reported an all time high last year. This is one of those times where it's important to check your sources and what it is you're actually looking at.
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On December 15 2012 13:33 Saryph wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:29 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:22 Saryph wrote:On December 15 2012 13:15 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Eishi_Ki wrote:On December 15 2012 13:03 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:00 Defacer wrote:On December 15 2012 12:52 Destro wrote:On December 15 2012 12:47 micronesia wrote:On December 15 2012 12:42 Destro wrote:
[quote]
O.o
i have no words...
Either i don`t understand just how terrible and dangerous the USA is
or how freaking afraid americans are I'm not quite sure how to break this to you, but Israel is not in the USA. Thats not what i was going at... The fact that he finds that not so absurd... Assuming that arming everyone in every circumstance would make the world safer is just as ridiculous and inactionable as banning guns outright. And if I had to choose an 'extreme' to live in, I would chose the latter. I don't want to live in a world where I can see a zit-faced barista's gun tucked into his shirt as he's stirring my fucking coffee. Lmfao, I agree. Owning a firearm =/= carrying it everywhere with you. Reasonable restrictions are best, but an outright ban is just nonsense. Also, just clarifying that I said I didn't agree with being armed in every, or even most, circumstance. Just the right to own. Why is an outright ban nonsense? I hear the rest of the first world's doing a-o-k without them Start on page 191-192 and go from there. Banning firearms in the U.S. has the opposite effect of what you might expect. It's counter-intuitive. The argument is flawed because there have only been bans in certain areas of the country, or even areas of states. Look at cigarettes for example: taxes are really high for them in New York, but if you drive down to Virginia you will find them at half the price, and can easily drive a car full of them home, as there are no stops at state lines. The same problem exists when you can drive to Virginia and buy a gun at a gun show without having to register it or have a license, and then take it back to whatever state it is illegal to own it in. However, if you were to have one set of laws for guns at a national level they would be much more effective. At the same time though in MY opinion, such laws would take decades to have a major impact, as there are so many guns already in the population. You would need to implement a plan, such as a tax rebate for trading in your guns, to diminish the amount of guns already in the populace. Gun bans have been found to be unconstitutional District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) McDonald v. Chicago (2010) What's the point of this post? Should we just close the thread since courts have ruled on the answer to the question of this thread? I do have a question though, how was the decision made where the line is drawn between weapons that civilians can and cannot own? Obviously there is a limit on the second amendment.
It was also with 5:4 votes. not "clearly decided". More "politically decided".
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I don`t think anyone is saying making guns illegal would make a gun free utopia. but its a step in the right direction.
Frankily, i dont think its a legality issue at all. its a society. american society needs to grow up and move past the gun owneship bullshit. the rest of the western world has, and the rest of the western world is a better place.
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On December 15 2012 13:40 Destro wrote:
I don`t think anyone is saying making guns illegal would make a gun free utopia. but its a step in the right direction.
Frankily, i dont think its a legality issue at all. its a society. american society needs to grow up and move past the gun owneship bullshit. the rest of the western world has, and the rest of the western world is a better place.
You seem to have a lot of anger issues regarding this topic. I'd suggest reading the massive compilation I posted 2 posts up so I don't have to keep repeating myself, and that hopefully I can get back to HotS.
Also, it is not a step in the right direction, which is everything I've been saying up until this point.
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On December 15 2012 13:40 Destro wrote:
I don`t think anyone is saying making guns illegal would make a gun free utopia. but its a step in the right direction.
Frankily, i dont think its a legality issue at all. its a society. american society needs to grow up and move past the gun owneship bullshit. the rest of the western world has, and the rest of the western world is a better place.
This is a very biased view which is just riddled with misinformation and wrong statements. Might want to do some actual research instead of just repeating what the mainstream media says about this subject.
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On December 15 2012 13:40 Destro wrote:
I don`t think anyone is saying making guns illegal would make a gun free utopia. but its a step in the right direction.
Frankily, i dont think its a legality issue at all. its a society. american society needs to grow up and move past the gun owneship bullshit. the rest of the western world has, and the rest of the western world is a better place.
The rest of the western world hasn't defined itself by a revolutionary war won by the skin of its teeth on the back of regular americans each owning a firearm to defend themselves and their families. The rest of the western world hasn't had a war every single generation (that it arguable has always won but thats a nationalism thing).
America is now defined by 2 different countries that don't really work well together. It has a bunch of folks living in the city that votes liberal is scared of their fellow citizens and has to lock their doors and their cars. It also has a bunch of folks living out in the country that votes conservative doesn't have to be afraid of their citizens and doesn't have to lock their doors and their cars.
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On December 15 2012 13:25 Nagano wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:18 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ziggurat wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:05 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 12:59 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 12:55 Focuspants wrote:
I think banning assault weapons is a no brainer. I understand the complexity of the situation in the US, however, allowing people easy access to such lethal killing tools is insane. You dont need an assault rifle to defend yourself. The fact of the matter is, these people that shoot up schools, movie theaters, malls, etc... strike suddenly, in places where an assault weapon of your own as a law abiding citizen is nowhere to be found. Even if for some stupid reason you did have it on you, firing an automatic weapon in a public place like this would be careless.
These weapons are not for sport, not for home defense, etc... They are extremely efficient killing tools, capable of making anyone who holds it powerful, and able to kill many people in a very short time span. Weapons like that have no place in society. I will quote my previous post regarding this: Can you define an assault weapon? People will soon realize they cannot. California tried and came up with terms like "evil looking features". You'll find you're going to be coming up with a lot of weird terms and conditionals for it to work. What's the difference between an AR-15 semi-automatic and a .223 sporting rifle? What makes one an assault rifle and the other a sporting one? They can be the same but also "different" at the same time? Is it the pistol grip? The cycling mechanism? The stock? What exactly? Machine guns are already banned in most places, but that's not what assault rifles are. The point is that gun control laws are propagated mostly by people who do not understand or know enough about the topic. This leads to many problems with policy. Also, Keep in mind the Jared Loughner used a shotgun to shoot up the theater. Is the next step banning shotguns? Most gun crime involves handguns/pistols. Do what they do here in Canada. No matter what sort of gun you own, a clip only holds 3 or 4 bullets max. Allowing someone to walk around with a weapon that can fire hundreds of rounds off in a minute or two is ludicrous. That's not good policy. What's preventing people from switching multiple mags. From customizing their own magazines? It's a fairly easy thing to do, and in your world no law-abiding citizen would have. But what about a person who wants to commit a crime or go on a shooting spree? I don't think they have much respect for the law. I don't think this is an accurate statement of Canadian law. In Canada no one can carry any concealed firearm except for police officers. We also have very high jail sentences for discharging a firearm in the commission of an offence (four year minimum -- well, it's high by Canadian standards!) Strangely, in Canada criminals still seem to be able to get their hands on guns. I know those facts are also true, but the small mags are also part of the laws. I am not saying that small mags alone solves the issue, but damn, they need to start making some steps in the right direction. Any step in the right direction is better than sitting around saying that nothing should be done because the situation is complicated. I agree with your sentiment, I really do. Things do need to be done, but the problem is that the people who write the laws, like my representative Dianne Feinstein, have the least knowledge of the subject. What ends up happening is that weird laws are created where you cannot own a rifle with "evil features" like a telescoping stock with a pistol grip, or a forward mounted grip. High-capacity mags are banned in CA but you can still use pre-1999 ban mags that go up to 30, as long as you have a bullet button, oh and make sure that it doesn't have a magnet! Get familiar with firearms, try to get a sporting rifle, or an AR, and see just how convoluted and non-sense and backwards the laws have become. The solution is to get better screening, but people will still get through, like the man today who decided it was cool to shoot children. He wasn't a legal gun owner afaik, and according to news sources is mentally unstable (obviously), autistic, and has a personality disorder. Sadly, most of the time gun crimes are perpetrated by, you guessed it, criminals who are not registered. So the problem is not with the registered gun owners, it's with crazy people who get access to the black market/steal.
As far as I am aware the guns used in today's shooting legally belonged to the mother of the shooter, there was no black market or stealing involved. Owning a gun certainly didn't protect this poor lady.
Guns can be removed from circulation, it happened quite successfully in Australia after our one and ONLY random crazy guy massacre. A buy back scheme was implemented where people sold their guns back to the government who then destroyed them. Obviously the US is a much larger country with much larger numbers of guns available.
People say you can kill people without guns, which is of course true, but that certainly doesn't take into account the scale of the damage that one person can do with a gun compared to if he had a knife or some other type of weapon.
In my opinion, there are very few good reasons for your average citizen to own a gun, the downsides seem to be enormous compared to the benefits. Today's shooting were a tragedy, but I wonder how many more of these will have to occur before some action is taken.
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On December 15 2012 13:48 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:40 Destro wrote:
I don`t think anyone is saying making guns illegal would make a gun free utopia. but its a step in the right direction.
Frankily, i dont think its a legality issue at all. its a society. american society needs to grow up and move past the gun owneship bullshit. the rest of the western world has, and the rest of the western world is a better place. America is now defined by 2 different countries that don't really work well together. It has a bunch of folks living in the city that votes liberal is scared of their fellow citizens and has to lock their doors and their cars. It also has a bunch of folks living out in the country that votes conservative doesn't have to be afraid of their citizens and doesn't have to lock their doors and their cars.
Huh? You mean the liberals in those big cities, that make all of the money in the country and pay for things in those taker states that are conservative havens. Its nice of you to take their tax dollars and then make them seem like a different race of people.
There is a divide in the US, but it is not based on the locking or unlocking of doors.
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On December 15 2012 13:50 DR.Ham wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:25 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:18 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ziggurat wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:05 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 12:59 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 12:55 Focuspants wrote:
I think banning assault weapons is a no brainer. I understand the complexity of the situation in the US, however, allowing people easy access to such lethal killing tools is insane. You dont need an assault rifle to defend yourself. The fact of the matter is, these people that shoot up schools, movie theaters, malls, etc... strike suddenly, in places where an assault weapon of your own as a law abiding citizen is nowhere to be found. Even if for some stupid reason you did have it on you, firing an automatic weapon in a public place like this would be careless.
These weapons are not for sport, not for home defense, etc... They are extremely efficient killing tools, capable of making anyone who holds it powerful, and able to kill many people in a very short time span. Weapons like that have no place in society. I will quote my previous post regarding this: Can you define an assault weapon? People will soon realize they cannot. California tried and came up with terms like "evil looking features". You'll find you're going to be coming up with a lot of weird terms and conditionals for it to work. What's the difference between an AR-15 semi-automatic and a .223 sporting rifle? What makes one an assault rifle and the other a sporting one? They can be the same but also "different" at the same time? Is it the pistol grip? The cycling mechanism? The stock? What exactly? Machine guns are already banned in most places, but that's not what assault rifles are. The point is that gun control laws are propagated mostly by people who do not understand or know enough about the topic. This leads to many problems with policy. Also, Keep in mind the Jared Loughner used a shotgun to shoot up the theater. Is the next step banning shotguns? Most gun crime involves handguns/pistols. Do what they do here in Canada. No matter what sort of gun you own, a clip only holds 3 or 4 bullets max. Allowing someone to walk around with a weapon that can fire hundreds of rounds off in a minute or two is ludicrous. That's not good policy. What's preventing people from switching multiple mags. From customizing their own magazines? It's a fairly easy thing to do, and in your world no law-abiding citizen would have. But what about a person who wants to commit a crime or go on a shooting spree? I don't think they have much respect for the law. I don't think this is an accurate statement of Canadian law. In Canada no one can carry any concealed firearm except for police officers. We also have very high jail sentences for discharging a firearm in the commission of an offence (four year minimum -- well, it's high by Canadian standards!) Strangely, in Canada criminals still seem to be able to get their hands on guns. I know those facts are also true, but the small mags are also part of the laws. I am not saying that small mags alone solves the issue, but damn, they need to start making some steps in the right direction. Any step in the right direction is better than sitting around saying that nothing should be done because the situation is complicated. I agree with your sentiment, I really do. Things do need to be done, but the problem is that the people who write the laws, like my representative Dianne Feinstein, have the least knowledge of the subject. What ends up happening is that weird laws are created where you cannot own a rifle with "evil features" like a telescoping stock with a pistol grip, or a forward mounted grip. High-capacity mags are banned in CA but you can still use pre-1999 ban mags that go up to 30, as long as you have a bullet button, oh and make sure that it doesn't have a magnet! Get familiar with firearms, try to get a sporting rifle, or an AR, and see just how convoluted and non-sense and backwards the laws have become. The solution is to get better screening, but people will still get through, like the man today who decided it was cool to shoot children. He wasn't a legal gun owner afaik, and according to news sources is mentally unstable (obviously), autistic, and has a personality disorder. Sadly, most of the time gun crimes are perpetrated by, you guessed it, criminals who are not registered. So the problem is not with the registered gun owners, it's with crazy people who get access to the black market/steal. As far as I am aware the guns used in today's shooting legally belonged to the mother of the shooter, there was no black market or stealing involved. Owning a gun certainly didn't protect this poor lady. Guns can be removed from circulation, it happened quite successfully in Australia after our one and ONLY random crazy guy massacre. A buy back scheme was implemented where people sold their guns back to the government who then destroyed them. Obviously the US is a much larger country with much larger numbers of guns available. People say you can kill people without guns, which is of course true, but that certainly doesn't take into account the scale of the damage that one person can do with a gun compared to if he had a knife or some other type of weapon. In my opinion, there are very few good reasons for your average citizen to own a gun, the downsides seem to be enormous compared to the benefits. Today's shooting were a tragedy, but I wonder how many more of these will have to occur before some action is taken.
You're correct, however, he wasn't a legal gun owner. And also, unless you want to classify it as "borrowed from his mother", I would rather say he stole it from her. She most likely did not give him permission to shoot up the school, her included. And owning that gun did not protect her because she did not have it, schools are a gun-free zone.
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On December 15 2012 13:56 Nagano wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:50 DR.Ham wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:18 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ziggurat wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:05 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 12:59 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 12:55 Focuspants wrote:
I think banning assault weapons is a no brainer. I understand the complexity of the situation in the US, however, allowing people easy access to such lethal killing tools is insane. You dont need an assault rifle to defend yourself. The fact of the matter is, these people that shoot up schools, movie theaters, malls, etc... strike suddenly, in places where an assault weapon of your own as a law abiding citizen is nowhere to be found. Even if for some stupid reason you did have it on you, firing an automatic weapon in a public place like this would be careless.
These weapons are not for sport, not for home defense, etc... They are extremely efficient killing tools, capable of making anyone who holds it powerful, and able to kill many people in a very short time span. Weapons like that have no place in society. I will quote my previous post regarding this: Can you define an assault weapon? People will soon realize they cannot. California tried and came up with terms like "evil looking features". You'll find you're going to be coming up with a lot of weird terms and conditionals for it to work. What's the difference between an AR-15 semi-automatic and a .223 sporting rifle? What makes one an assault rifle and the other a sporting one? They can be the same but also "different" at the same time? Is it the pistol grip? The cycling mechanism? The stock? What exactly? Machine guns are already banned in most places, but that's not what assault rifles are. The point is that gun control laws are propagated mostly by people who do not understand or know enough about the topic. This leads to many problems with policy. Also, Keep in mind the Jared Loughner used a shotgun to shoot up the theater. Is the next step banning shotguns? Most gun crime involves handguns/pistols. Do what they do here in Canada. No matter what sort of gun you own, a clip only holds 3 or 4 bullets max. Allowing someone to walk around with a weapon that can fire hundreds of rounds off in a minute or two is ludicrous. That's not good policy. What's preventing people from switching multiple mags. From customizing their own magazines? It's a fairly easy thing to do, and in your world no law-abiding citizen would have. But what about a person who wants to commit a crime or go on a shooting spree? I don't think they have much respect for the law. I don't think this is an accurate statement of Canadian law. In Canada no one can carry any concealed firearm except for police officers. We also have very high jail sentences for discharging a firearm in the commission of an offence (four year minimum -- well, it's high by Canadian standards!) Strangely, in Canada criminals still seem to be able to get their hands on guns. I know those facts are also true, but the small mags are also part of the laws. I am not saying that small mags alone solves the issue, but damn, they need to start making some steps in the right direction. Any step in the right direction is better than sitting around saying that nothing should be done because the situation is complicated. I agree with your sentiment, I really do. Things do need to be done, but the problem is that the people who write the laws, like my representative Dianne Feinstein, have the least knowledge of the subject. What ends up happening is that weird laws are created where you cannot own a rifle with "evil features" like a telescoping stock with a pistol grip, or a forward mounted grip. High-capacity mags are banned in CA but you can still use pre-1999 ban mags that go up to 30, as long as you have a bullet button, oh and make sure that it doesn't have a magnet! Get familiar with firearms, try to get a sporting rifle, or an AR, and see just how convoluted and non-sense and backwards the laws have become. The solution is to get better screening, but people will still get through, like the man today who decided it was cool to shoot children. He wasn't a legal gun owner afaik, and according to news sources is mentally unstable (obviously), autistic, and has a personality disorder. Sadly, most of the time gun crimes are perpetrated by, you guessed it, criminals who are not registered. So the problem is not with the registered gun owners, it's with crazy people who get access to the black market/steal. As far as I am aware the guns used in today's shooting legally belonged to the mother of the shooter, there was no black market or stealing involved. Owning a gun certainly didn't protect this poor lady. Guns can be removed from circulation, it happened quite successfully in Australia after our one and ONLY random crazy guy massacre. A buy back scheme was implemented where people sold their guns back to the government who then destroyed them. Obviously the US is a much larger country with much larger numbers of guns available. People say you can kill people without guns, which is of course true, but that certainly doesn't take into account the scale of the damage that one person can do with a gun compared to if he had a knife or some other type of weapon. In my opinion, there are very few good reasons for your average citizen to own a gun, the downsides seem to be enormous compared to the benefits. Today's shooting were a tragedy, but I wonder how many more of these will have to occur before some action is taken. You're correct, however, he wasn't a legal gun owner. And also, unless you want to classify it as "borrowed from his mother", I would rather say he stole it from her. She most likely did not give him permission to shoot up the school, her included. And owning that gun did not protect her because she did not have it, schools are a gun-free zone.
If the logic is that simple, why not cut out the root problem. What if she didnt have the guns at all? He would have had to obtain them illegally. Would he have been able and willing to do so? Or would he have explored a different avenue for relieving his emotions?
I think that the whole "legal gun owner"/"law abiding citizen" definition placed on everyone is flawed. All of those people are 1 incident away from being labeled a criminal. Once they do make that action, they are now labeled a criminal and not a law abiding citizen or gun owner, yet they came from the same pool of people.
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On December 15 2012 13:54 Focuspants wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:48 Sermokala wrote:On December 15 2012 13:40 Destro wrote:
I don`t think anyone is saying making guns illegal would make a gun free utopia. but its a step in the right direction.
Frankily, i dont think its a legality issue at all. its a society. american society needs to grow up and move past the gun owneship bullshit. the rest of the western world has, and the rest of the western world is a better place. America is now defined by 2 different countries that don't really work well together. It has a bunch of folks living in the city that votes liberal is scared of their fellow citizens and has to lock their doors and their cars. It also has a bunch of folks living out in the country that votes conservative doesn't have to be afraid of their citizens and doesn't have to lock their doors and their cars. Huh? You mean the liberals in those big cities, that make all of the money in the country and pay for things in those taker states that are conservative havens. Its nice of you to take their tax dollars and then make them seem like a different race of people. There is a divide in the US, but it is not based on the locking or unlocking of doors.
Rofl you mean the conservative states that have disproportionate farming non payroll taxed people and disproportionate military participation? Because thats why they were able to give you that propaganda for you to use all the time. You have such irrational hate for people that don't agree with you that its impossible for anyone to give you a respectable discussion.
Its not based on the locking or unlocking of doors but I can bet you that you will lock your door when you go to sleep tonight and I will not. I find victory enough in that.
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On December 15 2012 13:54 Focuspants wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:48 Sermokala wrote:On December 15 2012 13:40 Destro wrote:
I don`t think anyone is saying making guns illegal would make a gun free utopia. but its a step in the right direction.
Frankily, i dont think its a legality issue at all. its a society. american society needs to grow up and move past the gun owneship bullshit. the rest of the western world has, and the rest of the western world is a better place. America is now defined by 2 different countries that don't really work well together. It has a bunch of folks living in the city that votes liberal is scared of their fellow citizens and has to lock their doors and their cars. It also has a bunch of folks living out in the country that votes conservative doesn't have to be afraid of their citizens and doesn't have to lock their doors and their cars. Huh? You mean the liberals in those big cities, that make all of the money in the country and pay for things in those taker states that are conservative havens. Its nice of you to take their tax dollars and then make them seem like a different race of people. There is a divide in the US, but it is not based on the locking or unlocking of doors.
This isn't a conservative or liberal issue. If I have to say it I'm liberal on almost everything. However, this is one thing most liberals are wrong on and need to fix because it just does not mesh with facts.
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On December 15 2012 13:59 Focuspants wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:56 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:50 DR.Ham wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:18 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ziggurat wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:05 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 12:59 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 12:55 Focuspants wrote:
I think banning assault weapons is a no brainer. I understand the complexity of the situation in the US, however, allowing people easy access to such lethal killing tools is insane. You dont need an assault rifle to defend yourself. The fact of the matter is, these people that shoot up schools, movie theaters, malls, etc... strike suddenly, in places where an assault weapon of your own as a law abiding citizen is nowhere to be found. Even if for some stupid reason you did have it on you, firing an automatic weapon in a public place like this would be careless.
These weapons are not for sport, not for home defense, etc... They are extremely efficient killing tools, capable of making anyone who holds it powerful, and able to kill many people in a very short time span. Weapons like that have no place in society. I will quote my previous post regarding this: Can you define an assault weapon? People will soon realize they cannot. California tried and came up with terms like "evil looking features". You'll find you're going to be coming up with a lot of weird terms and conditionals for it to work. What's the difference between an AR-15 semi-automatic and a .223 sporting rifle? What makes one an assault rifle and the other a sporting one? They can be the same but also "different" at the same time? Is it the pistol grip? The cycling mechanism? The stock? What exactly? Machine guns are already banned in most places, but that's not what assault rifles are. The point is that gun control laws are propagated mostly by people who do not understand or know enough about the topic. This leads to many problems with policy. Also, Keep in mind the Jared Loughner used a shotgun to shoot up the theater. Is the next step banning shotguns? Most gun crime involves handguns/pistols. Do what they do here in Canada. No matter what sort of gun you own, a clip only holds 3 or 4 bullets max. Allowing someone to walk around with a weapon that can fire hundreds of rounds off in a minute or two is ludicrous. That's not good policy. What's preventing people from switching multiple mags. From customizing their own magazines? It's a fairly easy thing to do, and in your world no law-abiding citizen would have. But what about a person who wants to commit a crime or go on a shooting spree? I don't think they have much respect for the law. I don't think this is an accurate statement of Canadian law. In Canada no one can carry any concealed firearm except for police officers. We also have very high jail sentences for discharging a firearm in the commission of an offence (four year minimum -- well, it's high by Canadian standards!) Strangely, in Canada criminals still seem to be able to get their hands on guns. I know those facts are also true, but the small mags are also part of the laws. I am not saying that small mags alone solves the issue, but damn, they need to start making some steps in the right direction. Any step in the right direction is better than sitting around saying that nothing should be done because the situation is complicated. I agree with your sentiment, I really do. Things do need to be done, but the problem is that the people who write the laws, like my representative Dianne Feinstein, have the least knowledge of the subject. What ends up happening is that weird laws are created where you cannot own a rifle with "evil features" like a telescoping stock with a pistol grip, or a forward mounted grip. High-capacity mags are banned in CA but you can still use pre-1999 ban mags that go up to 30, as long as you have a bullet button, oh and make sure that it doesn't have a magnet! Get familiar with firearms, try to get a sporting rifle, or an AR, and see just how convoluted and non-sense and backwards the laws have become. The solution is to get better screening, but people will still get through, like the man today who decided it was cool to shoot children. He wasn't a legal gun owner afaik, and according to news sources is mentally unstable (obviously), autistic, and has a personality disorder. Sadly, most of the time gun crimes are perpetrated by, you guessed it, criminals who are not registered. So the problem is not with the registered gun owners, it's with crazy people who get access to the black market/steal. As far as I am aware the guns used in today's shooting legally belonged to the mother of the shooter, there was no black market or stealing involved. Owning a gun certainly didn't protect this poor lady. Guns can be removed from circulation, it happened quite successfully in Australia after our one and ONLY random crazy guy massacre. A buy back scheme was implemented where people sold their guns back to the government who then destroyed them. Obviously the US is a much larger country with much larger numbers of guns available. People say you can kill people without guns, which is of course true, but that certainly doesn't take into account the scale of the damage that one person can do with a gun compared to if he had a knife or some other type of weapon. In my opinion, there are very few good reasons for your average citizen to own a gun, the downsides seem to be enormous compared to the benefits. Today's shooting were a tragedy, but I wonder how many more of these will have to occur before some action is taken. You're correct, however, he wasn't a legal gun owner. And also, unless you want to classify it as "borrowed from his mother", I would rather say he stole it from her. She most likely did not give him permission to shoot up the school, her included. And owning that gun did not protect her because she did not have it, schools are a gun-free zone. If the logic is that simple, why not cut out the root problem. What if she didnt have the guns at all? He would have had to obtain them illegally. Would he have been able and willing to do so? Or would he have explored a different avenue for relieving his emotions?
why not cut the root problem for these school shootings and allow them to defend themselves in a respectable manner instead of throwing them to any mentally insane person that can steal some guns and shoot up a place with no one to stop them.
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On December 15 2012 13:59 Focuspants wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:56 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:50 DR.Ham wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:18 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ziggurat wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:05 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 12:59 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 12:55 Focuspants wrote:
I think banning assault weapons is a no brainer. I understand the complexity of the situation in the US, however, allowing people easy access to such lethal killing tools is insane. You dont need an assault rifle to defend yourself. The fact of the matter is, these people that shoot up schools, movie theaters, malls, etc... strike suddenly, in places where an assault weapon of your own as a law abiding citizen is nowhere to be found. Even if for some stupid reason you did have it on you, firing an automatic weapon in a public place like this would be careless.
These weapons are not for sport, not for home defense, etc... They are extremely efficient killing tools, capable of making anyone who holds it powerful, and able to kill many people in a very short time span. Weapons like that have no place in society. I will quote my previous post regarding this: Can you define an assault weapon? People will soon realize they cannot. California tried and came up with terms like "evil looking features". You'll find you're going to be coming up with a lot of weird terms and conditionals for it to work. What's the difference between an AR-15 semi-automatic and a .223 sporting rifle? What makes one an assault rifle and the other a sporting one? They can be the same but also "different" at the same time? Is it the pistol grip? The cycling mechanism? The stock? What exactly? Machine guns are already banned in most places, but that's not what assault rifles are. The point is that gun control laws are propagated mostly by people who do not understand or know enough about the topic. This leads to many problems with policy. Also, Keep in mind the Jared Loughner used a shotgun to shoot up the theater. Is the next step banning shotguns? Most gun crime involves handguns/pistols. Do what they do here in Canada. No matter what sort of gun you own, a clip only holds 3 or 4 bullets max. Allowing someone to walk around with a weapon that can fire hundreds of rounds off in a minute or two is ludicrous. That's not good policy. What's preventing people from switching multiple mags. From customizing their own magazines? It's a fairly easy thing to do, and in your world no law-abiding citizen would have. But what about a person who wants to commit a crime or go on a shooting spree? I don't think they have much respect for the law. I don't think this is an accurate statement of Canadian law. In Canada no one can carry any concealed firearm except for police officers. We also have very high jail sentences for discharging a firearm in the commission of an offence (four year minimum -- well, it's high by Canadian standards!) Strangely, in Canada criminals still seem to be able to get their hands on guns. I know those facts are also true, but the small mags are also part of the laws. I am not saying that small mags alone solves the issue, but damn, they need to start making some steps in the right direction. Any step in the right direction is better than sitting around saying that nothing should be done because the situation is complicated. I agree with your sentiment, I really do. Things do need to be done, but the problem is that the people who write the laws, like my representative Dianne Feinstein, have the least knowledge of the subject. What ends up happening is that weird laws are created where you cannot own a rifle with "evil features" like a telescoping stock with a pistol grip, or a forward mounted grip. High-capacity mags are banned in CA but you can still use pre-1999 ban mags that go up to 30, as long as you have a bullet button, oh and make sure that it doesn't have a magnet! Get familiar with firearms, try to get a sporting rifle, or an AR, and see just how convoluted and non-sense and backwards the laws have become. The solution is to get better screening, but people will still get through, like the man today who decided it was cool to shoot children. He wasn't a legal gun owner afaik, and according to news sources is mentally unstable (obviously), autistic, and has a personality disorder. Sadly, most of the time gun crimes are perpetrated by, you guessed it, criminals who are not registered. So the problem is not with the registered gun owners, it's with crazy people who get access to the black market/steal. As far as I am aware the guns used in today's shooting legally belonged to the mother of the shooter, there was no black market or stealing involved. Owning a gun certainly didn't protect this poor lady. Guns can be removed from circulation, it happened quite successfully in Australia after our one and ONLY random crazy guy massacre. A buy back scheme was implemented where people sold their guns back to the government who then destroyed them. Obviously the US is a much larger country with much larger numbers of guns available. People say you can kill people without guns, which is of course true, but that certainly doesn't take into account the scale of the damage that one person can do with a gun compared to if he had a knife or some other type of weapon. In my opinion, there are very few good reasons for your average citizen to own a gun, the downsides seem to be enormous compared to the benefits. Today's shooting were a tragedy, but I wonder how many more of these will have to occur before some action is taken. You're correct, however, he wasn't a legal gun owner. And also, unless you want to classify it as "borrowed from his mother", I would rather say he stole it from her. She most likely did not give him permission to shoot up the school, her included. And owning that gun did not protect her because she did not have it, schools are a gun-free zone. If the logic is that simple, why not cut out the root problem. What if she didnt have the guns at all? He would have had to obtain them illegally. Would he have been able and willing to do so? Or would he have explored a different avenue for relieving his emotions? I think that the whole "legal gun owner"/"law abiding citizen" definition placed on everyone is flawed. All of those people are 1 incident away from being labeled a criminal. Once they do make that action, they are now labeled a criminal and not a law abiding citizen or gun owner, yet they came from the same pool of people.
Because banning guns is not possible, constitutionally, and even if you wanted to, logistically it would be impossible in the U.S..
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Didn't he shoot her in her house/bed? So the gun-free zone of the school didn't really matter for her, though of course it would for the faculty at the school. Edit:Though I don't really like the idea of teachers bringing guns to schools.
I did have a 'resource officer' at my high school when I was growing up though, and he did have a firearm if I remember correctly.
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On December 15 2012 13:59 Focuspants wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2012 13:56 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:50 DR.Ham wrote:On December 15 2012 13:25 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:18 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 13:13 ziggurat wrote:On December 15 2012 13:10 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 13:05 Focuspants wrote:On December 15 2012 12:59 Nagano wrote:On December 15 2012 12:55 Focuspants wrote:
I think banning assault weapons is a no brainer. I understand the complexity of the situation in the US, however, allowing people easy access to such lethal killing tools is insane. You dont need an assault rifle to defend yourself. The fact of the matter is, these people that shoot up schools, movie theaters, malls, etc... strike suddenly, in places where an assault weapon of your own as a law abiding citizen is nowhere to be found. Even if for some stupid reason you did have it on you, firing an automatic weapon in a public place like this would be careless.
These weapons are not for sport, not for home defense, etc... They are extremely efficient killing tools, capable of making anyone who holds it powerful, and able to kill many people in a very short time span. Weapons like that have no place in society. I will quote my previous post regarding this: Can you define an assault weapon? People will soon realize they cannot. California tried and came up with terms like "evil looking features". You'll find you're going to be coming up with a lot of weird terms and conditionals for it to work. What's the difference between an AR-15 semi-automatic and a .223 sporting rifle? What makes one an assault rifle and the other a sporting one? They can be the same but also "different" at the same time? Is it the pistol grip? The cycling mechanism? The stock? What exactly? Machine guns are already banned in most places, but that's not what assault rifles are. The point is that gun control laws are propagated mostly by people who do not understand or know enough about the topic. This leads to many problems with policy. Also, Keep in mind the Jared Loughner used a shotgun to shoot up the theater. Is the next step banning shotguns? Most gun crime involves handguns/pistols. Do what they do here in Canada. No matter what sort of gun you own, a clip only holds 3 or 4 bullets max. Allowing someone to walk around with a weapon that can fire hundreds of rounds off in a minute or two is ludicrous. That's not good policy. What's preventing people from switching multiple mags. From customizing their own magazines? It's a fairly easy thing to do, and in your world no law-abiding citizen would have. But what about a person who wants to commit a crime or go on a shooting spree? I don't think they have much respect for the law. I don't think this is an accurate statement of Canadian law. In Canada no one can carry any concealed firearm except for police officers. We also have very high jail sentences for discharging a firearm in the commission of an offence (four year minimum -- well, it's high by Canadian standards!) Strangely, in Canada criminals still seem to be able to get their hands on guns. I know those facts are also true, but the small mags are also part of the laws. I am not saying that small mags alone solves the issue, but damn, they need to start making some steps in the right direction. Any step in the right direction is better than sitting around saying that nothing should be done because the situation is complicated. I agree with your sentiment, I really do. Things do need to be done, but the problem is that the people who write the laws, like my representative Dianne Feinstein, have the least knowledge of the subject. What ends up happening is that weird laws are created where you cannot own a rifle with "evil features" like a telescoping stock with a pistol grip, or a forward mounted grip. High-capacity mags are banned in CA but you can still use pre-1999 ban mags that go up to 30, as long as you have a bullet button, oh and make sure that it doesn't have a magnet! Get familiar with firearms, try to get a sporting rifle, or an AR, and see just how convoluted and non-sense and backwards the laws have become. The solution is to get better screening, but people will still get through, like the man today who decided it was cool to shoot children. He wasn't a legal gun owner afaik, and according to news sources is mentally unstable (obviously), autistic, and has a personality disorder. Sadly, most of the time gun crimes are perpetrated by, you guessed it, criminals who are not registered. So the problem is not with the registered gun owners, it's with crazy people who get access to the black market/steal. As far as I am aware the guns used in today's shooting legally belonged to the mother of the shooter, there was no black market or stealing involved. Owning a gun certainly didn't protect this poor lady. Guns can be removed from circulation, it happened quite successfully in Australia after our one and ONLY random crazy guy massacre. A buy back scheme was implemented where people sold their guns back to the government who then destroyed them. Obviously the US is a much larger country with much larger numbers of guns available. People say you can kill people without guns, which is of course true, but that certainly doesn't take into account the scale of the damage that one person can do with a gun compared to if he had a knife or some other type of weapon. In my opinion, there are very few good reasons for your average citizen to own a gun, the downsides seem to be enormous compared to the benefits. Today's shooting were a tragedy, but I wonder how many more of these will have to occur before some action is taken. You're correct, however, he wasn't a legal gun owner. And also, unless you want to classify it as "borrowed from his mother", I would rather say he stole it from her. She most likely did not give him permission to shoot up the school, her included. And owning that gun did not protect her because she did not have it, schools are a gun-free zone. If the logic is that simple, why not cut out the root problem. What if she didnt have the guns at all? He would have had to obtain them illegally. Would he have been able and willing to do so? Or would he have explored a different avenue for relieving his emotions? I think that the whole "legal gun owner"/"law abiding citizen" definition placed on everyone is flawed. All of those people are 1 incident away from being labeled a criminal. Once they do make that action, they are now labeled a criminal and not a law abiding citizen or gun owner, yet they came from the same pool of people.
It is not flawed, the vast, overwhelming majority of gun owners are law-abiding. Most gun-crime involves the guns that are illegally obtained.
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United States24701 Posts
On December 15 2012 14:02 Saryph wrote:
Didn't he shoot her in her house/bed? So the gun-free zone of the school didn't really matter for her, though of course it would for the faculty at the school. Though I don't really like the idea of teachers owning guns.
I did have a 'resource officer' at my high school when I was growing up though, and he did have a firearm if I remember correctly.
Why shouldn't teachers be allowed to own guns? Obviously they aren't allowed to bring them into school. If you are saying nobody should be allowed to own guns, then banning teachers from the makes sense. If you are saying people can own guns, but not teachers, that's strange to me. Is there data to back up a claim that allowing teachers to own guns is sufficiently bad?
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EPT
