If you're seeing this topic then another mass shooting hap…

On August 06 2019 03:12 Danglars wrote:

Oof. I’m really interested in how you got “violence” as being the mode of comparison, when I never mentioned the word or anything of the kind to make a rights comparison. Tell me if this is wishful thinking or an honest mistake on your part.

I also note that you present no means to differentiate rights subject to removal based on statistics (censor Slydie based on how he uses his right of free speech/ban self defense with a weapon based on how few effectively exercise their right), and make no attempt to defend your original post’s argument regardless.

One last restatement, since you touch on the issue: those that think some constitutional rights were never justified in the first place deserve to be viewed with suspicion in crafting sensible restrictions to curtail those rights. I say this particularly when they use and defend vague terms, claim honest discussion is concern trolling, and whine about long debates and timeframe of legislation.

On August 06 2019 06:16 Slydie wrote:


You compare "heroes with firearms" to "heroes of free speech" and you draw a paralelle to the "insult, demean, and spout absurdities" free spech causes to the harm of firearms. I find that distasteful and that was why I wrote "violence". Why didn't you dig up some real life examples of heroes with guns instead of an irrelevant comparison to this forum?

Your argument that "statistics" should not be considered a valid reason makes no sense, I challenge you to find ANY safety regulation that is not somehow related to statistics. Most safety regulations are even emotional in nature, as the risks they minimize are so small to begin with. The risks involving the influx of powerful firearms in the US on the other hand are very real, and you should all be shameful about how dangerous the US is when it comes to gun safety compared to other western countries.

On August 06 2019 06:16 Slydie wrote:


You compare "heroes with firearms" to "heroes of free speech" and you draw a paralelle to the "insult, demean, and spout absurdities" free spech causes to the harm of firearms. I find that distasteful and that was why I wrote "violence". Why didn't you dig up some real life examples of heroes with guns instead of an irrelevant comparison to this forum?

Your argument that "statistics" should not be considered a valid reason makes no sense, I challenge you to find ANY safety regulation that is not somehow related to statistics. Most safety regulations are even emotional in nature, as the risks they minimize are so small to begin with. The risks involving the influx of powerful firearms in the US on the other hand are very real, and you should all be shameful about how dangerous the US is when it comes to gun safety compared to other western countries.

On August 06 2019 05:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Good point... Biden apparently thought the shooting was in Michigan! Wow.

On August 05 2019 21:37 Jockmcplop wrote:


Herein lies the biggest problem. You could write a perfect piece of legislation that only bans guns that are often used in mass killings while also banning similar guns and leaving everything else untouched and you would still get people nitpicking the tiny details so they have an excuse to deny the legislation - without simply stating their premise that no gun control legislation will ever be acceptable.

These 'assault rifle' type ban suggestions are already an attempt to meet gun nuts half way instead of just banning guns like they do in sensible countries, but its never good enough, and never will be good enough.


Anyway, you seem to know about guns, so what kind of legislation would ban the right kind of guns without leaving loopholes?

On August 06 2019 04:42 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Instead of discussing how best to kill as many unarmed people as possible with guns, we should be discussing how best to prevent that sort of scenario from occurring and to reduce the death count. You cannot 3D print gun barrels of their breech, nor their cartridges.

On August 06 2019 07:55 Danglars wrote:

I beg your pardon? You used "hero gunowner stories" to compare to "accidents, suicides, murders and terrorist attacks" statistically (May I suggest introducing a paraphrase word and not abusing quotation marks when nobody said the phrase?). I used "heroes of free speech" to ask you if the 1st amendment, like the 2nd amendment, also could be taken away if there weren't enough examples of proper use. I have since been waiting fruitlessly to hear something resembling a defense. Instead, you brought up "'violence' of speech" out of the blue, and I wonder who you have me confused with that was legitimately comparing the harm caused by free speech and guns. The only violence I've seen is what you've visited upon my posts, so please respond in the context of what I've actually said or stop trying a response. If inserting violence as the subject of comparison was an accident and you had me confused or read too quickly, then no offense taken.

I don't really see why you're transitioning to safety regulations when you started off comparing "hero gunowner stories ... compared to accidents, suicides, murders, and terrorist attacks." This is rather a far cry from what I thought you were arguing in that post. When you say "I can't believe people use the 'defend yourself against x' argument," are you really meaning that the issue comes down to a debate on safety regulations and the statistics governing such regulations? It looked like you were saying it was "illogical on a religious level" based simply on the comparison of incidence, not that the difference consisted in safety regulations such as with accidents.

On August 06 2019 21:14 Slydie wrote:


I think I see where this went wrong here. I believe you misinterpreted my use of the word "rights" and losing such as "rights as US citezens as written in the constitution." Those are some rights, but there are many others, and they are havily dependant on traditions and culture. In my home country Norway, people feel entitled to the right to live well from government support with an incredible free healthcare program without working, even though they did nothing to earn that right exept being lucky to have the right parents. At some point, Norway will not be able to afford some of those rights, so the benefit of the nation will be to remove some of them, but there will still be an enormous outrage!

I have to accept that many in the US see the right to carry guns as important as the freedom of speech or Norwegian mother's see their right to 12 months payed maternity leave, so I that is what you are getting at, right?

Guncontrol IS a safety regulation, what guns who can buy, where you can carry them, how to store them, which ones are allowed to own, how many you can own; everything. The potential terrorist who read the Brevik manifesto did indeed break US gunlaws, but even enforcing existing laws is difficult to debate in the current US political climate.

I also see that many Americans feel safer themselves carrying a gun "to protect themselves agianst x." With so many guns around, I almost understand them, but they are really not safer, and as a nation, you are obviously on the very wrong track. That is my whole point, guns makes yourself, your family and your community more statistically probably to gun accidents and violence. With over 8000 gundeaths and 250 mass shootings in the US so far this year, you should really look at every possible way to get that number down. Even more guns, thoughts, prayers, avoiding real discussion, and blaming mental healtcare and videogames obviously does not cut it.

On August 06 2019 08:21 micronesia wrote:

I've discussed ideas in this thread before, and I lean more towards escalating restrictions than outright bans. I agree with the article I quoted... the focus should be on capability and how dangerous it is, not on cosmetics. You want a single shot small pistol? It will be regulated like a car. You want a semiautomatic rifle? It will be regulated like a large truck. You want drum magazines, special ammo, and full auto capability? Get ready for a security investigation akin to a top secret clearance and a lot of training. Your skill will be measured. If you can't hit the bull from 50 feet with a rifle, you aren't qualified to shoot it. Keep training at a supervised range using their in-house firearms until you improve. Maybe you can be a gun collector without the requisite skill if you apply for it, but you can't shoot or transport in public. Stuff like that. For people who already have guns, there is a grace period to qualify for whatever level of vetting required for the firearms they own. Otherwise, they will have to trade down to a gun that is right for them.

I love the idea of some of the craziest gun nuts being told, "you still want your guns, okay, come to the police range and score at least a 90. If you can't, we are seizing your gun."

All of this of course needs to be combined with fixing the background check system to be as effective as possible.

On August 06 2019 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:
The question has to become why don't we fix this stuff (at minimum the things that have overwhelming bipartisan support among the populace)?

I don't think "Republicans and the NRA" is a sufficient explanation from my perspective. Though clearly they are a significant part of why.

On August 06 2019 02:53 Sermokala wrote:

We've never communicated well as I think you've always been emotional and not reading the entirety of my posts.

Assult rifles being rifles that are fully automatic are heavily regulated, by decades old standards. The regulations are there but as I stated in that sentence the regulations are a joke with the modern reality of technology. They didn't take into consideration the possibility of a bump stock or a person being able to easily and cheaply work on their own gun. To own an assult rifle you have to get with the ATF and transfer over one of the registered ones grandfathered in. That or spend an hour on a 3d printer another hour in a gun shop and suddenly every gun can technically be an assult rifle.

I went to school that had a gun smithing program and I made friends that showed me some scary stuff.

A smaller caliber is better for a massacre then a larger one. One point is recoil, an ar15 shoots .223 which is only thousandths of an inch away from the "harmless" .22 round you even see in construction. Basically you can fire a lot more with smaller rounds and lower velocity. Take said pistols 3d print super large magazines and you'll do more damage then Vegas.

Most of my anger against people preaching ignorance as a strength in this argument is beacuse the bans that they advocate won't do anything and will just lead to more bans or nothing for a few decades like the Clinton assault weapons failure.

On August 06 2019 12:58 Sermokala wrote:

I mean I'm not going to get into shorthand about how cartridges are designed or nitpicking about how modern rifles are more about wounding specifically instead of stopping power but I think everyone can appreciate that there is a reason why a sniper rifle is 0.5 caliber and trust that a 0.223 is smaller for a reason.

But you can make the cartridges just fine they're made of brass which is soft and theres a whole industry of people who load their own bullets the barrel is just a tube of metal that is sold wholesale standardized around the world and can be worked in a WW2 era machine lathe. I rifled one in shop class for my robotics team. Guns were heavily engineered to be easy to make and 3d printing takes out literally everything but the aforementioned barrel the firing pin and springs. I ned you to understand that laws are going to only go so far. that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do them but to ignore legitimate criticism is just creating enemies for no reason.

I mean why not just run the whole thing like the war on drugs. make different schedules of guns based on their capability to be used in massacres and different accessories to enhance this ability. It would create classes of guns that require strict background checks and other screens while making things like hunting rifles and shotguns easier for people who have a hunting license or history of hunting.

On August 07 2019 02:16 ShambhalaWar wrote:


I appreciate the more explained response (not that everyone should have to reexplain everything), drawing the distinction from semi to fully automatic rifles, I get the reference to regulation.

And I agree, as you said, there are so many ways to modify a semi auto that the regulation might not seem like they stop much... but I think that despite the fact people can learn to mod these guns, most people pulling off these shootings really aren't that smart or sophisticated, and don't have access to things like 3d printers or understand how to use them.

The fact as I can see it, is that restrictions have been very effective in other countries, I imagine they would be here as well. We have the problem of saturation of guns in the country already, that also has to be addressed. I think we should do buybacks and restrictions, I think that is fine and we see what happens.

You said in a later post, why not treat it like the drug war, in that we can create schedules. While I think the drug war was an absolute disaster, and we should never repeat that disaster. Categorizing guns and regulating them, I'm all for, but maybe not framing it in the same context as the war on drugs.

Idk what bans you are talking about that won't do anything, but I think you are underestimating the effectiveness of making anything more difficult for people to get, in that any degree of difficulty in the process will deter some people from acting. If you ban large capacity mags, but someone can just produce them... there are going to be a group of people that will produce them wrong (they don't work), will just say "fuck it, this is too much hassle", and people that produce the mags but it slows their progress to act (maybe someone will talk them out of it). Any of these steps might interrupt or halt the process of acting. Making laws against large mags also give authorities the ability to act on them, rather than walking into a house finding 10 of them and doing nothing.

Someone buys a 3d printer out of nowhere for no reason, might make people around them suspicious.

To me doing anything about mags seems as though it might be effective. I think congress needs to try something, because we've let the wound bleed to much for too long, now it is becoming critical.

In my mind this is all better than saying, because people can ultimately make large mags on their own why would be try to restrict them at all.

It was only just in 2017 or 2018 that we made it easier for people with mental illness to purchase firearms. Nothing about what we do as a country around firearms makes any sense... Unless you view it from the lens of a firearms industry trying to maximize profit, then all the laws (or lack of laws) makes perfect sense.

And I do want to say, I've taken a lot of time to read what you've had to say, especially when we were trading pm's. I don't always get to understand your points, but is that really just one way? Do you always take the time to really get my perspective? I try, best I can to have a good discourse and understand people. Sometimes I emotionally make a point, and often spend much more time on this forum than I should reading and thinking about responses.

On August 07 2019 04:04 Wombat_NI wrote:
What are the restrictions pertaining to mental health anyway?
I presume they vary a lot state to state?