Gun control

[craigsmith]

I do believe in gun control, but not taking everyone's guns away. We need closer checks, like people who have been in jail or prison, people who have mental disorders, etc. Those people shoule not be allowed to buy guns. A criminal is going to get a gun no matter what laws are on the books. If we take everyone's guns the only ones who will have them are the criminals. I do believe a closer check on who can buy a gun should be there. I also believe all guns should be registered and if you buy a gun you need to be required to take a class and lessons on how to handle the gun, clean it, shoot it, take care of it. I think the NRA offers classes in this. I don't think it is right for the newpapers and media to publish who has a gun. Maybe they should publish all the people in the area you live who have criminal records etc. That way you would know who to watch out for, especially if they have been in prison for murder or assault. I also believe that the types of guns available to the public should be limited. I think these are sensible things that could help. None of this is being discusses by the Democarts but I do hear a little from the GOP. If you hunt, you have to have a hunting license and I also think your gun needs to be registered when you buy your hunting license as well as allowing how many guns you can carry hunting. I used to hunt rabbits and squirrls with a single shot 22 and it did just fine for me. People who are on depression medication etc probably should not have a gun. I just recently has a first cousin commit suicide on new years day with his gun. He had been in trouble with the law and was on depression meds etc. He did not need a gun and should have been denied a gun when he bought one. Sensilbe laws need to be put in place, not taking guns away from everyone. Just my thoughts. Guns dont kill, people do and that is the problem. People who have mental problems, etc do not need guns. Chicago has very strict gun laws, and they have the highest crime in almost the whole nation. How have the stricter gun laws helped there. Like I said, criminals can get guns if they want them. I also think tighter restriction and checks of criminals property etc should be part of the laws.

 

[NightOwlGate]

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

/thread

 

[ConanTheBarber]

I find him brash. I find him assertive. I do find him somewhat hostile to viewpoints other than his own. Basically he's a hothead...that's his schtick.

But I've never seen Alex Jones behave in a way that could legitimately be called violent.

Physical violence? No? But violence in spirit? An extreme case, imo.

Yes. But, let's put it in perspective. That petition was set up as a "stunt," more than anything else, to point out the inappropriateness of a media figure, and especially one who is not a US citizen, having the colossal gall to lecture us on our own laws. Jones felt that Morgan's behavior was inappropriate and not in keeping with the good faith he had been granted by this country, and decided to use this situation to his advantage.

I know, it's terrible. Morgan agrees with the U.S. president ... and countless other Americans whose numbers are growing. That has to be noted.

Piers, by responding to his stunt, is legitimizing Alex Jones' position...hardly the action of a smart man. So, his motivation likely lay elsewhere.

To a degree, he legitimizes him. On the other hand, millions of Americans who would never go to Jones' website got a close-up look.
I'm sure some people would call that a master stroke.
We'll just have to disagree.

Jones fell into Morgan's trap. He just can't help himself. He carried on like a lunatic.

I have to agree.

Even Glen Beck, who seems prone to mania, said that Jones looked like a "madman."

And that's significant, imo. Surely Beck should be among those in Jones' corner if Jones is doing things intelligently at all.

Here is a statement from Beck's website:

Want to know who the media wants to make the face of the pro-gun argument in America? Look no further than conspiratorial radio host Alex Jones, best known for his 9/11 Truther theories and his love of Charlie Sheen's hernia. Jones is the man behind the petition to deport CNN host Piers Morgan for his views on gun control. Morgan invited Jones onto his show to debate the gun issue yesterday, and not surprisingly, Jones made a fool of himself, giving the left the perfect poster boy for their attempts to paint every logical conservative as an extremist nut job.
​

Alex Jones screamed about the NWO and Prozac 'sponsoring' gun violence on Morgan's show, and after the show he went on about some conspiracy about the NYPD trying to kill him.

Is Fuzzy the only one who repeatedly notices that many, if not most, of the most vehement gun rights advocates are obsessed with conspiracies (not just in this thread, but in general)?

There's certainly some truth there.
I don't think most of them are actually paranoid.
But the worldview, which is so prevalent in some quarters that they absorb it osmotically, is very paranoid.
(And some, no doubt, are paranoid.)

In the video made after his interview with Piers Morgan, Jones said, "If something happens to us ... we're killed by crackheads ... it was the NYPD or mafia, period."
Later, "We've got goodfellas climbing out our butts right now."
He compared himself to George Washington.
He said, "When they come for the guns, it's all about enslavement." This, at a moment when they're only talking about limiting assault weapons.
There is just no real perspective there at all.

 

[redneckgymrat]

The arguement on this subject,as with several others,is so polarized that there will NEVER be an agreement that could sustain any law that might bring about an end to these ghastly massacres.
...
Surely the common goal is to bring an end to the senseless deaths of so many people

Assume for a moment that you are correct, and the actual goal is to save lives. As many lives as is possible.

Gun deaths in the US, though more numerous than in the UK, are not particularly common. More people die in car crashes and at least a dozen other ways, than die from guns, every year.

Remember...we're assuming that the goal is to save the most lives possible.

So why would you go after something that's so far down on the list?

And, within the subcategory of guns, the type that is being discussed are "semiautomatic assault rifles" which account for a grand total of 353 deaths a year. In the same year, 458 people died from incidents involving hammers...yes, framing hammers, from the hardware store.

So, still assuming that the goal is to save as many lives as possible, WHY would our government take *this* approach? It doesn't make any sense...not when viewed as a way to save the most lives possible.

The only conclusion possible is that their goal is NOT to save as many lives as possible, but that their goal is something else. As the approach they're considering is to restrict our freedom to exercise one of the basic rights spelled out in the Constitution...it makes sense to question their motives, and their eventual goal.

Don't you think?

 

[h0neymustard]

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

/thread

"Oh, but it's outdated and was written by a bunch of racist, slave raping white men."

Reading many of these comments.I frankly have come to the conclusion that there isn't a 'hope in hell' that anything in the US will change anytime soon.
The arguement on this subject,as with several others,is so polarized that there will NEVER be an agreement that could sustain any law that might bring about an end to these ghastly massacres.
I simply do not 'get' the political stance of many Americans who (wrongly) seem to assume that if you are in favour of strict gun control,then you must be some sort crypto communist...almost by definition!!!! This is an assumption I have come across time and time again and makes no sense WHATSOEVER.Surely the common goal is to bring an end to the senseless deaths of so many people at the hands of the lunatics who can seemingly buy their weapon of choice at a supermarket and then order ammunition off the internet?? It is,therefore, not a political issue,but one of common sense!!! The fewer guns there are in circulation,the less chance that people will be in a position to use them.
Here in the UK after the Dunblane shootings the government bought in even stricter controls on gun ownership and apart from some concern from some members of the gun/sports lobby, I don't remember any dissent AT ALL.The people of Britain seemed to collectively understand and support the decision.There was no political issue made of it.I know that gun ownership is written into the US Constitution and all that,but I'm afraid something VERY RADICAL will have to be done or else these massacres will just follow,the one after the other...!
P.S I really think that Piers Morgan lost a golden opportunity in not 'winding up' that physco Alex Jones EVEN MORE,as he might have succeeded in imploding on air and therefore, would mean there would be one less nutter to worry about..!

Then stay in Britain with your 3.5x higher violent crime rate.

 

[h0neymustard]

Assume for a moment that you are correct, and the actual goal is to save lives. As many lives as is possible.

Gun deaths in the US, though more numerous than in the UK, are not particularly common. More people die in car crashes and at least a dozen other ways, than die from guns, every year.

Remember...we're assuming that the goal is to save the most lives possible.

So why would you go after something that's so far down on the list?

And, within the subcategory of guns, the type that is being discussed are "semiautomatic assault rifles" which account for a grand total of 353 deaths a year. In the same year, 458 people died from incidents involving hammers...yes, framing hammers, from the hardware store.

So, still assuming that the goal is to save as many lives as possible, WHY would our government take *this* approach? It doesn't make any sense...not when viewed as a way to save the most lives possible.

The only conclusion possible is that their goal is NOT to save as many lives as possible, but that their goal is something else. As the approach they're considering is to restrict our freedom to exercise one of the basic rights spelled out in the Constitution...it makes sense to question their motives, and their eventual goal.

Don't you think?

The largest group of people that have committed gun crimes are the governments.

 

[AtomicMouse1950]

I simply discuss my feelings about gun violence, Sandy Hook and the Aurora shootings were a wake up call. To say we can't do anything about these tragedies because of the 2nd Amendment is ludacris. The recent remarks of the NRA, proves that they side with the gun manufacturers and not with the gun owners. The NRA is out of touch, the, 2nd Amendment is antiquated. We already have a "well regulated militia " its called: the National Guard...You can throw in the U.S. Military and police Swat teams.

 

[h0neymustard]

Regardless, the militia clause was just one justification for the Second Amendment.

 

[AtomicMouse1950]

The M-16 I trained with in the Army...The clips we used were 20 round clips, however...We were restricted to 18 rounds. If you were caught with 20 rounds in the clip, you were written up. If you did it again, you were court marshaled. Those two additional rounds usually caused the weapon to jam. Jamming your M-16 was considered to be damaging Gov't property. I. Never saw anyone in Vietnam with 30 round clips, Ever!

I think you are mixing a little bit of your terms up as the original M16 the Army used to replace the M14, was a Semi and full Auto through the use of a selector switch (Safe-Semi-Auto). Maybe you meant the original AR-15 as from what I understood it was a semi-auto only weapon (I could be wrong as I never laid hands on one from the 57-63 era when they were first being tested and issued).

The usual reason behind firing three to four round bursts was not so much the jamming but because the weapon traveled high (you basically throwing rounds over the target if you held the trigger for the "rock & roll"). When they fielded it to replace the M14 a detachable bipod was also issued for the automatic rifleman in the fire teams.

The M16 was more prone to jamming and had a lot of bugs. The next rifle was the M16 A1 which also had the three options, but incorporated a Forward Assist, new flash suppressor and I believe the arctic trigger as well as a thirty round banana style box clip as opposed to the twenty round straight box.

The M16A2 basically incorporated a heavier barrel with more twists, rounded hand grips (like the Colt Commando from your era) and the three round burst selector replaced full auto mode after Semi (rock & roll no longer an option).

The M14 was also capable of full auto (as was the .30 cal M1 Carbine), but was a bastard to hump enough ammo for (much like the BAR).

 

[h0neymustard]

For you guys who posted the crazy AJ video yesterday, here's what other CNN things were talking about later:
Piers Morgan and Guests Call for Shooting Alex Jones - YouTube

Never mind the guy sounds like a fucking moron: "who needs a semi automatic weapon ,much less a handgun!"
:rofl:

 

[balsary]

Assume for a moment that you are correct, and the actual goal is to save lives. As many lives as is possible.

Gun deaths in the US, though more numerous than in the UK, are not particularly common. More people die in car crashes and at least a dozen other ways, than die from guns, every year.

Remember...we're assuming that the goal is to save the most lives possible.

So why would you go after something that's so far down on the list?

And, within the subcategory of guns, the type that is being discussed are "semiautomatic assault rifles" which account for a grand total of 353 deaths a year. In the same year, 458 people died from incidents involving hammers...yes, framing hammers, from the hardware store.

So, still assuming that the goal is to save as many lives as possible, WHY would our government take *this* approach? It doesn't make any sense...not when viewed as a way to save the most lives possible.

The only conclusion possible is that their goal is NOT to save as many lives as possible, but that their goal is something else. As the approach they're considering is to restrict our freedom to exercise one of the basic rights spelled out in the Constitution...it makes sense to question their motives, and their eventual goal.

Don't you think?

I would love to see a rational response to this post. One that includes facts and logic instead of "guns are bad" or "why does anyone need an assault rifle." I'll bet all I own that we won't see it though.

 

[JTalbain]

Violent crime worse in Britain than in US | Mail Online It's absolutely true, because I read it in the Daily Mail.
The Daily Mail Song - YouTube

Let's see, what does another British publication have to say in its defense? Crime figures 'don't add up' - Telegraph Let's see here... "Half of all violent crime in the statistics involves no physical injury and includes such offences as bigamy."




Wait a minute, a dude who marries two women is now committing a violent crime? How exactly are they recording crime in the UK? Anxiety Culture: Media scaremongering on crime

• Certain "yobbish" behaviours (eg minor scuffles) have been reclassified as crime, with the effect of doubling recorded violent crime.
• A violent crime with many victims is no longer recorded as a single crime. An incident with 5 victims is now recorded as 5 crimes.
• A higher proportion of violent crime is recorded. The proportion of common assaults (without injury) recorded rose from around 50% to 68% between 2002 and 2003.

The two main sources of crime figures – the police and the British Crime Survey (BCS) – both indicate that, allowing for these recording changes, violent crime has fallen since 1998.

Right. So people are manipulating statistics to say exactly what they want, in both cases. Certain elements of the British media are scaremongering, and the NRA is hijacking their story to say that the rates are so high because of the UK's gun control laws.

Hey, you want to see a place where it's really hard to legally get a gun? Japan! What do you suppose Tokyo's crime rate is? Oh, right. It's the safest city in the first world. Why don't the gun control laws cause a crime wave in Japan?

 

[h0neymustard]

Let's look at their culture. Who has one of the highest suicide rates in the world? They have a famous forest where people go to kill themselves.

Here's the video where I pull the 3.5x higher figure from:
Choose Your Own Crime Stats - YouTube
Stats from the FBI and the Home Office, which he says is the UK equivalent of the FBI.

Also let me get this straight, you're willing to take the 11k gun deaths from the FBI no questions asked, but when you're given the figure for the UK, oh, it's this doesn't count, that doesn't count, and this also doesn't count, so now the stats look better.

Liberal thinking.

 

[TheBestYouCan]

How about Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, or Venezuela?

Elizabeth Rosenthal, "More Guns = More Killing" (The New York Times, January 5, 2012):

I recently visited some Latin American countries that mesh with the N.R.A.’s vision of the promised land, where guards with guns grace every office lobby, storefront, A.T.M., restaurant and gas station. It has not made those countries safer or saner.

Despite the ubiquitous presence of “good guys” with guns, countries like Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia and Venezuela have some of the highest homicide rates in the world.

“A society that is relying on guys with guns to stop violence is a sign of a society where institutions have broken down,” said Rebecca Peters, former director of the International Action Network on Small Arms. “It’s shocking to hear anyone in the United States considering a solution that would make it seem more like Colombia.”

As guns proliferate, legally and illegally, innocent people often seem more terrorized than protected.

In Guatemala, riding a public bus is a risky business. More than 500 bus drivers have been killed in robberies since 2007, leading InSight Crime, which tracks organized crime in the Americas, to call it “the most dangerous profession on the planet.” And when bullets start flying, everyone is vulnerable: in 2010 the onboard tally included 155 drivers, 54 bus assistants, 71 passengers and 14 presumed criminals. Some were killed by the robbers’ bullets and some by gun-carrying passengers.

Scientific studies have consistently found that places with more guns have more violent deaths, both homicides and suicides. Women and children are more likely to die if there’s a gun in the house. The more guns in an area, the higher the local suicide rates. “Generally, if you live in a civilized society, more guns mean more death,” said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. “There is no evidence that having more guns reduces crime. None at all.”
​

I think we both just demonstrated that country by country gun control comparisons are spurious. You can take country A with strict gun control and find that they have a high incidence of gun related crime. You can take country B with a low level of gun control and find they have a low level of crime and visa versa. It's cultural, economical, and political differences in each country that dictate how much violence there is.

Most gun crimes aren't committed with assault weapons, which is what is currently proposed by the government to cut down on gun crimes. Does that make sense to anyone? Does anyone genuinely think criminals care about gun laws?

So let's tackle the other possibility to control gun, control their manufacture. If you take the approach of restricting the actual manufacture of guns except for government use, then you are costing people their lively hood and opening the door to gun smuggling.

Well then just outlaw places people can take their guns. Again, people who are going to break the law of "Thou shalt not kill" aren't going to be concerned with "Thou shalt not bring the weapon by which you will kill into this particular area because a sign says you can't". Almost all school shootings started after schools were declared "Gun Free Zones".

So what do you do? It's a large issue. But the only road I can see is that criminals will ALWAYS have guns. Cave tribes in Afghanistan make their own over campfires with more equipment than the common American has in their kitchen. As best I can tell you cannot morally tell someone they do not have the right to protect themselves and their families nor take away their ability to do so. The sensible remedy to me is to allow all people to carry weaponry if they so choose instead of trying to pick and choose areas where they can't, which is where the majority of these massacres take place. And also to really look into who is being killed, most of the time, by guns and why... the answer being gangs killing gang members over turf and drugs, which again opens the door to the legalization of drugs, thus killing the golden goose and motivation for many criminals.

 

[Drifterwood]

Quarterly gun murders in the US are roughly equivalent to an 09/11. EVERY QUARTER. In the same time frame in the UK there will be less than 10 people killed.

Maybe Al Qaeda run the NRA.

 

[h0neymustard]

The same number of people die of heart disease every two days. To put things in perspective.

 

[JTalbain]

I would love to see a rational response to this post. One that includes facts and logic instead of "guns are bad" or "why does anyone need an assault rifle." I'll bet all I own that we won't see it though.

Ye have little faith. :tongue:

Assume for a moment that you are correct, and the actual goal is to save lives. As many lives as is possible.

Gun deaths in the US, though more numerous than in the UK, are not particularly common. More people die in car crashes and at least a dozen other ways, than die from guns, every year.

Remember...we're assuming that the goal is to save the most lives possible.

So why would you go after something that's so far down on the list?

And, within the subcategory of guns, the type that is being discussed are "semiautomatic assault rifles" which account for a grand total of 353 deaths a year. In the same year, 458 people died from incidents involving hammers...yes, framing hammers, from the hardware store.

So, still assuming that the goal is to save as many lives as possible, WHY would our government take *this* approach? It doesn't make any sense...not when viewed as a way to save the most lives possible.

The only conclusion possible is that their goal is NOT to save as many lives as possible, but that their goal is something else. As the approach they're considering is to restrict our freedom to exercise one of the basic rights spelled out in the Constitution...it makes sense to question their motives, and their eventual goal.

Don't you think?

I'd say it's because of a few reasons: First off, most of the causes above firearms on the list are diseases and various other medical problems. You can't just legislate these problems away. They take extensive research or, in the case of behaviorally caused deaths, long years of socially engineering away that aspect of culture. It is also worth noting that one of the things above firearms on the list was a lack of medical insurance, which efforts were very publicly made to remedy.


It's a thankless job trying to fix any of the other problems as well. You ask why they don't target more prevalent problems? Three of the biggest items on the list, all above firearm deaths, are Cardiovascular disease (#1 by far), Diabetes, and Kidney disease (a complication that can develop from diabetes). Since obesity is directly related to increased risk of all of the above, it sounds like we should start trying to discourage people from being fat bastards. So what are the causes of obesity? Lack of exercise and too much food intake, in particular bad foods. Well you can't force people to exercise and it would be a serious hassle to ban all unhealthy foods, so why not just ban the worst offenders? Hmmm.... science shows that the absolute worst foods are trans fats and sugars. Let's ban the trans fats and the biggest way that citizens consume way too much sugar, really big sodas. Both of these things were done by New York, in an attempt to make their population healthier and save lives, and the government was villainized and slandered as a massive nanny state from anything remotely right wing.


So why focus on firearms? Because it is a problem that can be directly targeted with legislation, and while people might cry that it's their right to wash down their trans fatty fries with a Supergulp Cola, they can all agree that they would like to not be shot to death. I would at this point ask why the right wing was almost universally opposed to both the bans in New York and the individual mandate in the healthcare legislation, both of which would save more lives by themselves than reducing gun violence. Aren't they interested in saving lives at all?

 

[Drifterwood]

The same number of people die of heart disease every two days. To put things in perspective.

So you are dumb and fat. :biggrin1:

 

[h0neymustard]

Here's some criminals following the letter of the law...NOT:
Passenger Opens Fire On Deputies With An AK-47 During Car Chase - Los Angeles Local News, Weather, and Traffic
30 round mags and pistol grips are banned in CA. So nice of the criminals to follow the law. Oh wait.

 

[balsary]

So you are dumb and fat. :biggrin1:

Reported.