Gun Politics

[Arcanis]

What would you suggest to help solve the seemingly constant mass murders happening in the US?

Blackhawk hit the nail on the head. Don't worry about the mass murders specifically as they are by far the smallest part of the problem, just the scariest to most people.

You start by trying to limit the ways legal guns get into the hands of criminals. The big factors here are intentional straw purchases and stolen weapons. Adding some hefty penalties to straw purchases or inadequacy securing your firearm will put the imperative on gun owners to be responsible with their weapons. This would also add the benefit of reducing accidental deaths by children getting a firearm.

You follow that up by fixing the background check system. I don't have a specific answer on this, but the fact the Orlando shooter made it through the background check system multiple times shows there there are huge flaws there. The no fly list idea has merit, but the no fly list is already so flawed it would need to be fixed before being used as part of the background check system.

After that lets see what issues there still are and address them systematically. Simply put don't react on emotion and address the scary stuff. Look at the problem and take care of the largest chunks possible.

[em2nought]

or inadequacy securing your firearm will put the imperative on gun owners to be responsible with their weapons.

So if I live in a house with deadbolts and bars on the windows that's not enough? Can I make booby traps then? I've always wanted one of those contraptions from John Wayne's Green Berets.

If we're going to penalize me this much, we better damn well have background checks for people buying bolt cutters, or bump keys off the internet.

[GreenGoo]

What would you suggest to help solve the seemingly constant mass murders happening in the US?

Blackhawk hit the nail on the head. Don't worry about the mass murders specifically as they are by far the smallest part of the problem, just the scariest to most people.

I'd probably be ok with ones and twos picking each other off. No one is ok with wholesale slaughter in elementary schools. Just as I'm mostly ok with cars killing thousands each year, but not ok with someone driving a semi into a diner.

[gbasden]

You start by trying to limit the ways legal guns get into the hands of criminals. The big factors here are intentional straw purchases and stolen weapons.

Why do you not consider the gun show loophole to be an issue? If I can sell a gun to anyone without requiring ID or a background check, doesn't that make it a lot easier for undesirables to get their hands on weapons? Why do purchases through a gun store need scrutiny, but selling the same weapon in a different venue blindly is A-OK?

[hepcat]

or inadequacy securing your firearm will put the imperative on gun owners to be responsible with their weapons.

So if I live in a house with deadbolts and bars on the windows that's not enough? .

not unless you lock your children out too.

[Blackhawk]

What would you suggest to help solve the seemingly constant mass murders happening in the US?

Blackhawk hit the nail on the head. Don't worry about the mass murders specifically as they are by far the smallest part of the problem, just the scariest to most people.

I'd probably be ok with ones and twos picking each other off. No one is ok with wholesale slaughter in elementary schools. Just as I'm mostly ok with cars killing thousands each year, but not ok with someone driving a semi into a diner.

The ones and twos add up to tens of thousands of deaths. The wholesale slaughter leads to hundreds.

[The Meal]

You start by trying to limit the ways legal guns get into the hands of criminals. The big factors here are intentional straw purchases and stolen weapons.

Why do you not consider the gun show loophole to be an issue? If I can sell a gun to anyone without requiring ID or a background check, doesn't that make it a lot easier for undesirables to get their hands on weapons? Why do purchases through a gun store need scrutiny, but selling the same weapon in a different venue blindly is A-OK?

Because it's hard.

[GreenGoo]

The ones and twos add up to tens of thousands of deaths. The wholesale slaughter leads to hundreds.

Wasn't I clear? I would prefer to stop slaughters. People can shoot each other over a parking spot all they want.

[em2nought]

or inadequacy securing your firearm will put the imperative on gun owners to be responsible with their weapons.

So if I live in a house with deadbolts and bars on the windows that's not enough? .

not unless you lock your children out too.

Children being ignorant to how firearms work is why children end up shooting their playmates, but you'll be happy to know that I'm not a breeder. Unless there's some ugly blonde child that I don't know about playing in the back room over at the Korean massage parlor that is.

[Arcanis]

or inadequacy securing your firearm will put the imperative on gun owners to be responsible with their weapons.

So if I live in a house with deadbolts and bars on the windows that's not enough? Can I make booby traps then? I've always wanted one of those contraptions from John Wayne's Green Berets.

If we're going to penalize me this much, we better damn well have background checks for people buying bolt cutters, or bump keys off the internet.

Did I define adequate? This is something that should be debated and discussed before being defined into law. IMO it should require at least 1 more lock within your castle* if not on your person. And Hep hit the other reason on the head. You don't want it easy for kids or guests in your house to get a hold on a firearm.

*Castle being as the castle doctrine defining your home, car, etc...

You start by trying to limit the ways legal guns get into the hands of criminals. The big factors here are intentional straw purchases and stolen weapons.

Why do you not consider the gun show loophole to be an issue? If I can sell a gun to anyone without requiring ID or a background check, doesn't that make it a lot easier for undesirables to get their hands on weapons? Why do purchases through a gun store need scrutiny, but selling the same weapon in a different venue blindly is A-OK?

First the fact is if you are selling more than a couple of guns a year you get classified as an illegal gun dealer. The ATF doesn't give a specific number but the guidelines make it pretty clear that they can pop you for virtually any sale if the circumstances around it lead them to believe you are doing so for illicit purposes. Second from a practicality standpoint is that there is no realistic way for a private citizen to do a background check. I actually went to the FBI web site and started navigating the process to see if I could perform a NICS check. The very first line on the enrollment for asks for your FFL number. So if you want to close the "gun show loophole" you need to circle back to fixing the background check system and include the ability for a person performing a private sale to actually do a background check.

I was curious enough to go through everything I had found and in the linked PDF above they give the official answer to how you are intended to do a check for a personal sale if you choose to do one:

What if I don’t need to be licensed, but I want to make sure a
background check is run on a potential purchaser of my gun?
Private, unlicensed sellers can help ensure that potential purchasers are not prohibited
from possessing firearms by using a licensed dealer to facilitate the sale and
transfer of a firearm. For a small fee, many licensed dealers will facilitate a sale of
a firearm between two unlicensed individuals. This service provides both customers
and the community assurance that individuals who want to purchase firearms
undergo a comprehensive background check which helps to ensure the buyer is not
prohibited from possessing a firearm, and can improve the ability of law enforcement
to trace firearms if they are later recovered in a connection with a crime. In
2013, ATF published an open letter ) to
licensed dealers educating them on how to facilitate private sales, and published
ATF Procedure 2013 – 1 ), which provides
further guidance. The decision to facilitate private sales is wholly voluntary on the
part of the licensed dealer

[Arcanis]

The ones and twos add up to tens of thousands of deaths. The wholesale slaughter leads to hundreds.

Wasn't I clear? I would prefer to stop slaughters, People can shoot each other over a parking spot all they want.

While the slaughters are horrible. I'd prefer to spend the effort on eliminating the largest number of deaths first. IMO trying to stop the mass shootings before getting the more generalized problems under control is wasting effort. Anything you do to address the general issue will have an impact on the mass shootings, though it admittedly may not be a significant one, but the reverse is not true. Many of these mass shootings will require very specific changes to prevent them and some will be out right unpreventable. As long as there are firearms available, legally or illegally, there is always a way for someone to shoot multiple people. It is virtually impossible to stop a motivated individual from causing significant damage unless they are stupid.

edit: grammar are difficult.

[hepcat]

or inadequacy securing your firearm will put the imperative on gun owners to be responsible with their weapons.

So if I live in a house with deadbolts and bars on the windows that's not enough? .

not unless you lock your children out too.

Children being ignorant to how firearms work is why children end up shooting their playmates, but you'll be happy to know that I'm not a breeder. Unless there's some ugly blonde child that I don't know about playing in the back room over at the Korean massage parlor that is.

Laws aren't created for one person.

[Blackhawk]

The ones and twos add up to tens of thousands of deaths. The wholesale slaughter leads to hundreds.

Wasn't I clear? I would prefer to stop slaughters. People can shoot each other over a parking spot all they want.

I would prefer to stop people from dying.

The mass shootings are extreme cases of people going to extreme lengths with significant advanced planning. That makes it almost impossible to actually stop, given that the nation is already saturated with millions of guns, and no law that we're going to pass is going to make those vanish. Sure, we might pass laws to make it more difficult and we might cut the numbers by a third, saving dozens of lives.

With that same amount of effort and enforcement, though, we could be saving thousands.

[em2nought]

Laws aren't created for one person.

That's good since we already have 20,000 gun laws on the books. None of those stopped actual criminals of course because by definition criminals don't obey laws.

[hepcat]

Laws aren't created for one person.

That's good since we already have 20,000 gun laws on the books. None of those stopped actual criminals of course because by definition criminals don't obey laws.

Not even the gun law that prevents those on terrorist watch lists from buying firearms.

...oh wait, that one isn't a law.

p.s. 20,000? Try 300.

[em2nought]

Laws aren't created for one person.

That's good since we already have 20,000 gun laws on the books. None of those stopped actual criminals of course because by definition criminals don't obey laws.

Not even the gun law that prevents those on terrorist watch lists from buying firearms.

...oh wait, that one isn't a law.

p.s. 20,000? Try 300.

There wouldn't need to be any terrorist watch list if there was an "associating with known terrorists" internment camp.

...and I don't think the dude was on the watch list at the time he purchased the firearms?

[RunningMn9]

None of those stopped actual criminals of course because by definition criminals don't obey laws.

/whew

That makes things so much easier. Just abolish all laws. Laws don't stop criminals anyway (by definition), so why bother?

[hepcat]

Wait, there are still people who think laws are intended to completely stop crime with no margin for error?

[Blackhawk]

Abolish the laws and stop all crime in one grand action. It's so simple!

[Isgrimnur]

If It's Not Against A Law, How Can It Be Crime?

[GreenGoo]

The ones and twos add up to tens of thousands of deaths. The wholesale slaughter leads to hundreds.

Wasn't I clear? I would prefer to stop slaughters. People can shoot each other over a parking spot all they want.

I would prefer to stop people from dying.

We can't have everything.

[Blackhawk]

Exactly! And I choose the greater good instead of the greater feel-good.

[GreenGoo]

Exactly! And I choose the greater good instead of the greater feel-good.

Well that depends. I think 49 people dancing and having a good time is a greater good than a mom who leaves her gun in the reach of her toddler. I have no interest in protecting people from themselves. Not all casualties are created equal.

[Rip]

Exactly! And I choose the greater good instead of the greater feel-good.

Well that depends. I think 49 people dancing and having a good time is a greater good than a mom who leaves her gun in the reach of her toddler. I have no interest in protecting people from themselves. Not all casualties are created equal.

But that really isn't the choice is it? The choice is 49 people dancing having a good time or 49,000 toddlers from careless parents. Which is also what it is, not protecting people from themselves.

[GreenGoo]

I'm less interested in solving gun casualties that those who insist on owning guns inflict on themselves than I am in preventing wholesale slaughter.

Hopefully that clears it up. I'm not particularly interested in solving statistics.

Gang warfare is not inherently a gun problem, as one example.

[Enough]

So the latest crime numbers are up for Colorado and I found this, while unsurprising, is still a giant underline of how f'd up we are on gun violence. We are as likely to die by gun in this country as by car, and thanks to public safety efforts for cars, guns could easily go into the lead.

Colorado residents were most likely to be killed in their homes by someone they knew who had a gun. Of the 172 homicides last year, 70 percent of the people who died knew their killers whether they were acquaintances, spouses or parents; 55 percent happened inside a residence; and 66 percent were shot to death.

And I draw inspiration from the falling auto accident numbers. We didn't ban cars and I have hope we don't need to ban guns to get ahead here. We need to end the federal research prohibition on gun violence and let the best of our public health gurus sink their teeth into the data like they have with transportation. Let's insure those guns and have the insurance actuary data geeks apply their algorithms as well. It's a place to start.

[Zarathud]

Insuring guns would force gun owners to take personal and financial responsibility.

[LawBeefaroni]

Insuring guns would force gun owners to take personal and financial responsibility.

And like automobile insurance it would force safe, responsible owners to subsidize the unsafe, irresponsible ones. Not saying that's a good or bad thing, but the burden usually falls on those who take personal and financial responsibility rather than those who don't.

[Enough]

Insuring guns would force gun owners to take personal and financial responsibility.

And like automobile insurance it would force safe, responsible owners to subsidize the unsafe, irresponsible ones. Not saying that's a good or bad thing, but the burden usually falls on those who take personal and financial responsibility rather than those who don't.

I'm not sure that is any more or less fair than the fact all of society pays that subsidy right now and I know I wouldn't want a world where car insurance was optional. We can do this. We have to do something.

[Zarathud]

Alternatively, mandate that gun owners join a "militia group" in their state which must be insured. That would be closer to the original intent of the Constitution but require rolling back precedent extending gun ownership as an individual right.

Loners are less likely to join a group, and a well regulated militia would have an incentive to report to authorities those who appear likely to commit violence or show mental instability.

[Arcanis]

Alternatively, mandate that gun owners join a "militia group" in their state which must be insured. That would be closer to the original intent of the Constitution but require rolling back precedent extending gun ownership as an individual right.

Loners are less likely to join a group, and a well regulated militia would have an incentive to report to authorities those who appear likely to commit violence or show mental instability.

Penn explains the false logic in arguing it is a militia right and not individual.

[Pyperkub]

reason wonders whither the NRA on the Castile shooting?

The Second Amendment exists, and it isn't just for white Americans. In the wake of the Philando Castile shooting, the police need reminding of that.

But perhaps some gun rights advocates need reminding of that as well...

...It seems fairly clearly, then, that Castile is in some sense a Second Amendment martyr: He was killed by a police officer because he was exercising his rights. We know, of course, that these kinds of things are more likely to happen to black Americans, regardless of whether they were doing anything wrong.

I would think it would be the easiest thing in the world for gun rights advocates to condemn this senseless killing. And yet, as I write this, the most important gun rights organization in the country hasn't said a word. The NRA's Twitter feed makes no mention of the Castile shooting, even though it's been a trending topic all day.

[Arcanis]

reason wonders whither the NRA on the Castile shooting?

The Second Amendment exists, and it isn't just for white Americans. In the wake of the Philando Castile shooting, the police need reminding of that.

But perhaps some gun rights advocates need reminding of that as well...

...It seems fairly clearly, then, that Castile is in some sense a Second Amendment martyr: He was killed by a police officer because he was exercising his rights. We know, of course, that these kinds of things are more likely to happen to black Americans, regardless of whether they were doing anything wrong.

I would think it would be the easiest thing in the world for gun rights advocates to condemn this senseless killing. And yet, as I write this, the most important gun rights organization in the country hasn't said a word. The NRA's Twitter feed makes no mention of the Castile shooting, even though it's been a trending topic all day.

I really wish they would speak out on this. The only reason I can think that they wouldn't is they are terrified of defending the victim and being branded anti-cop and/or facing issues if more information later reveals it was a justified shooting somehow.

[Smoove_B]

I guess I figured the NRA would have a giant throbbing erection over what happened. I mean, the guy died carrying a legal handgun...just like the patriots did that founded our nation. Or something.

[GreenGoo]

My guess is that the running commentary over the years has been legal gun owners are allies of law enforcement officers versus criminals. They don't really have a nice compact narrative that covers cops (the good guys) versus legal gun owners (also the good guys).

The whole premise for legal gun ownership kinda falls down when the good guys start using them on each other.

Normally there is an easily identified "bad guy" to put all the blame on. The cops get a pass by default. At the worst it ends up being an unpreventable "tragedy" with no one to blame.

[Holman]

Alternatively, mandate that gun owners join a "militia group" in their state which must be insured. That would be closer to the original intent of the Constitution but require rolling back precedent extending gun ownership as an individual right.

Loners are less likely to join a group, and a well regulated militia would have an incentive to report to authorities those who appear likely to commit violence or show mental instability.

Penn explains the false logic in arguing it is a militia right and not individual.

That video is silly.

Penn claims that the "Militia" and "the people" are being strictly contrasted in the 2nd because "the people" had just fought a war against the British army. He reads the amendment to imply that the new state's militia will be "well-regulated" (kept in check) by the fact that the common people are well-enough armed to resist them. In other words, the Constitution encourages armed resistance against its own authority.

Leaving aside the fact that a justification in government tyranny would have been presented as plain language about government tyranny (rather than its very opposite, the "necessity" of a militia "for the security of a free State"), Penn seems to want to hang it all on the comma after "State," which he says proves a distinction between militia and people as separate, opposed entities. It doesn't; it marks the end of introductory phrasing and the beginning of the main clause, which is what commas do.

It doesn't help that Penn does it all with his usual arrogant conviction that anyone who doesn't see it his way is an idiot.

[RunningMn9]

That is a stupid interpretation. That ignores everything else the founders wrote at the time.

[LordMortis]

If lone nuts seeming to go off the hinge nearly daily doesn't lead to a discussing that affects change for the better, do you think that an organized mass shooting of cops might?

/Let something good come out of that shit in Dallas.

[Smoove_B]

If lone nuts seeming to go off the hinge nearly daily doesn't lead to a discussing that affects change for the better, do you think that an organized mass shooting of cops might?

Doubtful as there are probably more than a few people that feel the police had it coming. I've said it repeatedly - if we didn't collectively do something as a nation after a lunatic went into school and shot 20 kids that were 6 and 7, I'm not sure what else could happen that would spark a change - but it sure won't be an organized killing of police officers.

[hepcat]

The fight fire with fire viewpoint will always ensure someone wants a lighter and a gas can.