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Gun Control Laws

TheTwinAndreBen said:
No. Probably just a few hundred crazies that would absolutely defy the law. Let them hole up Waco style and then we will send the national guard in and exterminate them, simultaneuosly getting rid of moronic redneck and proving that the domestic weapons for sale will never offer any protection against our military.
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You're seriously underestimating how many people would defy that law. A complete ban on guns could trigger a Civil War in this country.
 
WakeForestRanger said:
You're seriously underestimating how many people would defy that law. A complete ban on guns could trigger a Civil War in this country.
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Nobody (except Shoo) is suggesting a complete ban. Just very strict regulation. Lawful, responsible gun owners should be the most enthusiastic ones about strict control
 
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I know a dude who owns at least, and this is no joke, 3,000 guns (his wife is loaded so he spends her money on guns). And he is one of the most unstable, dangerous people I have ever known. I'm waiting for the day when he kills someone (I just hope it isn't me - he is my wife's ex-bf afterall, and I stole her from him). But he did acquire the guns legaly (as far as I know) and does have a top secret security clearance.
 
Wrangor said:
My thoughts on gun control and American rights:

The original intent of making sure that citizens could bear arms was to prevent government over-reach. That is really no longer applicable. Handguns and semi-automatic weapons aren't going to stop the US government if they decided to lock down on the population. The technology gap between owning a hand gun and what our military has access to is too large. So I see no need in gun laws that are supposed to ensure the safety of the population against the government. Based on that notion I see no reason for the general population to own a gun that cannot be used for hunting. Manual loading shotguns and rifles are pretty much all that need to be readily available to the public. Perhaps we could allow some handguns in rare, heavily monitored situations, but in reality the sooner we get rid of them the better. I Think it is pretty clear there is still a large need for guns to hunt both for recreation and for food (a lot of people in Mississippi kill a few deer each winter and eat off them for the next few months). But we no longer need to look at guns as a method of self defense. The sooner the cops are the only one with guns, the better in my book. That way if someone is caught with a handgun they go to jail for a LONG Time. No matter what they have done. Criminals would be afraid to get caught with a gun much less use it. The penalties should be severe.
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Holy shit I agree with Wrangor. Except that I would ban guns. All guns. Immediately.
 
bobknightfan said:
This country loves violence. Look at the movies, the video games, the infatuation with war, etc. Yet let Janet Jackson flash a nipple for half a second and everyone goes crazy.
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I don't know that we love violence as much as we have trivialized it. We mourn things like Benghazi and ignore the body bags coming back from the Middle East every month. We grieve with this, it makes people physically sick, yet we (myself included) watch violet movies and play violent video games. Maybe you are right, but I choose to believe that the response today confirms that we hate violence, we are just dismissed from the reality of violence.
 
We live in a society who will not show streakers on television to deter them from doing it, and yet this kids' name and picture will be all over the place...
 
Despite the tragedy of what happened today, the real issue isn't killing sprees by severely mentally ill people. It's the constant violence that takes place daily on a smaller scale. What happened today is not really related to the big problems that guns create for this country.
 
seventwofour said:
Despite the tragedy of what happened today, the real issue isn't killing sprees by severely mentally ill people. It's the constant violence that takes place daily on a smaller scale. What happened today is not really related to the big problems that guns create for this country.
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I wouldn't necessarily go that far, but I see your point.
 
Baconwfu said:
The UK homicide rate is like 1.6/100K to the US 4.2/100k, so obviously it's lower than the US, but comparing just gun crime is stupid.
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THAT much lower? Come on, now.


We all know that we are a nation of fucked up people, so pretty easy access to weapons that have the capacity to kill in large numbers is probably not a good idea.
 
Baconwfu said:
The UK homicide rate is like 1.6/100K to the US 4.2/100k, so obviously it's lower than the US, but comparing just gun crime is stupid.
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Why is it stupid? We could compare death by dentist, but much like guns we have them here and they don't.
 
Wrangor said:
My thoughts on gun control and American rights:

The original intent of making sure that citizens could bear arms was to prevent government over-reach. That is really no longer applicable. Handguns and semi-automatic weapons aren't going to stop the US government if they decided to lock down on the population. The technology gap between owning a hand gun and what our military has access to is too large. So I see no need in gun laws that are supposed to ensure the safety of the population against the government. Based on that notion I see no reason for the general population to own a gun that cannot be used for hunting. Manual loading shotguns and rifles are pretty much all that need to be readily available to the public. Perhaps we could allow some handguns in rare, heavily monitored situations, but in reality the sooner we get rid of them the better. I Think it is pretty clear there is still a large need for guns to hunt both for recreation and for food (a lot of people in Mississippi kill a few deer each winter and eat off them for the next few months). But we no longer need to look at guns as a method of self defense. The sooner the cops are the only one with guns, the better in my book. That way if someone is caught with a handgun they go to jail for a LONG Time. No matter what they have done. Criminals would be afraid to get caught with a gun much less use it. The penalties should be severe.
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Excellent post, Wrangor. I agree with you.
 
Stringent gun control laws can work. IMO, all handguns and automatic or semi-automtic rifles should be banned. Basic hunting rifles, and rifles used for protection in remote wilderness areas, could be permitted with strict regulation (I'll let elkman sort out the technical details). There would be a period of great difficulty, as rounding up the current massive stockpiles of guns designed specifically for person-killing would be a difficult and ugly process, but that's no reason not to do it. A significantly safer society ten years from now is worth the risk.

And, furthermore, it's entirely possible. A thriving, widely-available illegal gun market in a post-gun society is a fallacy, for several reasons.

First, economic pressures would heavily factor. Take away legality, and the value of illegal guns would skyrocket. To the average low-income criminal, an illegal gun would become a commodity far beyond their means, the first commodity sold in dire times, or the first thing stolen from them by other criminals. There have been several excellent papers published positing that gun ownership by the lower criminal class would become economically untenable within a short period of time, because the value of the gun itself would cause them to be reported, sold, or stolen and sold, and filter them upward out of the poorer classes. The government could dominate the illegal gun market through bounties, at least among the lower classes (the group most likely to use guns in random violent criminal activities). Economic realities would make the boogeyman of armed crackheads preying on an unarmed population untenable. It would be like a street thug running you down with a Bentley.

The reason that illegal guns would have such a high value is because they would, in fact, be rare. Illegal guns would be light-years easier to regulate and interdict than, say, illegal drugs. Guns are heavy, bulky, complex machines made of metal, meaning their creation, transport, and hiding would be difficult tasks. To make an illegal gun requires expertise, raw materials, production capacity, and mechanization--a serious manufacturing ability at your disposal. This would be next to impossible to pull off domestically. I see little difficulty in the ATF being able to prevent the wholesale production of firearms within our borders, giving the space and materials necessary, and the mechanical complexity involved in making a gun. This isn't growing weed in your backyard, it's building a machine from scratch. Melting and reshaping metal. Forming small, specific parts. Good luck with that in your woodshed.

That means new illegal guns would need to be imported, but that would be very, very difficult to accomplish profitably. Unlike drugs, guns are metal, and therefore much, much more easily detected by border guards and simple electronic barriers. Guns are also bulky and heavy by comparison -- you can't move guns in any quantity without serious shipping capacity-- trucks, planes, etc. That make shipments easier to detect. Given the space, complexity, and difficulty manufacturing guns, the profits margins can't compare to the 100K worth of cocaine you can grow in a jungle using unskilled labor, pack onto a donkey, and walk across the border. Running guns into the US would be an extremely difficulty, perhaps impossible process to pull off in a percentage that would make the business worth it. The costs would be astronomical. Every gun made would be the result of intense effort and labor, meaning each lost shipment would actually hurt. Basically, the exact opposite of the drug war. We have the technological law enforcement resources to win this one easily. Would there be a market for wealthy consumers? Sure, just like anything else. But those buyers aren't the main problem anyway.

Give it a few years and the domestic stockpiles would disappear under floorboards, or be rounded up, quicker than you think. If mere possession of a gun was a crime, it'd be a rare event that they were carried around, or actually used in criminal endeavors. And such possession would be an excellent predicate offense to take criminals off the street. Further, gun crimes would obvious carry much weightier penalties, discouraging their use. Suddenly, to keep your gun and stay out of jail, you could never use it. That result works just fine.

Also, ammunition would run out. Guns require bullets, and bullets are manufacture goods. That means there are two points of interdiction, which is very helpful in combating gun use.

Finally, guns are machines. Machines, at some point, break down. I understand that guns, thoughtfully maintained, can last decades, but that's with the support of total legality. Twenty years out, many weapons would begin to lose functionality. People would begin to forget proper gun maintenance methods and techniques. And anyone stashing guns for decades isn't the problem to begin with. Gun culture would have less hold.

We can get there. Other nations have shown that it's a better way to live.
 
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bobknightfan said:
This country loves violence. Look at the movies, the video games, the infatuation with war, etc. I just saw Skyfall a couple of weeks ago. It was entertaining, but the superfluous violence was over the top...and that is a mainstream movie. Yet let Janet Jackson flash a nipple for half a second and everyone goes crazy.
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We have better nipple control than gun control.
 
I think what Bacon was trying to say is that you should compare the crimes in the UK and the US by rate rather than raw numbers.
 
ONW said:
Why is it stupid? We could compare death by dentist, but much like guns we have them here and they don't.
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Damn last page post. Good point on nipple control btw.
 
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