Shooting discussion devolves

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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Formless »

Simon_Jester wrote:Seconded. And there'd be spinoff benefits.

Banning guns just means there are no guns. It won't stop the same crazy person from going on a killing spree with a knife, or a bomb, or a car in a crowded area. Statistically speaking that might save lives (guns are more dangerous), but it won't fix the problem.

Whereas a list of people too dangerous to trust with lethal weapons would also be useful for other purposes. We could use it to keep track of which people ought to have a social worker checking up on them every X months to make sure they're taking their meds and living sanely. We could use it to keep track of which people should not be hired for jobs where their mental issues might make it hard for them to get along with the public.
Heh. This reminds me of the way the Secret Service handles potential assassins. Its sad that for some of these people, it seems that the fastest way to get help is to just threaten a politician's life.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Kamakazie Sith »

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:I'd be willing to agree to legislation requiring all firearms to be locked up at all times except for one per adult in the household, which must either be on their person or else must be physically in their own home where it is stored with the firearm in easy access to the individual, i.e., if you leave your house without taking your gun with you, you have to lock it up.
The District of Columbia had this provision under the Firearms Control Act of 1975. This provision was ruled unconstitutional under Heller vs. District of Columbia and later this ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Channel72 »

Simon Jester wrote:
Channel72 wrote:Yeah, there's basically no good reason. The real reason rabid gun-fans want to own guns is basically (1) they just like shooting for sport, or (2) it makes them feel manly because they grew up watching John Wayne movies or Die Hard and so they're a product of the stupid gun culture in this country, or (3) they're just paranoid neurotics who think everyone is out to get them and/or the government is teetering on the edge of becoming a tyrannical dictatorship at any second.
I find the choice of the word "rabid" interesting. "Rabid" means "has rabies" and implies "is dangerous to others." Someone who is indiscriminate, violent, and who can't be reasoned with.

Is a man who collects rifles and has several dozen firearms locked away in a room in their house "rabid?" What, exactly, is the threat here?
Stop pretending that my use of the word "rabid" is somehow inappropriate. You've had enough experience on Internet forums to know that "rabid" is just a derogatory stand-in for something like "zealous" or "fanatical".
Simon Jester wrote:
Channel72 wrote:Really, the only remotely reasonable excuse to have a gun is if you live or work in a dangerous area, like an inner-city area, where there's a good chance you could be mugged (or raped in the case of women.) Even in that case, there's alternatives to guns: pepper spray, stun guns, etc.
Of course, this is exactly the area where most criminals get their hands on illegal guns and shoot people with them, so by easing gun restrictions in cities you're totally defeating the purpose of your own gun legislation.
Which is why gun legislation alone isn't sufficient: you also need a large-scale effort to reduce the amount of guns in circulation so it becomes more difficult for criminals to acquire them.
Simon Jester wrote:Someone recently pointed out that in rural areas, there's a similar danger: if you call the police, they can't get there for a long time. You have to fend for yourself if you are attacked, either by an animal or by a criminal. That changes the "should I own a gun" equation.
Law enforcement response time might be something we need to take into account when writing firearms legislation. Regardless, a small percentage of the population lives in remote rural areas so it's not that significant of a problem. Also, again, when it comes to fending off attackers, there are alternatives to firearms such as pepper spray and stun guns, and the frequency of wild-animal attacks is probably too low to bother significantly influencing legislation (i.e. the number of fatalities related to inner-city gun violence far eclipses the number of bear attacks in Montana.)
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Lonestar »

Channel72 wrote:Law enforcement response time might be something we need to take into account when writing firearms legislation. Regardless, a small percentage of the population lives in remote rural areas so it's not that significant of a problem. Also, again, when it comes to fending off attackers, there are alternatives to firearms such as pepper spray and stun guns.
You can live in an urban area and still have the police take a wee bit too long. I have a buddy who called the cops because a guy who was renting a room in his house was selling weed, and he wouldn't leave when he told him to. Dude started screaming/breaking shit, his GF called the Cops, and they ended up sitting in their bedroom for 20 minutes with his shotgun pointed at the door. This was in Fairfax County, which is a pretty well urbanized area.

Sometimes, cops are just slow.

Also, spraying pepper spray in a confined space is a invitation for trouble, and stun guns may or may not be effective.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Channel72 »

Lonestar wrote:You can live in an urban area and still have the police take a wee bit too long. I have a buddy who called the cops because a guy who was renting a room in his house was selling weed, and he wouldn't leave when he told him to. Dude started screaming/breaking shit, his GF called the Cops, and they ended up sitting in their bedroom for 20 minutes with his shotgun pointed at the door. This was in Fairfax County, which is a pretty well urbanized area.

Sometimes, cops are just slow.
Well yeah, the police response-time argument isn't that compelling. Even in New York City, the average police response time is around 7 minutes. It only takes a few seconds for someone to break down your door and shoot you, and not that much longer to catch you off guard and stab you or something. The point is, a determined criminal can act quickly and flee the scene before the police arrive; guns simply make a criminal's job easier and provide a criminal with the means to overpower multiple people at once.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by fordlltwm »

I've always thought that the criminals use guns argument was a red herring since criminals, by virtue of breaking the law to become such, aren't going to care if they break a couple of other laws to carry a gun. Banning anything only effects the lawful users, unlawful users don't care, and will laugh the next time someone tries to use the Government Sanctioned (tm) tea towel to try and stop them robbing the person / their home.


No I've never held anything more dangerous than an air rifle, neither am I an American, thus not heavily invested either way, but trying to claim gun control would be a pain for burglars etc is just daft.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Lonestar »

Channel72 wrote:Well yeah, the police response-time argument isn't that compelling. Even in New York City, the average police response time is around 7 minutes. It only takes a few seconds for someone to break down your door and shoot you, and not that much longer to catch you off guard and stab you or something. The point is, a determined criminal can act quickly and flee the scene before the police arrive; guns simply make a criminal's job easier and provide a criminal with the means to overpower multiple people at once.

Yeah, it does make a criminal's job easier, if the other guy(s) don't have firearms as well.

Unless you live in a studio apartment, it's a pretty dubious claim that someone can force in your(locked and dead-bolted) door quicker than you can retreive a firearm for home defense. Sliding glass doors might be easy to break in quickly, but not everyone has them.
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

The District of Columbia had this provision under the Firearms Control Act of 1975. This provision was ruled unconstitutional under Heller vs. District of Columbia and later this ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court.
AFAIK that was explicitly because the law lacked an exemption to keep a gun available for home defence, KS.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Simon_Jester »

Channel72 wrote:
Simon Jester wrote:I find the choice of the word "rabid" interesting. "Rabid" means "has rabies" and implies "is dangerous to others." Someone who is indiscriminate, violent, and who can't be reasoned with.

Is a man who collects rifles and has several dozen firearms locked away in a room in their house "rabid?" What, exactly, is the threat here?
Stop pretending that my use of the word "rabid" is somehow inappropriate. You've had enough experience on Internet forums to know that "rabid" is just a derogatory stand-in for something like "zealous" or "fanatical".
OK, so is this rifle collector "zealous" or "fanatical?"

Seriously, do you expect to make any progress on gun control in the US if you refuse to compromise or even listen to people who say "I have a large gun collection, I have a hobby that involves guns, I don't want my guns taken away, but I'm willing to deal on issues X, Y, and Z for the sake of the children's safety?"

Because it sounds like you're not going to compromise or listen. Not if "rabid," "zealous," and "fanatical" are the words you use to describe someone who says "I don't want to give up thousands of dollars worth of property because someone else uses similar devices to commit crimes."
Simon Jester wrote:
Channel72 wrote:Really, the only remotely reasonable excuse to have a gun is if you live or work in a dangerous area, like an inner-city area, where there's a good chance you could be mugged (or raped in the case of women.) Even in that case, there's alternatives to guns: pepper spray, stun guns, etc.
Of course, this is exactly the area where most criminals get their hands on illegal guns and shoot people with them, so by easing gun restrictions in cities you're totally defeating the purpose of your own gun legislation.
Which is why gun legislation alone isn't sufficient: you also need a large-scale effort to reduce the amount of guns in circulation so it becomes more difficult for criminals to acquire them.
To me it suggests that this is why gun legislation alone isn't sufficient: the places where a person might want the means of self-defense most are also the chronically unsafe places. The ones where a black market in guns will exist if it exists anywhere at all.

Therefore, I argue, the whole issue is a red herring, trying to buy up all the guns in America, or even a significant fraction of them, isn't going to solve the problem.

But heck, don't take my word for it. Let's just apply basic arithmetic. Assume it's a good plan. There are roughly 250 million firearms in America, right? How much are you planning to pay to buy up each gun?

At 100$ per gun, poor families might bite, temporarily depressing gun ownership in cities. At that price, buying up half the guns in America would cost 12.5 billion dollars. And there'd still be enough floating around to cause about as many problems: with 99% or more of the guns in America not being used to commit crimes in a given year, I doubt getting rid of half the legally owned guns will take half the guns out of the hands of criminals. All you've done is make it so that 98% of those guns are not being used to commit crime. Maybe 95%. Not very effective.

If you could buy all the guns you'd solve your problem for 25 billion dollars, right? But wait! Most guns cost more than 100$ in the first place, and many have serious sentimental value to their owners. No way are you going to get rid of all guns in America for that price tag. The real cost would probably average to several hundred dollars per gun, especially when administrative overhead is covered, plus the cost of securing all those firearms.

We could easily be looking at a 50-100 billion dollar program, or more.

Doesn't America have better ways to spend its money right now? I bet we could accomplish about as much by spending those dollars on poverty relief and health care.
Law enforcement response time might be something we need to take into account when writing firearms legislation. Regardless, a small percentage of the population lives in remote rural areas so it's not that significant of a problem.
This small fraction of the population also owns a disproportionate number of the guns. And tends to get very tired of politicians writing federal laws to deal with local problems which don't affect them. Why should people living in rural Vermont be affected by a law designed to suppress street crime in St. Louis and Detroit? Why would you even want to pass a law aimed at St. Louis and Detroit and have it affect rural Vermont?

And this is part of the story of why impoverished rural voters keep electing Republican senators who vote against their economic interests... not all, but part.

Why would anyone put up with this kind of arrogant clown-policy that totally ignores their very existence when it comes time to write the laws?
Channel72 wrote:Well yeah, the police response-time argument isn't that compelling. Even in New York City, the average police response time is around 7 minutes. It only takes a few seconds for someone to break down your door and shoot you, and not that much longer to catch you off guard and stab you or something. The point is, a determined criminal can act quickly and flee the scene before the police arrive; guns simply make a criminal's job easier and provide a criminal with the means to overpower multiple people at once.
It only takes a minute for someone to break down your door and stab you to death, and the police can't get there in time to save your life...

And you consider this an argument for NOT wanting means to defend yourself against someone trying to stab you? "The police can't save you, so there's no point in trying to save yourself?"
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Kamakazie Sith »

Lonestar wrote:
Channel72 wrote:Law enforcement response time might be something we need to take into account when writing firearms legislation. Regardless, a small percentage of the population lives in remote rural areas so it's not that significant of a problem. Also, again, when it comes to fending off attackers, there are alternatives to firearms such as pepper spray and stun guns.
You can live in an urban area and still have the police take a wee bit too long. I have a buddy who called the cops because a guy who was renting a room in his house was selling weed, and he wouldn't leave when he told him to. Dude started screaming/breaking shit, his GF called the Cops, and they ended up sitting in their bedroom for 20 minutes with his shotgun pointed at the door. This was in Fairfax County, which is a pretty well urbanized area.

Sometimes, cops are just slow.

Also, spraying pepper spray in a confined space is a invitation for trouble, and stun guns may or may not be effective.
Well, 20 minutes for the initial complaint (landlord/tenant/drug problem) is typical - it would be a priority 4 in my city. 20 minutes for what evolved into an active domestic isn't good. In Utah the average response time for priority one calls (crime in progress, life in danger, etc) is 5 min and my city is medium size.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Kamakazie Sith »

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
The District of Columbia had this provision under the Firearms Control Act of 1975. This provision was ruled unconstitutional under Heller vs. District of Columbia and later this ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court.
AFAIK that was explicitly because the law lacked an exemption to keep a gun available for home defence, KS.
Here's the SCOTUS comments on it. Though after reading your statement again what you said doesn't violate that, so I apologize.

Lock it up if you don't take it with you when you leave - wouldn't be unconstitutional according to the wording below.

(3) The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition – in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute – would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional. Because Heller conceded at oral argument that the D. C. licensing law is permissible if it is not enforced arbitrarily and capriciously, the Court assumes that a license will satisfy his prayer for relief and does not address the licensing requirement. Assuming he is not disqualified from exercising Second Amendment rights, the District must permit Heller to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home. Pp. 56–64.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Kamakazie Sith »

http://www.demandaplan.org/fatalgaps

Shows what kind of records are in place to prevent the mentally ill from acquiring firearms.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by weemadando »

Can someone please fucking explain how the "well regulated militia" part disappeared from the discussion?

Wouldn't the various reserves and National Guard fall under this category? Why is the obsession with the second part? Wasn't keeping and bearing arms contingent on being able to form a militia? When you have organised and equipped militias in the form of the state Guard units, surely that's it covered?
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Kamakazie Sith »

weemadando wrote:Can someone please fucking explain how the "well regulated militia" part disappeared from the discussion?

Wouldn't the various reserves and National Guard fall under this category? Why is the obsession with the second part? Wasn't keeping and bearing arms contingent on being able to form a militia? When you have organised and equipped militias in the form of the state Guard units, surely that's it covered?

In 2008. Heller vs. District of Columbia made that specific distinction when SCOTUS ruled "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."

Prior to that in 2003, U.S. v. Emerson. However, in 1939, U.S. v. Miller the courts ruled "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a [sawed-off shotgun] at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly, it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense." which is something the courts held onto since 1791.

Another issue comes up when individual states drafted their own constitutions with their own take on the 2nd amendment. For example Utah says "Article I, Section 6. [Right to bear arms.]
The individual right of the people to keep and bear arms for security and defense of self, family, others, property, or the state, as well as for other lawful purposes shall not be infringed; but nothing herein shall prevent the Legislature from defining the lawful use of arms.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Sea Skimmer »

The US military reserve system is not a militia system in any way shape or form, forget about that one. The National Guard is legally defined as a part of the militia, and one which actually is legally not in line with the original constitutional powers for militia, because it is not trained by the states, nor are its officers only appointed by the states. Also the federal government amended the militia act so that it could be sent overseas, which was once one of the most explicit distinctions between militia and regular forces, and destroyed any pretext that it provides for a reliable local defense. This is also at odds with the constitution that only says the militia can be used to suppress rebellion, repel invasions and execute the laws of the nation. Note that one US invasion of Canada was stopped dead by the militia refusing to enter Canada in the war of 1812. They also much more recently further amended the law to remove state control of the national guard, even in times of an emergency within the state. The power to deploy the national guard overseas was upheld by the US Supreme Court, the power of the feds to control it within the states is an outstanding case. The court also upheld the second amendment as an individual right, so none of this actually matters.

But anyway, about a dozen US states do maintain formal state defense forces, which are legally militia subject to federal call up only for duty within the United States, but the US Federal government provides them with no funding. None of them have any serious size. You would find much interest in expanding these forces and establishing new ones, but what do you think the odds are the Obama administration will support funding for such a force as part of a balanced attempt at gun control in the US?

Now if you look at the actual Militia Act of 1903 which created the National Guard, it happens to address things rather plainly anyway.
http://www.alternatewars.com/Congress/Dick_Act.htm
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the militia shall consist of every able-bodied male citizen of the respective States, Territories, and the District of Columbia, and every able-bodied male of foreign birth who has declared his intention to become a citizen, who is more than eighteen and less than forty-five years of age, and shall be divided into two classes—the organized militia, to be known as the National Guard of the State, Territory, or District of Columbia, or by such other designations as may be given them by the laws of the respective States or Territories, and the remainder to be known as the Reserve Militia.
So the national guard was never intended to be the only militia, and has only mutated further and further away from being able to serve as a real one in anything like the intended role. That is a real problem.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Channel72 »

Simon_Jester wrote: OK, so is this rifle collector "zealous" or "fanatical?"

Seriously, do you expect to make any progress on gun control in the US if you refuse to compromise or even listen to people who say "I have a large gun collection, I have a hobby that involves guns, I don't want my guns taken away, but I'm willing to deal on issues X, Y, and Z for the sake of the children's safety?"

Because it sounds like you're not going to compromise or listen. Not if "rabid," "zealous," and "fanatical" are the words you use to describe someone who says "I don't want to give up thousands of dollars worth of property because someone else uses similar devices to commit crimes."
My hyperbolic use of the word "rabid" is just a derogatory reaction to the stereotypical, outspoken, gun advocate who believes that the 2nd Ammendment was handed down to us from Mt. Sinai or something. But of course I'm willing to compromise. I'd prefer a total ban of civilian firearms, but I realize that's not realistic. My proposed solution is to aggressively attempt to reduce the number of guns in circulation and legislate stricter laws for legal sales as a short-term solution, and invest in education, social safety nets, and mental health research as a long-term solution.
Simon Jester wrote:
Channel72 wrote:Which is why gun legislation alone isn't sufficient: you also need a large-scale effort to reduce the amount of guns in circulation so it becomes more difficult for criminals to acquire them.
To me it suggests that this is why gun legislation alone isn't sufficient: the places where a person might want the means of self-defense most are also the chronically unsafe places. The ones where a black market in guns will exist if it exists anywhere at all.

Therefore, I argue, the whole issue is a red herring, trying to buy up all the guns in America, or even a significant fraction of them, isn't going to solve the problem.
No, it won't solve the problem but it will likely mitigate the problem. As I showed earlier, there is an observable correlation between the number of guns in circulation and the number of gun-related fatalities. You responded by questioning whether a reduction in the number of guns in circulation would lead to a corresponding reduction in murders overall (presumably, you were implying that criminals would adapt by using other means to kill people.) I said: yeah, reducing the availability of guns will probably result in more stabbings as we've seen in England and China, but it would also likely still reduce the number of overall murders because at the end of the day, killing someone with a gun takes MUCH less energy, planning and physical prowess than stabbing someone with a knife. Again, there are no "drive-by stabbings", and stabbing someone to death never results in collateral injuries. A gun enables a single attacker to easily over-power multiple people.
Simon Jester wrote:But heck, don't take my word for it. Let's just apply basic arithmetic. Assume it's a good plan. There are roughly 250 million firearms in America, right? How much are you planning to pay to buy up each gun?

At 100$ per gun, poor families might bite, temporarily depressing gun ownership in cities. At that price, buying up half the guns in America would cost 12.5 billion dollars. And there'd still be enough floating around to cause about as many problems: with 99% or more of the guns in America not being used to commit crimes in a given year, I doubt getting rid of half the legally owned guns will take half the guns out of the hands of criminals. All you've done is make it so that 98% of those guns are not being used to commit crime. Maybe 95%. Not very effective.

If you could buy all the guns you'd solve your problem for 25 billion dollars, right? But wait! Most guns cost more than 100$ in the first place, and many have serious sentimental value to their owners. No way are you going to get rid of all guns in America for that price tag. The real cost would probably average to several hundred dollars per gun, especially when administrative overhead is covered, plus the cost of securing all those firearms.

We could easily be looking at a 50-100 billion dollar program, or more.

Doesn't America have better ways to spend its money right now? I bet we could accomplish about as much by spending those dollars on poverty relief and health care.
Again, there's an observable correlation between the number of guns in circulation and the amount of gun-related murders. So yeah, reducing the number of guns in circulation should help significantly - which I'd consider to be money well spent.

But I've never said that the availability of guns is the only problem we're dealing with here and it's getting tedious to repeat myself. We also need to address larger issues: again, we observe that in Germany and Scandanavia there's a lot less gun murders per gun in circulation than in the United States, meaning that unlike the US, Germany and Scandanavia have a lot of guns circulating around but way fewer murders per gun. So ideally, we'd like to somehow make the US more like Scandanavia. But unfortunately, that is hard because it requires long-term social engineering, long-term investment in education and social safety net programs, and urban renewal. This will takes hundreds of billions of dollars, and decades to pay off. So, WHILE we're working on making the United States more like Scandanavia, in the mean-time, we should ALSO be trying to reduce the number of guns in circulation. Yes, it's ultimately just a "band-aid", but it will likely save many lives in the interim, until the US is able to better address the underlying social problems.

You keep framing your argument as if "reduce number of guns/address social problems" are mutually exclusive solutions. Both of them require time, money and energy, but reducing the number of guns can produce positive results immediately, whereas addressing social problems is inevitably a long-term project.
Simon Jester wrote:
Channel72 wrote:Law enforcement response time might be something we need to take into account when writing firearms legislation. Regardless, a small percentage of the population lives in remote rural areas so it's not that significant of a problem.
This small fraction of the population also owns a disproportionate number of the guns. And tends to get very tired of politicians writing federal laws to deal with local problems which don't affect them. Why should people living in rural Vermont be affected by a law designed to suppress street crime in St. Louis and Detroit? Why would you even want to pass a law aimed at St. Louis and Detroit and have it affect rural Vermont?

And this is part of the story of why impoverished rural voters keep electing Republican senators who vote against their economic interests... not all, but part.

Why would anyone put up with this kind of arrogant clown-policy that totally ignores their very existence when it comes time to write the laws?
Because guns from rural areas often end up circulating around illegally. A large number of guns are concentrated in rural areas, and they flow into the larger cities:

In North Philly, where former hustler–turned–CeaseFire outreach worker Terry Starks says guns are so plentiful that “getting a strap ain’t nothin’,” the weapons also find their way onto the streets via suburban and rural gun owners who target the neighborhood as a high-demand market where they can easily unload arms they no longer want. “White dudes from upstate will come right up to you on the corner like, ‘I got a nine, what’ll you gimme for it?’” says Starks. “They know they get $100, $150 for it. They already got the serial number scratched off.”

So really, I don't have much sympathy for someone's "right" to stockpile weapons up in Vermont. Even if they're responsible gun-owners, which I grant is mostly the case, the lives of inner-city kids are more important than some hunter's right to stockpile firearms responsibly.
Simon Jester wrote:
Channel72 wrote:Well yeah, the police response-time argument isn't that compelling. Even in New York City, the average police response time is around 7 minutes. It only takes a few seconds for someone to break down your door and shoot you, and not that much longer to catch you off guard and stab you or something. The point is, a determined criminal can act quickly and flee the scene before the police arrive; guns simply make a criminal's job easier and provide a criminal with the means to overpower multiple people at once.
It only takes a minute for someone to break down your door and stab you to death, and the police can't get there in time to save your life...

And you consider this an argument for NOT wanting means to defend yourself against someone trying to stab you? "The police can't save you, so there's no point in trying to save yourself?"
No, the point is that whether an attacker has a gun or not, the police can't necessarily respond on time, so it's irrelevant to our discussion about gun availability. But concluding from this that we should just arm everyone is solving the wrong problem. The number of people murdered in their home (via a forced entry) is a lot less than the number of gun-related street-crime murders. We should be more concerned with reducing the number of guns in circulation overall, than in arming everyone so they can ward off the rare home invader. A good dead-bolt along with a security system is just as much a deterrent to home invasion as a gun-saavy homeowner, and pepper-spray or a stun-gun is a reasonable alternative to warding off an attacker outside of the home.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by thejester »

Thanas wrote:- Defence against the government (not gonna discuss this one because the premise is too laughable to take seriously. This isn't 1800 anymore where a few hunters could delay whole companies. If the 1st armored is coming to town, your AR-derivatives are not going to stop them).
I kind of agree with this, but this article made a good point - one of the first groups to explicitly tie the 2d Amendment to the right of defence against the government was the Black Panthers. That was their raison d'etre early on - open carry of weapons to prevent police brutality. I'm not going to pretend to know enough about whether that was justified or whether or not it worked, but it's an interesting angle nonetheless.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Simon_Jester »

Channel72 wrote:My hyperbolic use of the word "rabid" is just a derogatory reaction to the stereotypical, outspoken, gun advocate who believes that the 2nd Ammendment was handed down to us from Mt. Sinai or something. But of course I'm willing to compromise. I'd prefer a total ban of civilian firearms, but I realize that's not realistic. My proposed solution is to aggressively attempt to reduce the number of guns in circulation and legislate stricter laws for legal sales as a short-term solution, and invest in education, social safety nets, and mental health research as a long-term solution.
Personally, I feel like the hardcore devotees of the Second Amendment have been created by the perception that all gun control is just a march toward an attempt to round up all the guns. The way this issue has been handled in the past is driving a lot of people into opposition who don't have to be.
Simon Jester wrote:No, it won't solve the problem but it will likely mitigate the problem. As I showed earlier, there is an observable correlation between the number of guns in circulation and the number of gun-related fatalities. You responded by questioning whether a reduction in the number of guns in circulation would lead to a corresponding reduction in murders overall (presumably, you were implying that criminals would adapt by using other means to kill people.) I said: yeah, reducing the availability of guns will probably result in more stabbings as we've seen in England and China, but it would also likely still reduce the number of overall murders because at the end of the day, killing someone with a gun takes MUCH less energy, planning and physical prowess than stabbing someone with a knife. Again, there are no "drive-by stabbings", and stabbing someone to death never results in collateral injuries. A gun enables a single attacker to easily over-power multiple people.
I am not sure that halving the number of guns in the US would so reliably half the number of shootings, at least not reliably. Mostly because I'm not sure how to disentangle that graph you showed from the confounding variables. I wish Alyrium were here...
Again, there's an observable correlation between the number of guns in circulation and the amount of gun-related murders. So yeah, reducing the number of guns in circulation should help significantly - which I'd consider to be money well spent.
If you could get them at a low price, it would probably be worth it- which is why urban areas do engage in gun buybacks. But it might not be a cost-effective way to get rid of the large rural gun collections, which you yourself point out are a source of guns in cities. Hopefully it'd help; I'm a little unsure how much.
You keep framing your argument as if "reduce number of guns/address social problems" are mutually exclusive solutions. Both of them require time, money and energy, but reducing the number of guns can produce positive results immediately, whereas addressing social problems is inevitably a long-term project.
The big problem right now is that reducing the number of guns would cost political capital, not physical resources.

It would be so, so much less difficult to fix America's problems if we didn't have virtually every American who likes to go armed voting Republican regardless of what the Republicans do on the budget. Every time I hear a Republican say gun control is a primary issue for them, it makes me want to bang my head on the wall about the follies on both sides of the aisle.

So I for one would be willing to totally fold on gun control if it helped get a consensus on economic and social issues- and that sounds a lot easier than trying to fix both gun control and social issues.
Because guns from rural areas often end up circulating around illegally. A large number of guns are concentrated in rural areas, and they flow into the larger cities:..
You could probably get gun-owner support for punishment of this kind of gun-running a lot more easily than you could get support for just confiscating the things.

Although this is where mass buyouts could really pay off.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by ryacko »

, the power of the feds to control it within the states is an outstanding case.
I'm pretty sure it is settled under congressional bills enacted. Such as the Insurrection Act of 1807 and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. The Posse Comitatus only applies to federalized National Guard however, and pretty much limits federal powers to quash revolution.
So the national guard was never intended to be the only militia, and has only mutated further and further away from being able to serve as a real one in anything like the intended role. That is a real problem.
I interpret the intention of the reserve militia statement as stating that no male citizen, even if they aren't subject to formal military training, are part of a reserve pool of militiamen, as opposed to saying every man is a part of a militia to be subject to the auspices of second amendment.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Darwin »

Formless wrote:
Thanas wrote: Hunting (how many gun owners actually use their weapons for hunting/own hunting rifles)?
This too depends on where you live. Hunting is more valid here in Colorado, where there is actual wilderness to hunt in, then it is in a place like New York. I will note, however, that the rifles used in hunting are rarely used in crime. In fact, I would be highly unsurprised if the statistics on rifle crimes don't include hunting related crimes, such as Poaching or Want and Waste. Unlike a pistol, you can't hide one on your person, so rifles are unattractive to criminals. Plus, I can't prove this for sure but I think long gun owners are more likely to keep them in a safe when not practicing or using them.

I'm guessing shotguns are somewhere in between rifles and pistols for use in crime, if only because of their intimidating reputation and price. But that is just a guess.
The use of long-guns in violent crime is pretty much restricted to the statistical outlier of the mass shooting, and is a fraction of a percent of gun crime. The average criminal far prefers the smallest, most concealable, and cheapest of pistols and revolvers.
- safety in case of being attacked by violent animal (How many people in the USA are killed by violent animals and does a 9mm even stop a charging grizzly?)
Admittedly, there are other ways to prevent animal attacks in the woods, such as bear spray. But each method is intended for a different animal, whereas a gun is contingency that can save you from many kinds of animal when things go really south.
I'd like to see pepper spray save you from a snake or a rabid dog. Sometimes you just need the most effective method because the rest won't do the job.
- protection from massacres (how high is the risk of being massacred and how many instances are there where gun owners actually stopped massacres?)
I can't really think of any massacres that have been stopped by civilian shooters (as opposed to SWAT teams), and for good reason. Spree killers usually strike at times and public places where everyone has their guard down. Spree killers are crazy, but not necessarily stupid. They plan it this way.
What spree killers do is target 'gun free zones' because they know they will not receive resistance there.
Here's a page with citation. It's a lot, and when potential mass shootings are stopped by a civilian vs a law enforcement officer, the number of casualties is on average 12 fewer. http://dailyanarchist.com/2012/07/31/au ... tatistics/
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by Darwin »

Simon_Jester wrote:
Channel72 wrote:My hyperbolic use of the word "rabid" is just a derogatory reaction to the stereotypical, outspoken, gun advocate who believes that the 2nd Ammendment was handed down to us from Mt. Sinai or something. But of course I'm willing to compromise. I'd prefer a total ban of civilian firearms, but I realize that's not realistic. My proposed solution is to aggressively attempt to reduce the number of guns in circulation and legislate stricter laws for legal sales as a short-term solution, and invest in education, social safety nets, and mental health research as a long-term solution.
Personally, I feel like the hardcore devotees of the Second Amendment have been created by the perception that all gun control is just a march toward an attempt to round up all the guns. The way this issue has been handled in the past is driving a lot of people into opposition who don't have to be.
I think you hit on something here. I think the majority of supporters of gun control (well aside from not understanding the issue entirely) do not support it as a stepping stone to tighter and tighter restrictions until finally a total (or near total) ban, but the leaders of the gun control movement have essentially said in the public that this is their goal, and history and examples from other countries certainly back up that fear. The pro-gun side so vehemently resists ANY gun control that doesn't actually make total sense (like background checks and mental health restrictions and storage laws) for this reason.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

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ryacko wrote:
So the national guard was never intended to be the only militia, and has only mutated further and further away from being able to serve as a real one in anything like the intended role. That is a real problem.
I interpret the intention of the reserve militia statement as stating that no male citizen, even if they aren't subject to formal military training, are part of a reserve pool of militiamen, as opposed to saying every man is a part of a militia to be subject to the auspices of second amendment.
I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but the original militia acts of 1792 required all members of the militia (defined then as all able-bodied males from 17-45) to equip themselves with specified arms and equipment.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by PeZook »

thejester wrote: I kind of agree with this, but this article made a good point - one of the first groups to explicitly tie the 2d Amendment to the right of defence against the government was the Black Panthers. That was their raison d'etre early on - open carry of weapons to prevent police brutality. I'm not going to pretend to know enough about whether that was justified or whether or not it worked, but it's an interesting angle nonetheless.
Doesn't this argument kind of assume ALL citizens will rise up in a righteous fight against the government, though?

Because it seems to ignore the fact that in any remotely realistic (ie. "not Red Dawn") scenario, the LOYALIST faction will also be armed thanks to 2nd amendment magic...and may or may not be ready to commit violence on the rebels with the guns that are supposedly there to keep the government in check.

Not all rebellions are justified by a righteous fight against opression, either. My own country used to have the right to revolt outright guaranteed as a freedom for the nobility, and it led to nothing but problems.
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by ryacko »

Beowulf wrote:
ryacko wrote:
So the national guard was never intended to be the only militia, and has only mutated further and further away from being able to serve as a real one in anything like the intended role. That is a real problem.
I interpret the intention of the reserve militia statement as stating that no male citizen, even if they aren't subject to formal military training, are part of a reserve pool of militiamen, as opposed to saying every man is a part of a militia to be subject to the auspices of second amendment.
I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but the original militia acts of 1792 required all members of the militia (defined then as all able-bodied males from 17-45) to equip themselves with specified arms and equipment.
Minor edit: excise "no" from before male citizen

Yes, but the original militia acts, were they ever enforced?
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Re: Shooting discussion devolves

Post by White Haven »

WHILE ("A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state" = true)
LET "Armedcivilians" = true

By which I mean it's been a long time since the 2nd amendment as actually written has been relevant. Do I support blanket bans? Nope. But I support a free discussion of the subject without one side being able to hide behind a constitutional amendment that has quite clearly expired by its own language.
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