Please give details

No, I might not have needed it if all guns were magically gone. But that's not ever going to happen.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/d...he-barrel.html

Then saying that the answer to stopping mass shootings is more armed citizens does not mesh with your view on how armed citizens should handle being in a mass shooting.

I'm not advocating an outright ban on guns. I'm advocating reasonable, common sense gun control.

On the contrary, stories of a heroic citizen saving the lives of others would be reported. If you can find a bunch of these, I'd be very interested. I doubt you will, though. I'm not talking about a carjacking or home robbery, either. I'm talking about someone in public with the signs of being a mass shooter (body armor, multiple weapons, etc).

If the argument is that good guys with guns carrying concealed is the right way to stop this, let's see some examples of that working.

Reasonable gun control would reserve that right. The argument of so many opposed to any gun control boils down to "There's no perfect way to prevent gun violence. We'll either take away too much freedom or not stop all the violence or they'll find other ways to kill people. We can't do anything until we know everything, and find a perfect way, so we cannot act."

Meanwhile, the NRA is blocking research so that we can know more, which preserves that argument. Of course, the argument is ridiculous. There are not any perfect solutions and there never will be. We must attempt to find the best approach to curb some violence while preserving some gun rights. I don't believe the 2nd Amendment is being interpreted properly and wouldn't mind doing away with it, but I also don't believe it's the right of the 40-60% who might agree to impose our will on the 40-60% who disagree. I also wouldn't mind owning a gun if we're going to keep it this way.

But since we're going to have guns, we must have REASONABLE gun control. That means more than we have now and less than an outright ban.

We have ways to reduce the likelihood of mentally ill people getting firearms, but the right is not willing to consider them. I'll post my ideas separately in a fresh post. Of course we won't stop all of them, and we won't prevent all killings, but we can prevent a lot of useless deaths.

I'm always happy to discuss any political issues in a reasonable fashion - it's the only way we can ever get change. I think some of what you've said is unreasonable, but I don't think it's coming from a place of trolling, so I responded.


But not as often as mass shootings here, and not as deadly... and they'd probably be less deadly here. Let's reduce our mass shootings and then if we have a knife problem leading to mass killings, we'll work on that next.

I'm less concerned with keeping guns out of the hands of those who have the connections to get them illegally and more concerned with keeping them away from mentally unstable people intent on killing many others. Yeah, drug dealers and gang members may still be able to get guns, and some innocents may be harmed as a result, but these criminals are not the ones who are walking into schools, churches, malls, and movie theaters to kill as many people as they can. I want to prevent the 16 year old mentally unstable kid who's dreaming of doing that in a couple years from being able to buy an AR-15 and six handguns and walking into a public place with them to start killing people.

Surely, we can reduce the likelihood of that with reasonable gun control.

Guns are just such a threat. Do you oppose banning bombs and grenades? Guns are much closer to hand grenades than to alcohol or weed. Much, much closer.


Important distinction here. The government is not saying that - the person evading the ban is saying that.

I'm sorry to hear you're in that part of the world and that your realities are different, but that's not the way it is in the United States and we can't base our gun control laws on the realities of the Middle East or Eastern Europe.

Further, if our government does become a threat to citizens in the future, gun owners are not going to be any match for drones, tanks, and our military. Thus, potential future tyranny should not be a basis for how we handle gun control.

No one I know has ever needed to use a gun in self defense.

My anecdote>>>your anecdote

Me asking for cites is not an automatic disagreement. It's an attempt to understand the points put forth and determine where they are coming from.

Have never carried a firearm (other than standing Watch in the Navy).


Am still alive.

I'm totally on board with the "guns are inanimate objects, it's the humans that are the problem" argument fwiw. Guns are fine, just make it illegal for humans to handle them.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-...ut-gun-control

Here is what a reasonable, comprehensive approach to preventing mass shootings could look like. Obviously each part would need to be strictly enforced. Keep in mind that while the Second Amendment gives you the right to own guns, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have to deal with some reasonable safeguards.

1. Mental health exams prior to all gun purchases. Exam certificate is good for 2 years and must be renewed. Current gun owners must undergo a mental health exam to obtain a permit to keep their weapons, then get it renewed every 2 years. The effectiveness of the annual exams could be studied to determine whether going to 5 year intervals would be too risky.

2. Ban assault weapons. This definition could be argued, and I'm no expert, but people don't need AR-15s or more than ~10-12 rounds in a clip.

3. Ban open carry. People can keep guns in their own homes but not carry them around the streets. To carry in public you should need to go through the more rigorous training and background check for concealed carry. Guns could be equipped with GPS transponders to enforce this, which is not an invasion of privacy if the gun is registered since the authorities know it's (supposedly) at home anyway. In addition, this feature could automatically alert authorities when a gun is fired outside of a shooting range or hunting area, improving response times. For hunting purposes, this policy would need some work, but there are ways to provide that exemption.

4. Make it tougher to get concealed carry permits and require annual mental health exams for those with permits.

5. Spend money on public service advertisements to destigmatize mental illness and encourage people to seek care for themselves and loved ones showing symptoms. Alternatively, offer tax credits to networks that produce and air these ads.

6. Perform a non-mandatory buyback of any weapon in the streets now if people will sign away their right to own guns in the future. This voluntary exclusion could reduce gun numbers and ownership somewhat significantly.

7. Hold anyone who provides a gun illegally to someone who commits a violent crime legally responsible for the crime. If you lend your gun to someone and they go on a killing spree, you get life in prison. Hold people who are irresponsible but don't actually give the weapon to someone (ie, it's not locked up and their kid takes it) responsible to a lesser extent - perhaps 1/5 of the sentence the crime itself would get.

8. Fund research into alert systems to shorten response times to mass shootings. We should look into alarms that detect the sounds of gunfire (decibel level, audio signature, etc), the scent (this is being researched to catch bombs in airports) and the shock waves created by gunfire. They could be placed in public schools and purchased by private schools or any other place where large numbers of people are. Perhaps this cost could be subsidized. Perhaps there could be systems to trigger an automatic lock down, although I'd imagine this would be quite expensive.

9. Perform mental health exams of all school students in 6th grade, 9th grade and 12th grade. Provide confidential and free therapy/treatment for X sessions for those who need it, at which point they have the option whether to continue on their own through their insurance, and the care provider can determine whether they provide a significant risk to others. Yes, I understand that there are a lot of privacy issues here, but I feel that it should be discussed and considered to some degree.

10. Encourage universities to provide/require a similar system to rising juniors (freshmen will have just had it in high school).

steve- I already posted that webcomic. Yes, yes, I know it hurts your feelings. I don't give a **** about your feelings.

You don't give a **** about other people's LIVES because you need your race war fantasy dick surrogates. I'm comfortable with how that balances out.

That last link proves the point, but the others help too. Nutters going nutter with knives dramatically lessons the fatality of those attacks.

This ****nut from a few days ago didn't take six knives instead of six guns for a reason. Anders Breivik set off a car bomb and killed all his victims with legally bought guns. Columbine shooters had pipe bombs and killed their victims with legally bought guns. They all left the kitchen knives in the kitchen for a reason.

This is super duper mega unlikely. Even if you used it, which alone is super unlikely.

Is your name George?

Awesome someone finally provided a list.

1. I would be fully on board with this.

2. Banning assault weapons has been done and it accomplished literally 0 which is why the ban was allowed to lapse.

3. Definitely wouldn't really care if open carry went away outside of employment reasons. But what are you really preventing, guys that open carry don't commit firearm crimes. Lol at GPS anything on a gun, absurd to think that much money would ever be spent on a nonproblem.

4. I could get behind this in terms of class requirement and such, don't think there should be limitations based on "need".

5. All for this.

6. Doubt this would have any effect whatsoever. I don't think a buyback would work even if it didn't have your "never again" clause, that would probably even have a negative impact.

7. I could agree with the part about if you give it to someone illegally. The irresponsibile part is ridiculous, if someone breaks into your home and steals your gun safe and then uses it no way you should ever be held accountable for their actions.

8. They have systems like this for the miltary and they are absurdly expensive, where would the money come from for this?

9. Would also be ok with this.

Not necessarily. State laws vary from state to state, but for the most part the laws regarding firearms are swinging back towards a more libertarian stance. No firearm has to be federally registered unless it meets the requirements of the NFA of 1934. See below:

However, I would consider myself far removed from the typical gun owner as the majority of what I own is in fact nationally registered due to qualifying characteristics. The only time I have to provide an address is on an ATF Form 1, Form 4, or 5320.20 (not really applicable to the argument); Form 1 for the location an NFA item will be manufactured (sbr, sbs, aow, etc...), and a Form 4 for an address that the registered firearm will be transferred to. Neither of which is where the NFA registered item must be stored. So even if you wanted to round up all the federally registered guns by going to the addresses used on the forms, you'd likely find that the owner is wise enough to use different addresses for the manufacturing/transfer and the actual storage of their items. And like me, those that go through the process of attaining an NFA registered item are not the type to give them up, ever.

I lol'd. Guess I'm just unlucky like that. Used all my rungood up in Iraq I guess. Maybe that's why it's such an important subject to me because I'm here today because I conceal carry.

Would you be in favor of this changing? Why or why not?

I mean, why would keeping a record of all guns in circulation and the ability to trace all legally-held guns back to their registered owner ever be of any use

What's the longest you went in between posts without mentioning race?

Having a gun saved me from taking a severe beating, maybe death. Another time I could have used a gun to stop a robbery but I retreated. Also I am all for regulations to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill. Background checks, waiting periods, safety classes.

It doesn't but we don't want the police to be armed routinely and nor is it necessary. We do have armed police and we even have innocent people being shot sometimes as well as contentious shootings of genuine suspects but it's rare.

I can't be sure but I strongly suspect that our (UK) armed police are given a level of training in the use of firearms that is way above that of the average armed cop in the USA. It seems likely given that it's a specialization and we recognise the seriousness of having armed police.

If you haven't already you will soon find that Fly and one or two others don't approve of anything much like a civil discussion.

You get used to it after a while

Perhaps you should ask:

-Armenians in Ottoman Turkey after 1917
-Anti-Communists / Anti-Stalinist's in the Soviet Union after 1953
-Jews, Gypsies, and Anti-Nazis in Germany and Europe after 1945
-Anti-Communists, Rural Populations, and Pro-Reform Groups in China from 1949-1976
-Maya Indians in Guatemala after 1981
-Christians or Political Rivals in Uganda after 1979
-Any educated person that made it out of Cambodia from 1975-79

Lot's of good stuff in here especially destigmatizing mental health - part of that is providing care and treatment as well.

I have to wonder how effective mental health exams are when it comes to gun control. Do we have any idea how effective it is in practice?

I see. So your point is that if the government had access to this information they might somehow use it to persecute and kill tens of thousands of people.

Fair.