Gun Discussion

[InfinitusEquitas]

In light of recent events, the issue of guns, gun violence, and gun control have been a very divisive subject.

I brought up the issue, perhaps more controversially than necessary, in the "Win" thread.

It's an interesting subject that I believe deserves further polite discussion.

To kick this off, I just saw this on my facebook feed;

 

[ZRaffleticket]

For those in the US, that's why the second amendment is in place but, as stated, in light of recent events it may change.

While I'm not a fan of mentally unstable people getting guns, I'm less of a fan letting one who can't handle it ruin it for me.

 

[Cyparagon]

Insulting everyone that disagrees with your opinion is always a good way to start a civil debate.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Changing the second amendment would be problematic politically.

The Obama administration is already one of the most divisive and polarizing in history (If not the most polarizing).

For it to take on the second amendment would be hugely unpopular, specially with the same demographics it has already alienated.

It would also be impractical in a physical sense. There are over 300 million guns already out there. Even if all sales were stopped overnight, and not another gun was sold, short of having cops start to track down guns one by one, and confiscating them... too many would still be left floating around.

Ultimately new restrictions would result in punishing law abiding people, not those that really couldn't care less about the laws to begin with.

In an ideal world, before anyone is given a driver's license or a gun license, I would love for them to have to undergo mandatory 3-5, hour long sessions with a psychiatrist, a cooling off period of a week, and mandatory 20-40 hours of training/classes.

Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world, and I personally I don't believe that the government is capable of doing anything but screwing things up further.

(I work with government agents on an almost daily basis...)

 

[bennett326]

cyp to continue from the other thread. im in highschool one huge building if you go outside someone else has to let you in.

my opinion, is the processes in which you go through in order to own a gun should be increased. pawn shops, garage sales, flea markets should not be allowed to sell guns. it should be mandated that if you own a gun you also own a lockable case or safe for it.

NO automatic weapons IMO

also i dont know what it should be but we should have a caliber limit. there is no need for .50 caliber rifles.

keep in mind i like guns.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

What about limiting the kind of weapons to be carried by law enforcement personnel? Local police departments specifically.

Does a small town really need a swat team, drones, and tanks?

@Bennet - Most schools have been implementing this since late 1990's. All outside doors are closed, and only main entrance can be used for entry. That's theory.

In practice, in warm weather especially doors are left open all the time, and are generally open completely during rush times at the end, and start of the day.

Restrictions should apply either to all, or to none, with no favoritism IMO.

 

[ARG]

Not taking sides, just playing the devils advocate. :eg:

After the Port Arthur massacre in Australia gun restrictions were introduced.
Port Arthur massacre (Australia) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now if you take a look at this list
Australian mass murders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
You'll see that 16 years prior to 1996 there were seven mass murders. 16 years after 1996 there have been only two mass murders. Perhaps there is a connection between guns and mass murders? It's up to you to decide, to date there hasn't been a a study exploring the relationship between the choice of weapons for murder, the changing legal climate, and cultural attitudes. Same applies to when Canada introduced firearms restrictions in 1977. [Citation needed, I'll see if I can find it]

In Canada we have heavy gun restriction (guns can still be smuggled from the USA easily) there has been one rampage killer since the introduction of gun laws.
List of rampage killers: Americas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also if you take a look at that list you'll see that the USA list is more than a page long. Even taking into account the population ratio the amount of rampage killers is many times greater for the USA.

 

[bennett326]

What about limiting the kind of weapons to be carried by law enforcement personnel? Local police departments specifically.

Does a small town really need a swat team, drones, and tanks?

@Bennet - Most schools have been implementing this since late 1990's. All outside doors are closed, and only main entrance can be used for entry. That's theory.

In practice, in warm weather especially doors are left open all the time, and are generally open completely during rush times at the end, and start of the day.

Restrictions should apply either to all, or to none, with no favoritism IMO.

heh maybe my principal is just a hard ass because NO doors are allowed to be propped open ETC

i also think civilian magazines over say 10 rounds should be illegal. there is no point considering IIRC there is an even lower mag limit for hunting.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

What a lot of people forget about guns in the US is that unlike many other countries, there are already a lot of guns in possession of citizens. It's not a simple matter of saying they're banned like it might've happened in some other countries. Plus, with the idea that the right to bear arms in an of itself is a guarantor of the right, and others, you're not going to see the amendment struck down until shit really hits the fan--and then you'll really want those guns.

As for what guns and what kinds of guns get sold, the concentration on weapons like assault rifles really just seem like a red herring. Most gun violence involves handguns, not assault rifles. I think incidents involving assault rifles actually went down after the law banning them expired.

Also concentrating on such things as "semi-auto" feature of guns, or magazine size are equally ridiculous. Most guns are semi-auto, be they hand-guns or rifles. And what is a smaller magazine size really going to do in a massacre situation except make the gunman pack more?

These school or mall massacres are anomalies as we should expect them to be. Most incidents involving a firearm occur in poorer sections of town, usually related to gangs or crime. What would really help reduce gun violence is to work on poverty in these areas, and work on reducing the amount of firearms in such areas (like those cash for guns programs). Of course people would rather concentrate on these big events rather than the majority sources of gun violence in America.

 

[ARG]

Most gun violence involves handguns, not assault rifles. I think incidents involving assault rifles actually went down after the law banning them expired.

Citation please?

Also concentrating on such things as "semi-auto" feature of guns, or magazine size are equally ridiculous. What is a smaller magazine size really going to do in a massacre situation except make the gunman pack more?

If a guy is standing in a middle of a room shooting people and he has to reload sooner, would that not give the victims a better change at flight/fight? (I honestly don't know, how long does it take to reload a gun?)

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

If a guy is standing in a middle of a room shooting people and he has to reload sooner, would that not give the victims a better change at flight/fight? (I honestly don't know, how long does it take to reload a gun?)

Not long. For someone trained, literally seconds if they have another magazine ready to go. Also in most cases the shooter ends up just carrying more than one gun, and tossing the spent gun to move onto the next one.

The 1911 only holds 7 rounds for example, yet it is still an incredibly popular gun, where as a revolver holds six...

 

[ARG]

Not long. For someone trained, literally seconds if they have another magazine ready to go. Also in most cases the shooter ends up just carrying more than one gun, and tossing the spent gun to move onto the next one.

The 1911 only holds 7 rounds for example, yet it is still an incredibly popular fun, where as a revolver holds six...

Gotcha, makes sense that they would ditch the gun once it's empty. Makes that point moot.

Another point that is up for debate is that is guns are removed it would create another item for gangs and criminal organizations to obtain revenue from. The point kind of ties in with the whole Marijuana debate as well with legalizing that.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

Gotcha, makes sense that they would ditch the gun once it's empty. Makes that point moot.

I'm talking about spree killers only, tossing away guns, obviously.

Most cops have one fully loaded gun, and two spare loaded clips on them.

 

[dmacrae]

I don't think banning certain types of guns is going to do anything. Full auto weapons are already heavily restricted, personally to me it doesn't matter if someone's coming at me with a rifle that holds 30 rounds or 2 pistols holding 14 each plus one in the chamber. 1 bullet equals one life. What legislation could the govt. Uphold that predicts when someone's going to snap and start shooting? Jason Holmes was seemingly normal, you think if anyone had any idea of the terror he was going unleash, someone would've intervened. It's people that are dangerous. My best friend is shane simpkins. Known him my whole life, never kept a secret from eachother. I knew for a fact he would never hurt a fly. He's in prison for the rest of his life for murder. He snapped one day and that was it. Guns aren't the problem. That's like blaming Ford everytime someone crashes one of their cars.

 

[ARG]

I'm talking about spree killers only, tossing away guns, obviously.

Most cops have one fully loaded gun, and two spare loaded clips on them.

Well, spree killers are the only reasons for banning guns, right? Someone killing their ex with a gun would easily use a knife if no gun was available and cops should carry a side arm at their own digression.

 

[brad5452]

My opinion on gun laws; I feel this won't be popular, especially when people read what I have to say about the national firearms act. But anyway, here I go. Prepare for a wall o' text. Sorry for that, as well as the poor formatting. I'm typing most of this in the order you see it off the top of my head. I'll try to clean this up later. Don't expect me to cite this stuff though, I'm simply recalling knowledge I read elsewhere and adding a few opinions to it.

Since this is what's being talked about primarily today, I'll start by saying I think "assault weapons" bans are completely useless. I'm pretty sure that during the last one crime went down a little during it, but after the ban ended crime kept declining at the same rate. The economy was doing better at that time which I think is why crime went down. Crime tends to correlate with a bad economy. One reason why I doubt guns had anything to do with the lowered crime is before any bans, gun shops end up selling all of their ARs, AKs, etc. and can still be legally bought, just not made, during a ban.

So called "assault weapons" aren't used in common crimes very often anyway. It's usually pistols and sometimes shotguns in armed robberies and the like. Mostly pistols. The only reason they're brought up now is because 3 or 4 major shootings just happened in the last few months. This kind of thing doesn't happen every year, and the laws didn't get any looser this year. "Assault weapons" aren't necessary for killing anyway. Look at the White Death for instance. If I remember correctly, he killed over 500 soldiers in 100 days using a bolt action mosin nagant or similar rifle. Not great for school or mall shootings, but a serial killer sniper could pick up one of those $100 meant-specifically-for-killing-humans evil rifles (that are commonly used as hunting rifles, but for gun propaganda you need to make the gun sound evil ). They could easily kill just as many people as a mass shooter if they don't get caught to quickly.

Also, assault weapons would include things like an ordinary Glock 17 because it's standard capacity magazine holds 17 rounds of 9mm. The Glock 21 standard magazine holds 13 rounds of 45acp. The Beretta 92fs holds 15 rounds of 9mm. Those are the 3 pistols I'm thinking of getting when I'm older to defend myself. All of them are very reliable, and all of them would be banned and very expensive from an assault weapons ban. If the crazy people have all the ammo they want, I should be able to hold at least 15 rounds. If I'm a law abiding citizen, I shouldn't automatically be put at a disadvantage against the crazies.

Speaking of the crazies, guess what will happen if you take their guns? They'll either make them for small amounts of money like this $7 shotgun or they'll make thermite out of aluminum and rust, or they'll make pipe bombs. All options are cheap, easy and just as effective as guns. I'd rather deal with a guy with 15 round 9mm magazines than a material that burns 3 times hotter than lava and explosives.

Back to round capacity. If a guy changes a mag even moderately quickly, like this, who is going to notice quick enough to charge them with a knife or whatever would be legal in the case of a ban? Or would the cops have guns? They would, assuming they get there before everyone dies...

When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away! That may not be the case for you, but a federal ban would prevent people like me from being safe. My town has 1 cop who works 15 hours a week, almost all of which is spent in court. A gun ban would just screw the few law abiding gun owners around here, which would make me feel defenseless.

Enough on assault weapon bans being proposed. I think that what we currently have should be less restricted. Some anti second amendment people say that the wording of the constitution means for militias. That's not what the wording says at all, it clearly says the right of the people, not of the militia or state, but even if it did, militias are just people that meet up and aren't really regulated, otherwise it would be the military. There are others that quote founding fathers saying that the constitution should be changed every once in a while. If that means "get rid of the second amendment" to them, we may as well get rid of the first and the rest as well. Why stop at amendments? They weren't originally there anyway. Let's just make a new constitution while we're at it. Throw away all the rights you think you have.

On to the National Firearms Act. I think the part saying that full auto weapons made after 1986 should be removed. Fully automatic weapons are your worst choice if you plan on committing a crime. Good luck hitting more than one person if you're doing full auto, and your magazine will be empty in very little time anyway. In a semi automatic weapon, the reload time doesn't really matter because you have a bullet ready to go 90% of the time. If you're using a full auto weapon and spend half the time during your rampage reloading, you're a much easier target. The military just uses full auto for suppression. It's just used to keep peoples' heads down.

Besides, legal non-military full auto weapons have only been used 2 or 3 times for crime since the NFA started back in the 20's. At least one of those times it was used by a cop. Some will ask why do civilians need full auto weapons anyway? They don't. They also don't need fast cars or alcohol. Either of those two kill way more people than guns, and when mixed you have one of the leading causes of death in young people, but we don't ban those because people like them. Some people like machine guns, and with the $200 dollar tax per transfer no matter who's doing the buying or selling, and the virtually no machine gun crime, there is no reason to make it where you can only own machine guns made before 1986. Besides, asking if we need machine guns is like asking if we need high powered lasers. Yeah, I went there

The same for machine guns could be said for the legal grenade launchers and rocket launchers circulating around in the US that no one knows is legal because they're never used in crime.

Back to the second amendment and militias. They're a reason why machine guns should be legal. People say that the 2nd amendment was for hunters and the like, though the founding fathers would have seen guns as a given for that and wouldn't have felt it necessary to include in the bill of rights. The reason they put in the 2nd amendment was so citizens could protect against tyrannical governments, both foreign and domestic. By tyrannical I don't just mean taxing tea and paper without giving us voting either

Speaking of tyrannical governments, usually taking away the guns from citizens is the first thing they'd do before going crazy. People think that police could protect us from criminals, or that they have a duty to, which was proven wrong in a supreme court case which ruled police have no duty to protect you by the way, but if the police protects us from each other, who protects us from the police or the government? That would be for "militias".

Under law, a militia is basically any ordinary citizen with guns that is willing to protect the country. If the government goes crazy, we're left to protect ourselves. We can't do that effectively without guns.

While I doubt the government will go corrupt enough to need that, a few months ago I would have also doubted that a man would have shot up a showing of Batman for no reason, or that a man would have walked into an elementary school and killed a bunch of children and teachers for no reason. I doubt I'll ever have my house set on fire, but I still have smoke detectors. I doubt I'll ever get into a serious car crash but I use seat belts. I doubt that I'll ever get attacked by an armed man, and I doubt that the government will go rogue, and I doubt that another government or terrorist group or whatever will try to attack me on American soil, but I'm still going to get some guns once I move out of my parents' house (my mom hates guns).

As my closing argument for guns to be less restricted, I will simply say Switzerland. Look at their whole militia system and compare it to their gun crime statistics. People don't rob the houses of people who have so called "assault rifles." They're a better deterrent than "Protected by [insert company here]"

Again, sorry for the large post and poor formatting. Also, I barely read any of the posts in this thread, so if I find that what I said has been refuted I'll remove any necessary parts of the post.