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US gun debate: Obama unveils gun control proposals

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Well, thanks for a lesson on the laws that banned these weapons. But that doesn't answer the question, which is why those particular weapons are banned (you did indeed answer this about early machine guns, but that isn't relevant to later bans because Bonnie and Clyde were, you know, kinda dead).

Why were those weapons banned, but not handguns, shotguns, and semi-automatic rifles? What are the substantial differences between these groups of weapons that causes one group to be banned and the other legal?

Well I was slightly wrong. In 1934 I believe they just needed a tax stamp but the tax was $200 a year in 1934 which was prohibitively expensive. By 1986 there were very few people who owned these weapons.

The main reason is that very few people owned these weapons and they were therefore easy to ban or place restrictions on. There was no data regarding their lethality.
 
I'd prefer a roadblock or two between me and the dude that's going to shoot me, if it's all the same to you.

I'm sure it might help you sleep better at night, but the truth of the matter is that if an insane person wants to kill there isn't enough regulation in the world that can stop that person. There are wills and ways.
 
Borrow a gun. Steal a gun. Buy one on the black market. A roadblock can be driven around.

And if you had penalties in place for the people that borrowed those guns, etc, you'd have far less of that going on. Basically anything that happens to your gun you're on the hook for it. If it gets stolen and you don't report it within say a week you're also on the hook for it. If you report it stolen and an investigation turns out you sold it to someone under the table, you're on the hook for it.


I'm sure it might help you sleep better at night, but the truth of the matter is that if an insane person wants to kill there isn't enough regulation in the world that can stop that person. There are wills and ways.

This is statistically an asinine assertion. Yes you can't stop every one of them, but roadblocks do indeed stop some cases. Not every violent crime that happens is someone who can meticulously plan things or went through them for weeks or would be able to figure out the black market. There are quite a lot of crimes of passion.... People at the peak of depression sometimes aren't exactly the most driven sorts... they just reach out for what's easily available.
 
I think the NRA's position has more to do with the fact that many of these proposals (e.g., the assault weapons ban (which isn't really a ban), 10 round limit) actually do very little, if anything, to help curb gun violence. And this I kinda have to agree with. If you ask a parent what would make them feel safer if a crazy person invaded their child's school - a 10 round limit to magazines or an armed guard in the school - I think the choice is pretty clear. I think the most meaningful proposals have to do with mental health and background checks.

There will never be enough guards to prevent suicidal wackos from murdering a bunch of innocents. The potential targets are infinite.
 
I'm sure it might help you sleep better at night, but the truth of the matter is that if an insane person wants to kill there isn't enough regulation in the world that can stop that person. There are wills and ways.

Woah... why even have laws?

That's it, folks, pack it up. Show's over.
 
And if you had penalties in place for the people that borrowed those guns, etc, you'd have far less of that going on. Basically anything that happens to your gun you're on the hook for it. If it gets stolen and you don't report it within say a week you're also on the hook for it. If you report it stolen and an investigation turns out you sold it to someone under the table, you're on the hook for it.

And I noticed you didn't address my black market point. You will see black market gun sales skyrocket if this passes. Essentially, he's giving even more power to criminals and this eerily is starting to resemble Mexico's gun issues.
 
Except that this is all demonstrably false. No one is saying that it will completely eliminate problems! Duh. . . . it will just severely reduce the problems. Look at Japan. Look at UK. Look at Norway. Look at Germany. Look at Australia.

Objective statistics prove you completely wrong. But hey ignore that because the fetish must be served.

According to wikipedia:

"The buyback purchased and destroyed more than 631,000 firearms, mostly semi-auto .22 rimfires, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns"

I remember at the time my dad got rid of a couple of guns he had. He wasn't happy about it initially, but when given the choice between money for his family and something he didn't really need it became pretty easy.

631000 less guns floating around is in my opinion generally not a bad thing.
 
I don't know why you guys don't adopt the laws we have here in Australia.

A mandatory psych test and firearm safety course before you get your license.

All firearms must be locked up in a safe when not in use when you finally get your license. I think half these loons shooting up the joint just steal their guns from their friends/family.

Everybody wins?
 
If we do the reverse and ban the hand guns, what do you suppose would happen?

A shit ton people who have handguns and vote. The only reason we're talking about an assault weapons ban instead of a semi-automatic handgun ban is because the assault weapons ban is easier.
 
I'm sure it might help you sleep better at night, but the truth of the matter is that if an insane person wants to kill there isn't enough regulation in the world that can stop that person. There are wills and ways.

I understand reality, i'd much prefer to hear that the dude with the orange hair that shot up the theater I was in had to steal his guns from a meth dealer rather than he bought them at the gun show down the street an hour earlier.
 
Except that this is all demonstrably false. No one is saying that it will completely eliminate problems! Duh. . . . it will just severely reduce the problems. Look at Japan. Look at UK. Look at Norway. Look at Germany. Look at Australia.

Objective statistics prove you completely wrong. But hey ignore that because the fetish must be served.

This is a false assumption by the ignorant.

Many of those countries, did not have high homicide firearm rates to begin with. If you actually look at the statistics, the gun control didn't change the homicide rate much at all in any of the countries you listed. Including Australia. (example http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/)

The biggest impact it had was on suicide. As suicide is often committed with legal firearms, where as homicide is committed with illegal firearms.

I live in Toronto, Canada. Arguably the safest metropolitan city on this side of planet earth. I can walk to the store and buy an AR-15. I will continue to be able to purchase one, even after your country has outright banned them in the next couple weeks.

So why is it, then I can buy guns you would like to ban. But Canadian are not running around blowing each others heads off? Toronto is virtually identical in population to Chicago. Why is it that Chicago had almost 9 times more homicides than we did? Even with strict gun control laws, and for over a decade, an outright ban on hand guns.

These are the questions America needs to ask itself. If they think banning guns is going to solve the fact their country is a fucking joke when it comes to standard education, healthcare and over prescribing prescription drugs to young people, nothing will change. Period.
 
That's not what we were arguing. We were arguing whether or not this would stop shootings and it most certainly will not. Not this law or any law. All of this regulation is to save face.

Sure, no law will ever stop them completely, but are you really trying to argue no law at all would lower their rate? Do you really live in some sort of black and white world where the bad men will stop at nothing to do their destruction, and those sorts are the only people that kill others?
 
Sure, no law will ever stop them completely, but are you really trying to argue no law at all would lower their rate? Do you really live in some sort of black and white world where the bad men will stop at nothing to do their destruction, and those sorts are the only people that kill others?

An assault weapons ban would have the least effect any sort of weapon type bans. More people are killed with shotguns than rifles.
 
But you controlled nothing - the end result is still the same.

Maybe you should think before posting. If the laws in the OP were passed our hypothetical felon or restricted person would not be able to buy guns at the gun show and then shoot up the theater an hour later, so the end result would not be the same.
 
Sure, no law will ever stop them completely, but are you really trying to argue no law at all would lower their rate? Do you really live in some sort of black and white world where the bad men will stop at nothing to do their destruction, and those sorts are the only people that kill others?

What I'm saying is that I do not envision a drop in mass shootings or gun deaths in America stemming from this. I think it's very fair and very sad to say that. Do you disagree?
 
What I'm saying is that I do not envision a drop in mass shootings or gun deaths in America stemming from this. I think it's very fair and very sad to say that. Do you disagree?

No, what you were saying is that no law would. You said it straight up: "Not this law or any law."

That's quite a different argument to make.
 
Maybe you should think before posting. If the laws in the OP were passed our hypothetical felon or restricted person would not be able to buy guns at the gun show and then shoot up the theater an hour later, so the end result would not be the same.

No, he would illegally obtain his or her firearms and then shoot up the theater. Ergo, the end result remains the same. That the theater and its occupants have been shot up.
 
...
These are the questions America needs to ask itself. If they think banning guns is going to solve the fact their country is a fucking joke when it comes to standard education, healthcare and over prescribing prescription drugs to young people, nothing will change. Period.

Go read the list of the 23 executive orders, and quit harping on the one you think is dumb. We get it already. We've heard it after every mass shooting for decades now.
 
Sure, no law will ever stop them completely, but are you really trying to argue no law at all would lower their rate? Do you really live in some sort of black and white world where the bad men will stop at nothing to do their destruction, and those sorts are the only people that kill others?

Hand guns were banned in Chicago for over a decade. It did 0.

People should also stop comparing America, to countries like Canada. America is a completely different country with a different culture. Gun Control is not why people do not kill people in Canada. Our Culture is. We can easily obtain guns if we want to.
 
No, he would illegally obtain his or her firearms and then shoot up the theater. Ergo, the end result remains the same. That the theater and its occupants have been shot up.

Obtaining guns illegally is not as easy as walking into the nearest Walmart and walking out with a Remington shotgun, surely you are capable of realizing this? The black market would be a compelling reason why a full scale gun ban could never work, but gun sales regulation? Be serious.
 
People should also stop comparing a fucking city-wide ban to a national ban. It really doesn't reflect well on your intelligence if you can't see the difference.

It doesn't reflect well on your intelligence if you can't look at the statistics and see banning guns made 0 impact in homicide rates in any country that has done it.

I am all for gun control. However a majority of firearm deaths are committed with illegal firearms, obtained illegally by criminals who obviously do not care what laws are passed.
 
Obtaining guns illegally is not as easy as walking into the nearest Walmart and walking out with a Remington shotgun, surely you are capable of realizing this? The black market would be a compelling reason why a full scale gun ban could never work, but gun sales regulation? Be serious.

Yet in the case of Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza walked into his mother's home and walked out with the weapons he needed.
 
Hand guns were banned in Chicago for over a decade. It did 0.

People should also stop comparing America, to countries like Canada. America is a completely different country with a different culture. Gun Control is not why people do not kill people in Canada. Our Culture is. We can easily obtain guns if we want to.

It is a cultural problem and this is coming from an American. I've been saying this for years.

People should also stop comparing a fucking city-wide ban to a national ban. It really doesn't reflect well on your intelligence if you can't see the difference.

Chicago is a pretty big indicator and a large sample size. So are you saying a national ban on semi-automatic weapons will decrease gun deaths? Because you'd be dead wrong. Hand guns and shotguns are the bigger problems.
 
This is a false assumption by the ignorant.

Many of those countries, did not have high homicide firearm rates to begin with.

To begin with? What is this 'to begin with'? They didn't have a time with lots of guns to compare with. You are comparing against a non existent baseline. And it is not like they are non-violent countries. The UK has lots of violent crime. They just don't have people getting killed all the time because they don't have guns.

If you actually look at the statistics, the gun control didn't change the homicide rate much at all in any of the countries you listed. Including Australia. (example http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/)
How many mass shootings have there been like that Tansmania disaster since then? Oh . . . none.
What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks. Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here’s the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/20...hooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.html

If that is failure then bring on some failure!

The biggest impact it had was on suicide. As suicide is often committed with legal firearms, where as homicide is committed with illegal firearms.
Oh damn! The suicide rate went down! Oh noes! We can't let that happen!

BTW . . . What are these mass shootings like Adam Lanza, that guy who shot the firemen in New York, and others? . . . . . SUICIDES!
 
I am all for gun control. However a majority of firearm deaths are committed with illegal firearms, obtained illegally by criminals who obviously do not care what laws are passed.

Are there stats for US crimes committed with legal vs. illegal. While I know they are not the norm, these mass shootings all seem to have been committed with legally obtained weapons. Columbine is the only one I can think of with illegally obtained guns.
 
Chicago is a pretty big indicator and a large sample size.

Sample size doesn't fucking matter. They don't stop you at the borders to a freaking city. People come and go at will whenever and however. City-wide restrictions on damn near anything won't do shit. It's a lot harder to get something that's banned and heavily regulated into a country than just a city.


Are there stats for US crimes committed with legal vs. illegal. While I know they are not the norm, these mass shootings all seem to have been committed with legally obtained weapons. Columbine is the only one I can think of with illegally obtained guns.

I'd like to see that, too, though I do know a good amount are illegally obtained. Most of them are through things like straw purchases. If we really kept track of our guns and put in place penalties for someone whose gun was used in a crime like that, then we could reduce the amount of people willing to put their ass on the line and straw purchase a gun for someone.
 
To begin with? What is this 'to begin with'? They didn't have a time with lots of guns to compare with. You are comparing against a non existent baseline. And it is not like they are non-violent countries. The UK has lots of violent crime. They just don't have people getting killed all the time because they don't have guns.


How many mass shootings have there been like that Tansmania disaster since then? Oh . . . none.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/20...hooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.html

If that is failure then bring on some failure!


Oh damn! The suicide rate went down! Oh noes! We can't let that happen!

I find a couple things you said hilarious.

First you tell me that all those countries did not have many guns to begin with, so I can't possibly compare them. Then you went on to do the very same comparison with Australia, that you told me I could not do. WHAT? Your argument that those countries did not have many guns to begin with, is EXACTLY why gun bans will not work in America. How can you not see this?

Second. What you linked does not attribute the drop in homicides to gun control or banning of guns. They directly attribute it to their gun buy back program. They had gun control and bans in placed PRIOR to this drop in homicides. Your very article is arguing for my point over yours.

Third, Australia had 1/100th the amount of firearms America has. In 1996, one of their worst years for homicides. They totaled a whopping 516. Thats right. 16 more than Chicago alone. Since the BUY-BACK PROGRAM, which America already has in various states. They average 300. Not since gun control, not since gun bans.


Here is a paper from the University of Melbourne that concludes gun-control had little impact on homicides - http://www.ssaa.org.au/capital-news/2008/2008-09-04_melbourne-uni-paper-Aust-gun-buyback.pdf

If you think, a country like America. With hundreds of millions of guns. Is somehow going to drop it's murder rate by 25 percent because they banned Assault Weapons. Which the FBI attributes less than 100 murders a year with. You are insane.
 
I'm sure it might help you sleep better at night, but the truth of the matter is that if an insane person wants to kill there isn't enough regulation in the world that can stop that person. There are wills and ways.
Insane people aren't rational, they are insane. Putting a regulatory framework in the way of gun access does help to keep guns from the mentally unstable. It won't stop your brevik's, but it will help stop your lanza's. If lanza's mother had kept those guns in a safe then there's a good chance
Connecticut wouldn't have happened.

There is no law that can protect absolutely, but to borrow the gun lobbies analogy, people can speed in cars, but they generally don't thanks to legislation/enforcement and that saves lives.
 
Two thoughts:

1. Banning "military style" assault weapons and limiting clip size are stupid. The bad guy will have plenty of time to prepare an arsenal ahead of time and bring plenty of clips. It does nothing to him but could potentially hinder those responding to him.

2. Of course making it harder to get guns will reduce gun crime.

The Columbine killers got their guns from a friend (who bought it at a gun show) and from private sales. That brings up two issues.

First, there should be stronger laws against buying guns for someone who isn't allowed... if the punishment was greater, maybe their friend wouldn't have done it.

Second, there should not be loopholes for gun shows and private sales. The killers' friend herself said she would not have bought the guns for them if she had to go through a background check to do so.

I can't believe anyone is seriously arguing against point 2.
 
I'm sure it might help you sleep better at night, but the truth of the matter is that if an insane person wants to kill there isn't enough regulation in the world that can stop that person. There are wills and ways.
Your Anders Breiviks will still exist, but your George Zimmermans, your Adam Lanzas, and your random neighborhood burglars won't be able to kill, if you don't make guns so easily accessible (legally or otherwise).
 
Sample size doesn't fucking matter. They don't stop you at the borders to a freaking city. People come and go at will whenever and however. City-wide restrictions on damn near anything won't do shit. It's a lot harder to get something that's banned and heavily regulated into a country than just a city.




I'd like to see that, too, though I do know a good amount are illegally obtained. Most of them are through things like straw purchases. If we really kept track of our guns and put in place penalties for someone whose gun was used in a crime like that, then we could reduce the amount of people willing to put their ass on the line and straw purchase a gun for someone.

Right. Nation wide bans in America have such an awesome track record. People stop at the border and give up all their banned goods right to the police.
 
I'm sure it might help you sleep better at night, but the truth of the matter is that if an insane person wants to kill there isn't enough regulation in the world that can stop that person. There are wills and ways.

By that reasoning, the gun under your pillow won't help you either.
 
The ten-round thing is kind of dumb.

As far as the executive orders go, #13 (about law enforcement) seems oddly vague, in a way I don't like.
 
What we want to do, at least, is stop the people who don't *really* want a gun. We want to stop someone from buying guns for their (prohibited) friends because it is so easy and casual, with not even a background check. We want to stop the casual gun owners who don't protect their guns and have them easily stolen by criminals. Get rid of the loopholes and require effective background checks, stop making it so easy to get guns that you'd practically have to go out of your way to avoid them, and we'll cut down on the number that reach the wrong hands.

And keep in mind, guns in the hands of such casual owners, who would be stopped by background checks or possibly training checks (not sure on that), does no good. They are not prepared to use them properly. But it does harm. Because they give them to bad people and have them stolen by bad people.
 
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