Some facts about guns in the US

Actually statistically speaking with the number of Nuclear Reactions in existence on Earth compared to number of Firearms there is a much GREATER likelihood of something going wrong. Remember a nuclear reactor is just very controlled nuclear bomb.

I realize it is hard for you to understand, but one is an action that you know will endanger others. The other is simply keeping a possession. Now if you compared driving a car while intoxicated to shooting a gun while intoxicated then you would have a correlation.

Driving while intoxicated is one of the definitions of driving unsafely. You are performing an action that has been known to endanger lives even when a driver is acting with full faculties while yours are diminished.

Owning a gun is the same as owning a car. The simple possession of the item is harmless to everyone. It is only when the item is misused that it becomes a problem. And in that case it is the person to blame not the item.

I trust that my explanation has clarified your error, if it has not I suggest suing your elementary school.

 

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See, there's that paranoia I was talking about.

 

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Modern nuclear reactors cannot go prompt critical, thus they cannot be bombs. They can, of course, have a lot of other problems.

But for the third time - if people are going to get them anyway, why regulate them?

So you are saying that if you do something that is likely to put someone else at risk, it's OK to pass a law against what you want to do, even if you haven't harmed anyone?

OK good, you've conceded that.

Having accessible guns in homes with children is also one of the definitions of unsafe gun ownership. You are performing an action that has been proven to have killed hundreds of children.

OK fair enough. So we deal with them like we deal with cars. We require training before anyone can buy a gun; then they get a gun license. We register them so we can make sure they are maintained safely, not given to criminals, not allowed to be used by children etc. And we require insurance so that if you do injure someone else, they can be compensated for their injuries/losses.

Your explanation has actually been one of the better arguments for stricter gun controls.

 

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First off, I'm going to need a citation on that Janet Reno quote. A cursory search only show a debunking page. Never mind that Janet Reno hasn't held the office of attorney general since 2001! Who is the gun control bogey man that has you so spooked? Who in power today? Ninety nine percent of gun violence committed with illegally obtained guns? Another citation needed on that one. And "great military minds of the past" don't really concern me much; paranoid nut jobs with lots of guns concern me much more. If you think that the only thing keeping our countries borders safe are the numbers of firearms in the hands of civilians, you may just be delusional. You're especially delusional if you think countries like Australia are in danger of mass executions because civilian gun ownership there has been severely restricted. That is literally crazy talk, as in something that someone with some sort of paranoid disorder would say.

 

I have conceded nothing. I merely pointed out that your correlation in wrong. You are equating an action taken with an object to owning an object. This is a logical fallacy. Owning a hammer is not the same as beating someone to death with it.

Being irresponsible with an item you own is your own lookout. If you are stupid enough to keep an item in the reach of your children that is not my responsibility. Yes it does seem callous, but honestly more children drown every year than are shot. Under your ideas you would ban pools and swimming, and even bath tubs. We don't however, we expect people to use some common sense. Common sense says watch your children when they are around dangerous things and teach them that certain things are not toys.

We do not need or want the Government to come in and tell us what we can and cannot do in our own homes if we are not hurting others. Want to regulate how I drive my car on government roads? I'll support that. Want to tell me if I assault someone I go to jail? That's fair. You want to tell me that I am not allowed to own a weapon? Sorry, there is the line. You don't have the right to do anything like that until it directly impacts you. My owning a gun does nothing to you, unless you're idiot enough to attack me with intent to kill. But then the results of that are on your head, as I wasn't the aggressor.

What we need is to just hold people responsible for their actions. Want to own a Browning M2HB? Sure, just know that if start anything you will be put down. Makes so much more sense than what we do now, which really only helps illegal weapons traffickers line their pockets.

 

It is normally weak, in public discourse,

being based on Zimmerman fantasies of good guys shooting bad guys who are bent on evil,

but limiting oneself to the weak and nutty cases fails to address the issue - and reading this thread one can hardly help but notice a prevalence of specious arguments, bad stats, and unwarranted assumptions on the part of the "gun control" advocates.

You need the percentage of first offense gun crimes committed by people who had not committed any other serious crimes. My guess is that it's not nearly "all".

This entire approach (grouping it with the statistical comparison of guns shooting threatening criminals vs guns shooting family members, etc) overlooks the normal defensive role firearms play, which does not involve brandishing or firing the gun.

Burglary of an occupied dwelling, for example - one of the most dangerous crimes - is generally rare in areas where most occupied dwellings are known to have a firearm handy. And coming the other way, we have the example of the abuses suffered by systematically disarmed black and red people in the US over the years - has the world changed that much in so short a time?

In a world of guns "used" legitimately and well in defense of home and family and self, pretty much the only people getting shot, threatened, etc, would be victims of accident, crime, etc.

None of that is true of cars. You can buy a bunch of cars and keep them in your barn without any of that stuff - even drive them around on your property. The only people who need that stuff are people who want to drive their cars around on the public streets at will - and people who want to fire their guns - or even just carry them - on the public streets at will do face a host of requirements and regulations, even outright forbidding.

Meanwhile, car ownership, let alone driving, is not a Constitutional right.

And every time that argument is made, a good share of the American public is reminded of the manner in which car privileges are used for leverage by an intrusive and often arbitrary State. Most gun owners also own cars, and they have been abused by these systems.

The authoritarians who want to confiscate the guns of Americans are kind of spooky. That simply cannot be done in America without serious and large scale abrogation of civil rights - a prospect that does not seem to bother them much.

And that is in fact the agenda, both public and private, of a large and loud fraction of the "gun control" folks.

Prediction: Take that agenda off the table, quit making scary arguments from public health and the like (blanket justification for all manner of abuses), and ordinary common sense regulation will meet much less resistance after a while

 

Question: Does anyone actually know a non-criminal who had his/her gun confiscated (by the government) for any reason?

I hear all this talk about confiscation, but not a single example of actual confiscation is ever offered as evidence that proves anything other than that stricter gunlaws would be beneficial to the general population.. Let's not forget, a firearm is a long range weapon with a killing range much greater than the length of a car which is designed to get you comfortably from your house to the store.

 

New York State under the NY SAFE Act thee was a mass confiscation of Pistol Owner ID cards and associated weapons of people whose only crime was being prescribed anti-depressants. These people had passed rigorous background checks and had no criminal record.

In Connecticut they are calling for the surrender of all weapons with magazine capacity of 10 or more rounds. They passed the law in closed session and the first notice anyone had that they needed to apply for a license was the letter sent out that said they missed the deadline. Several Connecticut LEOs have already stated they cannot wait to stat kicking in doors an take the weapons. I should note that several .22L rifles have a non-detachable magazine that can hold 10+ rounds and according to the state definition are assault weapons.


In history the most famous gun confiscations were done in Germany prior to the establishment of concentration camps, Russian prior to the Purges, Cambodia prior to the Killing Fields, and so on. These are actually historical events. And while I do not believe that someone is setting up a mass killing, I would rather not tempt history into repeating.

 

I'm no doctor but if people are prescribed drugs for a mental condition then it would seem best that they don't possess a lethal weapon.

Why would you need a weapon with more than 10 bullets in it? Surely that makes little sense, even for self-defense.

The US is a democracy and doesn't compare to those situations you mentioned.

 

Not sure if it's a national law, or just state by state... But, here in California, if you are prescribed any psychotropic meds, you can't legally own any firearms for 5 years. Of course this doesn't mean you can't obtain one...

 

That makes sense to me, Gremmie. I mean, I wouldn't own a gun even if I could, which I can't, but if guns are common you'd want to keep them out of the hands of people who are unstable.

Obtaining a gun illegally must be a serious offence, though, and few law-abiding people (most of us) wouldn't want to do that.

 

Well, you can't drive your car while "under the influence" . You may not like it, but there was "cause". You seem to forget that these laws are passed as a result of debates by the "people's representatives".

Again, you use that scary word "they" as if "they" is the enemy. 'They' are the people's elected representatives and it is their duty to find remedies for "public endangerment" and I hope you agree that "compelling public interest", should trump "personal rights".

Interesting to note that in spite of "their" attempts to keep us from our guns, gun sales are the highest in history and the NRA is very happy.

 

It is a serious offense... But, many, and I mean many, have illegal weapons here. One of the reasons I get angry when people say all law enforcement is shit. We face death every day. You never know who is packing. I've been shot several times... Tell ya this... It friggen hurts.

 

Wow, I'll bet it does. But why would a law-abiding person risk jail time for possessing an illegal weapon? After all, if you have to use it the cops are going to find out it's illegal so you'll get busted....

 

It's not just you; he's done that with several people. For what it's worth, most cops I've met have been honest and upstanding people, and generally try to do the right thing _despite_ a system that often stymies those attempts.

 

Yes such as having uncontrollable long range effects. If something goes wrong, we cannot say, "oops, I fucked up", not when your negligence has, is or will impact the lives of generations of people. Other examples of insufficient regulation, the recent chemical spills in rivers and finding 18 million tons of plastic drifting in the ocean, killing millions of fish and mammals.

A fire arm is not a toy potato gun, it is a long range killing machine. The term "a well regulated militia" is the same as saying "strictly controlled".

A gun registration which accompanies the gun and shows current gun ownership and competency (glasses?). A blind person is currently able to buy and use a gun!

Why have any regulation? How about establishing "a safe and orderly society affording maximum freedom in a confined space to the maximum number of persons"

Laws are not passed for people who behave responsibly under dangerous situations (people like you). Laws are passed to protect you against those who do not act responsibly, such as a person with a mental illness. Somebody has to check out the person moving in nex door with a machinegun mounted in the back of his truck. Or do you say, "well he hasn't bothered me so what do I care about his machine gun"?

I agree. A beginning of concensus! And we all would get to keep our sporting guns while having a "well regulated militia"

 

Of course you can. The local nuclear reactor said just that last year. No "lives of generations of people" impacted. (Other than somewhat higher electric rates due to the shutdown of the reactor.)

Well, more accurately those are examples of too much pollution, not insufficient regulation. You could pass ten times the laws and have even worse pollution. The trick is regulation that works and does not cause more harm than good.

Agreed. And again, creating GOOD regulation is the key, not just creating more.

Well, the best option there is to go over and ask him about it, which doesn't need any new regulations.

 

These people had possessed these weapons for some years and are law abiding citizens. NONE of them had done anything illegal. It sets a dangerous precedent to seize property and suspend rights when the citizen has done nothing wrong. Would you want your computer seized because you might Hack a government system? Would you allow you sports car to be seized because you have a bottle of scotch in your home? Would you surrender you phone because you might take nude pictures of yourself? Would you surrender your Free Speech because you might say something disturbing?

Rapid fire marksman competitions, squirrel hunting, rat hunting, defending yourself against multiple attackers, because you just want the extra rounds. I don't need to justify to you why I might want or need ten or more rounds. Just because you lack the ability to imagine when they might be desirable does not negate their legitimate legal usefulness.

Actually the US is a Republic, much like Germany was at the time, the USSR at the time, Cambodia at the time. Oddly they all claimed to be democracies too.

 

I think I stand by what I said. If someone's circumstances change and they become mentally unstable it would seem to be sensible to remove lethal weapons from their possession. The other scenarios are not relevant.

Maybe for the marksman competition, but the rest seem convenient rather than necessary. How many times has anyone actually shot ten times in self-defence?

The US government is not about to start purging its citizens, and if it wanted to the citizens would get purged anyway.