A Gun control solution - perhaps

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Quantum Quack, Mar 7, 2018.

  1. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    No, just that guns in large crowds is generally a security nightmare. That's why large venues often have their own police or security force.
    But maybe you should fact-check your own claims: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/national-trifle-association/
    No, you're just buying into debunked nonsense from Everytown for Gun Safety, which doesn't use the FBI criteria for defining mass shootings.
    Then show me the Republicans responsible for "Black Codes." If you can't then obviously you're just lying.
    The cite them and explain how. You can't, so this is just another lie.
    They wouldn't have to actually shoot anyone to make a mess of a situation like that. The sound of a gun shot would likely be sufficient, to at least allow the leftist media to point and exclaim "ah-ha!"
    No, walking around in public is different from an enclosed venue with security that ensures weapons do not enter, like metal detectors at sporting events.
    But that story about the NRA banning guns at its convention is a lie.
    However, the NRA did not in any way ban the carrying of guns at their convention; rather, the rumor to that effect stemmed from a misunderstanding of varying convention practices, local regulations, and existing laws.

    The NRA convention is a very large event, with expected attendance in the range of 70,000 to 80,000 persons, and will sprawl multiple venues. At the primary venue, Music City Center, gun owners with proper carry permits can indeed bring their guns with them during the association’s convention. However, one of the auxiliary venues, the Bridgestone Arena (which will be hosting an NRA-sponsored concert by country music artist Alan Jackson and comedian Jeff Foxworthy), is a private venue that prohibits the possession of firearms, and attendees are bound to follow its regulations when they are in that particular arena. When attendees are at other convention locales, such as the main exhibit hall, they will be free to carry firearms in a manner consistent with state law.
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/national-trifle-association/
    Actually, police and military are protected against liability from doing their duty.
    But concealed carry permit holders are already held to a higher standard than the unarmed, in the sense that they often have to justify their use of a gun in court. So starting or egging on a dispute could be seen as brandishing or threatening if they draw their gun. Lots of existing legal liability in drawing a gun in public.
     
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  3. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, so cops in your neck of the woods run around like drunken hooligans instead of doing their jobs professionally and having to justify every action they take and every word that comes out of their mouths? Where I live, police are held to very high standards of public behaviour as well as psychological monitoring and just about every other reasonable precaution that can be taken to make sure they can be entrusted to protect and enforce the law. If you can't trust your existing police, the best solution is to demand better police from the politicians you're supposed to be electing, not to go and appoint yourself sheriff.
     
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  5. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not sure why enhanced scrutiny shouldn't be applied to people simply for possessing guns in the first place, not just carrying them around in public. If you possess a vehicle, it has to be registered and insured on the public record, so why shouldn't the same be done with guns? Everyone should have the right to know that you insist on packing heat and to take necessary precautions around you in response, especially law enforcement if they're called (heavens forbid) to come deal with you. If my neighbour has a gun and starts making some crazy angry talk about taking violent action against someone, I know they're capable of doing something very serious that cold potentially go well beyond fists and baseball bats - which would themselves be illegal to use in this manner, naturally, but far less deadly - and it should be my automatic duty to report them to mental health and law enforcement authorities, on pain of being considered an accomplice or accessory in the event something happens and proof exists that I heard something in advance.

    But in any case even if gun ownership and home storage are to be permitted without any extra scrutiny, I see no constitutional reason why you should be allowed to carry such weapons around in public (including your vehicle) and pose the obvious safety hazard that you would to everyone else, so maybe we can at least agree on that.
     
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  7. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Bork
    You live in another country, and maybe things are different there.
    You do not know our constitution, and maybe things are different there.
    We have a different history, different policing forces, and different laws, things are different there.
    Here, when a cop "accidentally" kills someone, they are almost never prosecuted.

    Example, ruby ridge
    One marshal shot a 13 year old child in the back, killing him. Another marshal(sniper) shot a woman holding her baby, killing her.
    Neither was prosecuted.

    Many more examples of cops murderously overstepping their duty.

    A few years ago, several Texas cops fired several shots/clips into a "rioting crowd of warring bikers". When asked if they hit anyone, they all said that they didn't know.

    In point of fact, cops here are not held to a higher standard, but quite the opposite as they are generally immune from prosecution.

    ergo
    In what fantasy world is that true?
     
    Vociferous likes this.
  8. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    There are millions of law enforcement officials and soldiers in the United States, and you think what a handful of cops in Texas did a few years ago means the whole system is irreparably flawed? Besides, it's entirely possible to know who shot who after the fact by looking at the imprints left on spent bullets. If you can't trust your police, that means you need to be looking for better cops and better politicians to hire and regulate them; if you can't trust your local police forces, how the heck would you be able to trust random Joes walking around with sidearms everywhere, considering that police are generally chosen from a carefully selected subset of this same population?

    In what fantasy world do you need to act like there's a zombie apocalypse, and cock your shotgun every time someone comes to your door in case they're looking to steal your emergency food stash? There are millions of guns in Canada and hundreds of thousands of criminals who often possess them, yet guns here are highly regulated and nearly everyone feels much safer knowing that most of them are in the hands of police and other lawful users. Criminals here aren't generally deterred from what they do by the possibility of homeowners having guns; they're deterred by security alarms, alert neighbours, police, and a justice system which grants far more credibility to people who haven't involved themselves in past crimes, a justice system heavily biased in favour of the wealthy people who are generally targeted for theft rather than the worthless rats who want to break in.

    Frig, even my own cousins living in a wealthy neighbourhood back in Apartheid South Africa felt safer without having guns in the house, sticking to alarm systems, security companies and police. They've been tied up and robbed at gunpoint in their own mansion by angry poor black people, and even then never thought of getting guns of their own, nor was anyone hurt when they cooperated.
     
  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Kent State
    04 may, 1970
     
  10. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Ok, and you want it to be easier for people who commit those kinds of crimes to get their hands on high-powered weapons? Where were all the cowboys when that shooting happened, and all the others before and since? How about you name me some incidents where a private armed citizen was able to prevent a mass killing, and it was prevented only because that private citizen happened to have a gun with them at the time? In this case you're referring to a National Guard shooting, which comes back to my point about holding your politicians accountable and making sure they do the same for the armed services they employ in your name.

    We've had a few school shootings and massacres occur in Canada over the years and decades as well. That's why we have well-armed police and security services patrolling public places and generally showing a high success rate of preventing potential disasters or limiting the damage once they begin. It's a lot easier and safer here to restrict gun ownership in the first place, rather than confiscating those guns when someone snaps and decides for the first time in their lives to no longer be law-abiding citizens.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
  11. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    The funny part is that a bunch of drunks with guns think they can take on the US military. Their fantasy world rocks.
     
  12. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    And why they would want to shoot at a military staffed by their own children in the first place... Unless they don't have children and they're particularly bitter about it, in which case maybe they shouldn't have guns anyhow...
     
  13. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    This follows on your "higher standards claim:

    The shooters at Kent State were National Guard. We gave them the weapons, M1 Garand rifles loaded with .30-06 FMJ ammunition and 12 Ga. pump shotguns, that they used.
    There seemed to be a problem with their training(and attitude).
     
  14. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    I edited my previous post to note that it was a National Guard shooting, but you probably were already in the process of replying by that point. I'm not going to say that you don't have legitimate concerns, it's the old "who will watch the watchers" conundrum, but for the time being, there's no perfect solution to this problem and it's a matter of picking the one which is proven to work best.

    So you have a breakdown in law enforcement, some people you trusted to protect you betrayed you instead.

    Solution 1: Forget about law enforcement- every man for himself, and every man becomes judge, jury and executioner even when the police are at his door.
    Solution 2: Hold your politicians' feet to the fire and elect people to replace them who take your security and prosperity seriously. If you feel that no one else is up to the task, run for office yourself. Then proceed to punish anyone who abuses their strict code of conduct as an officer of the law.

    In a society where millions of people have no choice but to breathe the same air and use the same roads, which seems like a more viable long-term solution? If you can't trust a security force created and monitored by the public at large or fix it when it breaks down, how do you expect to trust random strangers who take it upon themselves to enforce whatever they think the law should be?
     
  15. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    I don't.
     
  16. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Well then maybe instead of clinging to past precedent, it's time to start pushing a new culture on guns, regulations and law enforcement, in hopes of getting the laws changed and the system fixed via national consensus, instead of just giving up on the concept of civilization altogether.
     
  17. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    extending your point:
    yet that applies to every one with a gun that does not agree to be regulated by training, rules and regulation surely?
    If they arm themselves even for self defense with a gun then you are talking extrajudicial action yes? Action based on a perception at the time that is not a part of any court room.
    You have millions of gun owners that are essentially vigilantes and whether you like it or not you have to trust them... all of them. A trust that has proven countless times to be in terribly misplaced.

    "It is the inability to self regulate that requires the interference of government to begin with"~anon
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Because that would violate the Constitution, in addition to being an instrument of oppression by the nearest government or criminal gang (exactly the reason for the Constitutional provision of Rights).
    That's not true. Mere possession of a vehicle carries no such requirements.

    And that is of course the common threat, immediately perceived as such by a large fraction of reasonable people - that if gun control advocates are given an inch, they will impose the same kinds of petty tyrannies on gun owners that they feel free to impose on car drivers.
    If you demonstrate in public that you can't tell the difference between owning a gun and "packing heat", you will not be trusted with political power over reasonable people.
    There are hundreds of examples, every year, in the US, of police being held to lower rather than higher standards of gun control than civilians. Whether or not you regard that as a "flaw" is your business, but the argument you proposed fails regardless.
    It's different here, especially in more rural areas. Also, the ordinary citizen in the US is one of those "worthless rats", as you identify the non-wealthy. As persuasion, that is kind of deaf.
    If you can't find a better choice than those two, you will continue to split the majority of the reasonable and perpetuate the status quo. That's the jamb.
    Which would bring us back to reasonable and honest persuasion, employing sound argument and so forth, appealing to the sane and well informed. Liberal politics. It wouldn't even be that radical a change in pragmatic terms - the national consensus on most gun control measures already exists, for starters.

    It's worked before, as a necessary if not always sufficient factor.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2018
  19. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    If you think an AR-15 is "high-powered", you don't know much about firearms.
     
  20. Vociferous Valued Senior Member

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    Taking security seriously does nothing to improve response times. Most criminals are caught after the crime has already been committed, not prevented from it.

    When seconds count, police are minutes away.
     
  21. Bells Staff Member

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    Wait, you're citing Ruby Ridge as an example?

    Samuel Weaver was engaged in a gun battle with officers, in which an officer was also killed.

    Vicki Weaver was part of the siege of the compound, and she was killed when they were firing at her husband who was the head of the whole thing.. She was killed behind a door, as they fired at him.

    It was hardly an "example", nor would it qualify as such. The Weaver's were armed to the teeth, who also shot and killed a Marshall and held out in a siege.

    The fantasy world where you are applying a standard as an "example", while in a handwaving and round about kind of way, alluding to cases where unarmed black people are shot and killed by police, for example.. Which would actually count as examples. But the Weaver's would hardly qualify as an "example". Randy Weaver decided to ignore the law, failed to appear in court on weapons charges and decided the Government of the country of which he was a citizen and its laws no longer applied to his and his own, so he and his family holed themselves up at the property at Ruby Ridge, and held down a siege when officers appeared to rightfully arrest him. Hardly an example.

    Is one that would apply.

    However, the presence of firearms would not have deterred the National Guard from opening fire.

    It took Adam Lanza 5 minutes to murder 20 children and 6 adults with an AR-15 bushmaster rifle. Now tell me that's not high powered.
     
  22. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    actually as rifles go he is technically correct its on the lower end of rifles KE so in the scope of rifles its technically underpowered when compared to rifles designed to take down large game, when compared to guns designed for use on a human target not so much and its in the higher end of the bracket. there are rifles available to civilians that have 10 times the energy but im pretty sure our friend here would admit civilians probably shouldn't have easy access to LMR's( light material rifle)

    to put in prospective a 9 mil hits ate roughly 450 joules
    the AR-15 at 1800
    the 30-06 i believe 3500-3800
    the barret 50 cal low end 17000
    all of these are civilian legal

    so while he is correct in his argument their is a bit of mendacity there because he is comparing weapons designed to be used on different targets which matter when talking about power. some over powered for a rabbit is still probably under powered for say a moose
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It's not highpowered. It's high RPM, and high capacity.
    It would be much easier to restrict RPMs and magazine capacity than power, and much more to the point.
    I think you would want to hold gun owners to higher standards than the police and other professionals displayed at Ruby Ridge, yes?
    That was the point.
    The argument that the police and so forth should be properly trusted with firearms denied to regular citizens because they are held to higher standards than regular citizens is a failure - the premises are false. You would need a different argument.
     

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