Gun Control Compromise

raburrell said:

This is a 'statistic' which has been widely discredited. Example here:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/12/10/wash-times-emily-miller-downplays-gun-violence/191769

Click to expand...

Yes. Here's another critique of the Kleck Report from which most of the claims emanate.

The 2.5 million figure would lead us to conclude that, in a serious crime, the victim is three to four times more likely than the offender to have and use a gun. Although the criminal determines when and where a crime occurs, although pro-gun advocates claim that criminals can always get guns, although few potential victims carry guns away from home, the criminal, according to Kleck’s survey, is usually outgunned by the individual he is trying to assault, burglarize, rob or rape.

Click to expand...

http://vacps.org/public-policy/the-contradictions-of-kleck

It's worth noting that from these self repoted survey questions, Trevonne Martin would be listed as an instance of gun use preventing a crime.

I'm so sorry if my reading more posts will make this post irrelevant or uninformed, but I'm always afraid of a thread lock on topics like these while I'm trying to gather my thoughts.

I'm still reading. Please bear with me

goldmund said:

Not so. Europe and USA are living the same culture right now. We play the same computer games and watch the same films and discuss on the same internet forums. And let me tell you, where I live, I'm not afraid to take my kid to his kindergarten next Monday.

Click to expand...

It's not the same culture, though they are often very, very close.

I wish we could know where you come from. I read your next post that does mention how your country is better than the US on gun violence. It would be polite to let us know which one, if that's possible. Switzerland is very different than France, for instance, on this subject.

goldmund said:

...

edit: I mean, when I read in the news that "she was a warm, normal woman, not unlike her neighbors" I just want to scream: normal people don't keep a deadly arsenal at their homes!! Come on, has everyone gone insane?

Click to expand...

That has been normal in many parts here since we fought the Revolution. I mean that historically. Later came the frontier, Civil War, the Wild West and all that. We never didn't have guns. We always had housewives who had rifles, and we still do.

We never had a monarchy or anything that restricted access en masse, except for certain localities like DC or en masse to subgroups like slaves only.

firedrake said:

We're talking about a democratically elected government turning against the people who voted them in?

That is absurd. It's paranoia. It's conspiracy theorists' fodder.

This is the 21st century, people. We're talking about the USA, not El Salvador or Rwanda.

Butl, if y'all want to wear your tin foil hats, stockpile goods for the end of the world and arm yourselves to the teeth then I guess you go right ahead. It's a free country, right?

I'm sure the parents of those children will be glad to know that you're more concerned with protecting yourself against a non-existent threat than ensuring that lunacy like yesterday's never happens again.

Have fun.

Click to expand...

What makes you say that the US is so different than El Salvador or Rwanda (or at least other violent nations in Africa?)?

Are we still British and Scots-Irish and German colonial settlers? It's possible that a couple of centuries have changed our fabric, in wonderful ways and in some bad ways that many, many nations in the world have problems with.

I have an issue with always being compared to Western European and Commonwealth countries like we are still grouped entirely with them. We are not the exact same anymore. That was a different era. Of course we have a lot in common with our neighbors to the south (and how big is our border?) and the continent from which so many of our folks came less than 2 centuries ago.

I appreciate the vast, vast majority of the ways we have so much in common with other people now. And I'm not surprised if we can resemble countries other than the usual colonial (or Commonwealth) ones.

We still have great ties to Europe, of course, and that is wonderful. But we are not the same anymore, no.

You know, I don't feel qualified to comment on this thread. I'm personally averse to guns. Personally, that is.

But the only time in my 41 years that I have ever seen a gun is when a cop was holding it in front my face. Me being completely unarmed.

I don't get violence. At all. But I do feel like I understand mental illness. And I think that's the reason for the recent tragedy. That's what we need to focus on.

Even though I don't ever see myself owning a gun, I completely respect the right of other people to own them if they want to. I'm actually glad that "good guys" own guns. It makes me feel better, quite frankly. The bad guys will always own guns. It's only fair that it should be as even as possible.

The truest thing I think I've ever heard is that gun bans (of ANY kind of gun) will only stop law-abiding citizens from owning them.

ladyleeona said:

I get that you're fiercely opinionated on the issue; so am I, but the condescending manner with which most of your posts are written is borderline offensive.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry that you felt offended...
I may be irritating, but at least I won't kill anyone -- no guns or muscles to speak of.

backslashbaby -- Poland.

William --

As for the criminals, forget the gun wielding type, let's focus on the non-gun wielding kind.

My wife is 5'6" tall, weighs roughly 140lbs, and has Multiple Sclerosis. How is she to defend herself against an assailant who's 6' tall, weighs 180lbs, and has a knife?

Click to expand...

The thing is, I'm positive you're 100% safer than you think. Most murder victims know their killers. Regular thugs are afraid to kill because the eventual punishment would be much worse. But the media make people constantly afraid.

Of course, there are always psychopaths, but the chance of you two running across one is not bigger than getting hit by a drunk truck driver.

goldmund said:

I'm sorry that you felt offended...
I may be irritating, but at least I won't kill anyone -- no guns or muscles to speak of.

backslashbaby -- Poland.

William --


The thing is, I'm positive you're 100% safer than you think. Most murder victims know their killers. Regular thugs are afraid to kill because the eventual punishment would be much worse. But the media make people constantly afraid.

Of course, there are always psychopaths, but the chance of you two running across one is not bigger than getting hit by a drunk truck driver.

Click to expand...

Thank you


Our criminals are a huge reason for our murder statistics, as you might imagine

We probably are more afraid of murder than other nations. We have more murders than most. Those really are usually committed by someone who doesn't care about gun laws and does have access to many deadly weapons.

OTOH, I can't figure out if the, say, knifings in the UK are just less deadly (obviously, and excellent) or whether we have more murderers, period.

I'm very glad the man in China just had a knife. It was less deadly, and normally would be, depending on police response times and the like. I hate that guns can be picked up in arguments and cause death instead of a wound.

But many factors run together to form our murder rate, and we do fear murder because we know murders happen so much, imho.

Kaiser can say that he knows it's just the cartels. Good. But the cartels are citizens, too. That forms the murder rate. Ours is less easy to figure out. I don't think availability of guns is The Thing. It's important, definitely.

firedrake said:

The notion that Americans have the right to bear arms to 'protect' themselves from the government turning against them is the most paranoid, pathetic reason I've seen.[1] How do you defend yourself against an armoured column, gunships, RPGs, bombs?[2] Yes, that Uzi or Armalite you have in your gun cupboard is really going to make a difference.[3]

Enough with the excuses and the tiresome defence of those centuries-old words. You're not fighting Redcoats or dispossessed, angry Indians any more, you're clinging to an anachronism that has no place in the modern world.[4]

Click to expand...

[1] This already happened. It's why there is a U.S.A.
[2] Guerrilla warfare and up-arming.
[3] Yes. See above.
[4] Liberty is not anachronistic, no matter the nature of its peaceful expression.

In case anyone is interested, here are some stats about perpetrators and victims of murder in the US. It doesn't really support, as far as I can see, the viewpoint that having guns is a good idea for protection.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/gender.cfm

clintl said:

In case anyone is interested, here are some stats about perpetrators and victims of murder in the US. It doesn't really support, as far as I can see, the viewpoint that having guns is a good idea for protection.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/gender.cfm

Click to expand...

How so?

I'm not sure I really have the right to comment on this stuff, being not from the USA, because there's more going on here than gun control laws. Personally, I don't understand the impulse not to trust your government. At least not on things like this. There's a difference between no trusting a government to change their mind on a tax and not trusting a government to not kill or subjugate you.

I also don't understand the want to bear arms. In my mind, it created a localised arms race of sorts - if there's a possibility a thief or a mugger has a semi-automatic, then the impulse is not make sure you have something that's better.

But what does seem evident to me personally : The last massacre here was in '96. We still have alcohol and mental health issues and stabbings and individual gun murders and gang warfare. It is true that if a person wants to do damage they will find a way to do it.

But it's harder to do so with tougher gun laws. Either you don't have a gun, or you have to jump through more hoops (and put yourself at more risk of discovery), to get one. And when it takes more effort to do damage, the damage is constrained. The police get there in time to do something. Someone is able to intervene (I would argue that it's easier to get closer to and disarm someone with a knife than it is a semi-automatic). Maybe in the background check a mental illness comes up and you don't get a gun licence. All guns here have to be in safes - so maybe it's twice as hard to steal someone elses gun

I just can't see the logic in not at least considering tougher gun laws, especially if we're talking about guns that are more than hunting rifles and hand guns. I would argue for doing something at least about the more war-like guns.

Again, I feel as if I'm missing something here, because half this debate doesn't make sense to me, especially after yesterday. So it goes without saying that this is just my opinion,and it's entirely possible in this context that I'm wrong.

backslashbaby said:

How so?

Click to expand...

Let's say we're talking about a woman. The person most likely to kill her is her spouse or boyfriend. How confident can she be that she'll be the who gets to the guns first?

firedrake said:

We're talking about a democratically elected government turning against the people who voted them in?

That is absurd. It's paranoia. It's conspiracy theorists' fodder.

This is the 21st century, people. We're talking about the USA, not El Salvador or Rwanda.

Butl, if y'all want to wear your tin foil hats, stockpile goods for the end of the world and arm yourselves to the teeth then I guess you go right ahead. It's a free country, right?

I'm sure the parents of those children will be glad to know that you're more concerned with protecting yourself against a non-existent threat than ensuring that lunacy like yesterday's never happens again.

Have fun.

Click to expand...

Two events that come to mind are these:

In 1932 WWI veterans marching on Washington demanding payment of wartime bonuses were instead routed by police and military using tanks, cavalry, infantry, bayonets, and gas. Their temporary shelters and belongings were burned. Four on the side of the marchers died, and more than 1,000 were injured. U.S. Attorney General William Mitchell and President Herbert Hoover gave the respective orders. General Douglas MacArthur and Major George S. Patton carried out the task, aided by Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, who both castigated MacArthur at the time and later endorsed his conduct. He later became a U.S. President.

During WWII, Japanese-Americans and German-Americans were involuntarily put into camps. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the executive order. The Supreme Court in 1944 said it was constitutional. The U.S. Census Bureau assisted matters by providing confidential information on U.S. citizens.

clintl said:

Let's say we're talking about a woman. The person most likely to kill her is her spouse or boyfriend. How confident can she be that she'll be the who gets to the guns first?

Click to expand...

OK, I see. That is very true.

The stats don't separate out whether someone was on good terms with boyfriends/husbands/etc, family members, or neighbors, etc. So unfortunately, they include people actively trying to prevent violence from happening to them from intimates in with the statistics about folks who never saw it coming at all.

The friends who were definitely no longer friends, the neighbors who hate each other, and familicide by an estranged family member are the sorts of things that get put as the same statistics. 'Ex' may mean actually divorced people, not people divorcing and afraid their spouse will kill them during or after the process.

vsrenard said:

If a guy brings 10 guns to a school, he can use them sequentially.

Why does anyone need a box of ammo in their homes?

If we can't ban guns, and can't keep the guns out of the hands of people who should not have them but can legally, what course is there? Am I to rely on every gunowner's responsibility to keep their firearms out of the hands of their unbalanced family members?

Click to expand...

In light of yesterday's events, along with all the other similar events that happen in the US, I'd say that would be extraordinarily irresponsible of us as a society.

nighttimer said:

Perhaps. And perhaps if the dog hadn't stopped to take a shit it would have caught the rabbit.

Why is it the default position of the "Protect the Second Amendment No Matter What" crowd is whatever the problem is, the solution is more guns, not less?

William Saletan of Slate gets to the heart of the matter:

I'm not advocating confiscation or registration. I'm advocating limitation. Who needs a high-speed weapon? Cops don't use them. The military doesn't use them. Why do civilians need them unless they want to kill the maximum number of people in the minimum amount of time?

We can't rid the world of madmen and we'll never get rid of all the guns, but we damn sure can make it harder for madmen to kill so many people with guns.

Click to expand...

This, oh this, a thousand times this.

I would still like an answer to my question below. It has to do with whether the priority of the law and society should be regulating gun-ownership or not regulating it. I think making it clear whether all the talk about personal safety, etc., is just so much noise would make a difference to the question of future policy.

William K Elliott said:

But by what definition are you labeling certain firearms as "assault weapons?" If you are using the definition of "Fully Automatic," these are already highly regulated, and are almost never used in crimes.

Click to expand...

That's a nice attempt at deflection. Not successful, but nice. My comment was neither convoluted nor arcane. It really doesn't allow for the wiggle room to dodge its point by quibbling over irrelevant details. Kindly address the question, if you have a response to it. The argument has been made that people must arm themselves for safety. When asked to justify private ownership of assault weapons on that ground (i.e. why do people need them?), the only answer offered was one that classed assault weapons with luxury lifestyle items.

So which is it? Are they a necessity for public and personal safety? Or are they an indulgence for personal luxury? That's the question.

Click to expand...

muravyets said:

I would still like an answer to my question below. It has to do with whether the priority of the law and society should be regulating gun-ownership or not regulating it. I think making it clear whether all the talk about personal safety, etc., is just so much noise would make a difference to the question of future policy.

Click to expand...

I think it's your use of the term 'assault weapon' that's literally confusing people as far as what you quoted goes.

backslashbaby said:

The friends who were definitely no longer friends

Click to expand...

My guess is the "friends/acquaintances" murders might be largely gang-related and drugs deals gone bad. Just a guess, though, because it doesn't say.

Chrissy said:

Even though I don't ever see myself owning a gun, I completely respect the right of other people to own them if they want to. I'm actually glad that "good guys" own guns. It makes me feel better, quite frankly. The bad guys will always own guns. It's only fair that it should be as even as possible.

The truest thing I think I've ever heard is that gun bans (of ANY kind of gun) will only stop law-abiding citizens from owning them.

Click to expand...

I think I can speak for one of the good guys with guns. I used to own a .357. My husband and I currently own several guns. We don't have any ammo right now because we don't yet have a gun safe. Our daughter is spot-on with her bb gun.

clintl said:

My guess is the "friends/acquaintances" murders might be largely gang-related and drugs deals gone bad. Just a guess, though, because it doesn't say.

Click to expand...

I know, see? And most women who are killed by their lovers are either pregnant (probably didn't see it coming) or have just asked for a divorce (may or may not know to be afraid of the killer).

Unfortunately, women as murder victims of intimates is a huge, huge part of women's murder statistics as victims. So it's important to know how to qualify the relationships at the time of the murder.

Obviously both gang violence and stupid fights between young guys are a huge part of the murder victim stats for men here.

firedrake said:

Why do you need 4 guns to defend yourself, your family and your property? Won't one do?

Click to expand...

In the U.S. this is not a question of need, but of liberty. U.S. citizens are at liberty to own as many guns as they desire. Justification is not required.

But if we consider why one might need a number of different guns, consider that guns are like golf clubs. Each serves a different purpose. Looking at my grandfather's collection:

Revolver, .38: he carried this for self defense. It was small and easy to slip into a pocket.
Rifle, .308: he owned this one for hunting big game in the wide open spaces of Wyoming where shots were long.
Rifle, .222: he owned this one for varmint hunting when he was more interested in pest reduction than recoil.
Shotgun, 12-gauge: he owned this one for hunting turkey and geese.
Shotgun, 16-gauge: he owned this one for hunting ducks, quail, rabbits, squirrels.

Considering the defensive utility of the above:

Grandfather was a minority mayor in a small town when such things weren't popular. He carried the .38 while at work and about town. He kept the 12-gauge ready for defense in the home. And on at least one occasion, he used the rifles to keep bad men off his property at distances safe for him and unsafe for them. What this means is that he had firearms suited for self defense at close, intermediate, and long distances.

Do we have a puke smiley, Mac? *shudders*

I think that one was grandfathered in. Y'all correct me if I'm wrong! His mom was able to have it because of it being grandfathered.



eta: here's a link to the law that bans it (in CT):

http://www.jud.ct.gov/JI/criminal/glossary/assaultweapon.htm

backslashbaby said:

I think it's your use of the term 'assault weapon' that's literally confusing people as far as what you quoted goes.

Click to expand...

I'm not asking people, though anyone of course may jump in. The question was addressed to William K Elliott who used the phrase himself in the context of a post he was answering earlier which also used the phrase. The meaning I'm using is his. I assume he should understand his own meaning.

muravyets said:

I'm not asking people, though anyone of course may jump in. The question was addressed to William K Elliott who used the phrase himself in the context of a post he was answering earlier which also used the phrase. The meaning I'm using is his. I assume he should understand his own meaning.

Click to expand...

My bad! I'll let him answer.

MacAllister said:

Oh heck, you can buy all kinds of guns that aren't worth a damn for hunting. Or not, yanno, for hunting actual deer and ducks and stuff.

Click to expand...

Actually the AR15 is a .223 caliber, which is commonly used in hunting mid-sized deer (white-tailed). Same with the AR10 (.308, same caliber as my rifle). Most of the tactical looking shit is just window dressing. You can make almost any rifle 'tactical'.