Yup…that’s exactly what happened after Australia outlawed most firearms and people had to turn theirs in.
It is like living a Mad Max movie in Australia now. Roaming bands of psychos with guns and nothing can be done to stop them because the good guys turned in their weapons!
Oh wait…actually gun deaths went down and so did overall homicide rates (so people didn’t just grab a knife or club in lieu of a gun to go after all the helpless unarmed people).
The horror of it all. :rolleyes:
We did the whole “require liability insurance for guns” in another thread. Such a thing would require a drastic change in how we view liability. If I intentionally shoot someone with a gun, then no liability policy would come into place because insurance does not cover intentional criminal acts. If I accidentally shoot someone with a gun, my homeowners policy covers it. If someone steals my gun and shoots someone else, I am not responsible for those actions, so my policy would not cover it. Further, Jimmy the Gangbanger will not purchase these policies, so any coverage that might be coming to his victims will not be available.
The response to these objections in the other thread were that insurance now would cover intentional acts and that all gun owners would buy into a fund to cover intentional acts by those who do not purchase the insurance.
So, it seems that the proposal is not really liability insurance at all, but a cost-shifting mechanism whereby responsible gun owners must pay for the acts of terrorists and mass shooters across the country. No thanks.
Well, I’m not a “gun control folk” so there’s that.
My reason is because I feel law enforcement should have better (defined however you want) firearms then the general populace. I’m sure law enforcement feels that way as well.
Not sure what this has to do with anything, unless you are saying we should be prepared at all times for any dangerous situations that might arise, no matter how unlikely they are. Are you?
From 1996 to present, the overall homicide rate and gun deaths went down in the United States as well. Further, Australia does not have our history and tradition of the Second Amendment and a revolutionary war. Also, the population is vastly smaller and more homogeneous. It is also an island which can control all points of entry.
IOW, apples and oranges. I am sure that Pitcairn Island could also effectively ban guns.
But what is your side proposing? I hear that you only want “reasonable, common sense regulations” and background checks, but then you (and the President) point to Australia as a model which was about banning and confiscating firearms.
Of course, you can see from the graph that firearm homicides had already been trending downwards since 1987, and with the exception of a blip in 1996, the trend wasn’t really affected by their gun ban, it merely continued on the same slope. The drop from 2003 onwards correlates with the a drop in non-firearm homicides as well.
This is hardly clear evidence that a gun ban will dramatically reduce homicide rates.
Why? How much better? Are the people that they shoot at anatomically different than those that regular citizens shoot at?
I wouldn’t go so far as “no matter how unlikely.” I’m not preparing for an asteroid landing, but I do wear my seatbelt and keep a fire extinguisher in the home. It’s fairly unlikely that I will get into a car accident today, and my house probably won’t catch fire.
Of course, there probably won’t be looting in my streets today, nor is it likely an armed intruder will come in my home.
I think the latter situations are more like the fire and accident scenarios than an asteroid strike. I don’t think it is paranoid or nutty to keep firearms in your home for personal protection. Given the choice between a single shot musket and a handgun or rifle with more ammo the better, I choose B.
It seems like your side wants to paint us as building fallout shelters and stocking canned goods, but buying a gun and ammo is not in the same league.
(bolding mine)
What does this have to do with anything?
As opposed to the “reasonable, common sense” proposals made by Bone to reduce gun violence by lifting restrictions and getting as many guns into as many hands as possible? That’s a proposal from your side-are you going to comment on how reasonable and full of common sense that is?
[Tongue in cheek]I doubt that a flood of guns will be crossing over from Canada. Perhaps this can be how you get liberals to agree to a wall across the Mexican border. [/TIC]
To be fair, I think this really comes down to a cultural issue versus a gun control issue. For most mass shootings I don’t see that the perpetrator had much expectation of coming out of things alive. If someone wants to take out a bunch of people and doesn’t care if they go down doing it I don’t think there are any regulations you can put in to stop them. Mass shootings make a great emotional appeal to gun control but when you actually sit down and try to think out regulations to prevent them I find that most suggestions fall very short of effective even if they may be effective towards stopping smaller scale homicides.
The problem with universal background checks (UBC) as proposed is multi-fold:
[ol]
[li]The first is that it would require a registry which is what many suspect is the ultimate goal.[/li][li]The second is that background checks would not have prevented events in Orlando, nor many of the other highly publicized events that garners support for these measures. The shooter in Orlando was a security guard and contractor for Homeland Security.[/li][li]The third is that while the order of the day is UBC, there are already parallel efforts to expand who is reported to NICS to be disqualified.[/li][/ol] The reason de jure is those that are placed on terror watch lists, or even no fly lists - both of which there is no due process for. It could be if you aresimply suspected of being guilty of a misdemeanor hate crime, whatever that is. Other places want to impose a background check every time you purchase ammunition. Or disqualify you if you need assistance managing your finances. Once the requirement for UBC is in place, the incremental increase of disqualifying activities will continue. When a member of the DNC Platform Committee says that no one should ever have a gun, you have to question the motives of the incremental proposals being advanced.
Statistically speaking, mass shootings are a very unlikely event as well, yet you obviously think they are worth spending significant effort to prevent. Any person has literally only a one-in-a-million chance of being killed in a mass shooting.
People who value gun ownership for self-defense apply the same logic - even if it is a very low-probability event, the consequences are dire, and they would like to be prepared even if it is unlikely to ever occur in their lifetime.
Oh come now. You know it is simpler to legislate from the top down when people are of the same cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. I am not making any value judgments, except that when people are more dissimilar, then the one size fits all approach doesn’t work as well.
People in Key West are different than those in Nome, AK. People in Appalachia are different than those that live in New York City, and those that live on Park Avenue are different than those in the ghetto. Not better, not more deserving of anything, just different. Almost any national policy that applies equally to all fails to take into account any differences in different people.
If we are legislating ONLY for Appalachia, then we can be somewhat confident that we understand the needs of those we are legislating for. If we deal with different cultural backgrounds, then the policy might simultaneously be too harsh for one group and too lenient for another.
This is simple stuff, and I hope that you aren’t trying to play some sort of race card here.
Are you going to discuss what you posted as an example of gun control that you support? I asked some questions about the details of mandatory reporting.
Perhaps you could comment, instead of complaining that some one else hasn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t agree that police should have better firearms than the general populace. I don’t agree that law enforcement feels that way as well. Do you have a cite for that?
It has as much to do with anything as your comment about being attacked by 49 people. I thought we were doing random links. In any case, I think people should be prepared for what they feel is appropriate, based on their own risk tolerance and willingness to deal with the inconvenience associated with that level of preparedness. People should be able to choose.
But then we wouldn’t have the pleasure of just asking questions!
I’m fairly certain I’ve never said we should be spending significant effort to prevent mass shootings. Can you quote a post where I said that?
The consequences of a meteor strike on my house are pretty dire as well. Surprisingly, I don’t have any meteor protection. Perhaps I should run out and at least buy some meteor insurance, you know, 'cause of all the dire consequences.
I also don’t go around in life worried about being killed in a mass shooting.
My comment is that it wasn’t my list, so you’ll have to ask the person who made it in the first place about the details.
Well, I doubt we will ever agree on this point, so no point to discussing that aspect.
I don’t, and I admit I’m just guessing. But I don’t see how police responding to a shooting would say “Gee, I hope they have the exact type of weapons we have!”
So what do you think should be done? Do you think the AR-15 (the Orlando shooter used a Sig MCX) should be legal? What steps would you suggest to further whatever goals you have in mind?
As Cyros said, no amount of regulation will stop these mass shootings. This particular mass shooter in Orlando would have passed any background check and probably would have qualified for a CCW permit in New York, New Jersey, D.C., or any other restrictive locale because he was a security guard for Homeland Security.
The reason why nobody had a self defense weapon in that bar is because the State of Florida, permissive as it is, prohibits law abiding citizens from carrying weapons in a nightclub, even with a CCW permit.
Imagine a culture where a person carries a gun the way he does a cell phone. How many people would have died that night had everyone in that Orlando bar who had a cell phone also had a gun? Of course one or two would have been taken by surprise, and perhaps a few more would have been killed by friendly fire. I’m not saying that is okay, but would 50 have died? Instead of tweeting for help, they could have helped themselves.
