A proposal for gun control

In My Humble Opinion
81

On a Remington 870, anyway, the hunting plug is a green piece of plastic that fits in the magazine tube, and takes up the space of 2 shells. If it’s taken out, then the stock shotgun holds 5 rounds, plus one in the chamber.

Fundamentally the arguments on this thread point out the problem with this issue- on one side, you have somewhat irrational gun-control advocates like Bibliovore who are convinced that guns are the problem, and that if we don’t see that then we’re bloodthirsty idiots, and on the other side, we have people who think that owning any and all guns made is their God-given right.

Those two sides aren’t going to find any common ground in the foreseeable future.

Personally, I think that most of the gun control arguments are based in emotion and fear, and not in dispassionate logic.

Statistically speaking, the number of people killed in things like the Sandy Hook or Columbine shootings is so insignificant as to be lost in measuring errors and noise. Even the oft quoted “firearm deaths” is a large blanket category that encompasses everything from suicide to murder, to accidental shootings of all kinds.

Even if you weed out murders from the rest, the vast majority of them take place in economically disadvantaged urban areas, and are primarily associated with criminal activity.

So what a lot of us see is a vanishingly small number of violent wackos, or a relatively small number of criminals not behaving properly with guns, and a bunch of people wanting to take away our collections, hobbies, sports, or self defense preparations just because the occasional loony might use a gun in the future to kill 20 people, or some criminals may shoot other criminals with guns.

It seems insane to me if you think about it that way; it’s some combination of an elementary school teacher punishing an entire class of 30 for one paste-eating knucklehead’s stupidity, and that same teacher prohibiting sharpie markers because the paste-eating knucklehead draws on other kids, and the two discipline problem kids draw on each other.

Why is it the problem of the 27 other kids in the class who responsibly use their sharpies? Why shouldn’t they have them? The teacher should discipline the 3 kids that have an issue, or not have let them have sharpies in the first place.

82

I think what you pro-gunners are failing to realize is that the existence of the gun sport/hobby which allows the wacko’s to do the shootings affect far more people than those people that are actually shot.

To illustrate, a week ago a guy went into a mall near Portland Oregon and shot three people and himself (1 survived). I fully agree this isn’t a huge number, but there were 10,000 people in that mall that either fled in terror or hid for several hours until the police came and found them. I myself was at that mall with my wife, kids and parents an hour prior to this. I know that if I was there it is very unlikely one of us would have been shot - but having to flee or hide in terror with my young children is not at all a pleasant thought. All 10,000 of those people were affected by the stress of this to varying degrees. Maybe some shrug it off but many others are going to have post traumatic stress. In addition, the entire mall was closed for 3 days afterwards. Huge financial impact this time of year both to the businesses and employees. Besides that, the local agencies have to pay a huge bill to the police, FBI and others. This comes ultimately from taxpayers.

A majority of this nation is shaken up by the events in Connecticut. Is it emotion and fear - sure, but we are humans not robots and this has to be taken into account. It is like 9/11 - afterwards was any particular person really in any serious danger that terrorists were going to take them out? No, but the emotion and fear was very troubling to most people.

Financially the county spends a lot of money protecting ourselves and dealing with the aftermath of shooters. This money isn’t coming directly from gun users but from everyone through taxes or higher costs of goods. So why must people live with this financial burden, this emotion and fear, simply so participants of the gun hobby/sport can continue to enjoy what they do without any changes. It is time you guys come to realize that your sport affects many people in serious negative ways - financially and emotionally - and not only just those particular people who are shot.

83

I agree with you bump. On NPR yesterday they were talking about a quote from a gun enthusiast that they interviewed about AR-15 rifles. He was talking about how they are standard, highly modifiable and reliable, and are considered a “cool” rifle to own. A NPR listener said she was listening in her car and when he said the word “cool” she felt physically sick and had to almost pull the car over. This is the sort of hysteria, tunnel vision, and ignorance we are dealing with.

84

The technology’s not yet reliable enough to implement on guns. A firearm needs to fire every time the lawful user pulls the trigger, not 3/4 of the time (that’s about the failure rate of the biometric check-in setup at my local gym).

When the technology DOES become reliable enough, I’d love to own a gun with a biometric lock. But we’re not quite there yet.

85

The fact it was very recently used to slaughter 20 small children and is being currently described as ‘cool to own’ makes no connection with you?

86

I don’t see it. It is an object. If someone beats a person to death with an iPad, can iPads no longer be described as cool?

87

I’ll second the notion that AR-15s are cool, I’d like to buy one myself some day for target shooting and just for the coolness factor. The fact that some jerk got a hold of one doesn’t change it. A Ferrarri is still cool if someone out east uses one to run over his ex-wife.

88

As a matter of fact, if someone beat 27 people to death (including 20 6-7 year olds) with an iPad I think this would have real implications to the brand - at least in the short term.

89

If I take the time to find out what brand of shoes he was wearing when he slaughtered the children, will that make a connection too? What about the labels on his clothing? If he was wearing Levis, will somebody admiring a pair of jeans make you physically ill?

There is grief and sorrow. There is feeling bad about something horrible that happened to strangers. And then there is being a drama queen who mostly wants everybody to know how this makes HER feel.

90

You’re right, it is like 9/11. In the aftermath of that tragedy, the government (spurred on by the cries of panicked citizens shouting “We must do something!”) hastily enacted a bunch of legislation which in retrospect did nothing to increase our actual safety, but did seriously weaken our civil rights. In retrospect, I think we all agree that the one change which was really helpful was requiring airlines to put locks on the cockpit doors. But despite knowing that the PATRIOT Act was a mistake, have we managed to repeal it? No. We’re stuck with the TSA, and warrantless wiretaping, and all the other lovely crap that horrible piece of legislation brought us.

Maybe we shouldn’t repeat that mistake? Maybe we should learn that acting while in the grip of fear is generally a bad idea?

I’m not automatically opposed to more regulation of firearms in this country. I AM opposed to “feel-good” legislation which will accomplish nothing while seriously weakening our Second Amendment rights. Rights once lost are hard to reclaim.

91

My objection to the proposals of the OP is that they are simply too restrictive, more restrictive than necessary, and I see no evidence such level of restriction is necessary.

The benefits of not being so restrictive should be obvious:

  1. Check out the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Germany. All have technically more liberal gun laws than the OP proposed, and extremely low gun homicide rates.

  2. In light of #1, note that the proposals of the OP are a flat fantasy. People have said in several of these post-Newtown threads “let’s not worry about the political realities…” well, that’s getting old. You do need to worry about the political realities, otherwise it’s just intellectual masturbation. Proposals that ban all semiautomatics, require only internal magazines, ban all handguns…are not only unconstitutional post-Heller, would never get out of committee even in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

  3. The countries I’ve identified with the best gun laws are primarily the Nordic countries and Germany. You can get a semiautomatic rifle in those countries, with detachable magazine (there are some magazine size limits I believe in Germany after a school shooting where the shooter used a handgun with a 15 round magazine, but I believe German law still allows reasonably sized magazines), you can get a handgun (not just a revolver, either.) Basically you can get most of the guns you should be allowed to get here in the United States. Given all that, why adopt more restrictive laws? That have no chance of passage and clearly wouldn’t make us any safer than countries with less restrictive laws.

  4. Your proposal is “gun-oriented.” You’re trying to create a laundry list of guns you personally think people should not have. Where gun control has worked, it has been owner-oriented. There are some reasonable controls on the weapons you can own, but the licensing regime is primarily one in which owners have a reasonable ability to buy most guns they would want, but have to go through a background check and licensing. For certain types of guns they have to explain why they want the gun. But while the bureaucracy is designed for public safety, it is not punitive. None of the licensing is super-expensive, required safety courses aren’t offered once a year 500 miles away etc.

I think that’s a much better way to adjust gun control than this left-wing fantasy proposal.

92

No iPad, vehicle, or firearm ever sprung to life and killed anyone on its own. It takes someone wielding it with intent to harm.

If anyone is to blame for this tragedy it might be the boy’s parents, they allowed him access to the firearm. I don’t know how much they knew about his mental condition, but if that firearm were in a locked safe this might not have happened, unless he figured out some other method.

93

Also the suppressor thing shows technical ignorance. Most European countries a suppressor is under $50 and requires not even a gun license to buy. Why? Because even in European countries with far more restrictive gun laws it is recognized that a suppressor avoid noise pollution for people who live or use recreational facilities in the vicinity of shooters, and they help mitigate hearing loss for shooters.

In the United States suppressors are essentially regulated under the NFA which was passed primarily to regulate heavy weaponry like military-caliber large weapons (think artillery), fully automatic machine guns, and sawed-off shot guns. The suppressor regulation is a de facto ban, and makes a <$50 item cost hundreds of dollars in the United States since the licensing and such is expensive and laborious. Suppressors were not contributing significantly to crime, and do not in countries where they are more freely available.

94
  1. This would mainly impact law abiding private party sales. All sizzle, no meat.
  2. States and local government should have input. What is good and sensible for New York city is not necessarily good and necessary for upstate New York State.
  3. you left the door wide open at the end. Put some teeth in it. 48 hours to report a missing weapon, unless you can prove extenuating circumstances (out of the country or such). “If you can’t take care of your weapons you have no business having them.”
  4. National reporting database. If you are diagnosed as a danger to yourself or others your “score” goes in the database. During the NICS check the database “score” is queried and either a pass or fail is returned.
  5. Where I am it is ridiculously easy and inexpensive to get a CCW. People that really want the best of something sacrifice all the time to afford it. Personal protection should be no different.
  6. The owner of the weapon should be civilly liable if the weapon is used in the commission of a crime. That’ll be a much bigger impact than a criminal charges that have to take into account a lot of different scenarios, as well the burden of proof is lower.

Now we are getting somewhere. :wink:

95

Among a thousand other reasons, pre-1898 firearms. OK, I will admit that not many are semi’s or detachable magazine but tons are handguns and some way cheaper than modern made guns. And all are bought and sold with no federal control what-so-ever - you don’t even need to be 21. Not too many loonies go after them now because of the perceived cost and they being more dispersed but ban something (or keep Pawn Stars on the air long enough) and see how quick folks catch on.

96

Ah yes, I had forgotten about our tinfoil hat folks with the “America - Love It Or Leave It!” bumper sticker philosophy. I thought most were over 90 years old or dead by now, but apparently not.

Clutching to the 2nd Amendment - the only thing they have ever read in the Constitution - they interpret this to mean “any and all weapons known to man” is legal to privately own, and in unlimited amounts, by any clown with the money to buy them. It is only a matter of time until we have personal drones so you can sit at home and hunt rhino in Africa from the comfort of your home computer in Boise. Maybe shoot some moose in Canada on the return flight and buzz over your ex-brother-in-law’s house in Seattle on the way back, just to let him know you are watching him?

You know, there is one place on earth that does understand the concept of the 2nd Amendment and the idea of having an armed militia for the reasons the Founding Fathers envisioned. Almost every home there has a gun! And gun crime is practically nil every year!!

Where? In Europe! In Switzerland!

From the Wikipedia article:
"Gun politics in Switzerland are unique in Europe. Switzerland does not have a standing army, instead opting for a peoples’ militia for its national defense. The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 30 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training. The personal weapons of the militia are kept at home as part of the military obligations; Switzerland thus has one of the highest militia gun ownership rates in the world.

The total number of firearms in private homes is estimated minimally at 1.2 million to 3 million.

Government statistics for the year 2010 records 40 homicides involving firearms, out of the 53 cases of homicide in 2010."

Feel free to read the entire article to see that it most certainly is possible to have an armed militia, but with very stringent laws about specific types of gun ownership, sales of weapons, and sales and possession of ammunition.

So go ahead and make your snide comments about those liberal, pinko Europeans, but I bet you aren’t going to be barging down any doors, anywhere in the entire country of Switzerland, without being greeted with a rifle pointed at your head. And every single neighbor will be standing on their front porch, rifle in hand, just to make sure things go down well.

And look - no handguns! No machine guns! And you still have happy hunters and no worries of intruders breaking down the front door! Imagine!!!

Sure - it is a small country with a smaller population. But they have a pretty sane method of gun control, and a ridiculously low gun mortality rate, even with practically every household required to have a gun!

So it is possible to allow gun ownership and still have stringent gun control legislation.

97

You’re missing the point. You’re sticking up for some guy who was on the radio describing the AR-15 as ‘cool to own’ a few days after the shooting of 20 children with one. Then you compare it to killing with an i-Pad and how an i-Pad would still be cool. However, I’m saying that immediately right after someone kills 20 children with an i-Pad - you really don’t need to publicly state that i-Pads are ‘cool to own’. The i-Pad brand name would take a real negative hit. Logically, has anything changed with the i-Pad (or the AR-15). No, but timing is everything and you need to factor how people perceive things.

98

Durability?

99

No. I’m not going to slaughter 20 small children, and I really don’t give a shit what kind of gun the deranged lunatic used - he could have used anything. The gun is still cool, regardless of what people do with it.

100

A few comments:

None of this is going to matter unless we find a way of reliably getting mental healthy\ data into the database int he first place (which is a big problem right now). The guy who shot up Virginia Tech wasn’t legally eligible to buy firearms, but his history of being committed somehow was never entered into the database, so he came up clean when the gun dealer ran the background check. I’m not sure what is needed to fix that problem, but whatever it is, we need to do it. Background checks are worthless otherwise.

I’m in favor of more training for CCW permits, but mostly for the sake of the permit holder (so he/she will be effective if that gun is ever needed). There’s not much evidence that allowing legal carry (either concealed or open) by lawful citizens has any effect on the crime rate.

Fine, unless you’re also including liability in cases where the gun was stolen (and promptly reported stolen). If I’m not responsible for what a thief does with my stolen car, I shouldn’t be responsible for what a thief does with my stolen gun. I do think it’s fine to require that firearms be stored in a safe when not in actual use (which is what responsible gun owners are doing already), and how the gun was stored should factor into the degree of civil liability the owner faces.