McAulliffe got screwed during that election. Every poll had his taking over the Virginia senate until the gun control guys came in and offered to spend money supporting Democratic candidates. He had a real chance to get expanded medicare. He was never going to win the house but with the control of the senate they could keep pass a bill and the house would have to explain to their constituents why they aren’t taking free money that could save lives. But he blew it to try and get some of that gun control money and now he is effectively a placekeeper governor.
Democrats are in severe danger of losing Virginia in 2016 based on the gun control debate. Just about every swing state swings at least in part on gun control and that door tends to swing in one direction. You win very few swing states by coming out strongly in favor of gun control.
Which is why I was so surprised to see Hillary come out so strongly in favor of gun control to attack Bernie Sanders.
Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban of 2013 got 40 votes in the Senate. You can’t really call it a fringe issue not supported by mainstream Democrats. Here’s the vote:
You can google “road rage shootings” and find many such instances. Those are typical examples of people acting impulsively with a gun. If they didn’t have a gun at all or were less impulsive with their gun, it’s unlikely many of those shootings would happen.
Another example is when someone comes home to find their spouse in bed with a lover. The impulsive person with a gun nearby may kill the couple in that moment of rage. If they don’t have a gun, the determined person may still track down the lover and kill them at a later time (perhaps even with a newly purchased gun), but it’s less likely. That would be the difference between second degree (kill in the moment) and first (premediated).
I suspect that “road rage killings” make up a miniscule fraction of any given year’s homicides. The same goes for “found wife in bed with another man” killings (although, the broader category of domestic violence killings is a more significant portion of homicides, and some suicides).
I also agree with that. But the increased training suggestion was one of the few times I thought the restrictions made sense and could lead to actual improvements rather than just adding an irrelevant hassle that wouldn’t change anything.
Adding additional restrictions, licensing, training, and “hassle” on the off chance it might mitigate a miniscule fraction of homicides is silly. That’s one of the reasons that “assault weapon” bans are silly.
Given that accidental deaths from firearms are very very low, what more do you think training will accomplish? Training is marksmanship, gun safety, etc. It’s not therapy and isn’t even tangentially connected to impulse crimes. This is why calls for “more training” are often hollow and a thin fig leaf for additional barriers.
This isn’t even close to being on point. You were responding to a comment about your proposal to have tiered requirements based on the power level of the firearm. The example asked for was a situation where a person armed with a lower powered weapon would have been just fine but a higher powered one had a bad result. This response is not at all on point.
Did you know that the Virginia Tech shooter used a .22 pistol with 10-round mags (basically, one of the least powerful firearms on the market) to do most of his killing?
I agree it wouldn’t help in that case. I think I’ve said a few times that it wouldn’t help with premeditated killings. If someone wants to kill and takes the time to plan it out, there’s really not much to stop them. If they can’t get a gun, there’s many other ways to kill.
Training would not be about preventing accidental shootings where the gun accidentally goes off. It’s a way of filtering out people who have a tendency to act impulsively and will use the gun because they are angry or panicked.
If the only thing you can get without training is a rifle, then it’s not as likely the road rager is going to use a rifle to shoot someone while driving just from a practical matter of operating the rifle while driving. If they have a handgun, then they can easily shoot someone. I would guess that the use of handguns in road rage incidents far outnumber the number of rifles. So if you have to go through some level of training to access handguns, fewer people will have handguns.
As an example, consider pilot training. You don’t get to fly a plane in all conditions just because you know how to start it up, take off, and land. You are put through a number of training scenarios to ensure you will react calmly and logically even in very dangerous situations. If someone gets flustered every time a warning light comes on, they won’t get their license because they won’t be a safe pilot. I think it would be beneficial if access to guns had something similar. If there is some type of training where it would be harder for hotheads to get guns, you’d have fewer cases of people reacting impulsively with guns out of anger (e.g. shooting at someone because they pulled into your driveway).
Good point. It’s not so much training on how to use the gun and shoot. It’s screening to make sure that the people less likely to use guns responsibly have a harder time to get them. I see markmanship or other gun-centered training as helpful as a screening process to weed out the hotheads.
Bloomberg is not even a Democrat, and how many Kennedies are even in national office anymore or within spitting distance of the White House? The problem to me is, you disproportionately worry about what some small time politician will do if the world went a complete 180 instead of looking at what they can do given their abilities now, and some people take that worry and magnify it into an excuse to why they can’t vote Democratic. Excuse me if I don’t find that convincing. I don’t worry about Martian invasions, neither should you worry about gun bannings
If I gave that impression, I apologize. I have no desire to discuss the why one should or should not make a case for keeping gun rights. I’m much more of a gun safety justification guy
I think he considered suicide a basic human right. Effectiveness is a good thing.
Obviously basic gun handling skills should be part of any training. But I could care less that the person could hit the broad side of a barn. I care that they know not to shoot at barns! Most rifles can easily penetrate barn siding allowing the bullet to hit anything on the other side. It is more important that people learn things like this than be expert marksmen.
How did you get a “no” from my answer? He ABSOLUTELY has tried to ban guns. Are you trying to claim “no” because he didn’t try to ban ALL guns at once?