The UK seems pretty much content with the laws as they stand, even after the stress test from the Cumbrian shootings. Baaa.
(my bold)
This isn’t true.
Pistols are the weapon of choice. As if there’s some kind of collusion between mass shooters.
What, you mean like the AR-15 shotgun that they were blaming last time?
Oh, OK. Then I suppose I would say that there wasn’t very much grassroots opposition in those countries to begin with. That’s why it could never happen here.
Licensing by itself seems almost useless in reducing gun violence. I suppose it would reduce accidental gun injuries but it would not prevent gun fromgetting into the hands of criminals.
I don’t think this is true. Only about 3% of the gun deaths in America are committed with rifles (of which AR-15s and AK-47s are a subset), the other 97% is mostly handguns. Or are you talking about the large mass murders of dozens of people that account for a teeny tiny percentage of gun murders?
The deadliest mass shooting in our history was at Virginia Tech (32 dead plus the shooter) where the shooter used two pistols a 9mm and a 22lr.
Here is a link to the top 12 deadliest mass shootings in the USA:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/deadliest-us-shootings/
Pistols seem to be the most common, shotguns are next. Other than Newtown, the only other instance where an AR-15 or AK-47 was used was in Aurora Co where the AR-15 jammed and the shooter ended up shooting people with his shotgun.
Its interesting that so many non-gun people I talk to think that AR-15s are responsible for so much gun violence until I show them that handguns account for the vast majority. Then they assume that AR-15s are commonly used in mass shootings until that doesn’t pan out. Then they wonder why they had the impression that AR-15s were used in so many mass shootings.
Why do you think so many people assume that AR-15s are responsible for so many deaths or are used in so many mass shootings when they clearly aren’t? Badmouthing scary looking guns that are largely the province of hobbyists makes for good press but not good facts.
Poor people in poor neighborhoods are more likely to shoot or get shot. It is only correlated to color to the extent that poverty in this country is correlated to color.
No more than I resent having to register to vote. The government doesn’t have to give you permission unless the licenses are issued on a discretionary basis. As long as they are shall issue licenses, there is no “permission” involved, only regulation.
I recognized the sarcasm and I was piling on. I thought both you AND the original poster was being sarcastic.
I think it might have something to do with the fact that pistols are much more portable and concealable than an AR-15. A glock 17 (full size 9mm pistol) weighs about a pound and a half and fits into a coat pocket about 2 pounds if loaded (with 17 rounds). The average AR-15 weighs 6-8 pounds and a loaded magazine (30 rounds) weights about 3 pounds each.
The historical and political differences alone make it unlikely that legislation which would “work” (itself a questionable statement) in the UK or Australia would work here in the United States. It defies logic to believe that it would.
There’s also the fact that weapons of all stripes have routinely be heavily restricted in all of the Commonwealth nations. Even in South Africa, a nation where weapons are roughly as common as in the US, weapons ownership was severely curtailed among the majority African populace during the apartheid era. With the exception slavery, even in the Jim Crow South, Black Americans were not prohibited from owning weapons during any part of American history.
If the US had a history of weapons prohibition that was uniformly legislated and enforced across the country, then perhaps gun control might have been possible in the distant past. Failing that, and with a strong NRA lobby coupled with people being loath to change The Bill of Rights for almost anything, means that UK or Australian gun control will remain a “non-starter” here for the foreseeable future.
I don’t know if there are any statistics available on African-American crime adjusted for poverty, but in the absence of evidence otherwise I’ll presume that economic class is the deciding factor. Sorry, as I said I did NOT want to make this a debate about race.
That’s ok then; I’d taken the original post in question to mean something more like May Issue. Die-hard libertarians might object but practically anyone competent could meet that standard
What difference does federal or state level confiscation make to the ones who are facing confiscation? Sure there may be federal remedies if you have a lot of money and years to wait for the justice system to act. Keep inind the recent CA win in Peruta on the 9th circuit was over 5 years in the making IIRC.
Unless and until there is federal preemption that is supported by all there is no virtue in touting the unlikelihood of federal action as different from state action. Both should be guarded against and opposed with the same rigor.
I was talking about large mass murders, not individual shootings.
I probably should have clarified I was speaking from an Australasian perspective here. To the best of my knowledge, all the mass shootings in Australia over the past 30 years with one exception were committed with military-style semi-automatic weapons, while the other was committed with a 9mm handgun. New Zealand’s largest mass shooting (and I believe the only one in recent times that hasn’t involved someone killing family members/close friends) was the Aramoana Massacre in 1990, which involved a Type 56 (semi-auto AK-47) rifle.
What about that shoot out in Hollywood in the 1997 where the cops had to get help from a gunstore because the bad guys were in body armour? IIRC the shooters there had (illegally modified) Type 56s and an HK-91.
Are they the province of hobbyists, though? I mean, pretty much every major longarm manufacture in the US makes an AR-15 variant and they sell a lot of them. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the design and I fully acknowledge 99.998% of the people buying them are law-abiding shooters using them for perfectly legal activities such as hunting or target shooting or because the US Constitution says they can own one, and I support that. But the impression my US shooting friends give me is that the AR-15 is the Toyota Camry of rifles; everyone’s got one, they’re reliable, well made and well-designed.
As to why people thing MSSAs are used in a disproportionate number of mass shootings: I’d say TV and movies have a lot to do with that (not enciting people to commit them, creating the impression they’re the mass shooter’s weapon of choice).
Did we all get whooshed there? Was Flyer just kidding?
I think the aftermath of the JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations might have been an opportunity to pass licensing and registration (LBJ certainly thought so) but the gun grabbers overplayed their hand and they got much less than they could have gotten.
Well, you’d have to pass a background check for the license (just like you do every time you purchase a gun from an FFL), you should probably have to pass some sort of written test on gun safety too.
I agree that we should not support registration that does not preempt sate and local laws. My support of licensing and registration is conditional on preemption. I certainly wouldn’t want to create a registry that California could access to go around confiscating guns.
Is it possible that these places do not have handguns?
I think the shooters were the only fatalities and they were not mass murderers on a shooting spree. They were bank robbers.
In the USA, the AR-15 was largely a hobbyist’s gun but is now pretty prevalent and I think its fair to say that everyone I know with a gun range membership has an AR-15. The AK-47 is still owned by hobbyists and enthusiasts rather than your run of the mill gun owner. I think they’re getting more and more popular (they are certainly getting more expensive).
I agree it has something to do with the media but I think its the “press” as much as it is Hollywood. There is a lot of sensationalization going on but now that AR-15s are so prevalent, its going to be harder to ban them the way they did 20 years ago.
New Zealand’s handgun laws are fairly strict but they are legally available and the licences/permits for them are not impossible to get.
Handguns are also restricted in Australia but it’s a popular shooting sport and although the process for getting a handgun licence involves a lot of paperwork and waiting, they are legally available.
Armed with (at least one) automatic weapon. That to me suggests they were planning to get involved in a shootout, which would probably kill a lot of people. Fortunately it didn’t, but wiki says there were 18 injuries as a result of the shootout, but doesn’t list severity - although a few of them sound like they were quite serious.
I’m told there’s still a bias against the Kalashnikov designs as a “Commie” or “Terrorist” gun so I can believe they’re largely the realm of the hobbyist or enthusiast.
There’s also an unbelievable number of accessories and add-ons and modifications for the AR-15 to which I believe there’s an entire industry supplying said accessories etc, so I believe you may be right there.
I think it’s misleading to say in every gun thread you participate in that you support licencing and registration without also saying that it is conditional upon federal preemption.