I think you’re ducking the question here. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to own firearms. It does not guarantee the right to own every conceivable type of gun and every type of ammunition.
And three of them weren’t. This is just a terrible comparison. Things were different on the fourth plane after word got out that the planes were being crashed into buildings and the passengers realized they were almost certain to die.
I’m sensing a pattern here. The other victims didn’t “defend” the planes because they expected the hijackers would have demands and because they’d been told there was a bomb on the plane. They had no idea what was coming, and the hijackers counted on that. If they’d realized what was happening, I’m sure the other passengers and crews would have acted differently.
Yes, that’s right. And you know what? On September 11th, the only people with knives were the hijackers. Because most people would never think to bring a weapon onto a plane. Why the hell would you?
Yes, that’s why Al Qaeda keeps hijacking planes.
I appreciate your openness in blaming the victims of these kinds of tragedies, but I think that’s a disgusting attitude.
How much training would do you think a teacher would need to become as competent as a cop in these situations? One weekend or two?
I don’t see it as ducking at all. We have freedom of speech. We don’t discriminate one thought from another. You’re using the argument of extremes to see if a line can be drawn or in this case redrawn. You have no basis from which to work with to redraw the line beyond the fear of one gun over another.
Why would I carry a knife on a plane? because I can (or could at one time). Why the hell wouldn’t you? I’ve carried a knife with me everywhere since I was about 9 years old. Very handy tool.
You’d need to ask someone who trains in such things. I’d guess about 4000 rounds worth to start. So about 2 weeks plus recurrency training.
Yes, that’s exactly correct. They know that for every attempt made we will react to it with billions of dollars of stupid and an ever increasing level of restrictions.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
I’m not expecting that. Which is too bad, of course. I don’t expect them to try to craft the best possible piece of legislation. I do expect that if a law passes they’ll complain about it and try to chip away at it for years. Same thing they did with the health care law even though that didn’t work out very well for them.
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So, your serious expectation is that the Dems will pass a meaningful gun control law but that it will be the Republicans that chip away at it’s utility…otherwise it would have had some quantifiable effect? Like all the other gun control legislature has had in the US, right? :dubious:
I’m truly baffled by this rationale from many posters in these threads. The last few years have been the first time in a LONG time that gun control has been rolled back in the US in any sort of meaningful way. In that time, contrary to the dire predictions of many anti-gun types, gun crime in the US has continued a steady drop. Incidents such as what happened at this school recently have been rare, if horrifying events. Short of a total ban on ALL guns in the US, something unlikely in the extreme to happen given the current attitudes towards guns the general population has, there is simply nothing that would have prevented this from happening. There is no possible legislature that the Dems could possibly pass that would have prevented this tragedy from happening. Based on the anti-gun legislature that HAS been passed in the US in the past, it won’t even have a quantifiable effect on regular gun violence in the US.
Second hand smoke kills 50000 people a year, mostly kids and seniors. Which is almost 10X the number murdered by handguns. There are only 50MM smokers, and 200MM guns.
We’d save more lives (and not have to worry about that pesky Bill of Rights thing) if we just made smoking a felony. Why not?
We could save lives by banning certain cars that go too fast. (and not have to worry about that pesky Bill of Rights thing) . Why not?
By banning backyard pools. (and not have to worry about that pesky Bill of Rights thing) . Why not?
By banning certain books used by terrorists for bomb recipes. Here- we would have to worry about that pesky Bill of Rights thing. But still, why not?
Now look, I agree that stopping the import or manuf of certain guns wouldn’t be a violations of the 2nd Ad, and might even save a few lives, so I will give that some support.
That was not the intent of the assault weapons ban, and you know it. It might have achieved dick, sure, but the intent was to ban the most dangerous weapons. As it turns out, the criteria they used to define such weapons was wrong. That doesn’t change what the law was meant to do, though.
Cite? Also, I’m pretty sure any potential assault weapons ban next year won’t look very much like the Clinton era ban did.
The slightest chance? If twenty dead six year olds is the slightest chance for gun control legislation, I’d hate to see what a big chance looks like.
Blatant deflection. Gun control debate is not preventing anyone from figuring out the fiscal cliff thingy. Would you say to a police officer, “Why are you pulling me over for speeding? Don’t you have real crimes to prevent?” Gun control needs to be addressed. Just because other issues also must be addressed doesn’t change that fact.
It’s not stupid just because you disagree with it. Like it or not, this debate is going to happen, and there’s a reasonable chance some meaningful legislation will come of it. You can’t just sigh exasperatedly at it and expect it to go away.
Why not? That’s been the NRA strategy all the time until now and it always worked splendidly. As Rachel Maddow pointed out last night, the NRA’s response to Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Giffords shooting and Aurora was the same: a statement soon afterwards expressing remorse and sympathy to those affected, and then a few days afterwards, a requisite followup that a political debate at that time would be inappropriate.
The NRA loved to kick the can down the road and the issue always went away.
Things are different this time, however. I have no idea why but it’ll be interesting to see what happens when the other shoe drops in the awaited NRA press conference set for today.
I get really tired of hearing gun control advocates refer to “the NRA” as if it were some alien being intruding on our society. The NRA is the millions of pro-gun people who join their voices collectively to be heard better.
After reading that 1994 legislation how can you say with a straight face that the intent was to ban anything. It did not affect anything in current possession, the only things “banned” were imports of new mags and rifles, and the domestic production of guns containing combinations of a few cosmetic parts. The only reason “assault weapons” were taken off of shelves between 1994-2004 was due to their purchase.
Looks about the same to me. The bill to be introduced does stop transfers however:
[QUOTE=Mosier]
That was not the intent of the assault weapons ban, and you know it. It might have achieved dick, sure, but the intent was to ban the most dangerous weapons. As it turns out, the criteria they used to define such weapons was wrong. That doesn’t change what the law was meant to do, though.
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If that was it’s intent, it was an epic fail. And while I’m sure that’s the STATED intent, I don’t believe that the folks who pushed this through were stupid…which they would have had to be if their actual intent was to do this.
9mm pistols weren’t on the AWB. I gave a link earlier about what was, so feel free to go back to it and pick through. I think you’ll find that nothing that was used in this assault would have been on the banned list. Even the rifle that he didn’t use wouldn’t have been on the list since, you know, he already owned it (I don’t believe it would have been anyway, though it’s moot since it wasn’t used in this crime).
Why? The talk I’ve heard is to bring back the AWB. Granted, it’s still early days, but that seems to be the most common theme I’ve been hearing as a first reaction to this. Do you think that the new ‘assault weapons ban’ will be substantially different, and if so, what do you base that on…and what do you think will be in it? Just curious, not torturing you for a cite or busting your chops here.
Ok, so they jumped at the first big chance to restart the gun control debate, and they are doing so in a knee jerk fashion. However you want to twist it is fine with me.
I’m sorry you think that way. I see the gun issue as minor. I’m not trying to deflect a gods damned thing. It was a horrible tragedy, no doubt, but we are talking about a handful of people killed here in a relatively rare event. On the other side, we are staring into the face of a serious fiscal crisis that could effect literally millions of people, thousands or 10’s of thousands of jobs, a lowering of our GDP and probably a backstep into recession. Compared to that, gun control is, IMHO, small beer. Adding up all the people killed with a gun every year in the entire US we are looking at a relatively small problem…smaller than, say, the problem we have with drunk drivers killing even more Americans each year in alcohol related deaths. We don’t need to be fixing THAT problem as a top priority right this second either. I’d say Obama et al have enough on their plate supposedly dealing with the REAL issues this country faces, instead of a ‘problem’ that is actually declining in severity and has been about where it is today for decades.
My disagreement with it is irrelevant and has nothing to do with why it’s so stupid. It’s so stupid because, as I’ve said repeatedly, it’s a knee jerk reaction, nothing substantial will actually be accomplished, we have bigger fish to fry and this is going to detract from the real problems we have in this country right now…and also just add more hydrogen to the fire of political rancor currently between Republicans and Democrats, further dividing both the political process and citizens into yet another armed camp of pro and anti gun people. As if we didn’t have enough divisions already, and as if we don’t have enough real problems, now we have this too.
Furthermore, the AWB did NOT ban rifles with the exact same amount of firepower as the one the shooter had with him.
The problem with the AWB is not that it bans “assault weapons”, it’s that “assault weapon” as defined in the 1994 AWB is a useless term.
The high-capacity magazine ban MIGHT help if it were confiscatory rather than merely “no more of these”; however, the rest of the provisions literally amount to “we have decided a number of cosmetic features unrelated to the firepower of the rifle in any realistic scenario are scary and deserve to be banned”.
In terms of useful fire rate, caliber, and magazine size, the Bushmaster XM-15 is effectively equivalent (with a slightly larger standard magazine) to the Ruger Mini-14 I use to plink groundhog and other pests. The 1994 AWB would ban one (because of the pistol grip and the flash suppressor) and not the other.
It’s my view that any sane proposal for regulating firearms would start with both or neither based on firepower rather than firepower-irrelevant features, but that’s going to end up being politically unfeasible as a lot of people realize that their semi-auto hunting rifle is effectively possessed of similar firepower as the scary M-16-lookalike that looks so good when a Brady type points to it on TV.
It’s also my view that any proposal for effectively reducing gun crimes would take a more European approach of primarily regulating the people who have the firearms rather than the firearms themselves, but try selling THAT to a fervent gun rights supporter–I mean, I actively advocate for expanding private ownership of ACTUAL assault weapons and I get called a gun grabber for being willing to accept training, licensing/registration, and more screening.
That hasn’t been the case for every attempt, although it was the case for the TSA>
Not my expectation, my hope.
I’m not convinced of that. I don’t think any laws will make this impossible. I do think some changes in gun legislation and mental health could make this less likely and bring other benefits.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
I’m not convinced of that. I don’t think any laws will make this impossible. I do think some changes in gun legislation and mental health could make this less likely and bring other benefits.
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Could you specify which sort of law you think would have made this kid not be able to get a hold of (2) 9 mm pistols after shooting his mother, who was the legal owner? What sort of law would have A) Prevented this woman from keeping her already owned pistols and B) Prevented her child from going into her house, grabbing the guns, shooting her and then going on a rampage? 9 mm hand guns are probably as ubiquitous as it gets, hand gun wise…maybe a .22 would be even more popular, but there are literally 10’s of millions of 9 mm hand guns out there today. Short of taking them off the streets completely, how what sort of law do you see (realistic or no) that would have prevented this?
But what do you base that hope on? I’m not being snarky, not busting your chops…I’m really curious here. I mean, I’m not knocking hope…hope is a good thing. But in this context, it needs to be based on something tangible. What are you basing your hope on wrt this?
If I were given the task of leading the discussion to write legislation with the intent to significantly reduce firearm deaths while causing the least amount of disruption to current legal gun owners, I think I’d start the discussion with the following suggestions:
Absolutely no buying, selling, giving, inheriting, renting, loaning, or otherwise transferring possession of any firearm for any reason, except via a licensed firearms dealer. Acting as a firearms dealer without a license would be a felony.
Mandatory background checks for everyone who buys, rents, or loans a gun from a firearms dealer.
Mandatory ballistics testing and mandatory registration for every weapon that is bought/sold/rented/loaned, to be kept in a registration database only accessible through a court ordered warrant.
Any firearm bought or sold after the law takes effect must be equipped with a “smart” safety that meets a set of requirements established by the government. The smart safety must be designed to prevent anyone but the owner from firing it. (The tech exists, but is not widespread because it’s not required.) Tampering with or disabling the smart safety would be a misdemeanor, unless it was determined to be on a stolen gun, which would elevate it to a felony.
Accidental discharge of a firearm anywhere, any time, is a misdemeanor.
Possession of a firearm while committing an assault, battery, intimidation, or any other similar crime against a person, is a mandatory 5 year sentence without parole.
The intent would be to take away the anonymity of firearm ownership, close “gun show loopholes,” make it much more difficult to steal a weapon for use in a crime, and make gun ownership a less “casual” decision. I don’t really want to take everyone’s guns away, but I do want the law to provide more protection against guns. I want every gun in America (eventually) registered through the federal and state governments. I don’t want a “gray” market for guns to go completely ignored.
I don’t feel qualified to write gun legislation, and I’ve never claimed a single law could have prevented the Newtown shooting. I’ve said I think bans on some type of guns and high capacity magazines could make these types of shootings less likely and for that matter less deadly and I’m willing to consider requirements that gun owners have to secure their guns. I don’t even see this as primarily a gun problem- I think it’s a mental health issue first and foremost. But it’s absurd to try to take gun control off the table as a possible solution to these kinds of things.
The fact that normally we’re not “allowed” to discuss this issue at a time like this. I’m hoping that the outrage over the shooting will translate into some solid legislation instead of being filibustered out of existence.
Thank you for laying that out Mosier…appreciated. I don’t think much of it is realistic, but I happen to agree with a lot of it, if you take the position that we have a problem that must be fixed and that draconian measures are necessary to fix it. I have to ask though…how would any of that have prevented THIS tragedy?
AFAIK, the woman did buy her guns from a dealer, not at a gun show (obviously if I’m misremembering then this would be a valid point). A background check on her would have come back clean. Assuming this draconian stuff was actually able to go through, I’ll assume she would have been in compliance with the 3rd one…but whether she was or not I don’t see how that would have any effect. The 4th one is pretty much impossible. Oh, the technology exists, but it’s not widely available…hell, I don’t think it’s actually marketed, but instead still in the development state. There is zero chance you could force every gun owner to have to go out and buy smart safety technology…it would be like forcing ever motorist to have to go out and buy breathalyzer ignition systems for their cars, new and used. 5 is equally unlikely, but, again, how would it prevent tragedies like this…the kid shot his mother. That’s ALREADY a felony crime, so misdemeanor isn’t even in it. 6, again, wouldn’t have any effect, since the kid shot himself after wards, and had he not he would have been in for a MUCH more severe sentence regardless.
And I think that THIS part of what you are asking for is not without merit, and I wouldn’t fight such measures, at least in theory…devil and details and all that. But, again, it wouldn’t have prevented this particular crime.
Here is the thing…afaik, most of the guns used in these sorts of rare postal rage events are usually NOT bought on the ‘gray market’ as you put it, or at gun shows using the ‘gun show loopholes’…so, closing that wouldn’t really have a large effect on stopping these crimes, if it would have any effect at all. By all means, close those loopholes…I have no problem with having to have authorized dealers (as long as dealers can get licensed without ridiculous hurdles to go over), or have to have purchases called in or background checks done (again, as long as there aren’t impossible hurdles to doing so, making this merely a trick to give the appearance of letting people buy guns, but not allowing them to actually do so), or even making people have to have a license to own a gun (same). But even given all that, I don’t see how any of this would have prevented this all from happening.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
The fact that normally we’re not “allowed” to discuss this issue at a time like this. I’m hoping that the outrage over the shooting will translate into some solid legislation instead of being filibustered out of existence.
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There is no such thing as ‘allowed’ in politics, Marley. The Dems haven’t wanted to discuss this politically because they had spent years hammering gun owners on this when it was politically acceptable and appealing for them to do so, until recently when it wasn’t and the worm turned. The only difference today is that the worm has turned again, at least temporarily, so they feel they can do it without endangering their elected offices or hurting their chances.
I never said to take it off the table…I asked specific questions about your stance on this.
That’s not what I said. I said all weapons manufactured or sold/loaned/rented/etc. after the law takes effect must include smart safety tech.
Think of it like seat belt laws. Shoulder strap seat belts were not required by law to be included in vehicles until suddenly they were, but nobody had to go retrofit their old vehicles to comply with seat belt law. Now a few decades later, it’s pretty difficult to find any vehicle on the road without a shoulder strap seat belt. The same can be done for firearms. Over time, unsafe ones will become more and more rare until they’re just not really around anymore.
Ah, I misunderheard you…sorry. Ok, though I think the point about this technology being not for prime time still factors in. Plus, you have literally hundreds of millions of existing guns that would need to be grandfathered or something like that, so the relatively small handful (of more expensive) guns with this tech would be a drop in the bucket, wouldn’t they?