Even more to the point…
They have obviously NOT eliminated them, they have just OUTLAWED them.
So we have a great example of guns flourishing where they are not allowed.
This makes the saying:
“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”
…a self-fullfilling prophecy.
The day they ban guns will be the day they have moved an arbitrary line and made me(and several million others) a criminal.
I meant it in the loosest sense, inclusive of all those who would feel strongly enough about the OP proposal to show their objection, from posting to SDMB all the way up to more, erm, ‘direct action’.
You assume too much. Way too much. I never said that.
I would hope and expect that the vast majority of gun owners, just like the population at large, are decent, amiable law abiding citizens. There are, however, a very small number of nutters in any group and these ones would be armed.
You, sir, should assess your target before you pull the trigger.
I’d like to introduce you to our good friend, the word “imply”. By stating that a portion (admittedly, a small portion) of the “Gun Lobby” could go on a murder spree when there’s a ripe opportunity, you imply that you have a very, very low expectation of the “Gun Lobby”.
I think the problem is your misunderstanding of the term “Gun Lobby”. The “Gun Lobby” is the general group that strives to uphold basic human rights, stressing (because they believe it’s neglected by other organizations) the right to bear arms. By definition, these are people who stand a VERY low chance of acting irresponsibly with their rights, as they cherish them most dear.
In my oh-so-humble opinion, of course. And experience.
Oh, come now. If I had “pulled the trigger”, you’d be burning badly right now. At worst, I have simply “waved my smoking gun” 
I imply nothing of the sort. I’d like to introduce you to our good friend, the word “infer”. You infer, incorrectly and with no evidence, that my expectation of the “gun Lobby” is very, very low. My expectation is that gun owners are pretty much like everybody else except in that one respect which is implied (correctly), i.e. that they own guns.
The proposal in the OP (that prohibition remains in force if gun deaths fall by 50% during a five year test period) would surely reward irresponsible behaviour with a restoration of your existing rights.
I’m still waiting for you to prove that Columbine wasn’t planned as exactly the opposite scenario of what you are describing.
How do we know that the anti-gunners aren’t killing people as we speak just to raise the murder rate in an effort to enact more legislation?
Why, do you think this is likely?
Since it is my assertion that all groups of people has it’s fair share of Fruit Loops[sup]TM[/sup] it would be inconsistent of me to deny the possibility and therefore illogical to attempt to prove otherwise.
ticker: while you are correct that there is no “hard-and-fast” definition of “the gun lobby”, typically it consists of people who actually take political action, in the form of campaigning for cetain politicians, or the cause of gun rights in general.
I guess that last clause could include those of us here on the SDMB in our verbal advocacy of the rights of gunowners.
But this by no means includes all gun owners. Anectdotally, I had a co-worker who dearly loved her guns. When I asked her if she was a member of the NRA, she became hotly indignant, called all NRA members “ofay redneck peckerheads” and suggested that all NRA member’s guns be rounded up and all members be tossed under the prison for life.
:rolleyes: go figure.
City Gent: I appreciate the OP as an exercise of thought, but there has been some (admitedly contentious) research done on the very subject, from several surveys on Defensive Gun Uses to statistical research on the impact of concealed carry laws.
Most of the *anti-*gun lobby dismisses any research supporting gun ownership out-of-hand, precluding the possibility of a dialogue on the subject. With negative stereotypes being trumpeted in popular entertainment and factually inaccurate “news pieces” that are thinly veiled attacks upon gun owners and gun ownership, the two sides have been severely polarized.
**epolo:**your statement:
is accurate only in the broadest sense. In the United States, handguns are responsible for the majority of crime related incidents (at least half, probably more). But it is illegal for a gun dealer in VA to sell a handgun to a resident of NY, or D.C…
What typically happens is that someone in NY or D.C. wants a handgun, and gets their friend’s cousin’s brother’s girlfriend’s uncle Earl down in VA to buy it for them.
This is called the “strawman” purchase, and is illegal. When a person buys a firearm from a dealer, they fill out a form called the ATF form 4473, which asks certain questions which are verified against the national database at the National Instant Check System (NICS). The form asks if the purchaser is the intended owner of the weapon; knowingly answering falsely (which may be difficult to prove in a court of law) is a prosecutable felony charge.
Anyone who purchase multiple handguns w/in a five day period gets flagged for investigation
Note the usage of the word “lobby”. I must say that’s one of the little things that irks me in the gun debate. The Brady Campaign for the Handgun Control of a Million Moms, or whatever the hell they’re called this week, is always referred to as “advocates”, a fairly positive and optimistic word, while the NRA is a “lobby” which certainly has extremely negative connotations.
Take a look at this article by Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe (so yes, it appeared in a major newspaper!) for a little more on this sly but nonetheless serious smear:
https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=108
Ah, but you forget that you used the term “Gun Lobby” in your original post, not “Gun Owners”. The two are not necessarily the same group. I’m sorry if you feel that have treated your post unfairly.
Baloney. Using your logic, Pro-Control people would be committing gun murders by the thousands in an effort to increase the Gun Control measures.
People don’t suddenly turn into malicious, stark-raving-mad murderers when given the first opportunity.
He didn’t ask you to attempt to prove otherwise. He asked you to provide evidence in SUPPORT of your assertions. To wit… why do you assume that all groups are equal in terms of composition? Do you think there are just as many “Fruit Loops” in, say, Amnesty International as there are in the KKK?
You’ve missed the point as far as it can be missed. The purpose of the experiment is not to prove that a ban on handguns would make gun crimes go down. The purpose of the experiment is to determine whether or not gun crimes would go down if handguns were banned. Therefore, if the results were that a handgun ban did not reduce gun crimes, the experiment would be successful, because the question would be answered. You seem a little overeager to find fault with what is essentially a neutral proposal.
And to the “cold dead hands” crowd, kalashnikov in particular: You people truly frighten me - you almost seem to relish the idea of armed conflict. Do you really think that if the tyrannical government you fantasize about wanted to subjugate the citizenry, they’d send an MP with a sidearm to collect your guns? Your house would be a smoking crater before you even knew you were being watched. Your guns may have protected you in the 1800s, but you’re not going to stop any modern government that really wants you eliminated. You could hire an armed detail to protect you 24 hours a day and it wouldn’t make a whit of difference. You may go down shooting, and I may go down not shooting, but we both end up just as dead.
If it makes you feel better, 'Gent, I understood what your point was. And I think it’s a well-intentioned proposal… I just don’t think it’s very practical beyond “thought experiment” status.
However, what IS practical is a small-scale implementation of your proposal… look at individual areas that have implemented very strict controls (or outright bans, in some cases), and measure the results. Consistently, these areas with bans/tight measures have shown increases in crime rates. My conclusion? Neither extreme of the Gun Control spectrum is a positive solution.
City Gent:
A “tyrannical government” needn’t have to arrive suddenly, unannounced. The incremental paring of civil liberties can have the same effect, while going unnoticed by the greater mass of bourgeois, if not by all.
And the first instance of that sort of activity would be (should say “has been”) a clarion call for the citizenry to “wake up” to what their government is doing.
Unfortunately, most Americans just hit the snooze button, rolled over and went right back to sleep.
So the answer lies in prevention, not reaction.
“Sauce for the goose…”
How do you think the anti-gun politicians and bureaucrats might feel, when, despite their elaborate security arrangements, they start getting plotted from hundreds of yards away?
By nothing more than a bolt-action, scoped hunting rifle (they’re made for accuracy, you know) and a single, motivated shooter? We can butter that slice of bread on both sides, my friend.
A brief reminder of the words of Mr. Thomas Jefferson:
Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith
Nov. 13, 1787.
Last I heard, everybody dies. I have never claimed that I expected to survive even the first encounter, but I can’t just sit back and do nothing. Depending on how things go, the most effective strategy might not be to wait for them to come to me…
You know, that kind of reminds me of how my dad taught me to handle bullies in school. When they say they’re going to beat you up, make them do it. Next time they say they’re going to beat you up, make them do it again. Even if you get your ass kicked a couple times, you fight back, and the bully realizes that the gain isn’t worth the cost, and will move on.
City Gent, I can tell you from experience that it works. I can also tell you that the cost of subduing a nation of 281,000,000 people, of whom close to 80,000,000 are gun owners will definitely outweigh the power gain from doing so successfully. Let’s assume only 1/4 of gun owners would offer armed resistance if faced with armed squads going house to house. That leaves 20 MILLION combatants, spread out over the country with the 4th largest landmass in the world. By comparison, who can tell me how many members there are of the U.S. armed forces? Pacifying such a large population isn’t an appealing task, to be sure. And before you start railing about how people with guns can’t fight against tanks and nukes, well, no shit. But tanks and nukes can’t fight dispersed pockets of armed resistance in the cities that you hope to control. That’s like cutting off your nose because you have a cold. You may survive, but you won’t get rid of the infection, and the overall cost isn’t worth the benefit.
Don’t forget that many of those police, military and national guard are pro-gun. Heck, I’ve heard of guys who joined the guard just so they would be trained and equipped for this conflict.
What good can a handgun do against an army?
http://pub.anonymizer.com/~klash/text/what good can a handgun do against an army.html
I’ll be putting more essays up tonight. It’s about time I put together the site I’ve been collecting material for.
ONE handgun? Nothing.
A MILLION handguns? A helluva lot.
Mr. Gent, the basic answer to your fears is that you’re looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. Additionally, you fail to realize the sheer scope of the situation.
You claim that a tyrannical government can simply kill you if you don’t turn in their guns. All right. Will this tyrannical government do this to each and every gun owner in the country? What you’re suggesting is that this tyrannical government will willfully undermine and obliterate its own economic infrastructure.
To actually address the OP (which, as most GCD’s are wont to do, has been largely ignored after the first 10 posts), how about this:
**1.**The NRA and HCI each select a committee of 10 “experts” (criminologists, sociologist, physicians, statisticians, lawyers, constitutional scholars, etc.). Each committee is funded and paid for by their parent organization.
**2.**Additionally, one Congressperson, one federal judge (preferably a Supreme Court Justice) and one administration official from each side of the debate will act as a panel of “moderators”, who will then elect a seventh person to act as a chairperson and tie-breaker.
**3.**These two committees get together, and like a conference, go over the salient points of gun control (pro and con) one-by-one. I might recommend that they actually meet in separate conference rooms, and either teleconference or send message runners from one to the other. Otherwise the “winner” may be whoever is left standing after the ballyhoo devolves into a brawl.
The two sides hammer out the agenda of “talking points” and issues, either by agreement or by simly submitting the list of issues they want addressed or they want to address.
Such questions may be along the lines of:[list=1]
[li]Second Amendment: individual or collective right?[/li][li]Gun Control Laws: Federal, State and municipal. Imminent Domain .vs. pre-emption? Cogent or cosmetic?[/li][li]Constitutionality: as in "how much is too much, too far?[/li][li]Who do we not want to have guns?[/li][li]How do we keep those types from getting guns?[/li][li]How do we assist law enforcement tracing of guns used in crimes?[/li][li]How do we reduce suicides (is it a gun issue or health issue)?[/li][li]How do we reduce accidents?[/li][li]How de we reduce “impulse” or “opportunistic” use of guns?[/li][li]Trigger locks: Mandatory? How to implement?.[/li][li]Storage? Same.[/li][li]Education? Same.[/li][li]Registration and/or Licensing? Feasible? Advisable?[/li][li]Assault Weapons: Hype and hyperbole or non-issue?[/li][li]Non-violent ex-felons: restore or restrict rights?[/li][li]Waiting periods: purpose and effect.[/list=1][/li]
Note that my suggested list isn’t all-inclusive.
4. At the end of each round of debates on a particular issue/question, the panel of moderators vote on the issue and declares a “winner” on that issue, and the winner gets to be the official spokesagency on that particualr issue, while the “loser” gets a gag order against speaking on that issue
Additionally: any side which refuses to address an issue/question of the other side is the default loser on that issue, and loses its say in crafting policy on that issue, at any level.
5. This may take some arm-twisting by the FCC, but as each issue is resolved, every major news outlet must run it as a headline news issue for 24 hours.
6. As each issue is resolved, the findings are entered as “official” expert testimony into the Congressional record, and the pertinient Gun Control Laws are either enacted as legislation or repealed immediately by Congress.
I’m an NRA Life Member, and as such, I no longer pay dues (I still contribute, though). Such a discussion as I have suggested above would be well worth a couple hundred extra dollars from my pocket to fund (my side, at least )
There are quite a few people running around who blame media portrayals of violence–in movies, on TV, in video games, and even in news reporting of violent incidents–for influencing the sheeplike citizenry, especially younger members, to commit violence of their own. So, City Gent…would you propose, in the spirit of empiricism, a Five Year suspension of the First Amendment (the relevant portion) to permit the censorship of the entertainment and news industries to see if keeping violence out would in fact cause an appreciable drop in real-life violence?
[li]We won’t censor everything–they can still report on/portray all the non-violent stuff they like.[/li]
[li]It’s not like this will cause all the rest of our rights to vanish–we’ll still have our guns to guard against that.[/li]
So whaddaya think? And, if you think it’s a bad idea, why do you find it worse than your suggestion?
First of all, ExTank, let me thank you for dragging me into…er, I mean inviting! me over here to this lively discussion from GQ (sarcastic smiley here).
Seriously, buddy, I’m with you. It’s just that when I see “great”, “debate”, “gun”, and “control” in close proximity, I generally chamber a round (I was a Boy Scout), pivot and jete back to coolsville.
The blatant hypocracy of City Gent makes it hard to reason against. I don’t mean that as a personal attack (he might not actually see how slippery he is being). But nowhere in his OP does he even hint at this being a thought experiment as he later claims. And if the point is not reducing gun crime but mere mental gymnastics, why not work on the GUTheory instead. He claims indifference, but I’m not so easily taken.
Since at this late post, most of this is rehash, a few thoughts:
I lived in Taos, NM for 5 yrs. The first thing I did was to get a NM DL. Part of changing my TX lic for a NM lic was a short course by the DMV on NM driving laws which included a portion on guns in your car. Surprisingly, you are allowed to carry a loaded, unlicensed (not required) firearm in your car, as it is considered an extention of your home. Laying right on the front seat if you wish. Further, you could leave your car with your gun up to about 500ft (I don’t remember the exact distance) provided you did not carry it into a prohibited area (bank, liquor store, etc). So, you tended to see a few of folks walking around with guns stuck in their waistband or even holstered.
Politically, Taos is a volatile town. The predominately Hispanic community is openly hostile to the whites. And the Native Americans to both. So lots of armed hostile people walking around and guess what?..almost no gun crime.
Drugs, murder, hell, even running red lights are against the law but it doesn’t seem to stop everyone. Why would banned gun ownership be any different.
Criminal WOULD NOT give theirs up.
DC is a great control!
The car analogy is valid.
The simple truth is our individual society, our culture, is violent - banning guns won’t save us. Better parenting and stronger morals and ethics will. Here’s a though experiment for you, one that might actually be able to be put in place: Make ‘ethics’ a mandatotry high school subject for 5 yrs and see what happens. Bet that would lower gun crime, as well as crime across the board, faster than banning guns.
An aside: I think we should add CDH (…cold, dead hand[s]) to the abreviation list in ATMB! 