“… reduced risk of overpenetration” Compared to what? The published penetration figures for 7.62x39 (AK 47) and .223 are about the same, and quite impressive. This is again a reason why I wonder what people are thinking when they say they want an AR 15 or something like it for home defense. Why involve your neighbors as well when you cut loose? Surely the best thing for home defense is a shotgun?
Worried about rapists climbing through your window (the archetypal NRA cliche)? Then put bars on your windows or get stronger windows.
Given the number of incidents in which innocent people have been killed when mistaken for intruders, perhaps a different concept for home security is called for?
BTW, the House of the Ded (hello Dostoyevsky) has double-glazed windows and a set of security cameras. Plus remote control of the lighting with an app. In theory, I could set the lights to switch randomly to fool potential intruders. So far, no burglaries, but it ain’t the USA.
Gun ownership is a privilege and not a right. You can own one or more as long as you meet the criteria.
Military guns are for the military, civilians can have guns for civilian purposes. Go to a shooting range or join the military if you want to fire a machine gun.
When issuing gun permits of any kind, you have to meet all the criteria. No criminal record, no mental issues, and you are demonstrably mentally stable and competent. If in doubt, no permit.
Tough penalties for ownership of illegal weapons.
Uniform regulations in all states, to prevent cross-border trading.
A clear grading of penalties on the basis of whether or not a gun or other weapons was used. So, more time in the grey bar hotel if you had a gun while committing a robbery.
I do not advocate confiscation, except for those who who fail to comply with the above. I also do not advocate restrictions on gun ownership apart from the provisos given above. This is what is done in most developed countries, and it works. I am very well aware that the problem is pretty much out of control due to the sheer number of legal and illegal guns, but that does not mean that you should give up.
For the record, Europe has had an ongoing problem when a lot of Soviet bloc small arms got loose in the nineties when the Soviet Union collapsed. Dealing with such a thing can only be long by long-term police action. There is no quick fix. And one issue here to prevent the sale of ammunition, especially for the more lethal weapons.
It’s not clear what you mean by “military guns” and “guns for civilian purposes”. Does “military guns” go beyond “machine guns”? Machine guns are already heavily restricted under U.S. law; 26 U.S. Code § 5841 already requires registration of “firearms”–but note that “firearms” in this context doesn’t mean what most people would mean by that term; it actually means machine guns, “sawed-off shotguns” (actually, any shotgun with a barrel shorter than a specified length, whether it was manufactured that way or subsequently altered), “short-barreled rifles” (same note as for “sawed-off shotgun”), guns disguised to look like other things, “silencers” AKA “suppressors”, and bombs.
Furthermore, for “machine guns” (but not silencers) a subsequent law (18 U.S.C. §922 (o)) “froze” the registry; so, unless your Tommy gun or Uzi was already registered as of 1982, it’s illegal. As a result, there is a now a fixed supply of fully automatic weapons that may be legally owned by civilians in the U.S.; they tend to be owned by [del]gun nuts[/del] firearms aficionados who probably are more likely to treat them like Cameron’s dad in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off treated his vintage Ferrari than they are to commit crimes with them. And, in fact, regular folks who want to fire off a machine gun do pretty much have to go to a shooting range that rents such devices.
18 U.S.C. §922 (already linked to above) makes it illegal for any person who is a felon (“any person…who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year”), who is a fugitive from justice, who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance”, who has “been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution”, who is an illegal alien (or is simply legally but not permanently in the United States–only citizens and “green card” holders are supposed to have guns), who has been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces, who has renounced his or her United States citizenship, who is the subject of certain kinds of restraining orders, or who has been convicted of crimes of domestic violence (even misdemeanors)–deep breath–“to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce”. It is also illegal " for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person" is in any of those prohibited categories.
Penalties for violations of those laws are found in 18 U.S.C. §924; and range from imprisonment for up to a year, to imprisonment for up to five years, to imprisonment for up to ten years (plus possible fines in all those cases).
There are certainly “loopholes” in this regulatory scheme. It is illegal for Alice to sell a gun to Bob if she knows he’s a felon, fugitive from justice, drug addict, and so on; but she is only required to do a background check on him if she’s a federally-licensed firearms dealer. Hence the calls for “universal background checks”.
Those are already federal laws. I don’t know if that’s uniform enough for you or not.
From 18 U.S.C. §924 again:
So, there’s that. (Many states also have similar sentencing enhancements. For that matter, the difference between “assault” and “aggravated assault”–typically a much more serious crime; a potentially major felony instead of a misdemeanor–very often hinges on whether a weapon was used.)
And that’s going to be the sticky one. You say you “do not advocate confiscation”, and “do not advocate restrictions on gun ownership apart from the provisos given above”. None of the federal laws here (or similar state laws) have yet been struck down as unconstitutional infringements on “the right to keep and bear arms”, not does it seem likely that they will be. I doubt universal background check laws would be struck down as unconstitutional either. So, given that your proposed changes to the law seem like pretty moderate tweaks to what’s already on the books, why do you want to say that “gun ownership is a privilege and not a right”?
You also say that your proposals are no more than “what is done in most developed countries”. Many other developed countries do place considerably stricter requirements than these on gun ownership. Laws in the UK and Australia–I believe also in New Zealand–require someone who wants to own a firearm to have a “genuine reason” for possessing a firearm and “personal protection or the protection of any other person” is specifically named as NOT being a legitimate reason for possessing a firearm (for example, New South Wales Firearms Act 1996 Part 2 Division 2 Section 12).
Note also that any number of American politicians (while denying they want to “take anybody’s guns”) have specifically name-checked Australian laws as the sorts of laws that have been effective in preventing violence and so forth.
To back up from the statement you referred to, not only don’t mass shootings* correlate well with the availability of guns or even semi automatic rifles in particular, they also don’t correlate much with the overall murder rate in the US either. That’s gone down significantly in the period where mass shootings have gone up, or again at least ‘know it when you hear of it’ ‘real’ mass shootings.
So whether it’s guns or social environment there are a lot of things going on and can’t really see what it has to do with directly with say clergy sexual abuse, that’s a puzzling reference. It’s not impossible it has to do with race or gender relations, since a lot of the shooters are one race and gender, white and male. But a lot of them of very young men without a lot of real exposure to life (for example women in the workforce) and few seemed focused on race explicitly (a few have, OTOH a few have been non-white, in general that doesn’t seem to be the focus).
I think some people are too sensitive in their idea that recent decades’ evolution of society has all been for the better, and it’s only people resisting or reacting to it that cause problems. I think it’s fairly obvious that there is some ‘decay of social norms’ that applies particularly to poorly raised young men and could be quite relevant to mass shootings. That isn’t by any stretch a statement that all concurrent social change, including the vaguely or completely unrelated ones you mentioned, have been strictly bad.
Back to semi automatic rifles, I see no reason why part of the explanation couldn’t be basically same availability of them combined with more wacko’s due to breakdown in norms relevant to those wackos. Again seems to me a rigid mindset to insist there can’t be more wacko’s now, only guns could be causing it. It could be guns facilitating it but other things causing it. More likely actually IMO.
Just plain fad since Columbine is also IMO a highly likely part of it. That doesn’t mean you can necessarily address a fad with public policy though. Maybe the public policy has to address guns, because that’s what you can actually do. Or…can’t actually do. I’m still pretty sure federal gun control in the US that amounts to a whole lot (I mean really, not just minor things very pro-gun people get really worked about) is not gonna happen any time soon.
*especially if you define them carefully to avoid roping in gang related crimes, family murder/suicides and so forth. Obviously you’d want to have zero incidents in all those categories, but the point is they are different categories than ‘classic’ lone loser angry male mass shooter, or politically, religiously, ideologically driven mass shooter(s) either.
To reply to MEBuckner:
evidently there are numerous loopholes insofar as the individual states have different laws. That is what I mean by uniform regulations. You say that federal laws cover that. So which apply, federal or state laws? And if the federal laws, why are there differences between states? The same applies to background checking and the like. It is my understanding that the various states do vary considerably, given the examples quoted on this board.
You ask what I mean by “military” firearms. Ultimately, that is one for the lawyers, but I put it to you that there no reason for the average Joe to possess military weapons such as assault rifles. For that matter, do hunters really need semiautomatics? I heard that the Russian uses Saiga semiautomatic shotguns to shoot wild boar in Sibberia, so then there may be some justified cases. And, as I said, if you want to fire a machine gun, go to a shooting range.
And it is a question of justification. I evidently omitted this from my answer. If somebody has a good reason for possessing such a weapon for personal protection, then let them have it. But they do not have a right to it. And again, WTF do people think that they have a right to own guns? You might as well say that you have a right to own and drive a car. So do what just about every other country does; allow people to own and use guns if they meet the criteria. The exceptions to this tend to be places like Afghanistan and Yemen, with the associate mayhem.
And just what does the Second Amendment say? “The right to bear arms”? Is that not irrelevant now that the USA has armed forces of its own? This is the point of view taken by other countries: the soldiers bear the arms, the civilians can possess and use whatever is permitted. The latter can change over time, as the UK showed.
So, what I have suggested may already be covered to a certain extent, but it appears that the legislation is not conssitent across the USA and the loopholes can be exploited.
The argument that semiautomatic weapons need not be banned because the murder rate involving guns is going down does not hold water. Mass shootings may be relatively rare, but they are far more lethal if the perpetrator has a rapid fire weapon.
If referring to my post it’s not ‘need not be banned’. The point is simply that you’d want to look at actual causality, even if at the end of the day your chosen policy was ‘ban’ on the basis that gun laws are the only relevant thing you can actually change.
As opposed to the mindset that fixates on gun laws and then works back to the idea that guns must actually be the cause, not just the facilitating factor that’s perhaps most changeable.
In which case it’s relevant to consider the weak correlations among (particular type of) gun availability, murder in general, and mass shootings. Actual causality doesn’t jump right out among those three to say the least. And the fact that general shooting (and accident and suicide) victims of guns so vastly outnumber mass shooting victims isn’t irrelevant either.
Especially since ‘banning semiautomatic weapons’ (certainly if it includes hand guns, but even if it’s just rifles) in the US on a national level isn’t very realistic. Not IMO at least. Therefore while it might be self satisfying to say ‘here’s what needs to happen’ regardless of whether there’s any chance of it, it might be more productive to look at things more likely to happen. In which case it’s again relevant what actually causes mass shootings, which doesn’t seem to be the century plus old widespread availability of semi automatic weapons of all kinds.
As far as violent crime goes, it’s mostly sociological. Sure, if you waved a magic wand and got rid of all the guns, the rate would go down, but clearly the number of guns isnt correlating with the amount of violent crime.
Mass & School shooters are led on by the media, which glorifies them. This has been proven by many peer reviewed journaled studies by noted sociologists, criminologists, etc.
I wish that, just once, instead of just saying “many” this and “many” that, you would just gives us links to those studies and experts instead of keeping them anonymous until you are finally sufficiently prodded.
Yeah I don’t know if I’d use the term “decay of social norms” exactly, but something in society changed. Whoever replied to you before, sarcastically referenced the 50s and a time when blacks and women had fewer rights, maybe under the assumption that you were talking about that era. But forget about the 50s and some idealized Leave It To Beaver world - there weren’t constant mass shootings in the 70s and 80s either. And guns weren’t any more tightly regulated during those eras than they are now, as far as I know.
How is it that I can live alone in Chicago, only blocks from murder scenes, have had a robbery with gunshots in my back parking lot, have had a grandfather held up at gunpoint, yet I don’t feel the slightest need for a gun for self-protection? I feel perfectly at ease going out and coming home in the darkness in the early mornings and evenings.
Never once have I desired a gun to protect myself.
I gave you guys a bunch last time, and the response was “Hey think I know better than all these degreed experts, even tho I am a total layman and dont knowing jack shit”. You can go back and find the thread.
So, you got your “just once”, and you even participated. Is your memory that short, or are you just asking questions again?
Try getting a death threat from a Cartel, one that the FBI sez is valid. Then see how brave you are. Now yes, I stopped carrying once I moved away, but still…
And when I was carrying I prevented a assault upon a women, who was being dragged into a alley.
I love not being a coward. I loved saving her even more.
You had to be prodded in that thread too, if I recall correctly. If you could please provide a link to that thread we could see whose memory is faulty.
I would still like the OP to pop back in and explain why he thought this thread was different from all the others on the same subject, and if he thinks that any gun restrictions will inevitably lead to a total gun ban.