At the very least…NJ, California and Mass. I know for a fact that here in NJ you need to be fingerprinted and have 3 background checks run before you can purchase any firearm. The process takes between 4-6 months.
I’d say the average putz using a scope could hit a chest with a high degree of accuracy at 150 yars. My wife was shooting a 1 foot grouping at 100 yards just using the iron sights.
I would expect that this(these) sniper(s) have at least some familiarity with firearms, but it’s not like someone needed elite training to make these shots. One box of ammo and an hour at the range would probably suffice for the majority of the population.
The two things that stand out in my mind, is that the sniper does not suffer from buck fever. You tend to get real excited when you are about to make your shot. Its a lot easier to punch a hole in a piece of paper than it is to shoot a living thing. I don’t know if this makes me think it is an experienced hunter, a pure pyscho or someone who has killed before somewhere else(Afghanistan, Chechnya, Serbia, etc…etc…), but it is something I have noticed.
The other thing is that he keeps getting away. This impresses me more than the shots he makes. That he can constantly get away makes me think there is a team involved. The escape is the one thing (IMHO) that suggests specialty training.
Yes, happyheathen, all I wanted was to get the board’s take on this system. I’m not necessarily for or against the “LifeGuard” system and I don’t know much about its capabilities. I just think a system such as this, used on helicopter patrols might detect the location of the shooter or at the very least, lessen the shooter’s belief that he can’t be found.
By the way, if you watch the video clips from the link I provided, you will see this system is accurately targeting trajectories from a machine gun, proving at least that it can sample very quickly.
Greatest rate in the developed world? Do you not consider countries like Brazil developed? (BTW Brazil has very tight gun control, but it’s not working on their firearm homicide rate.) We’re talking about .035% of gun owners.
The US also has a higher non-gun homicide rate than much of Europe. Did reckless gun owners cause this as well?
16,000 of the 28,000 are suicides. Would people not commit suicide without guns? Doubtful. Japan’s suicide rate is much higher and they don’t have any guns.
According to the CDC the leading cause of death in the 15-24 age group is unintentional accidents followed by homicide and suicide.
As for locking up your guns so children don’t get them; There are laws on the books that punish parents that do this. What else can we do? There are less than 90 accidental child deaths by gun each year. (1-14yr) With millions of gun owners I’m not sure how we can get it much lower.
As I posted before, more than 99% of gun owners are responsible.
But…
If you can find a way to keep this requirement from being changed by the government and I’ll be with you on this. The problem with licensing a right is that it becomes a privilege, and privilege can be denied for any reason. This has happened in places like DC, New York, Mass, California, etc…
that system seems to be designed to protect a defined location - as in “track everything aimed at me”.
Since no one can yet predict where the next target will be, how do you know where to place the unit?
If you put it in a chopper, it might work great - but only if the chopper was the target.
Why isn’t it in use?
a) it isn’t in production - it is technology-in-development
b) not adequate for task at hand - finding a shooter without prior knowledge of the target (not even close)
So, here’s some quick points about Kellermann’s 1993 NEJM article:
The method Kellermann chose for his study is used to indicate correlation, but not causation.
Kellermann disregarded 76% of the homicides in the region of his study because they did not occur “in the home”. And of the remaining 24%, he collected complete data for just over 70%. He does like to slice it thin.
Kellermann only counts bodies. The benefit of firearms should be measured not by counting criminals killed, but by counting innocent lives protected.
Of those included in Kellermann’s study, about half weren’t even killed with a firearm. If someone can tell me how owning a gun makes it more likely that I’ll be bludgeoned to death, I’d sure like to hear it.
The study found a stronger correlation between “living alone” and being killed, and “renting a residence” and being killed, than it did between “owning a firearm” and being killed. If the study’s conclusions are meaningful, banks should be using it to sell mortgages; they’d have a stronger case than gun control advocates.
Kellermann refused to release the completed surveys or otherwise submit to outside criticism beyond his original article. His reluctance to be scrutinized led to Congress cutting the CDC’s funding and ordering the CDC to engage in no further “firearms studies”.
If you want to align yourself with this guy, be my guest. But I hope you don’t expect to be taken seriously.
Okay **John[/], 99% of gun owners are responsible? Is this responsibility?
This from PEDIATRICS Vol. 105 No. 4 April 2000, pp. 888-895. As are some other snippets, it is my source for some figures. If they misrepresent then I apologize.
Their sources were: Fingerhut LA, Warner M. Injury Chartbook, Health, United States, 1996-1997. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics; 1997; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Rates of homicide, suicide, and firearm related death among children 26 industrialized countries. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep CDC Surveill Summ 1997; 46:101-105.
What can we do? Well you cite the laws requiring parents to safely store weapons…
So that was a good start. What else? Well that Pediatrics piece states
But obviously controlling the sale isn’t enough since
So guns used in crimes may be initially legally sold but are then illegally resold or stolen. Tighter controls at that point of initial sale may not accomplish too much. So what would I propose?
-Handguns and assault weapon sales and continued ownership should be tightly monitored. If your weapon is later used in a crime then you share culpability. If you had resold it illegaly then the consequence to you is very high. If it was “stolen” then it had better have been reported as such, and when such a report is filed the nature of how you secure your weapon should be investigated.
-Handguns sold in America should be designed to be “child safe”, engineered to reduce the risk if it should become accessible to a minor.
-I wonder (just brainstorming here, don’t jump me) if higher taxes on handguns and assault weapons would decrease the numbers that are eventually on the street (similar to the logic behind cig. taxes)
Now let me ask you, as someone with a lot more knowledge about guns then I have, are there ways that you can think of? I don’t give a rat’s tail about rifles (this sniper notwithstanding), they are not most homicides and suicides and accidental deaths; I want to make sure that handguns and asault weapons bought by responsible gun users stay in their possession and are stored safely. I cannot imagine that there are not reasonable ways to reduce the numbers of such weapons that find their way into the possession of young punks, yet maintain your freedom to own them.
DSeid: you keep citing articles harping on the fact that we have more of this, that and the other than other nations.
Did those reports/studies/articles also mention that we have more guns (nach), and that, per gun (or gun owner, or gun-owning household), we probably have less gun related death and/or violence than those other countries?
In any case, I sense a great “inferiority complex” raging amongst gun grabbers who constantly compare us (quite selectively, I might add) to other nations, especially western Europe.
Just my $.02: if people want this country to be like some other country vis-a-vis guns and gun control, what’s easier: convincing about 140,000,000+/- Americans that they’re wrong, and must forfeit their firearms to make a handful of whiners feel like they’re living in western Europe, or for those whiners to simply leave if the U.S. is so God-awful?
We’ve been over the “international comparison” arguments ad nauseum in numerous previous threads; you’re not enlightening anyone, or making anything resembling a convincing argument by kicking and flogging this long-dead, stinking, rotten corpse of a horse.
And FWIW: the AMA and NEJM are about as unbiased as Sarah Brady where guns are concerned. If you want to use them, I should point out that us gun nuts are then as equally legitimate in quoting the NRA to you, and honestly expecting you to buy it.
You seem to be implying with the above that “assault weapons” are neither rifles or handguns.
Two challenges:
1. Define “assault weapon.” To my way of thinking, just about any weapon can be used to assault someone with, be it a knife, a club, a can of mace, or a firearm. But let’s here from you: define “assault weapon.”
2. Give us a cite, preferably an unbiasd one (like the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, or the BoJ’s Crime Stats.) that indicate we in the USA have a raging “assault weapon” problem that needs to be addressed through legislation somehow.
Um, could we start with Class III weapons (fully auto, silencers)
Maybe throw in anything with a +20 round mag and a barrel less than 6"? I’m thinking of things like this:
Just an example of the kind of rhetoric that I have been talking about
Now did anything that I stated say that I was asking for everyone to give up their guns? Or anyone? Does advocating for mandatory seatbelts mean that you want only horse and buggies?
And I love the position that any conclusion that is different than yours is the result of “bias”. You sound just like the smokers who charge that all of medicine’s statements about smoking are the result of bias and conspiricies. Hey those cancer studies are just correlation. Damn we doctors are just part of some lockstep cartel. Special handshakes and everything. [whispers]It’s “Fidelia”, then you can get in.[/whispers]
I’ll gladly defend the position that the US homicide rate is a significant public health problem and that it should be analyzed as such. Rationally. Reasonably.
I’ll defer to those with more knowledge of the weapons themselves for defintions of “assault weapons.” I do not know how it was defined in those studies. My ill-informed guess is automatic or semiautomatic. What do you think should qualify? And did I say “raging”? Nope. “Significant” and significantly associated with homicide, thus worthy of special attention.
I don’t know how you kept your brain from exploding while dealing with The Crimson Hipster Dufuz. I noticed that he and Mr. Lambert just quit the discussion without answering many questions.
DSeid: An assault rifle is the correct term for a rifle with select fire capability (semi and full automatic). Politicians made up the term “assault weapon” for military pattern rifles that are only capable of semi-auto fire. These types of rifles are rarely used in crime, but that didn’t stop our government from passing a law that bans them.
An example of assault weapon legislation is the Federal 1994 Crime Bill. The bill in part outlaws new civilian manufacture of certain semi-automatic assault weapons. It also prohibits new civilian manufacture of “large capacity ammunition feeding devices” declared certain weapons as assault weapons, and states a semi-automatic rifle is an assault weapon if it can accept a detachable magazine and has two or more of the following:
A folding or telescoping stock
A pistol grip
A bayonet mount
A flash suppressor, or threads to attach one
A grenade launcher.
What it boils down to is that assault “weapons” are banned because they look scary.
When the U.S. started developing nuclear weapons the sole purpose wasn’t to just obliterate our enemy but to act as a deterrence. I see this working the same way. I don’t see this system or anything like it as a “do-all” - “end-all” solution but it might be a start. At the very least it might have some psychological value by intimidating the shooter or copycats that might spring up.
As for why it isn’t in use, well, I don’t know that it isn’t.
If you say “this ____________ (program.person/machine) will reduce/eliminate the problem”, it had better - otherwise you lose credibility, and despair may actually increase: “even the best effort failed”
Rolling out experimental gear (which has limited usefullness in an urban area anyway - line of sight is extremely limited) is fine for SciFi films, but would less than credible in reality.
Actually (and back to the OP), Dseids original post makes an excellent point. More folks have died in drunk driving accidents in that same area during that same time- so why the big deal about the rather small number of sniper deaths? Not to mention that second hand smoke has statistically killed many many more people- especially including the elderly & small children.
And the searches of “white vans”- when there doesn’t seem to even be any solid evidence of a white van anyway? Crikeys- panic rules!
Let’s not let some “drive by” posting turn this into YET ANOTHER gun control debate. Please?
So I can quote explicitly pro-gun sources in rebuttal to your cites, and expect you to take them seriously?
happyheathen:
Ignorance prevails! :rolleyes:
I guess you missed this Buyer’s Tutorial, from the same website. How convenient of you.
Are you at all conversant with the myriad regulations concerning Class III firearms? The mountain of beuraucratic obstacles one must go through just to get a Class III license? The paperwork attendant to any transfer of a Class III weapon from one Class III licensee to another?
Did you miss, or are you deliberately ignoring my request from DSeid for statistically valid evidence that those classes of weapons are used in the majority of violent crimes committed with firearms?
IOW, show some evidence that those classes of weapons account for the preponderance, or even a simple majority (hell, I’ll accept even a health minority!) of firearm homicides and accidents, and maybe you’d have a more arguable case for enacting more restrictions upon those types of firearms.
If any firearm is, by the admittedly hazy definition you supplied, an “assault weapon” (few shotguns or rifles legally have barrels in the 6" range, so I can only assume that you are talking there about handguns), then further restrictions can logically be enacted against all categories of firearms.
Back to DSeid: I get your gist; it’s not you, and you don’t want them all. Fair 'nuf.
Some do, and are perfectly willing to couch their arguments in “logical, reasonable” terms behind the camoflauge of other more reasonable, logical people. Like you.
For instance, either the FBI’s UCR or the BoJ Crime Stats. (I can’t recall which at the moment; both are fairly valid sources) estimate that about 60% of the firearms used in the commission of violent crimes were obtained through theft from private residences, and that of those firearms used in the commission of violent crimes, the vast majority are handguns.
As such, a prima facie argument can be made for some form of mandatory storage legislation, and possibly handgun registration.
However, the practical implementation of any such legislation runs into certain civil liberties barriers, and I’m not even counting any nominal right to keep and bear arms. As well: what do you do about the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of handguns already in circulation amongst the criminal population?
Hence my (perhaps not so egregious) question of how do you separate lots of people who already have certain classes of currently legal firearms from said firearms if new legislation restricts or outright bans them? Farfetched? Look only to New York city or the state of California. This ain’t conjecture, hyperbole or paranoia on the part of the “radical right;” it’s recent history.
I won’t argue with you about what constitutes a legitimate public health threat from firearms violence, suicides or accidents; for some, even one is too many.
In all honesty, I’ll go ahead and admit that I was trolling you just a bit. But in equal frankness, people like you scare the hell out of me. You’re obviously educated, probably fairly intelligent (a condition I’ll usually assume where medical professionals are concerned, until they individually prove otherwise), and I honestly believe that you mean well.
But you don’t know guns, you don’t know crime patterns, the demographics of violence, and yet you support (to one degree or another) further restrictions upon a commodity that over one hundred million Americans safely own and use everyday in activities other than crime.
As to issues of biased sources … no doubt a particular editorial board can have a political bias. Maybe the AAP has a particular political bent. But to disparage all of peer reviewed medical literature as biased is a bit over the top.
As to my ignorance about guns … well I admit my ignorance. (Always the first step on any path to wisdom in my book!) Some of this ignorance I hope that you’ll help dispell (and thanks John for helping clarify how gun hobbiests define “assault rifles” vs the federal use of “assault weapons”), and some is irrelevant. I don’t need to know about the different cigarette brands to understand about tobacco’s effect on health, or to advocate for various public health actions aimed at reducing teen smoking. But I will be asking you for some education on other subjects soon.
But onto the more major issues.
The rhetoric. Both sides go to extremes and they are not always trolling. Some of those for tight gun controls argue the extreme. They fail to appreciate the historic and cultural significance of guns to many citizens of this country. They fail to clearly recognize or consider where the least intrusion upon the desires of those citizens would give the most benefit to society at large. And gun rights folk paint all of those interested in gun regulations with the same broad strokes. They fear that any regulation, no matter how minor, will only inexorably lead to the day when we take them all away. So they take on obstructionist stances to the most benign proposals and are consequently percieved as “gun nuts” by the mainstream. Those who feel that their guns keep me safe, either from crime, or from governmental police states, crack me up. But I tend to believe that in reality most people actually share more common ground then they’d want to admit.
And I’m pleased that we both agree on some things. Let’s see how far we can take it. Tell me if I’ve got anything wrong. And where I cross your line.
Most guns are not used in crimes. Most gun owners will follow laws.
Crimes involving guns are most often committed with handguns and often with semiautomatic handguns.
Crimes will be committed whether guns are involved or not, but the use of guns increases the likelihood that deaths will result.
Most guns used in crimes were not bought legally by the criminal. As noted previously “Many recovered firearms had been rapidly diverted from first retail sales at federally licensed gun dealers to a black market that supplies juveniles and youth. …” Resold after a legal purchase or stolen.
It seems to follow then, that efforts to reduce the rate of illegal resale into the hands of criminal elements, and to reduce the rate of theft of weapons from legit gun hobbiests, would be the, well, biggest bang for the buck.
Now I need my ignorance reduced. What are the regs regarding resale of guns? And the monitoring of who owns a weapon at any particular time? Is it regulated by state statutes or is it a federal statute? Does it vary for hunting rifles vs for handguns vs for guns with automatic or semiautomatic capacities? What are the penalties for breaking these laws? How much resource is spent trying to enforce these laws? What are the current laws regarding gun storage?
My suspicion remains that the answers to these questions will suggest some remedies that minimally infringe upon the true desires of most gun owning citizens yet, over time, would reduce the number of guns finding their way into the hands of the punks on the street.
As to practical implentation … like I said, I think that most gun owners are law abiding folk. Make laws that apply to future changes of gun possession, and that state proper storage requirements, and most will comply even if they won’t be checked on, just because they are law abiding folk.
-Which should come as no surprise to an educated individual, because that is precisely what is happening, and has been since 1932. 1932 saw limitations and restrictions on “machine” guns and other “nonsporting” devices, 1968 saw limitations on importation, barrel length, and more paperwork. 1986 banned further production of civilian Title III firearms and further restricted importation, 1992 banned rifles with purely cosmetic features and 1994 limited the magazine capacity.
In that same time period, California instituted registration, restriction on sales, then banned certain models of firearms- again based largely on cosmetic features. The registration led to bans and then surrendering to authorities. New York did similarly. Washington DC banned certain firearms entirely, and severely restricted the rest.
And, because no one’s managed to actually outright BAN anything (oops, except ugly black rifles, non-sporting shotguns [whatever they are] and all handguns in certain areas) we’re accused of calling Chicken Little every time another pointless ban runs through Congress.
The California proposed ban on .50 cals, for example: A caliber and style that has very likely never- not once- been used in a crime, that is terribly expensive to both own and shoot, and is of such physical dimensions that very few criminals of any stripe are going to use it for any purpose.
So, rather than to cry “wolf” again, we should accept this oh-so-minor infringement as a “reasonable” restriction, right?
-Quite right. Which is why police officers, sky marshals, prison guards, soldiers, bank guards and armored-car drivers don’t bother carrying them. They’re pointless and worthless as any form of logical, rational self-defense, right?
Sarcasm aside, you just now thought of a reply that has to do with “yeah, but they’re trained to…”, right? All the aforementioned people are, last I checked, normal Americans who go home to hearth and bed just like the rest of us at the end of the day, agreed?
There’s something like 150,000 people- that’s a vaguely educated guess- nationwide that have concealed carry permits. This is- as another guess- something like half to a third as many as we have uniformed police officers. You have said you’d like to see people required to be trained in the use of a firearm- the fact is, tens of thousands WANT to be trained and licensed, but are not allowed to do exactly that by local or state or even Federal law.
-Change “most” to overwhelming majority and I’ll agree. With something like 180 million firearms in the US, and something like 20,000 (rough guess) crimes involving firearms every year… well, math isn’t my strong suit, but that’s what, one one-hundredth of one percent?
-According to the FBI and DoJ, the first part is right- long guns (including the evil and ugly black guns) account for a bare 1% of firearm crime. The second part is a supposition pulled out of your ass, since nobody tracks handgun crime with such definition as revolver vs. semiauto, or by caliber, etc. But I’ll let that slide since I gave rough off-the-top-of-my-head guesses above.
-Um, do you have a cite for that? The studies I read noted that if the victim had a gun, the chances of any injury occuring dropped significantly.
-Do you have any suggestions? Near as I can recall, it is already illegal to sell, privately or publicly, to a felon, drug-user or mentally-incompetent person, or an illegal alien, etc. It is also already illegal for anyone to steal a gun. Of course, it was already illegal to put false information on a 4473 form even before the Brady Bill, and though supposedly some 50,000 people have been discovered doing so since the Brady system went active, they’ve actually prosecuted two. Two.
Now, does that give you an idea why we say “enforce the laws we already have, before adding more that don’t do anything”?
Okay, from the top:
In many places, notably California, any transaction between private parties has to be done through a dealer, including the filling out of a 4473 form and a run through the NICS background check. In a few other places, Alaska for one, private transactions are relatively unregulated, except that you still cannot sell to a felon or druggie. If they catch your gun on him, you get a penalty and jail time.
Define “monitoring”. Visiting houses unannounced to check and see that all the guns shown on your records are present and accounted for?
Yes. Firearms transactions fall under both State and Federal statutes. Reams of them. The book for FFL holders is a binder two inches thick and updated yearly. Many of those same regulations cover non-FFL holders (you and me, the ‘civilians’ as it were) and all private transactions as well.
Yes, it varies greatly. Automatic-capable arms, along with other “Title II” and “Title III” weapons (including short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles, select-fire capable arms, anything non-blackpowder and non-smoothbore with a bore larger than .500", etc.) are heavily restricted, and have been since 1932. The paperwork to obtain one takes roughly six months to clear, requites the cooperation of two federal bureaus AND your local Police Department or Sheriff’s office, the payment of a $200 trasfer tax plus paperwork filing fees, fingerprints, FBI background checks, ad nauseum.
After all that, then will you be allowed to pay $5,000 and up for one of a very small number of weapons available that were ‘grandfathered’ in prior to the 1986 ban on further manufacture.
It will please you to know that exactly one crime- and that by a police officer- has been committed with a registered “machine gun” since 1932.
Title II and Title III firearms- IE, “machine guns” and “assault weapons” are a nonissue. They’re not used in crime, not available on the streets, very rare and carefully guarded by those who own them, and there’s so few that theft is exceedingly rare.
For the rest, it varies by state, county, and even city or town. For the most part, if you’re not a felon, a drug user, adjudged mentally incompetent, an illegal alien, etc, you may own a long gun at 16 (18 in some places, 21 in others, not at all in still more) or a handgun at 18 (or 21 in some places, or not at all in many more.) Various places have all sorts of regulations on storage, transport, handling, carrying, etc.
For example, in Washington DC, even if you have hurdled the paperwork to own a long gun (handguns are simply totally banned) you may not store or transport it assembled. Other places require that the gun be transported unloaded, and seperate FROM the ammo.
Penalties vary as well- in another thread, a poster mentioned that, due to a mistaken freeway exit through Cleveland with a rifle in the trunk of his car, he committed a felony. I know that, locally, selling to a felon or druggie is a felony- five years and $25,000. Lying on the 4473 form is five years and $50,000. Sawing off the barrel of a shotgun to anything less than 18" is 10 years and $50,000 fine.
Making a magazine or ammunition-holding device that can carry more than ten rounds is a felony. Having a firearm on you or nearby during a drug deal is a felony.
Penalties abound… again, if they’d just enforce the laws already on the books rather than push more nonsense laws, we’d actually make a dent in crime stats.
As for storage, again, laws vary by state. Most require it to be in a locked case during transport. Some cities require a trigger lock or barrel lock. Others require it be stored unloaded and locked seperate from the ammunition.
-The infringements are already there, and increasing by the day. As mentioned, theft is already illegal. It’s already illegal for a criminal to own a gun. There’s already laws in place in most areas defining storage requirements.
Criminals, by definition, don’t obey laws. So more laws will do just what, again?
More to training to be a police officer than how to use the weapon. And sometimes they abuse the power.
As to semi-automatic use-
from PEDIATRICS Vol. 105 No. 4 April 2000, pp. 888-895. As noted before. I guess you can call my journals my ass.
Thanks for the lesson in gun control laws. Sure seems like a hodgepodge of different state laws and a smattering of federal ones. State laws are going to only be as good as the weakest link. I’m specifically interested in how continued ownership is monitored and the penalties for the illegal sale of a handgun. Who is supposed to enforce these regs.
How to decrease the number of handguns in the hands of the punks?
Well a few possibilities.
Sure, a complete ban would work over time. None to steal, none to illegally deal, sooner or later the ones on the street get confiscated. Law abiding citizens could have their current weapons grandfathered in or would comply because they are law abiding. I do not advocate such an approach. I think that it disrespects the many responsible gun owners out there and is a disproportionate response. But the best way to take the wind out of the sails of those who do advocate such an approach is to come up with some other effective plan. Not to just accept the current homicide rate as what it is going to be or to try to convince us that more guns would decrease it.
I’d like to see an emphasis on control of resale with teeth. A federal law, consistent across the country. If you resell a handgun illegally and it is used in a crime then you are partially culpable for that crime with mandatory jail time. Federal law with monies dedicated to enforcement of it.
I’d like to see that individuals can only purchase a handgun after thay have taken and passed classes which include instruction on responsible storage; instruction not only aimed at safety in the house but at preventing theft of the weapon. That such storage practice is law, even if enforcement of that law can only occur if the police are in a domicile for some other reason.
These laws would decrease the illegal access to handguns by the punks. Without stopping you from enjoying your gun heritage and hobby.