Sniper Problem - Why aren't we using this...

[Riboflavin]

*Originally posted by DSeid *
Hmmm. I think that I’ve been clear. This is the way that I see things.

You’ve been clear that you have a real aversion to providing cites for your claims. You also keep failing to answer basic questions, though we can sort of deduce answers from other parts of your responses.

Most interestingly, you haven’t explained how guns designed for concealemt are designed for “criminal intent” in light of the fact that more than 3/4 of all states have shall-issue concealed carry for ordinary citizens, more have may-issue concealed carry, and all states allow the police to carry concealed.

Also, I’m still not entirely clear on what you mean by ‘safe storage’, only that it definately precludes storing the gun in a manner useful for self-defense. It appears not to just mean locking up a gun when the owner is not around, but keeping the gun locked up when the owner is around.

It therefore follows that decreasing the ease with which [stealing and black market] activities occur will very likely have a significant effect on decreasing gun homicide by criminals, especially by young punks.

You haven’t shown that any of your proposals would have a significant effect on those activities, so even if we accept your argument above, you haven’t even come close to showing that your proposals would have a significant effect on decreasing gun homicide by criminals. Now that I think of it, you haven’t even shown that theft from individuals is a significant part of the black market supply of guns.

The medical literature is full of studies that are suggestive that more guns is correlated with more death, not less.

Hmmm… do you have, maybe, a cite for this claim, or is it just an assertion on your part? Maybe just provide a few of these studies.

There is some suggestion in some literature that, given a crime being committed upon a person, defensive gun use may decrease tghe likelihood of death in that episode.

I like how literature is ‘full of studies’ that support your position, but only ‘some literature’ shows that DGU is effective in self-defense. Is this being used in the normal sense of ‘some literature’, or more like your earlier use of’some states’ to mean ‘more than 3/4 of states’?

When groups dedicated to issues of public health (not single issue groups) have analyzed the data on guns, they have concluded that more guns equals more risk, not less.

Cite. You don’t even bother to NAME these groups, do you really expect that statement to be taken seriously?

But you percieve that your handguns keep you safer.

Well, considering that the ‘evidence’ that handguns are soo dangerous to their owners is bald assertions unbacked by evidence (like your case) or hysterical ranting and accusations of ciminal intent (like happyheathen’s), they certainly don’t involve any significant risk to me. The FBI stats on resisting criminal attacks certainly support that you’re safer if you resist a criminal by any means (I’ll dig up a link if you want one), and I’d certainly rather have an effective tool for resisting criminal attacks than just good intentions.

You feel that you have a right, an entitlement, to keep your loaded handgun nearby, unlocked, where you (and any thief) has easy access to it.

Not that I really expect an answer given your lack of responses to previous questions, but what good would having a gun in a safe do if some theif were to break in while I was around? Couldn’t he just threaten me (I’m unarmed in this scenario, remember) to get me to open the safe anyway?

And you know what? I am sick and tired of people claiming their entitlements.

Self-defense is a fundamental human right, not an entitlement.

You have a responsibilty. You have a responsibility! To store that thing in a way that minimizes the posssibility of theft.

You have consistently refused to even tell us what sort of safe storage you envision, so I can’t really argue about whether your ‘minimizing theft’ scenario is reasonable. How many times do I have to ask you to let us in on the secret of your safe storage requirements before you’ll do so? It’s really odd that you’d require classes on the topic but treat it like some sort of state secret in this conversation.

Because it’s yutzes leaving the dang things as easy theft targets that supply a fair number of the weapons on the street.

Do you have a cite for this, or is it just another angry assertion that you’re not going to bother to support? Also, until you further clarify it, I’m going to take your ‘fair number’ to mean ‘more than 3/4’ since you used ‘some states’ to mean ‘more than 3/4 of states’ previously, and I’d be really interested in finding out that 75% of all weapons ‘on the street’ come from thefts from private residences.

SO … very clearly now … no, I do not believe that your entitlement to a sense of self-protection outweighs the risk that cavelair storage poses to others.

You won’t even tell us what ‘cavelair storage’ is, so how am I supposed to take your raving seriously? Aside from that, you haven’t actually shown that leaving handguns in a big pile in the living room poses any danger to others, or supplies some significant fraction of the criminal market. You also haven’t explained what other dangerous devices need to be subject to the same storage requirements; does it include knives, cars, ski masks, or anything else?

Would any handgun law prevent all homicides? No duh, of course not. It is not even the most important factor (demographics ie the number of unattached young adult males in the population, and the economy are much more important) but it is a significant factor that we can do something about.

Or we can just pass batches of laws further restricting law-abiding citizens without considering whether said laws will do any good, like you seem to advocate.

[happyheathen]

FWIW:

The gun debate from seller's point of view

[Doc_Nickel]

*Originally posted by happyheathen *
**any gun enthusiasts wishing to discuss the desirability of 12 rd, 12 ga semi-auto shotguns with 14" barrels, please join in. **

-Shotguns of any action type, any ammo capacity and any gauge with barrels shorter than 18" are Title II-classified “All Other Weapons” and subject to ATF regs just like select-fire and full-auto weapons. As in banned from further importation or production as of 1986.

Do you have a point here or are you using another emotional strawman yelling “won’t somebody please think of the children!”?

[ExTank]

happyheathen:

you want ot go plink? with a black rifle? Cool. But you really don’t need 30 rd mags, do you?

When the range that I shoot at charges by the hour, then yes, I do want 30-rd. magazines. I’m not paying them so I can stand around jamming bullets into a ten round magazine (or even several) when I’m there to put about 200 rounds downrange.

[quote]
and if you cannot id military-grade weapons, you are either ignorant or a liar - hint: select fire, bipod, collaspable/folding stock, pistol grips for riflels, bayonnet mount, internal silencer, belt-feed, (and yes, 30+ rd mags). and why do you suppose the AR-15 looks so much like the M-16, coincidence, right?

Well, you nailed three characteristics of the M-16/AR-15. The reason they look alike is because they are the same weapon minus one part.

Why are you so scared of a class of weapon that it used so infrequently in crime? The DC sniper probably accounted for a 1,000% jump in this lass of weapons’ crime stats for the last decade.

He could’ve achieved the same results (if not better) with a single-shot bolt-action hunting rifle, and most likely achieved a higher shot/kill ratio with it; I could, if I were willing/able to shoot at my fellow citizens from a distance for personal gain.

[happyheathen]

actually, I was trying to find a pro-gun person who would concede that some (maybe just a few) designs should not be in civilian hands.

and I am not afraid of a weapon - they are just tools.

my concern is that since guns do get into the “wrong” hands, and nothing seems to be able to prevent that, perhaps we should limit the capability of the weapons (some of which are, after all, end up being used for nastiness) - I cannot justify civilian ownership of large numbers of weapons with such little use as the street-sweeper.

or select-fire

or pistol grips

or 30 rd. mags

and excuse me if I am not sympathetic to all the darn trouble of reloading - are you really trying to justify these mags by cost analysis? good one!

[happyheathen]

and for the full-auto fans -

where do you store these? where do you fire them?

why not have secure storage at the range, intead of keeping them at home?

[SenorBeef]

happyheathen:

Due to your repeated use of apparently warning of the dangers of select fire weaponry, can you please provide a cite as to when a private citizen used a legally owned select fire weapon to commit a crime? Just one instance?

So what’s YOUR justification for banning magazines over an arbitrary capacity?

Pistol grips? How do these make a weapon more dangerous?

As for justifications: For some rifles, 30 round magazines are the default magazine. You have to get specialty magazines to buy less than 30 round magazines. And so you have to go out of your way, and pay extra, NOT to get 30 round magazines.

There’s also a convenience factor, as mentioned above.

There’s an authenticity factor, if, like myself, a reason for collecting is an interest in military weapons and such.

Recreation - I spend about half the time at the range developing my rapid fire handling skill and it’d be pretty annoying to be limited to small magazines.

Fun factor - dumping a magazine onto a target can be fun.

Killing spree factor: How am I supposed to kill hundreds of toddlers if I’m limited to small magazines!?!?

There’s a small “combat factor” advantage to a larger magazine in some situations, which I assume you think is what makes them inherently dangerous, but it’s trivial in a non-combat situation. I can change a magazine from a pouch in well under 2 seconds with an AK, and it’s not a particularly fast-change friendly design - so I’m not sure what practical limitations small magazines really give to negate a perceived ‘combat factor’, even if it should exist.

Assuming your desire to ban large capacity magazine is because they’re inherently more powerful, can you explain to us why you think it is in practical situations in which it would cause harm?

[happyheathen]

Would y’all make up your minds?

Is having to change mags eating into your range time, or is it just an annoyance?

Beef -

you are conflating two issues I have raised:

firepower being mis-used v. identification of military weapons.

a grip does not make a weapon more dangerous (well, maybe marginally), but it does make it identifiable as a miltary weapon.

oh, civilian use of select-fire in a nasty way: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

the grandaddy of gun control.

Did the creep at 101 California ever get that gun converted to full auto? If so, that’s another.

If not, he would have been a prime customer for the “pre-ban” crap, wouldn’t he?

keep this up, and I’ll start a movement to limit y’all to wadcutters - after all, all you want is to poke holes in a parer target, right? Why do you need metal bullets for that?

and, for those “collectors”, any reason not to spike your pieces?

[Doc_Nickel]

actually, I was trying to find a pro-gun person who would concede that some (maybe just a few) designs should not be in civilian hands.

and I am not afraid of a weapon - they are just tools.

-Rather than making a joke about an ‘oxymoron’, I’ll simply say that’s a contradiction.

You’re not afraid of inanimate objects, yet you think some of them shouldn’t be in civilians’ hands.

I suspect it was inadvertent, but you hit the nail quite squarely: Firearms, even machine guns, are just tools. They’re inanimate objects. They cannot injure or protect without human intervention.

People have been killed with knives, hammers, bats, chains, fists, bottles, pipes, boards and televisions. But none of these can happen without human intervention- you don’t fear the little old lady with a stick, it’s her cane. But the kid swaggering up to you late at night with a stick? Now you have reason to be afraid- but is it the stick or is it the person?

You don’t fear the thousands of police and SWAT officers in the DC area, with machine guns, shotguns and innumerable handguns. But you DID fear the man with the one rifle.

Again, was it the rifle causing the fear, or was it the man using it?

Some guy walks into a bank with a bag and a handgun, asking for money: quick, should you be afraid of that man?

If he’s from the armored-car service, probably not. If he’s wearing a ski-mask, probably so.

Again: Bank, man, bag, gun. What is the key to the potential threat?

my concern is that since guns do get into the “wrong” hands, and nothing seems to be able to prevent that, perhaps we should limit the capability of the weapons (some of which are, after all, end up being used for nastiness) - I cannot justify civilian ownership of large numbers of weapons with such little use as the street-sweeper.

-Since when did “use” become a requirement? What “use” is White-supremacist hate speech, when it’s protected by the First Amendment?

In any case, because you, personally, can’t think of a use for it, or the potential need, or even comprehend that law-abiding citizens might simply want it 'cause they think it’s cool (like Leno’s Bently- it’s worth millions, he doesn’t drive it, and might only show it off once a year) then you think, as moral arbiter, that nobody should have one.

However, it’s an excellent key to knowing how you think: When they were allowed to be imported, the company sold perhaps as many as a hundred of them before they were banned in '86. There’s essentially a bare handful available, and they’re rarely sold. Yet you find them evil and ugly, and fixate on the possibility some malcontent might get his grubby paws on one, fall victim to the weapon’s mind-subverting evilness, and mow down an entire church picnic in one fell swoop.

You are, by definition, a Hopolophobe; you suffer from an irrational fear of firearms.

or select-fire

-Nor do you listen well. Select-fire is a form of full-auto, a “machine gun”. All forms of these, in any shape, any caliber, any manufacturer or any age, has been strictly controlled since 1932, and further production or importation has been banned entirely since 1986. Since the thirties’, precisely one- singular- has been used in a crime.

Select fire or full-auto is a nonissue; it is irrelevant and unnecessary to use them in crime stats, because they’re not used in crimes.

or pistol grips

-Why is this such an evil thing? Pistols have pistol grips, and they’re smaller, lighter and more concealable (I understand you find that a trait only handy for criminals.) Since having a pistol grip on a large rifle is predominantly a mere cosmetic affectation, I can only assume my diagnosis of your phobia is accurate.

or 30 rd. mags

-If you can tell me why you think I shouldn’t have one, I’ll tell you my reasons for wanting one.

and for the full-auto fans -
where do you store these? where do you fire them?
why not have secure storage at the range, intead of keeping them at home?

-Well, I don’t own one, and don’t personally know someone who does, but from what I understand, part of the Title III requirements to own a full-auto is a gun safe made to certain specifications, an alarm system also to certain specs, and you’re subject to at least two unannounced inspections each year to see that it’s still secured and it hasn’t been stolen or altered.

As for where to shoot them, most any shooting range allows them. Most indoor ranges might not, due to limitations of their backstop, but for large outdoor ranges, anywhere that’s safe to fire a conventional arm of that caliber, is also safe to fire a full-auto one.

FA and select-fire are not the “magic wands of destruction” you see in movies.

As for storage at the range, why, may I ask? A safe at your home is just as secure as a safe at the range, plus your home is occupied a larger percentage of the day. Unless you’re willing to pay to have a security guard at the range building- and only a small percentage of outdoor ranges have any sort of secure building.

In fact, since most shooting ranges, for noise and safety reasons, are located out in the boonies, having a roomful of weapons- especially full auto ones- out there (where the sound of hammers and chisels won’t be heard) is practically inviting them to be stolen.

So can you tell me why storage at the range, where perhaps many guns will be gathered, but not always carefully watched, is any better than each owner securing and watching over his or her own weapon?

[Riboflavin]

*Originally posted by Doc Nickel *
-Shotguns of any action type, any ammo capacity and any gauge with barrels shorter than 18" are Title II-classified “All Other Weapons” and subject to ATF regs just like select-fire and full-auto weapons. As in banned from further importation or production as of 1986.

You’re just plain wrong here, let me clear this up:

Short-barreled shotguns and rifles are National Firearms Act (and title II of the GCA) weapons and are subject to similar restrictions to those on machine guns, but not the same ones. The categories of NFA firearms are: short-barreled rifles/shotguns (also called sawed-off rifles/shotguns), machine guns, destructive devices, and any other weapon (AOW). Rifles with a bbl less than 16", shotguns with a bbl less than 18", and either with an overall length less than 24" are short barreled rifles or shotguns unless they’re one of the few exempt collectors items (like some of the old pistols with shoulder stocks). Machine guns are fully automatic weapons, that is anything that fires multiple shots with one trigger pull (double barrel guns that can fire both at once are excepted). Destructive devices are any modern guns with a bore bigger than .5 inches except for shotguns as well as some kinds of rockets, explosives, etc… “Any Other Weapons” are guns that don’t look like guns, like pen guns, cane guns, belt-buckle guns, and other disguised guns (again, there are some exempt obsolete weapons), plus a couple of other odball weapons.

All of them require the payment of the transfer tax and ATF appoval before you can pay the tax, and generally require more to own under state law; AOWs are generally the least restricted, MGs and DDs tend to be the most restricted (it’s state laws that sometimes require people to get an FFL to own an MG, that’s not required under federal law). Only machine guns are subject to the 1986 ‘no new registration’ ban, the other categories are still legal to produce and own (presuming you jump through state law hoops). The ‘street sweeper’ was never classed as an AOW (it certainly looks like a gun!), originally the only restriction was that any short-barrelled ones would have been classed as (duh) sawed-off shotguns. Later, the ATF made a finding that the streetsweeper and some similar shotguns were not shotguns (IIRC under a ‘no sporting use’ clause somewhere) and classed them as destructive devices because of the bore size, putting them into that restricted category. They were still legal to make for citizens (as long as all of the DD laws were obeyed) until the 1994 assault weapon ban.

[DSeid]

Ribo, up til now I had been impressed with the civility of the pro gun side. Oh well.

Points of your interest-

Guns which seem as if they are designed for criminal intent. Yeah, I’ll stand by the belief that small cheap concealable weapons seem as if they had that purpose in mind. Maybe it is just appearences.

Storage. If you aint keeping it under your awake supervision it should be locked up tight.

Cites. You want cites. Well, I like how Laura Helmuth put it in Science 289: 582-585:

Violence in America is often discussed at the intellectual level of call-in radio. Anyone with access to a soapbox or an Internet site can pontificate about the virtues of clean living or a well-armed populace. But recently, out of this opinionated chatter a few empirical signals have begun to emerge.

Comparisons across countries. Match for economics and demographics as best you can. The US leads the pack, and across countries the rate of homicides and completed suicides correlates with gun availability.(BTW, all bolding is mine)

J Trauma 2000 Dec;49(6):985-8
Hemenway D, Miller M.

Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.

BACKGROUND: Among developed nations, the United States has the highest rate of civilian gun ownership, and the highest homicide rate. We examine whether the United States is merely an exception, or if a relationship between gun availability and homicide exists across all developed nations. METHODS: Homicide rates for the early 1990s come from 26 of 27 of the highly industrialized or high-income countries with greater than 1 million population as classified by the World Bank. Two common proxies for gun availability are used, the percentage of suicides with a firearm, and the"Cook index," the average of the percentage of suicides with a firearm and the percentage of homicides with a firearm. RESULTS: In simple regressions (no control variables) across 26 high-income nations, there is a strong and statistically significant association between gun availability and homicide rates. CONCLUSION: Across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides.

International correlations between gun ownership and rates of homicide and suicide.
Killias M.
Faculte de droit, Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland.
OBJECTIVE: To examine international correlations between reported rates of household gun ownership and rates of homicide and suicide with a gun. DESIGN: Survey. POPULATION: People who responded to a telephone survey conducted by the
1989 International Crime Survey in 11 European countries, Australia, Canada and the United States. RESULTS: Positive correlations were obtained between the rates of household gun ownership and the national rates of homicide and suicide
as well as the proportions of homicides and suicides committed with a gun. There was no negative correlation between the rates of ownership and the rates of homicide and suicide committed by other means; this indicated that the other
means were not used to “compensate” for the absence of guns in countries with a lower rate of gun ownership. CONCLUSION: Larger studies are needed to examine
more closely possible confounding factors such as the national tendency toward violent solutions, and more information on the type and availability of guns will be helpful in future studies. Nevertheless, the correlations detected in this study suggest that the presence of a gun in the home increases the
likelihood of homicide or suicide.

IInt J Epidemiol 1998 Apr;27(2):214-21
Firearm-related deaths in the United States and 35 other high- andupper-middle-income countries.
Krug EG, Powell KE, Dahlberg LL.
Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and
Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30341, USA.
…We compared the incidence of firearm-related deaths among 36 countries.
METHODS: Health officials in high-income (HI) and upper-middle-income countries (UMI) with populations greater than one million were asked to provide data using ICD-9 codes on firearm-related homicides, suicides, unintentional deaths and deaths of undetermined intent, as well as homicides and suicides for all methods combined. Thirty-six (78%) of the 46 countries provided complete data. We compared age-adjusted rates per 100,000 for each country and pooled rates by
income group and geographical location. RESULTS: During the one-year study period, 88,649 firearm deaths were reported. Overall firearm mortality rates are five to six times higher in HI and UMI countries in the Americas (12.72) than in
Europe (2.17), or Oceania (2.57) and 95 times higher than in Asia (0.13). The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100,000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5. … CONCLUSIONS: Firearm death rates vary markedly
throughout the industrialized world.

In kids

MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 1997 Feb 7;46(5):101-5
Rates of homicide, suicide, and firearm-related death among children–26 industrialized countries.

During 1950-1993, the overall annual death rate for U.S. children aged < 15 years declined substantially, primarily reflecting decreases in deaths associated with unintentional injuries, pneumonia, influenza, cancer, and congenital anomalies. However, during the same period, childhood homicide rates
tripled, and suicide rates quadrupled. In 1994, among children aged 1-4 years, homicide was the fourth leading cause of death; among children aged 5-14 years, homicide was the third leading cause of death, and suicide was the sixth. To compare patterns and the impact of violent deaths among children in the United
States and other industrialized countries, CDC analyzed data on childhoodhomicide, suicide, and firearm-related death in the United States and 25 other industrialized countries for the most recent year for which data were available
in each country. This report presents the findings of this analysis, which indicate that the United States has the highest rates of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearm-related death among industrialized countries.

*But what about Brazil? *No it aint a developed country. An emerging economy in dire straits. Also 10% of its population is male 15-25 yo compared to only 8% in the US. Put those two factors and you can understand why they have a high homicide rate despite gun controls.

Within the United State a similar pattern is seen: more guns is correlated with more deaths, not less

Firearm availability and unintentional firearm deaths, suicide, and homicide among 5-14 year olds.
Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D.
Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management,
Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. mmiller@hsph.harvard.edu
… Pooled cross-sectional time-series data (1988-1997) were used to estimate the association between the rate of violent death among 5-14 year olds and four proxies of firearm availability, across states and regions. RESULTS: A
statistically significant association exists between gun availability and the rates of unintentional firearm deaths, homicides, and suicides. The elevated rates of suicide and homicide among children living in states with more guns is not entirely explained by a state’s poverty, education, or urbanization and is
driven by lethal firearm violence, not by lethal non-firearm violence.
CONCLUSION: A disproportionately high number of 5-14 year olds died from suicide, homicide, and unintentional firearm deaths in states and regions where guns were more prevalent.

Same group-

Epidemiology 2002 Sep;13(5):517-24
Household firearm ownership and suicide rates in the United States.
Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D.
Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA. mmiller@hsph.harvard.edu

… We used publicly available data for the nine
regions and 50 states in the United States over a 10-year period (1988-1997) to examine the association between levels of household firearm ownership and rates of suicide, firearm suicide, and non-firearm suicide by age groups and gender.
RESULTS: In both regional and state-level analyses, for the U.S. population as a whole, for both males and females, and for virtually every age group, a robust association exists between levels of household firearm ownership and suicide
rates. CONCLUSIONS: Where firearm ownership levels are higher, a disproportionately large number of people die from suicide.

But what about all that defensive gun use? Well the pro gun side is summarized by Kleck, http://www.guncite.com/kleckjama01.html
JAMA
Controversies - August 5, 1998 What Are the Risks and Benefits of Keeping a Gun in the Home? Gary Kleck, PhD
as linked to by John earlier. He first off dismisses home homicides as an insignificant number, after all only

7.2% of all US homicides committed between 1976 and 1994 were committed (1) with guns and (2) by a person whose relationship to the victim was as a spouse, lover, sibling, parent, child, or roommate, indicating that there was a significant likelihood that they lived in the same home as the victim

and then presents studies that count up the number of times individuals believe that defensive gun use prevented their being injured. The best conclusion he can make on this data is

Although there are hundreds of thousands of DGUs each year in which defenders would claim, if asked, to have saved a life,[9] it is not possible to directly count the number of DGUs that actually did save a life.

No studies are presented which refute Kellerman, although he is correct in pointing out that gun ownership in Kellerman’s study may only be a marker for being an at risk individual.

Funny thing that. I looked. Other than the defensive gun use claims (which at most look at what happens within the individual crime in progress, not to overall rates) I couldn’t find anything in the medical literature that documented that high gun ownership rates made people safer. Must be that medical conspiricy again.

I’ll end with some snippets from Helmuth’s article

The most recent U.S. murder binge began in the mid-1980s in big cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C., before spreading quickly to the rest of the country. It was a phenomenon of kids, says criminologist Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and director of the National Consortium on Violence Research–kids with guns. …
Homicide rates rise in such situations because a high concentration of guns in a neighborhood creates an “ecology of danger,” says criminologist Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University. He interviewed 400 young men in New York’s most dangerous neighborhoods and found that violence seemed to be contagious: Gun use spread through neighborhoods from 1985 to 1995 like a communicable disease. Young people who otherwise wouldn’t carry guns felt that they had to in order to avoid being victimized by their armed peers, they reported. The guns skewed otherwise normal adolescent posturing, Fagan says, and tinged every social interaction with the threat of death. “Ultimately, guns are a form of social toxin,” he says. …
Shootings account for most of the slayings during the recent murder binge, and they account for all of the increase in homicides. A domestic arms race between police and criminals led to a proliferation of higher caliber, faster firing guns. And the lucrative crack market meant that “the bad guys could afford expensive, high-capacity weapons,” says Wintemute. As a result, he says, shooting victims came into emergency rooms with more entry wounds and were more likely to die from their injuries.
…contributors to the decline in violent crime, perhaps the most important factor is a drop in the number of guns on the streets. Increased police aggressiveness in pursuing illegal guns led to a rise in weapons arrests until 1993, says Blumstein. Weapons arrests have since declined–probably not because police are paying less attention to weapons, but because fewer people are carrying them.
In Kansas City and Indianapolis, uniformed police worked overtime to seize more guns in some neighborhoods while continuing standard practices in others. Gun-related crime dropped 49% in the targeted Kansas City areas and 50% and 22% in the two areas of Indianapolis that received extra gun-oriented patrolling…

So, yes, we agree, enforcing the laws we got makes a big difference.

[Doc_Nickel]

actually, I was trying to find a pro-gun person who would concede that some (maybe just a few) designs should not be in civilian hands.

and I am not afraid of a weapon - they are just tools.

-Rather than making a joke about an ‘oxymoron’, I’ll simply say that’s a contradiction.

You’re not afraid of inanimate objects, yet you think some of them shouldn’t be in civilians’ hands.

I suspect it was inadvertent, but you hit the nail quite squarely: Firearms, even machine guns, are just tools. They’re inanimate objects. They cannot injure or protect without human intervention.

People have been killed with knives, hammers, bats, chains, fists, bottles, pipes, boards and televisions. But none of these can happen without human intervention- you don’t fear the little old lady with a stick, it’s her cane. But the kid swaggering up to you late at night with a stick? Now you have reason to be afraid- but is it the stick or is it the person?

You don’t fear the thousands of police and SWAT officers in the DC area, with machine guns, shotguns and innumerable handguns. But you DID fear the man with the one rifle.

Again, was it the rifle causing the fear, or was it the man using it?

Some guy walks into a bank with a bag and a handgun, asking for money: quick, should you be afraid of that man?

If he’s from the armored-car service, probably not. If he’s wearing a ski-mask, probably so.

Again: Bank, man, bag, gun. What is the key to the potential threat?

my concern is that since guns do get into the “wrong” hands, and nothing seems to be able to prevent that, perhaps we should limit the capability of the weapons (some of which are, after all, end up being used for nastiness) - I cannot justify civilian ownership of large numbers of weapons with such little use as the street-sweeper.

-Since when did “use” become a requirement? What “use” is White-supremacist hate speech, when it’s protected by the First Amendment?

In any case, because you, personally, can’t think of a use for it, or the potential need, or even comprehend that law-abiding citizens might simply want it 'cause they think it’s cool (like Leno’s Bently- it’s worth millions, he doesn’t drive it, and might only show it off once a year) then you think, as moral arbiter, that nobody should have one.

However, it’s an excellent key to knowing how you think: When they were allowed to be imported, the company sold perhaps as many as a hundred of them before they were banned in '86. There’s essentially a bare handful available, and they’re rarely sold. Yet you find them evil and ugly, and fixate on the possibility some malcontent might get his grubby paws on one, fall victim to the weapon’s mind-subverting evilness, and mow down an entire church picnic in one fell swoop.

You are, by definition, a Hopolophobe; you suffer from an irrational fear of firearms.

or select-fire

-Nor do you listen well. Select-fire is a form of full-auto, a “machine gun”. All forms of these, in any shape, any caliber, any manufacturer or any age, has been strictly controlled since 1932, and further production or importation has been banned entirely since 1986. Since the thirties’, precisely one- singular- has been used in a crime.

Select fire or full-auto is a nonissue; it is irrelevant and unnecessary to use them in crime stats, because they’re not used in crimes.

or pistol grips

-Why is this such an evil thing? Pistols have pistol grips, and they’re smaller, lighter and more concealable (I understand you find that a trait only handy for criminals.) Since having a pistol grip on a large rifle is predominantly a mere cosmetic affectation, I can only assume my diagnosis of your phobia is accurate.

or 30 rd. mags

-If you can tell me why you think I shouldn’t have one, I’ll tell you my reasons for wanting one.

and for the full-auto fans -
where do you store these? where do you fire them?
why not have secure storage at the range, intead of keeping them at home?

-Well, I don’t own one, and don’t personally know someone who does, but from what I understand, part of the Title III requirements to own a full-auto is a gun safe made to certain specifications, an alarm system also to certain specs, and you’re subject to at least two unannounced inspections each year to see that it’s still secured and it hasn’t been stolen or altered.

As for where to shoot them, most any shooting range allows them. Most indoor ranges might not, due to limitations of their backstop, but for large outdoor ranges, anywhere that’s safe to fire a conventional arm of that caliber, is also safe to fire a full-auto one.

FA and select-fire are not the “magic wands of destruction” you see in movies.

As for storage at the range, why, may I ask? A safe at your home is just as secure as a safe at the range, plus your home is occupied a larger percentage of the day. Unless you’re willing to pay to have a security guard at the range building- and only a small percentage of outdoor ranges have any sort of secure building.

In fact, since most shooting ranges, for noise and safety reasons, are located out in the boonies, having a roomful of weapons- especially full auto ones- out there (where the sound of hammers and chisels won’t be heard) is practically inviting them to be stolen.

So can you tell me why storage at the range, where perhaps many guns will be gathered, but not always carefully watched, is any better than each owner securing and watching over his or her own weapon?

[Doc_Nickel]

Wild. Dunno how I managed that.

Riboflavin: I knew most of that, if not the particulars. I was simply trying to explain that a “14 inch street sweeper” is already heavily regulated, and to do so to a person fixated on “select fire” being the evil boogeyman they see in the movies and on the magic movin’ pitcher box.

Note I did say “title II” and AOW- Happy is confused enough without trying to understand that a “machine gun” is by definition not a “destructive device” and so forth. I mean look, he thinks a pistol grip on a rifle makes it somehow more evil, deadly or just plain dangerous.

[happyheathen]

just how did “White-supremacist” enter this trainwreck?

re-read my points re. pistol grips on longarms - please.

and, as you pro-gun folks keep getting confused:

1. any legal gun (and pls quit citing the guns laws you wish to abolish as evidence of “we’ve got enough laws already” - it’s unbecoming) can (and, eventually will) get diverted.

2. therefore, it is incumbent upon us to limit the firepower of such soon-to-be-in-the-wrong-hands weapons - if you don’t have a mac-10 to be stolen, that mac-10 will not be used to “settle a score” somewhere down the line.

and yes, duh, it is not the tool, it is the probable use of the tool which needs to be addressed - the guy in San Rafael shop is selling to people much less likely to misbehave than the customers of the punk with the trunkload of guns in Richmond (those, btw, are different socio-economic worlds, connected by a bridge - about 20 minutes one-way)

again, on the off-chance that the pro-gun side would care to respond (finally): what steps are reasonable to ensure that a junkie breaking into a house does not come across too horrible of tools?

We have decided that belt-feeds, mortors, and select-fire are probably not worth the risk - any others?

[SenorBeef]

Define firepower, please.

[SenorBeef]

*Originally posted by DSeid *
**
Also to Ribo, have some fun- yes, even though they can be used legally in some state, guns that work well as concealed carries seem as if they were specificaly designed for criminal intent. They serve the purpose quite well.
**

Again, how does one design a handgun for legitimate concealled carry without designing it ‘specifically for criminal intent’?

[Doc_Nickel]

just how did “White-supremacist” enter this trainwreck?

-As an analogy, if not a good one. Do you even read these replies? Or do you just skim over them and focus on loaded words like ‘select fire’, ‘mac-10’ and ‘white supremacist’?

The idea I was trying to get across is that you appear to think some item or feature on a firearm must have some legitimate “use”- or at least a use that you deem ‘legitimate’- or it should be banned and/or heavily restricted. But other than a nebulous “what if it falls into the wrong hands?” plea, you cite no reasons why.

re-read my points re. pistol grips on longarms - please.

-I have. Several times. I still fail to see why such a feature is so bad, evil or dangerous by your mindset. Rifles- even ones with pistol grips- by Ribo’s excellent post, must be at least 26" long. Handguns all seem to have pistol grips, are smaller and more concealable, yet you don’t seem to think those quite as evil for some reason.

Hence, and I quote, “… an irrational fear…”

1. any legal gun (and pls quit citing the guns laws you wish to abolish as evidence of “we’ve got enough laws already” - it’s unbecoming) can (and, eventually will) get diverted.

-What’s unbecoming is continually implying that “select fire” arms are a scourge of some sort, and only good for “mass slaughter”, yet ignoring- continually- repeated statements that such weapons simply are not used in crimes and are already heavily regulated.

As for the second part, all I can say is ‘Oh horseshit’. Can, yes. Anything can be stolen. But “eventually will”? Do you even see how facile that statement is?

That’s like saying “My car eventually will get stolen” and implying that therefore I ought not to buy it in the first place.

Do you even understand how monumentally stupid that is?

2. therefore, it is incumbent upon us to limit the firepower of such soon-to-be-in-the-wrong-hands weapons - if you don’t have a mac-10 to be stolen, that mac-10 will not be used to “settle a score” somewhere down the line.

-Incredible. You make a wildly incorrect sweeping assertation (“all guns will eventually be stolen”) and then base your next argument on that.

For that matter, what is “firepower”? Is that another buzzword you keep running across in Google searches? Define it for me.

Is it 30 rounds? The DC shooter needed only one at a time. The FBI officers killed or wounded in the infamous Miami Shootout in some cases died because their five or six-shot revolvers ran dry. One emptied a 14-shot 9mm; one of the first bullets struck the perp and inflicted a nonsurvivable wound, but did not stop him.

So what, by your definition, is ‘firepower’?

Also, do you have any idea what a “Mac-10” is? Or is this yet another evil-sounding word you happened across?

again, on the off-chance that the pro-gun side would care to respond (finally): what steps are reasonable to ensure that a junkie breaking into a house does not come across too horrible of tools?

-Finally? You haven’t replied to any questions posed to you in this thread yet, but you’ve been told directly, several times, careful definitions of “Title II” and “Title III” weapons (and yet you continue to misuse the terminology and misunderstand the reality of the regulations) plus you’ve been told several reasons why someone might want a 30-round mag or a pistol grip on their rifle. (And again, you refuse to accept those reasons as valid, but give no dissenting reasoning other than the heavy implication you feel they’re bad or evil somehow.)

Now, to answer yet another of your questions (albeit knowing it will only be ignored again) you appear to be insinuating, as others have, that the majority of owners simply leave firearms scattered willy-nilly throughout the house, laying on counters, sitting on top of the VCR, two or three tied to a string by the front door as a windchime…

The insinuation is that most owners don’t secure their guns. I can’t speak for everyone, but most people I know have their guns reasonably well secured: some have full-fledged gun safes, some have lockable cabinets, one fellow has a very clever little hideaway built into a piece of furniture, that even if you were looking for it, you would be hard-pressed to find it. Another guy has his pistol in a zippered case, but in a locked filing cabinet drawer in his desk.

So if a junkie selects his house, breaks in while the guy’s not there, searches around 'til he finds the locked drawer, then pries it open and steals the gun, it is, by your way of thinking, the owner’s fault for not securing it better, right?

What’s a “reasonable” way of securing it? Did you bother to read what I mentioned a little earlier about the theft of the gun safe, or the local gunsmith who had been brought a gun that had been wrenched from a wall-mounted locking hoop?

Like I mentioned at the same time- banks are heavily monitored and policed, yet they still get robbed. What would be better- simply securing things to better resist theft to the point those securities are heavily restricting use of the item or service, reducing it’s use and effectiveness, or instead going after the thieves themselves? Possibly by improving or changing the conditions that cause them to need or want to rob and steal?

You keep saying “we oughta…” but never seem to say “here’s how…”

[SenorBeef]

*Originally posted by Doc Nickel *
**…two or three tied to a string by the front door as a windchime…
**

You’re a genius! That would go so well with my assault rifle bird feeder!

[DSeid]

I’d like to recap my last post. An ample supply of studies show that high gun ownership rates are correlated with high homicide and high completed suicide rates. These studies include comparisons across different countries matched for economic status and comparisons across states and regions within the United States. These findings stood up when matched for level of poverty, urbanization and education. There is no evidence that a well armed populus deters crime. Even if it is true that defensive gun use has the potential to save a life within the context of a particular criminal event, there is ample evidence that such is well offset by the negative consequences of wide gun availability. I don’t need to know guns to be able to understand the tools of epidemiologic research. Short of a controlled prospective experiment with two isolated and exactly matched populations this is as conclusive as it gets.

The simplistic response would be to focus on lowering total gun ownership rates, but a more rational analysis allows a more focused response. Most homicide is committed with a handgun either bought on the black market or stolen from someone who purchased it legally. Targeting a response at these points would be expected have the strongest effect.

One means of targeting these points is by stronger enforcement of extant laws. This has been shown to effectively reduce the homicide rate. I strongly support continued efforts to aggressively enforce the current laws and to remove criminals, and their handguns, from the street.

Another method is to design regulations that further deter illegal and casual resale of weaponry. I have made some specific proposals in that regard, with the full knowledge that such are just an amatuer’s brainstorming at this point. Those with better knowledge of extant laws and weapon types could no doubt improve upon these suggestions (and find flaws with them).

It also behooves handgun owners to recognize that their obligation to society mandates that their weapons be difficult to steal. If legal guns stayed in the hands of their legal owners, then we’d have many fewer guns in the hands of those who kill with them. No offense, Doc Nickel, but it aint either or. A bank does not leave its safes open because robberies will occur anyway. They make working there and using the bank a little less convienent in order to deter theft. Neither do we say that we should secure banks and ignore catching the robbers. You do both. You enforce current gun laws. You take the punks and their weapons off the street. And you make it more difficult for them to get new weapons when they get replaced with the new young punk down the block.

And no, this isn’t part of a hidden agenda to take away all your guns. Have fun plinking, rapid firing, hunting, and collecting historicaly significant pieces. It would bore me to tears, but so what.

[Doc_Nickel]

I’d like to recap my last post. An ample supply of studies show that high gun ownership rates are correlated with high homicide and high completed suicide rates.

-Yes, an ample supply of highly scientific telephone polls, and ‘studies’ by the admittedly and vociferously anti-gun Centers for Disease Control and Violence Policy Centers.

I won’t say they’re outright lies, but they are almost certainly very heavily biased.

One means of targeting these points is by stronger enforcement of extant laws. This has been shown to effectively reduce the homicide rate. I strongly support continued efforts to aggressively enforce the current laws and to remove criminals, and their handguns, from the street.

-Then why are you not an NRA member? The NRA, and other smaller firearms advocates groups have been calling for exactly that for decades- enforce existing laws, rather than implementing new ones that may or may not work.

The “Brady” law is an excellent point- Handgun Control, Inc, headed by Sarah Brady, crows about how the Brady law “stopped some 50,000 criminals from buying guns”. Lying on a 4473 form is itself a crime, and a felon attempting to buy a gun is a crime. How many of these criminals have been prosecuted?

Two.

Admittedly, the majority of stopped transactions involved out-of-date or erroneous police records (one fellow was denied due to a drunk-driving arrest dating back to 1969) or similar names, but only two?

I can only assume that, if the law merely inconveniences law-abiding buyers but is not used to prosecute criminals, then it’s a bad law.

One law that works, however, is called “Project Exile”, and it was suggested by and spearheaded by the NRA. It actually works, and focuses, oddly enough, on the criminals, and criminal use of guns- unlike most other laws, which simply try to control the tool itself.

It also behooves handgun owners to recognize that their obligation to society mandates that their weapons be difficult to steal. If legal guns stayed in the hands of their legal owners, then we’d have many fewer guns in the hands of those who kill with them.

-Again the assumption that the vast majority of owners don’t make it difficult to steal their guns.

Pick up a copy of Guns & Ammo: You’ll find at least three full-fledged gun-safe companies, several “armored box” companies, and two dozen that sell locking racks, trigger or barrel locks, locking cases, deadbolts, storage bars, you name it. Ruger and Mossberg currently sell every gun with a cable bore or trigger lock that can also be used to secure the gun to a fixture. Insurance companies give minor discounts for theft insurance when you have a good locking setup.

Theft is already illegal. Theft of a firearm is a felony. To steal a gun, typically a crook has to commit at least one other crime- breaking and entering. Selling a gun to a criminal is illegal, a felon in possession of a gun is illegal (another felony) and in many places, selling person-to-person without a dealer and an FBI background check is illegal.

Selling, buying and even mere possession of certain drugs is vastly illegal, to the point of “zero tolerance”- your first offense is your last- and yet tons of them are trafficked every day, despite veritable armies of DEA agents and others who spend entire careers trying to stop it.

Your suggestions for reducing firearm crime were what, again?

No offense, Doc Nickel, but it aint either or. A bank does not leave its safes open because robberies will occur anyway. They make working there and using the bank a little less convienent in order to deter theft.

-And I knew either you or Happy would point that out as a counterargument.

At what point does security outweigh use?

Sure, if we stop letting customers into banks, it’s a lot harder for a robber to walk in and mug a teller. Yet that’s what you’re proposing with the guns- if they’re all just bolted to the floor of an armored gun safe down in the locked basement of a secure facility with 24-hour armed (odd, that) guard and an alarm system to the police station (hm. They’re armed too…) then it’ll be a lot harder for a robber to steal one.

If we kept our cars in the garage with the doors locked, the garage secured and the alarms armed, we’d reduce the liklihood of theft. But that almost entirely negates it’s primary use, doesn’t it?

You do both. You enforce current gun laws. You take the punks and their weapons off the street. And you make it more difficult for them to get new weapons when they get replaced with the new young punk down the block.

-And that is precisely what most firearms-advocacy groups are trying to do. Push to get current laws enforced (before adding more that don’t while inconveniencing lawful owners) and push to prosecute “punks” who use guns in crimes (as opposed to letting them plea-bargain a felony gun conviction away by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor drug charge.)

Again the insinuation that this is all some amazing new idea.

Have fun plinking, rapid firing, hunting, and collecting historicaly significant pieces. It would bore me to tears, but so what.

-Ah, spoken as only one who has never handled a firearm can muster. Telling, that, your use of “would”.
Have you, in fact, ever fired a firearm? Have you ever handled one?