# Stupid Gun news of the day (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 29, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729 "2013-01-29T19:01:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 115
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2281 "2013-06-14T02:08:31Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Rare occurrences compared to what, is the question. There are several things that are basically only recreational toys that kill significantly more people than guns of all kinds, let alone mass shooters. Can you name one for me please? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2282 "2013-06-14T03:32:43Z")
> [@fudrucker](#): > > Why? It’s completely legal and therefore stupid, how? Would you say the same about a swat cop doing the same thing? I think not. It is stupid despite being legal. At least if you are trying to make the case for gun rights to people in the middle. > [@](#): > > No it’s just your irrational fear of a lawful citizen exercising his rights that has you running for your big government pacifier. You don’t understand. Half this country is afraid of the inanimate object, they are so focused on the gun that they probably couldn’t tell you what the guy looked like. Sure you’ve got the right to do it but you aren’t doing the second amendment any favors. > [@elucidator](#): > > I’m responding to your sneering reference to the difficulty of changing the Constitution, as if that somehow made your case more intelligent. There is an unnecessary element of “neener-neener, whatcha gonna do about it, hey?”. Also false, as well, since it has long been established the simply interpreting the 2nd Amendment is much easier that changing the Constitution to fit. And I was pointing out to you that the abolitionists were in fact doing something about it. They were getting a majority in the senate and they already had on in the house and as soon as they got a sympathetic president, they were well on the way to abolishing slavery through the regular constitutional process. Whenever someone brings up the notion of eliminating civilian ownership of guns entirely, I bring up the second amendment. Like I said before we have had ebbs and flows of anti-gun sentiment throughout out our history but it has always regressed to the mean. It is not possible to get the same sort of consensus on guns that we had on slavery (or even alcohol) because your opinion on guns are just that, your opinion. > [@](#): > > I more or less expected you to catch that right away, I apologize if I have overestimated you, You know better than that. > [@](#): > > and promise it won’t happen again. Well, see to it that you do. > [@Lumpy](#): > > It’s easier all right; it’s also a travesty. How about we reinterpret the phrase “you have the right to an attorney” to mean “one of the cops at the station house will be assigned as your advocate”? Right to counsel is not used to mean, “you have the right to an attorney, if you can afford one” You would not have recognized the modern day right to counsel before Gideon v Wainwrght in 1963 (and it wasn’t until 1962 that misdemeanors triggered the right to counsel). It is significant that our interpretations of constitutional rights tend to expand these rights much more frequently than restrict them. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > How many of those things kill more NON-PARTICIPANTS than guns? There aren’t that many cases of someone going skydiving and landing on an innocent bystander, squashing him to death. Smoking cigarettes? > [@elucidator](#): > > Interesting choice. You are aware, no doubt, that the right to an attorney results from an\* interpretation\*, no such phrase appears. I approve, of course, because whether or not our Founding Fuckups intended it, access to justice depends on the ability to hire an attorney. Equality under the law then depends on providing an attorney for those who cannot provide one to themselves. > > Be it travesty or no, it has been done, the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted to mean that you cannot keep and bear a Thompson submachine gun. By what semantic trickery is that not an “infringement”? Well, you can own a Tommy gun, you just have to fill out a lot of paperwork. But the point is that reasonable infringements do not erase the words “shall not be infringed” from the second amendment than regulation of lobbying and speech erases the words “congress shall pass no law” from the first amendment. Laws that infringe on the right to bear arms must pass constitutional muster. And just FYI but the Heller language on machine guns is dicta. I think a good case can be made that as long as a semiautomatic version of the common infantryman’s rifle is available, we have met the requirements of Miller but the court did not bless the NFA ban on machine guns. It just indicated that they would be likely to. > [@](#): > > So, you are left with accepting the fact of infringement or demanding that all such interpretations be rolled back. And if you accept the fact of infringement by interpretation, your point vanishes. Interpretation lends itself to expanding rights not contracting them. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2283 "2013-06-14T10:12:14Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Smoking cigarettes? I think you’ve got a winner there: the CDC website says > [@](#): > > Exposure to secondhand smoke—sometimes called environmental tobacco smoke—causes nearly 50,000 deaths each year among adults in the United States: > > •Secondhand smoke causes 3,400 annual deaths from lung cancer.1 > •Secondhand smoke causes 46,000 annual deaths from heart disease. Of course, we do actively work to reduce these deaths by restricting who can buy cigarettes and where they can smoke them and how they’re advertised, and by extensive public information campaigns from the American Cancer Society and the like. If guns got the same sort of campaigns as cigarettes the average NRA member would be writing the NRA checks so fast their checkbooks would catch fire. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2284 "2013-06-14T19:37:06Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I think you’ve got a winner there: the CDC website saysOf course, we do actively work to reduce these deaths by restricting who can buy cigarettes and where they can smoke them and how they’re advertised, and by extensive public information campaigns from the American Cancer Society and the like. If guns got the same sort of campaigns as cigarettes the average NRA member would be writing the NRA checks so fast their checkbooks would catch fire. And I think we should work to reduce deaths by handguns as well but despite characterizations to the contrary, its not the gun nuts that are absolutists, its the gun grabbers. Many gun grabbers want to get rid of guns entirely. Gun nuts accept that there will be some regulation of firearms (I can’t remember the last time the NRA started a campaign to repeal the NFA or any of the other large pieces of federal gun regulation). Very few gun rights advocates want unfettered right for everybody to bear whatever kind of weapons they want. What really gets us steamed is stupid gun laws. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2285 "2013-06-14T20:05:44Z")
And what gets the rest of us steamed is stupid gun users. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2286 "2013-06-14T20:51:09Z")
OK, so criminals will get guns when guns are unavailable for upstanding, law-abiding citizens. From who will they get these guns? From the straw buyers who cannot buy them at gun-shows any longer? Will they steal them from people who don’t have them any longer? I keep hearing this story but I never hear the practical underpinnings of it. If guns are outlawed, only outlaws, blah blah blah. From where? From who? If fewer guns are available, why would I believe it would still be easy for criminals to obtain them? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2287 "2013-06-15T00:30:39Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Plus, with drowning, there is time for your inner Jiminy Cricket to speak up in wise counsel… He still helps you, too? Other people have guardian angels. I have the voice of the original Ukulele Ike to keep me on the straight and narrow. [I’m no fool, no sirree! I wanna live to be 93. I play safe for you and me 'cause I’m no fool!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udk1S93KGc4) ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2288 "2013-06-15T01:47:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > OK, so criminals will get guns when guns are unavailable for upstanding, law-abiding citizens. From who will they get these guns? From the straw buyers who cannot buy them at gun-shows any longer? Will they steal them from people who don’t have them any longer? I keep hearing this story but I never hear the practical underpinnings of it. If guns are outlawed, only outlaws, blah blah blah. > > From where? From who? If fewer guns are available, why would I believe it would still be easy for criminals to obtain them? I think you’re missing a step, honestly. The “guns are outlawed” therefore “fewer guns are available” step seems to be missing a mechanism. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2289 "2013-06-15T01:55:16Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I think you’re missing a step, honestly. The “guns are outlawed” therefore “fewer guns are available” step seems to be missing a mechanism. Rust. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2290 "2013-06-15T02:53:29Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > Rust. Oil ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2291 "2013-06-15T03:00:38Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Oil Okay, just plain wear and tear. I realize we still have weapons from the 18th and 19th centuries, but in most people’s hands, guns aren’t going to last much longer than that. So, if guns are outlawed, chances are within three or four centuries they’ll be disarmed. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2292 "2013-06-15T04:22:53Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Oil Rock ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2293 "2013-06-15T11:47:25Z")
Assuming the civilian ownership of guns is outlawed and somehow by magic the guns already out there vanish. Where do illegal guns come from? [ul] [li]If cops still carry guns, they get ambushed and the guns stolen[/li][li]Thefts and hijackings from police and military arsenals and shipments[/li][li]a cottage industry of illegal gun smiths springs up[/li][li]If 3D printing advances sufficiently, almost anyone could make one[/li][li]smuggled from abroad[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2294 "2013-06-15T12:54:02Z")
Yes, yes, we know, if we can’t do \*everything \*then we must do _nothing_. That’s almost as entertaining as “We’re going to have criminals anyway, so why bother having laws?” among the gun-fetishists’ arsenal of “arguments”. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2295 "2013-06-15T14:55:27Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > I think you’re missing a step, honestly. The “guns are outlawed” therefore “fewer guns are available” step seems to be missing a mechanism. This makes for an interesting experiment. I talk about making guns less freely available, and what you hear is “outlaw guns”. We at the Mother’s March Against Cognitive Dissonance are preparing for our 2014 fund raising initiative, and have yet to select a “poster child”. Have you, by any chance, a recent color photo with you looking adorable and easily confused? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2296 "2013-06-15T14:59:51Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Assuming the civilian ownership of guns is outlawed and somehow by magic the guns already out there vanish. Where do illegal guns come from? > [ul] > [li]If cops still carry guns, they get ambushed and the guns stolen[/li][li]Thefts and hijackings from police and military arsenals and shipments[/li][li]a cottage industry of illegal gun smiths springs up[/li][li]If 3D printing advances sufficiently, almost anyone could make one[/li][li]smuggled from abroad[/li][/ul] When you express your views in person, do you find that people tend to adopt a soothing tone of voice, make placating gestures and look to find the nearest exit? ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2297 "2013-06-15T18:42:08Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Takes a mighty pissed of four year old to kill with a bat. I can almost see it though… “Dad, I Told you…” _ground spit_ “…Its PS4 for my birthday, NOT the Xbox One. Now…” The four year old circled his father slowly. The man on the floor spasmed in pain from what looked like at least one broken bone. Blood, drool and fluids from damaged organs formed a small pool on the floor beneath his mouth. Timmy looked at his father and then pointed with the Louisville slugger in his hands to add emphasis to his words. “Now… there will be consequences…” ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2298 "2013-06-15T19:02:26Z")
Dad shoulda got the kid Wii Baseball instead of teaching him the real thing. Those controllers can hurt, but not as much. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2299 "2013-06-15T20:14:31Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > When you express your views in person, do you find that people tend to adopt a soothing tone of voice, make placating gestures and look to find the nearest exit? Meaning what? I gave a straight response to the question of why gun availability will never drop low enough to make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729/2300 "2013-06-16T02:11:23Z")
Ambushing the police? Stealing from arsenals? What are these guys, the Viet Cong? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729.md?page=114) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-gun-news-of-the-day-part-1/648729.md?page=116)