Well what else could I have meant?
My bad for using the term ‘military-grade’. Obviously, if it HAD been military grade, it would probably have actually functioned properly.
I meant the term to describe ‘weapons of mass destruction’. Because that’s what that kind of gun is created for. And yes, gun control!=gun bans. Guns have lots of places and times, and a lot of them are just FUN, no excuse needed. But clearly it should be just a little harder for an average citizen to get hold of something created for mass killing.
I just wish the gun lobbies would take more responsibility, and the government more control. Tobacco companies are taxed to hell and back because their product is bad enough to have warning labels all over it. Yet nobody is forced to smoke, and it’s primary effects are on the user, not those around him. (plzgodnosecondhandsmokedebaterightnow). When something like this happens, do insurance rates go up for gun owners? Does anything happen to the gun lobbies beyond their getting even more donations to the cause just in case someone wants to take away their guns?
Yes there is licensing, but it doesn’t include mental tests, background checks beyond seeing if they’re a felon, house checks to verify they are capable of keeping it locked up away from children and criminals, nothing. With all those in place, shit would still happen, I know. But more responsibility needs to be taken with these things. Even a ‘regular’ pistol is not a toy.
There is room in the Democratic tent for gun-owners, but there is no room in the Republican tent for anti-gun advocates. There are districts where nobody can win without prostrating themselves before the Second Half of the Second Amendment. If we have to temporarily tolerate some pro-gun Democrats until the public opinion inexorably shifts toward banning guns, then we have to bite the bullet and do so. Gun ownership in the 23rd century will be as quaint and condemned as slavery is in the 21st century.
Nah. Shooting guns will still be fun. Unless they eliminate fun by then. But maybe it will be cool rayguns.
Interestingly enough, Michael Moore posted thistoday.
Wow. With so much wrong thinking here I can only imagine how confused you are about guns.
[QUOTE=Michael Moore]
What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Why are most of these guns in white suburban and rural homes?
[/QUOTE]
Probably because the ownership of most of these guns has nothing to do with fear or home defence.
Because it’s not an assault rifle. It’s a semi-automatic that looks like an assault rifle.
Right, because support for gun rights is the majority position.
Look, I am not a fan of the Republican Party, but they’re on pretty solid ground here. In fact, if the Democrats hadn’t ceded some of that ground to Republicans, I’m pretty sure stronger Democratic initiatives in other areas could have been implemented. Is banning guns more important to you than, say, better environmental protections, or better health care reform?
Given what you seem to recognize in the First Half of Your Post, just what reason do you have to imagine this will happen? The trends are against it.
Between the Gallup polls of 1991 and 2011, I count the following notorious shootings in the US:
Luby’s Cafeteria
101 California Street, San Francisco
Long Island Rail Road
Jonesboro AR
Springfield OR
Columbine
Atlanta brokerage
Wedgwood Baptist, Fort Worth
Red Lake MN
Amish schoolhouse
Virginia Tech
Westroads Mall, Omaha
Northern Illinois University
Geneva County AL
Binghamton immigration center
Appomattox VA
Tucson
Pretty horrifying set of memories lined up like that, isn’t it, if you do remember them.
And what did all this carnage do to American public opinion about guns?
Across demographics, we turned increasingly against gun control. Gun ownership went up. The Assault Weapons Ban was tried but then not renewed. The Emerson and Heller decisions upheld gun rights. Most states shifted to “shall issue” rules for concealed handgun permits.
The premise of the OP’s question is that violent incidents might make people turn against guns. As far as I can see, in United States, if anything the opposite is true.
If you do remember them…
Only about 5 on that list were ones I remembered before seeing them…
Also it should be noted, “black scary guns”, for want of a better term because they’re not assault rifles like Holmes used have a legit sporting use since the AR-15 is very commonly used in target shooting.
When roughly 1/3 of the adult population in the US owns a gun, it will be difficult to put broad based gun control in place.
I don’t usually fall into a neat category in this debate since I am a cop and I need guns in my job. I have two that are issued to me from work. I have one that I bought to carry off duty (though I rarely do). My other two guns I bought because they are cool. Which is pretty much the reason why most multiple gun owners own multiple guns. Because they are fun to shoot. Those are not people you have to worry about hoarding an arsenal. If there was a range that was closer and I had more disposable income I would probably buy more different types of guns. Not because I need more for defense. But because they are cool and fun to shoot.
This is a Ruger 10/22 basic plinking rifle.
These are also Ruger 10/22 basic .22 caliber rifles. Which are the assault rifles? How are they different? They all shoot a .22 long rifle. They all shoot one bullit for each pull of the trigger. Semi-automatic, one pull, one shot.
But the bad ass looking ones should be out lawed, and the simple looking one is OK for a rural kid to go plinking at pop bottles.
They are the same weapon.
Most states don’t license. They do background checks through NICS. It does check if you’ve been in a mental hospital. Or if you’re a felon, or a domestic abuser, or a stalker, or an illegal alien, or a fugitive, or have a dishonorable discharge, or a druggie. So it’s pretty decent. House checks sound unbelievably paternalistic.
Rudy Giuliani. Michael Bloomberg (for a time). Yes, New York is a common denominator. But generally, big city Republicans tend to be anti-gun, and rural Democrats tend to be pro-gun.
This one’s especially notable/odd. Texas created shall-issue after it (although the “Wild West” of Texas is one of the states without open carry). Massacre survivor Suzanna Hupp joined the State House and was very pro-gun.
Perhaps (probably) I am pointing out the obvious, nonetheless:
“Criminals” are individuals who, by definition, do not obey the laws. Gun control laws will thus only restrict law-abiding, non-criminals from access to weapons.
That being said, I tend to agree with the poster who suggested we, as a country, need to grow up and calm down as a society.
I target shoot, but don’t hunt. Both of these are fun activities. I was raised in a rural area where most people did both of these things regularly. I was taught proper gun use and RESPECT. Plus I didn’t grow up playing video games which glorified gun violence. But the “sword” cuts both ways. You can’t have one without the other, I suppose. Until we grow out of it.
Couldn’t both be true?
Greedy,
I wonder if you can lay creedence to this:
Last night, on the radio, I heard a guy who claimed to be from Australia. He was goinbg on about how Australia had recently passed a law requiring its residents to turn in their guns.
After doing so, this guy claims, that violent gun crimes went up by 44%.
Any truth to this or was this guy full of shit?
Getting back to the OP, I think for it to be effective, it would have to be legislation passed through a combined Democrat/Republican effort that given the mass murder events of the past, could be proven to have been prevented through the legislation. I am not aware of any way for that to be possible, and hence, why it will never work.
Not even looking at the other events cited, the shooter in Colorado was an educated and patient man, such that he could have waited out any “waiting period” assigned and passed other background checks since he didn’t have a prior criminal record. Even if there was some kind of magic mind control technology available in gun stores that determined intent whenever a gun was purchased, the problem would always be that I could purchase a gun with no intent to shoot someone at the time, but change my mind years down the road. And when you factor in all the guns already out there which can be stolen/sold illegally no legislation will ever truly prevent a determined killer who is anything but the nutty spontaneous type.
I myself have six guns that are all unusual historical designs, largely thought of as ‘failures’ by the gun community, which is my own personal weird collecting habit. For me to give these up, I would have to be offered a combination of a large cash incentive well more then they are worth, and feel some kind of peer pressure to give them up from other former gun owners. Even then, I’d probably still hold on to one of my rarer ones that would disappear as one previous poster mentioned, in an “unfortunate boating accident”.
Gun homicides were down after the ban: http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/news/news/2006/Dec/061214.php
Snopes has an article about crime in Australia before and after the gun ban (which was recent in the same way that Jerry McGuire and Independence Day are recent movies - they all happened in 1996). Australian Gun Stats | Snopes.com
Not all their guns, just semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, and later (2002) certain kinds of handguns (by caliber, magazine, and barrel length). Gun owners were compensated for those they turned in; in the case of some handguns the government actually imported and distributed replacement weapons which conformed to the new standards.