10/3/15 6:37 PM

I do have some issue with the idea that increased gun control doesn't keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

Similar to this thread here, a friend's post on facebook, or rather a reply to that post, had me doing a bit of reading on the effect of Australia's gun control program. One of the things I came across was that the black market cost of guns has skyrocketed in Australia and criminals have had to resort to sharing guns:

http://www.ibtimes.com.au/cost-illegal-firearms-australia-has-skyrocketed-criminals-now-do-gun-sharing-1378871

10/4/15 8:16 AM

a friend posted this in response:

"That's already the Chicago system. 1 gun shop for 5 million people. Must get state FOID card (rectal probe) must get federal NICS approval (parental permission) must wait to get gun, crime photos and headoines (sic) in the paper every weekend, just missing the protesters.

So what do people do if they make it even harder? Same as if you ban abortions, you turn good people into criminals because they are still going to get an abortion either in an unsafe or illegal manner. Just like Chicago residents must do if they want guns now or if they were to ban them outright.

Essentially I'm saying they tried this laborious and invasive method and the result is one of the worst crime and gun rates in the country."

10/4/15 9:02 AM

The only way to reduce these incidents is to reduce the number of firearms in the general population. Full stop. But that ain't gonna happen.

I find it totally hypocritical that many of the people who adamantly refuse any regulation of gun ownership are more than happy to make it harder for people to vote, as if one constitutional right is greater than another.

10/4/15 10:08 AM

Part of the problem is the sheer numbers of guns produced for legal sale. It feeds an industry of illegal sales, thru far too many loopholes and poor federal laws that fail to stop cross state and otherwise illegal sales. As Australia has proven, if you reduce the numbers allowed for legal sale, you kill the industry, with illegal sales dropping as well. That just seems to be a no brainier and is what the NRA fights tooth and nail, driven by the gun manufacturers lobby as they are.

As well and I've said it before, with the type of violence oriented video and games, the shooter chooses a similar weapon of choice, typically being AR-15 style rifles and the automatic magazine fed pistol. In today's NY Times article study of 14 recent mass killings, 3 AR15 style weapons were used, 1 bolt action rifle, 1 pump action shotgun and 12 automatic magazine fed pistols. You make illegal any magazine/clip fed weapon and you go along way to eliminating what is an enabler of these mass killings. Of course, gun enthusiasts go nuts when you suggest this and that's part of the problem, nobody wants to give up what they claim are weapons needed for hunting or self defense, which is total BS as far as I'm concerned.

10/4/15 10:29 AM

<humor>
Apparently a preponderance of pistol owners are such bad shots, to protect their homes they actually need clips with more than a dozen rounds.
</humor>

10/4/15 3:19 PM

Clips, no. Magazines. ;) Mine are 12rnd and 30rnd depending on which weapon I pick up first. The bad guy can guess.

Steve. An AR15 is not an automatic weapon nor are the any automatic pistols sold (Glock makes one but it is useless and they number in the hundreds total world wide). Automatic weapons are VERY restricted and can't be owned by individuals (only in trusts and companies) and cost 10s of thousands to purchase.

Now, the AR15 and common pistols sold to the public are self loading and go bang with each single pull of the trigger. Just like common little Ruger 10/22. I have hunted with self loading arms for many years and that includes an (self made) AR15 and an AR10 (Remington R25 version actually).

The AR15 is the most popular rifle sold in America; they won't be confiscated and you can't take the magazines, they number in the 10s of millions, I have 6 mags myself for my AR15 and 4 for my AR10. It just is not a feasible answer. If the .gov tried to take them, I would become a criminal. Walter made a good point, it has not worked in Chicago and won't work in the rest of the nation.

It is very important when your present your views that the terms proper and your system knowledge is correct or you lose validity.

10/4/15 4:44 PM

" self loading and go bang with each single pull of the trigger."

The new stuff just seems full auto because you can empty a 15+ clip in 3 seconds or less if you are not too twitchy. ;)

10/4/15 5:25 PM

Required Training

If a valid solution it would make sense to have hands on gun safety required as part of school curriculum. This way everyone understands the power and danger of a gun as well as how to treat them in a safe manner. Sadly we can't even deal with sex education in schools. In addition when a pop tart chewed into the shape of a gun can cause a suspension this "common sense" solution To making sure any who encounters a gun is trained would never happen.

quote:

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It makes more sense to do this with young men and guns then with women and health care, Right ?. I mean no women getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right ?"

---

10/4/15 5:40 PM

Eric,

I'm not referring to a "machine gun" style weapon, which clearly allows multiple rounds to be fired upon a single trigger pull, I'm referring to automatic loading weapons. Sorry that wasn't clear. To be clear, a revolver is an automatic loading weapon and I have no issues with that as long as the number of rounds available is limited to the typical 5 or 6. I do have issues with automatic loading rifles and with speed loaders for revolvers, in private use.

We will disagree forever about this, but I think we started down the wrong path when we allowed weapons that use detachable magazines into private use. As stated, gun enthusiasts will forever state the usefulness, blah, blah... of such weapons and it's all just BS and is one of the reasons we are in the situation currently of living in a society whose priorities of allowing such weapons is completely skewed. I am aware that you are a responsible gun owner, or like to think of yourself as such, but you need to understand that allowing these enabling weapons to continue to proliferate in a modern society is wrong and that your decisions and attitude are part of the problem.

10/4/15 6:59 PM

Sparky: they have been that way for well over 100 years. The 1911 is named that because that is the year it was first produced. Self loading, magazine fed arms have been around even longer. Yes, a weapon that can be emptied in 3 seconds has been around a LOOOONNNNGGG time and American civilians have had them from their introduction. There is nothing new about the concept or the arms.

SteveS: I support required training, like a driver's license. Who will run the program? Will there be a grandfather clause. Will the training be valid nation wide? There is already a great disparity between the states with regards to CWP and some states don't recognize other state's permits.

Steve B. : Once again, Arms don't have to used just for hunting to be valid for private ownership and use. Many people enjoy the shooting sports such as 3 Gun which uses all three types of common arms in a competitive manner, Shotgun, Pistol and Rifle. Furthermore, arms are also viable for protection of person and family. Mine are are used for hunting and protection. I stated I hunt with an AR. I keep the magazine loaded with 20 rounds, not for the single shot on a single deer but for feral hogs (vermin in much of the nation, like rats.) I fired 7 rounds at running hogs last season and took 3. The argument that magazine fed arms don't have a use beyond killing people is a mute point.

BTW. I used to think the way you do.

My decisions and attitude are perfectly sound. The problem is the mass murders.

My firearms have never committed a crime of any sort and they can't. They are tools just like the hammer you have in your garage. I propose we take away our hammers because it can be swung into the head of a person 15 times in 3 seconds. See how ludicrous that sounds.

10/4/15 7:45 PM

Erik, not going to got back and forth about it. But my 63 semi auto pistol can not fire repetitively like a few year old 9mm I have fired. My 70s Combat commander was also a station wagon compared to that 9mm. This left me with the impression the mechanisms got better with newer designs and tech. Just as it pertains to my comment about 3 seconds, certainly an arbitrary number, mostly...

10/4/15 8:22 PM

chamber round #1. pull trigger, bang. repeat trigger-pull until clip empty. definition and function is the same today as it was 1911 and back to the first in 1885. lots of folks call them "automatics" as in auto-loaders, but still not fully-automatic (obviously) and also different to double-action revolvers.

whether a clip can be emptied in a handful of seconds is down to lots of other factors, as some designs work "better" than others. but a semi-auto is a semi-auto.

"But my 63 semi auto pistol can not fire repetitively like a few year old 9mm I have fired."

sparky, what kind of semi-auto are you talking about?

10/4/15 8:36 PM

"But my 63 semi auto pistol can not fire repetitively like a few year old 9mm I have fired."

sparky, what kind of semi-auto are you talking about?


Colt Woodsman

10/4/15 8:41 PM

Sparky, your CC can go through a mag just like my Glock. I would posit even faster, the trigger on the Colt has a shorter more crisp pull and very good reset. The Glock has a much longer pull and reset because it is striker fired.

The Glock improved on reliability, parts compatibility and cost of manufacturing. It did not improve on the pistol rate of fire in any way. If your CC is a .45 then yes it would be a handful compared to a 9mm. There is a huge difference in recoil.

BTW, the Charleston church shooter used a 1911 style weapon, like your CC.

He was also under care for mental illness and substance abuse. The shooter last week was also mentally ill and washed out of Army BMT at Ft Jackson (mental issues) two weeks into training. The Colorado movie theater shooter, under mental care. The kid who shot up the elementary school in Dec, '12, mentally ill and under care. There is a trend.

10/4/15 8:53 PM

I think the 9mm may have been a Beretta FWIW.

BTW, my older greyhound I had to put down in 2012, his name was Benelli. The rest of the litter was Ruger, Browning and Winchester... Fun fact. ;)

10/4/15 11:32 PM

I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a society where you need to keep a loaded gun close at hand in order to feel safe.

10/5/15 12:41 AM

"I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a society where you need to keep a loaded gun close at hand in order to feel safe."

George Zimmerman's self fulfilled prophecy. Careful what you wish for I guess....

10/5/15 12:52 AM

Zimmerman sounds like a prime example of why people shouldn't have access to guns in the first place...

10/5/15 5:42 AM

Zimmerman and Martin were a collision of two blackholes. Total chaos.

Zimmerman walked but does not mean what happened could not have been prevented had both of them been wiser.

I DO NOT support Zimmerman and don't even think of putting me in that light.

10/5/15 6:46 AM

i do not believe that there will be any meaningful/moderate/sensible change to the way guns are dealt with in the USA on a national basis. there is too much inertia behind the mis-interpretation of the 2nd amendment, the gun lobby is too strong, and the country's appetite for firearms is too mature, and there are already too many guns in circulation for any new regulation (if it were to happen) to really matter. the cows have left the barn.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-five-extra-words-that-can-fix-the-second-amendment/2014/04/11/f8a19578-b8fa-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/how-conservatives-reinvented-the-second-amendment/

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-secondamendment.htm

Last edited by walter on 10/5/15 8:00 AM; edited 1 time in total

10/5/15 7:31 AM

@walter

the 3rd link makes very good points. I do realize that the 2nd has the "well regulated militia" portion that many 2nd advocates like to ignore.

The questions for the SCOUS would be:

What constitutes a militia and who can organize one? Currently people form militias as part of hate groups such as the KKK and most are anti-government across the board. They take it to the extreme and tend to be awful people.

I have formed the understanding that the 2nd was more along the lines as some other free countries that require the population to be armed in an effort to bolster the standing forces. I believe they are mostly Scandinavian countries.

Well regulated means that the militias would be controlled and trained, a civil military at the ready. Which we don't have. The states control their respective guards but they are not kept at the ready to protect the nation like many believe they are. It was not until 3 years ago that the SCANG picked up the ASA (fighter alert mission) from the 20FW at Shaw, who is my employer. The guard units also do not protect our borders which is painfully obvious. My point is, our state militaries really don't do the job they were first formed to do. This goes back to civil militias, they should be trained, armed and regulated, the individuals, all of us who want to be part of it should keep their arms with them and they should be personal arms of like a function and caliber just like the militias from the revolutionary war.

This thought process led me to acquire arms in 9x19, 5.56 NATO, 7.62x51. The pistol round is used by me for to protect self and family, the 5.56 is used for that purpose along with short range deer/hog hunting using the correct bullets and the latter used for hunting and much heavier targets. All are the common military calibers used in the US and throughout NATO allies.



You are right, the proverbial cat is out of the bag in the US and has been for over 270 years, confiscating guns is not the answer nor is it feasible.

The NFA of 1934 put restrictions on the types of guns that could be owned by private citizens and has been fairly effective in keeping the full auto weapons off the streets.

The 2nd has reasonable and effective restrictions in place now. We need to address the root of the problem. Remember, in 1983, kids of the same age had guns in their trucks at school all the time, something within our society has changed, the guns have not.

I still have the Winchester Model 1400 shotgun that I had in HS, my son shoots it bird hunting. It is a self loading gun. It was made in circa 1980.

10/5/15 8:51 AM

I submit that one of the things that has changed since I was in high school in the'70s is the deliberate construction of a climate of fear. And a goodly portion of that almost paranoiac fear came from the NRA, and still comes from it. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." REALLY? But everyone thinks HE is the good guy.


Other sources include our love for bad news ("dirty laundry") and, I SUSPECT but do not know, the increasing realism of shooting games (kids have always played at shooting one another, but computer games add gore and scoring tho the mix).

It's a number of things, but the NRA does nobody but itself favors by promoting fear.

FDR was right, as was Frank Herbert: "Fear is the mind-killer."

10/5/15 10:19 AM

"...I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a society where you need to keep a loaded gun close at hand in order to feel safe..."

This tells me that you feel safe without having a gun near at hand, and I am truly happy for you!
I live in a relatively quiet, low-traffic and safe neighborhood these days, but criminals from the adjacent cities often enough come into our neighborhoods to commit a very wide range of crimes here.
Sometimes, with outcomes for better or for worse, it is the police that intervene in these activities and pursue and/or even shoot these individuals, and good for them.

There's not usually going to be a hard line that can be drawn, as to whether or at what point someone "feels safe", but between a homeowner and their neighbors (including their fellow citizens everywhere), there is the knowledge that the millions of quietly gun-owning residents provide much deterrency to roaming rapists, hot-prowl burglars and home-invasion-prone individuals(!).

One has to weigh the hidden, un-sung value of such deterrency against the occurrence of mis-uses of the legally (thus the regulatable) procured guns. But the media voice seems to consistently and heavily downplay this value!
A youth is facing a fork in the road, deterring a youth from choosing a life of crime is of very high value imo.

Just as when premature death occurs from any risky behavior, without such "examples", the behavior would become much more prevalent.
This isn't speculation, it is fact. The animal world provides countless examples of the use of example-driven caution, so this is an organic, universal tendency among all mammals, etc.
So the deaths that occur to those who exercise risky behavior (as in thuggin') are not in vain and never have been, except to the extent that they are under-reported.
So think about it, when was the last time that well-reported shooting death statistics informed us as to what percentage breakdown exists with respect to shooting deaths of criminals versus deaths of fully innocent victims? Never!
Rather, the media always uses their compiled, preferred "statistics" to skew discussions in the direction of their choice! Why even believe them?
I'm just tired of hearing all their one-sided, agenda-driven reporting.

And as PLee suggested, it's not practical to think that one can close the borders to the importation of cheap, illegal weapons, so I suggest that making people-gun-people problems "go away" by using oppressive regulation would seem mostly to be just a crack-pipe fantasy.

10/5/15 11:01 AM

quote:

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We need to address the root of the problem. Remember, in 1983, kids of the same age had guns in their trucks at school all the time, something within our society has changed, the guns have not.

---

- Zero tolerance removes the ability of educators to use common sense and provide teaching moments when bad behavior occurs.
- Long ago a playground scruff could settle a dispute and bond two people as friends or at least allow them to tolerate each others presence. Now it is a suspension or even escalated to a criminal matter.
- The victimization of bullied kids making everyone a victim but not allowing them an effective avenue to resolve the bullying problem.
- Schools inability to provide any sort of discipline that provides teaching moments. In the old days if a kid got in trouble at school he got in even more trouble once he got home. Now if a kid gets in trouble at school the parents are ready to sue the school instead of work with the school.

10/5/15 11:16 AM

I tried to pay good attention to how this latest incident was presented to the masses.

What I noticed was how the timing of the event was used together with the continuous swirl of panic-drama-hoopla to get the agenda-driven voices front and center with their unbalanced views, in an effort to give their ideas a well-timed boost.
I felt like I had seen this process unfold that way many times before, where the extreme views of, for example, a Chuck Schumer, a fresh victim's relative and a mumble-grumbling President get repeated over and over for a couple of days, mid-drama, in an obvious effort to give them added traction.
They are typically light on specifics and try to sway minds toward the benefits of broadly limiting the availability of legally-acquired guns. Playing on people's emotions in other words, much like when they trot out Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, on cue, seemingly every time that a cop has a brutal encounter with an inner-city thug or wilding teenager.