Gun control

Gannicus said:
Do we really know that gun control laws would end violence? I seriously doubt that.

But the point about senseless tragedies -- the child shooting his brother, the child shooting his mother, the child killing himself by staring down the gun barrel -- is a very valid one.

At this point we have to ask ourselves what kind of policy analysis are we going to undertake? We could go with anecdotal stories of tragedies or we could with broader data sets.

I'm not a gun freak (nor a Koch brother, despite the suggestion by a poster a few weeks ago that I might be) and I have no intention of ever owning guns. I even go so far as to say that the world would be a better place is all guns and heavy artillery would just disappear.

That said, the overwhelming amount of literature on the subject of control, taking into account spill-in effects, tell us that gun control laws has no effect on crime rates. The question really isn't whether this is no, but why this is so. "Why" is always a hard question to answer, but we can begin with acknowledging that there exists a vast inventory (if we can put it that way) of firearms that precedes the sale of new firearms in any given year. We can also fairly conclude, without making too large a leap of common sense, that criminals would be the least likely individuals to adhere to gun control laws that already exist, let alone adhere to a total ban on private ownership of guns. We're all reasonable caftards who pay our parking tickets and we'd be the first to submit to whatever laws on guns that may arise, but it's hard to imagine that criminals would do the same, as the nature of being a criminal is such that adhering to gun control laws would be contrary to his discernible interest as a criminal.

Thus, the predicament. On the one hand we would likely see fewer accidental deaths under a total gun ban regime, but on the other hand we would see higher crime rates, or at least greater victimization of unarmed individuals who are known by the armed criminal (we just can't assume the criminal will voluntarily agree to disarm himself) to be unarmed. That may be a tradeoff worth making.
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Why are you putting words in my mouth. Nowhere did I say gun control laws would end violence. I even acknowledged that you wouldn't get rid of guns from society no matter what restrictions you put in place. You keep arguing that by bringing in gun control laws you are opening peoples howuses for a free for all where people can't protect themselves and the criminals will terrorise people every night.

Look at countries that have very strict gun control laws. The examples I gave you and a vast majority of people will never, ever see a gun in person, let alone be held at gunpoint. Why? Because the majority of thieves want your television or your money. They don't want to hunted for murder. They won't carry a gun and risk using it if they don't need to. People in Ireland and England don't get burgled by people with guns in general. People rarely die in home invasions over here. People are not prey. You're trying to claim a Purge like situation just because people don't have guns to protect themselves.

As I said, if you impose strict gun control laws, it won't solve the problem over night. However if the only way to get a gun is on the black market, then acquiring guns becomes a lot more expensive. If you impose much harsher laws for being in possession of a weapon then that is also a deterrent.
 
peterstorey said:
Strawman is the new Hitler.
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Again the laws need to be changed to make gun owners have increased responsibility for the guns they do own. I mean yeah it would suck to have to prosecute some parent or parents who just had a kid die, but when you purchase a gun, you need to accept all the responsibility that does with it and the law needs to impose some of those responsibilities.

As I said before, I fully support tougher gun laws here in the US. No sense talking about a complete gun ban, it will never happen and as been mentioned elsewhere in this thread doesn't happen in a lot of countries.

There are lots of other items that can be very dangerous, even though they are not weapons, and we expect people to behave responsibly with them and even impose harsh punishments when they don't. Guns should be no different, well actually they should be different because they are weapons, we should expect and requite more care for the guns we do allow to be legally owned.
 
RexHamilton said:
Why are you putting words in my mouth. Nowhere did I say gun control laws would end violence. I even acknowledged that you wouldn't get rid of guns from society no matter what restrictions you put in place. You keep arguing that by bringing in gun control laws you are opening peoples howuses for a free for all where people can't protect themselves and the criminals will terrorise people every night.

Look at countries that have very strict gun control laws. The examples I gave you and a vast majority of people will never, ever see a gun in person, let alone be held at gunpoint. Why? Because the majority of thieves want your television or your money. They don't want to hunted for murder. They won't carry a gun and risk using it if they don't need to. People in Ireland and England don't get burgled by people with guns in general. People rarely die in home invasions over here. People are not prey. You're trying to claim a Purge like situation just because people don't have guns to protect themselves.

As I said, if you impose strict gun control laws, it won't solve the problem over night. However if the only way to get a gun is on the black market, then acquiring guns becomes a lot more expensive. If you impose much harsher laws for being in possession of a weapon then that is also a deterrent.
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Ok, but if all we're solving is the relatively rare case of the accidental shooting by a child, it's a pretty hard argument to make that depriving one of the ability to adequately defend oneself from someone who does commit a crime with a firearm is worth the benefit of reducing the number of tragic accidents.

It may be a cultural thing, which is why I was careful in a previous post to argue against the proposition that France should abandon its gun control policies and arm its citizens. France's culture is its culture and it cannot just abandon it. But in the United States, the "right to defend oneself" is ingrained in our national psyche and even most Democrats don't attempt to ban gun ownership now. That individual "right" goes back to the English common law, long before Jefferson mounted his female slaves. I personally think the better way to defend oneself is to avoid trouble as much as possible, although I almost got dragged into the knife fight in East LA that resulted in the death of my cousin and was standing only about 15 feet away when someone got gunned down in MacArthur Park. Carrying a gun around town is completely out of the question for me, even if I eventually decided to pack some heat in my house (not at all likely).

Banning gun ownership just wouldn't solve anything, at least in the US, with the exception of accidental shootings. It certainly wouldn't solve the problem of homicides, which by definition are committed by individuals with criminal intent, are not committed by someone who accidentally fired a gun the direction of another person.

As for the incidence of crime, it's true that most of the time criminals just want your stuff -- your money, your TV, your drugs (interesting that the same people who usually want to ban guns want to legalize narcotics) -- but there really is a problem here with homicides and not just negligent manslaughter. Where I live, a smallish middle class city in California, we see a homicide every week. And in the next city down the road from us is known as one of the murder hotbeds of the United States -- about one a week in a city with a population of just 300,000 people. I suppose a reply could be that the high incidence of murder is proof that we need to ban guns, but isn't it really proof that the high incidence of homicides can support the notion that people who feel they need to arm themselves should be allowed to arm themselves? After all, criminals are going to obtain and use guns regardless of what the laws may say, so how can we justify -- in a society as violent as that of the United States -- that we should fashion policies such that we can ensure that only criminals can and will have guns?

We can't make policies based on the magic wand theory. There is no magic wand that will make all guns disappear.
 
Gannicus said:
Ok, but if all we're solving is the relatively rare case of the accidental shooting by a child, it's a pretty hard argument to make that depriving one of the ability to adequately defend oneself from someone who does commit a crime with a firearm is worth the benefit of reducing the number of tragic accidents.
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2 in three days that we know of. Another last week. That's rare? That must be a cultural thing. That seems pretty regular to me. We've given examples already plenty of times that there are hundreds of countries with proper gun control where people have no need to arm themselves to protect themselves. You keep choosing to ignore this and paint America as this place where if people got rid of their guns there would be a Purge type scenario where criminals would just come in and shoot and rape people. Get a grip. Why aren't the criminals breaking into my house now to steal my things and rape my girlfriend.


Gannicus said:
It may be a cultural thing, which is why I was careful in a previous post to argue against the proposition that France should abandon its gun control policies and arm its citizens. France's culture is its culture and it cannot just abandon it. But in the United States, the "right to defend oneself" is ingrained in our national psyche and even most Democrats don't attempt to ban gun ownership now. That individual "right" goes back to the English common law, long before Jefferson mounted his female slaves. I personally think the better way to defend oneself is to avoid trouble as much as possible, although I almost got dragged into the knife fight in East LA that resulted in the death of my cousin and was standing only about 15 feet away when someone got gunned down in MacArthur Park. Carrying a gun around town is completely out of the question for me, even if I eventually decided to pack some heat in my house (not at all likely).
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It's an ancient right. It's not relevant today. It's very sad about your cousin. Sometimes bad people do bad things. As I have said numerous times in this thread, proper gun control won't cut out all the violence. It would help though. As for someone getting gunned down in MacArthur Park. Well, I would argue that that helps the anti-gun side. If he hadn't been able to get his hands on a gun, there wouldn't have been anyone gunned down.


Gannicus said:
Banning gun ownership just wouldn't solve anything, at least in the US, with the exception of accidental shootings. It certainly wouldn't solve the problem of homicides, which by definition are committed by individuals with criminal intent, are not committed by someone who accidentally fired a gun the direction of another person.
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It would though. It would solve the accidental shootings. It would help to solve the massacres in public places that seem synonymous with your country. I don't hear about school shootings, movie theatre shootings, mall shootings in any other developed country in the world. If you claim that the availability of guns doesn't play a part in this then I'm out of this argument because arguing with the deluded is going to get me nowhere.

Gannicus said:
As for the incidence of crime, it's true that most of the time criminals just want your stuff -- your money, your TV, your drugs (interesting that the same people who usually want to ban guns want to legalize narcotics) -- but there really is a problem here with homicides and not just negligent manslaughter. Where I live, a smallish middle class city in California, we see a homicide every week. And in the next city down the road from us is known as one of the murder hotbeds of the United States -- about one a week in a city with a population of just 300,000 people. I suppose a reply could be that the high incidence of murder is proof that we need to ban guns, but isn't it really proof that the high incidence of homicides can support the notion that people who feel they need to arm themselves should be allowed to arm themselves? After all, criminals are going to obtain and use guns regardless of what the laws may say, so how can we justify -- in a society as violent as that of the United States -- that we should fashion policies such that we can ensure that only criminals can and will have guns?

We can't make policies based on the magic wand theory. There is no magic wand that will make all guns disappear.
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It's a hell of a lot easier to commit homicide with a gun than to confront someone with a knife and put your own life in danger. Murder hotbeds in the US are also gun hotbeds. If you seriously think that reducing the number of guns in these areas wouldn't reduce the number of homicides, then again, I'm finished with the debate. You have a problem with someone, you find them on their own and you shoot them from a distance or from your car and it's problem solved. Try and settle that same problem without the gun and it's a hell of a lot different. You're now putting your own life at risk and are going to reassess whether this homicide is worth it. The fact that you have a higher murder rate than most developed nations is partially down to the availability of guns.

As I have also said, implementing strict gun control laws now, wouldn't solve the problem. Not straight away at least. It would indeed take decades. There are too many guns in the US already so restricting their sale now would change very little. But in time, with the restricted availability of ammunition, with harsh police measures for possession of a firearm and with constant confiscation of firearms, along with the inability to purchase new firearms, it would be a start and maybe 100 years from now American's will look back and say, you know what, we were very stupid to be so protective of our second amendment. Will criminals still be able to get their hands on guns? Yeah, they are in every country. But criminals in Ireland, England, Australia have guns too you know. Yet it's very, very rare that an innocent person gets shot to death. Hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's coincidence.[/QUOTE]
 
Again the false argument that gun control advocates think guns can be eradicated. "Control" is the keyword. They are currently out of it. Saying that you can't eliminate the problem and therefore shouldn't even bother trying to shrink it is an absurd way of thinking. It would take some very creative thinking to argue that controls wouldn't have a net benefit in terms of lives lost to these weapons. If you don't think such a benefit is worth a denial of that freedom, at least argue that rather than perpetuate this mental line that the ubiquity of machines designed for hundreds of years with the express aim of killing stuff doesn't contribute immensely to the problem.
 
Rex wrote (not sure how to do the multiquote thing in a single post):

2 in three days that we know of. Another last week. That's rare? That must be a cultural thing. That seems pretty regular to me. We've given examples already plenty of times that there are hundreds of countries with proper gun control where people have no need to arm themselves to protect themselves. You keep choosing to ignore this and paint America as this place where if people got rid of their guns there would be a Purge type scenario where criminals would just come in and shoot and rape people. Get a grip. Why aren't the criminals breaking into my house now to steal my things and rape my girlfriend.

Accidents of all kinds happen all the time. But since we're talking only about guns here -- and not vehicle accidents or anything else -- consider the fact that there are 320m people living in the United States and (apparently) 300m guns.

We either have to accept that we will or that we will not confiscate existing legally owned firearms. If you and I could come up with a plan that really would result in the confiscation of all or nearly all 300m currently legally owned guns, I could be talked into a comprehensive gun ban.

In the absence of genuinely effectively confiscation scheme, I'm afraid a ban on gun ownership would be ineffective. All that would be accomplished is the legal sale of guns, allowing all 300m guns to remain where they are while doing nothing to prevent criminals to obtain the guns they need to perpetrate their nasty deeds.

Those accidents that piss us off will continue to happen.

As for "gun control", understood as something different than a "gun ban", you've obviously not read my posts at all, at least not with any care. I am for the following:

A ban on the sale and possession, and obviously the use of, semiautomatic weapons.
A ban on carrying weapons into public places of all kinds, except under the most extreme of circumstances approved by court order.
A ban on the ownership of any firearm by certain classes of people, such as felons and the mentally ill.
A ban on the sale of firearms through the internet.
A requirement that all firearms be registered.
A requirement that all firearms dealers be licensed.
A bullet stamping requirement.
A bullet tax.
A requirement that the sale or transfer of a firearm between two private parties (including father to son) be registered.

I'm not sure what stone I've left unturned, apart from a complete ban on the private ownership of guns -- which of course would be blatantly unconstitutional, as well as being impractical to put it mildly.

I have made it clear that IMHO the world would be a vastly better place had guns never existed. But guns do exist and public policy must be made in the context of the world that we live in, not the world that does not exist. I wish a lot of things, but wishing doesn't make things so. We have to deal with the world as is and we should all try to make the world a better place (we banned the use of DDT, rightly so), but that still leaves us a lot of room to make and enforce laws that can work to reduce the incidence of harm that arises from the use of guns. And we've done that, at least where I live. I have supported most, perhaps all, of the laws that California has enacted over the years to deal with the problem of private gun ownership. And I was personally involved in securing enactment of legislation that bans the sale/purchase of what we have classified as "assault weapons".
 
I sometimes feel as if people on the other side of the Atlantic choose to be deliberately obtuse on the matter of gun control.

Guns aren't going to be banned. Severe restrictions on guns are not going to be implemented on a federal level. Getting an amendment removed/added to the constitution requires

1. A two-thirds majority in BOTH the House of Representatives and the Senate
2. Ratification by at least 38 out of 50 states.

Between the coasts of America which are largely liberal, lies this large conservative God n gun-loving population. And they are the majority in more than 12 states. The Supreme Court has struck down very restrictive laws aiming to control guns.

Not even the murder of more than a dozen children in Connecticut made the populace seriously consider limiting guns a little bit.

So yes, we Americans are idiots. No shit. Arguing the number of guns needs to be reduced is flogging the dead horse.
 
adexkola said:
I sometimes feel as if people on the other side of the Atlantic choose to be deliberately obtuse on the matter of gun control.

Guns aren't going to be banned. Severe restrictions on guns are not going to be implemented on a federal level. Getting an amendment removed/added to the constitution requires

1. A two-thirds majority in BOTH the House of Representatives and the Senate
2. Ratification by at least 38 out of 50 states.

Between the coasts of America which are largely liberal, lies this large conservative God n gun-loving population. And they are the majority in more than 12 states. The Supreme Court has struck down very restrictive laws aiming to control guns.

Not even the murder of more than a dozen children in Connecticut made the populace seriously consider limiting guns a little bit.

So yes, we Americans are idiots. No shit. Arguing the number of guns needs to be reduced is flogging the dead horse.
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America is two, maybe three generations away from something remote to so called gun control. Older generations won't be here forever and the whole thing will come naturally without too much of noise and panic.

US of A is far from being dumb. They're just afraid of loosing any other rights further in a process and I can fully understand that.

You can still die from a random bear attack in some part of US as much as it sound perplexing in 2015.
 
adexkola said:
I sometimes feel as if people on the other side of the Atlantic choose to be deliberately obtuse on the matter of gun control.

Guns aren't going to be banned. Severe restrictions on guns are not going to be implemented on a federal level. Getting an amendment removed/added to the constitution requires

1. A two-thirds majority in BOTH the House of Representatives and the Senate
2. Ratification by at least 38 out of 50 states.

Between the coasts of America which are largely liberal, lies this large conservative God n gun-loving population. And they are the majority in more than 12 states. The Supreme Court has struck down very restrictive laws aiming to control guns.

Not even the murder of more than a dozen children in Connecticut made the populace seriously consider limiting guns a little bit.

So yes, we Americans are idiots. No shit. Arguing the number of guns needs to be reduced is flogging the dead horse.
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But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be argued, though. I think most people recognise that the chances of gun restrictions is still very minimal at the moment, but unless people actively campaign for it, no progress whatsoever will be made.
 
adexkola said:
I sometimes feel as if people on the other side of the Atlantic choose to be deliberately obtuse on the matter of gun control.

Guns aren't going to be banned. Severe restrictions on guns are not going to be implemented on a federal level. Getting an amendment removed/added to the constitution requires

1. A two-thirds majority in BOTH the House of Representatives and the Senate
2. Ratification by at least 38 out of 50 states.

Between the coasts of America which are largely liberal, lies this large conservative God n gun-loving population. And they are the majority in more than 12 states. The Supreme Court has struck down very restrictive laws aiming to control guns.

Not even the murder of more than a dozen children in Connecticut made the populace seriously consider limiting guns a little bit.

So yes, we Americans are idiots. No shit. Arguing the number of guns needs to be reduced is flogging the dead horse.
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Ignoring the problems won't make them go away.

Something needs to be done, and discourse is the only way that's ever going to be achieved, as unlikely as it might be that it ever will.

The ostrich approach won't get anyone anywhere.
 
Don't´be fooled by all these kooks and their disingenuous second amendment posturing and proud, strong individuals sticking up for themselves etc etc etc (the brainwashing of "westerns" and that crap is really powerful) . . . but here is the real meaning of gun control and gun rights, just like it was with the black power of the sixties.

http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/guns/w...y-for-carrying-a-legally-concealed-gun-video/

WHITE WALMART VIGILANTE TACKLES SCARY BLACK GUY FOR CARRYING A LEGALLY CONCEALED GUN (VIDEO)

Whenever there’s a story about open carry imbeciles walking into supermarkets, restaurants, or down the street, showing off their penis extensions, the left asks,”If the guy carrying the gun was black, would that be okay with the NRA crowd?” Of course it wouldn’t and now we have proof.

Clarence Daniels, 62, walked into a Florida Walmart on Tuesday to buy his wife creamer when he was tackled by 43-year-old Michael Foster. Foster apparently witnessed Daniels take his handgun from his vehicle and conceal it under his jacket. Foster then followed Daniels into the store, tackled him and placed him in a chokehold . . . (cont)
 
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If the tackler was a member of the NRA, wouldn't he have had his own gun and just shot the black guy claiming Stand Your Ground or some such nonsense? Though my guess is there is probably a good chance the tackler is an NRA member, would be funny though if it turns out he is a registered Democrat (won't happen, but it would be funny).
 
Cheesy said:
But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be argued, though. I think most people recognise that the chances of gun restrictions is still very minimal at the moment, but unless people actively campaign for it, no progress whatsoever will be made.
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Rado_N said:
Ignoring the problems won't make them go away.

Something needs to be done, and discourse is the only way that's ever going to be achieved, as unlikely as it might be that it ever will.

The ostrich approach won't get anyone anywhere.
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Yeah you guys are right of course, I'm just a dour pessimist. Arguing with NRA nuts for hours on end does that to you. They have no concept of sacrificing for the greater good, and are incapable of thinking logically. Agenda driven to the extreme, and there are a lot of them, who aren't gonna die off anytime soon. There is no scenario in which adults with fully loaded assault weapons enter a Burger King for food. Just to make a point.
 
adexkola said:
Yeah you guys are right of course, I'm just a dour pessimist. Arguing with NRA nuts for hours on end does that to you. They have no concept of sacrificing for the greater good, and are incapable of thinking logically. Agenda driven to the extreme, and there are a lot of them, who aren't gonna die off anytime soon. There is no scenario in which adults with fully loaded assault weapons enter a Burger King for food. Just to make a point.
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Yeah, I know what you mean. Worth pointing out though that you could say a lot of that about racism back in the 50s and 60s in regards to agenda driven, and failing to listen to logic. Gun control will take a lot longer to rectify since of what is in the constitution etc, but I think that as times progresses, a lot more Americans will be willing to listen to logic, and a voice of reason where people advocate more restricted control will start to break through.
 
Putting aside the political and constitutional barriers to a gun ownership ban, no one here has yet to put forward a credible proposal for how 300m firearms are to be confiscated from 320m people.

We might as well be talking about how Scottie can beam us all across the galaxy in one his energizers.
 
Gannicus said:
Putting aside the political and constitutional barriers to a gun ownership ban, no one here has yet to put forward a credible proposal for how 300m firearms are to be confiscated from 320m people.

We might as well be talking about how Scottie can beam us all across the galaxy in one his energizers.
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One gun at a time. Just start today.
 
adexkola said:
Yeah you guys are right of course, I'm just a dour pessimist. Arguing with NRA nuts for hours on end does that to you. They have no concept of sacrificing for the greater good, and are incapable of thinking logically.
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The exact same conclusion you come to when debating with (most) people who are against universal health care. Selfish and ignorant with no consideration or care for anyone else.

peterstorey said:
One gun at a time. Just start today.
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Exactly, but as someone said earlier, America on a whole is a couple of generations away from that ever happening.
 
JustAFan said:
Again the laws need to be changed to make gun owners have increased responsibility for the guns they do own. I mean yeah it would suck to have to prosecute some parent or parents who just had a kid die, but when you purchase a gun, you need to accept all the responsibility that does with it and the law needs to impose some of those responsibilities.

As I said before, I fully support tougher gun laws here in the US. No sense talking about a complete gun ban, it will never happen and as been mentioned elsewhere in this thread doesn't happen in a lot of countries.

There are lots of other items that can be very dangerous, even though they are not weapons, and we expect people to behave responsibly with them and even impose harsh punishments when they don't. Guns should be no different, well actually they should be different because they are weapons, we should expect and requite more care for the guns we do allow to be legally owned.
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Tough on the parents for sure but I think they should be locked up for their actions. It's an important step in control. They didn't even lock the gun FFS.

Didn't happen here but what if the infant killed someone else?
 
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Gannicus said:
Putting aside the political and constitutional barriers to a gun ownership ban, no one here has yet to put forward a credible proposal for how 300m firearms are to be confiscated from 320m people.

We might as well be talking about how Scottie can beam us all across the galaxy in one his energizers.
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The unfeasibility of enforcing other laws never seemed to stop them from existing.

Were there any credible proposals on how you would prevent 320m people from consuming drugs which are widely available due to market forces when the first laws prohibiting them emerged? If there were, the "credible" part seems to have been lost along the way.
 
Arruda said:
The unfeasibility of enforcing other laws never seemed to stop them from existing.

Were there any credible proposals on how you would prevent 320m people from consuming drugs which are widely available due to market forces when the first laws prohibiting them emerged? If there were, the "credible" part seems to have been lost along the way.
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There's a massive difference between a law that's difficult to enforce and a law for which it is not only known in foresight to be not only unenforceable but would cause civil disturbances. Armed civil disturbances.

If you want to really piss off over 100m Americans all you have to do is to tell them that the government wants to take their guns away from them.

We know the anti drug laws don't work, which supports the point even further that gun confiscate laws wouldn't work either.
 
Gannicus said:
We know the anti drug laws don't work, which supports the point even further that gun confiscate laws wouldn't work either.
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Nope, the war on drugs should be equated with prohibition. The war on guns is about leadership and not caving into vested interests.
 
peterstorey said:
Nope, the war on drugs should be equated with prohibition. The war on guns is about leadership and not caving into vested interests.
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Pure emotional rhetoric, but props to you for mindless drivel!

Banning alcohol didn't work.
Banning drugs doesn't work.
Banning guns will not work.
 
Gannicus said:
Pure emotional rhetoric, but props to you for mindless drivel!

Banning alcohol didn't work.
Banning drugs doesn't work.
Banning guns will not work.
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You surely do not see them as relevantly similar. Places where guns are to all intents and purposes banned do no have anything like the clamour to overturn or relax the legislation as there is for drugs. Though it's true in the US that there is a fetishisation of them to the extent that any attempt at banning right now wouldn't work, it has to be a process of tightening the restrictions until demand is choked off long term. But then as mentioned, given Sandy Hook didn't even result in minor controls introduced, hope is low of even that happening.
 
They're not equivalent propositions. Removing guns will work (see other countries).
 
Ubik said:
You surely do not see them as relevantly similar. Places where guns are to all intents and purposes banned do no have anything like the clamour to overturn or relax the legislation as there is for drugs. Though it's true in the US that there is a fetishisation of them to the extent that any attempt at banning right now wouldn't work, it has to be a process of tightening the restrictions until demand is choked off long term. But then as mentioned, given Sandy Hook didn't even result in minor controls introduced, hope is low of even that happening.
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It's one thing to ban the sale of guns. That's doable, although it has zero chance of ever ha binge en a majority of support among Democrats. What's not doable in any way is confiscating existing privately owned guns.

Any suggestion that it is doable to confiscate guns already in private ownership is evidence of insanity or ignorance. Even Democrats who own guns will never EVER give them up. Right or wrong, that's reality.

We must deal with reality, mates.
 
Gannicus said:
Other countries do not have a second amendment.

What is this fascination with fantasy here?
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Your second amendment was written 300 years ago, just after a freedom struggle involving the Great Britain.

A lot of americans take pride in their free speech law, but didn't America actively try to curtail communist ideals in their country?
 
This is just sad.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...reated-Brookville-148th-Avenue-289669211.html

In the quiet of a predawn Saturday on a dead-end street, a father came home and shot his family in their heads, leaving women in three generations dead and a wounded 12-year-old girl calling 911, police said.

"What I did, I cannot come back from," Jonathon Walker told his brother by phone soon afterward, police said. And Walker did not come back — police said he killed himself in his car on a desolate street a few miles away, ending a burst of violence that stunned relatives who said the family hadn't shown signs of trouble.
 
peterstorey said:
We've done this, get rid of it.
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RexHamilton said:
But... Constitution.
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I think @Gannicus is right (depressingly) that guns are here to stay. The only viable option is to limit what guns are here to stay and to start making owners accountable (e.g. parents above locked up for manslaughter). I went to buy a sled this week and they were right next to the gun section in a leading sports store (they were actually in 3 stores I visited to buy a sled). I felt like fainting at the vast quantity and diversity of guns and I'm sure I was looking at just hunting guns. It really is depressing there is so much desire to have these things.
 
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