Gun control

The gun show exemptions are ridiculous. There are a lot of people selling privately that refuse to find out if the person they're selling to can legally own a gun. I don't know why you would want to sell a gun to a potential madman, but somehow this proves the 2nd amendment is alive and well to them.
If every firearm transfer had to go through the NICS check, a lot less people would buy guns. They don't want the evil government in their business or to know they bought a gun.
 
Plechazunga said:
Stop dreaming RD.

They'll do nothing. Chait explains why.
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if nothing meanigfull is done.....it would be like those kids dying all over again.


I've been a few times to where my wife works...

seeing the 'bratty' angels...hearing their voices in play and just being full of life.
my wife said that she would have done what that teacher did...tried to protect the child and died. Its not being a hero...just that by not trying to protect the innocent child...its probabaly worse to live through it.

I cannot imagine losing my child to violence.

but 'this' just violated our hope.

feel helpless. the despair will be if nothing meaningfull is done.
 
It's hard to control guns, even harder to control mentally ill patients, so gun control is the better approach.

Obama is tapping into the national feeling. I hope he pushes the gun lobby as hard as he can. It could turn out to be a rash promise and I'm not convinced he'll be able to do much.
 
The only reason that many pols don't touch gun control is because there is a significant number of people who will either not vote for them or actively campaign against them if they do. An event like this lessens that number and maybe changes the mind of a few more Congressmen and Senators.

I still think something useful,can come out of this. Before the event there was little support for a handgun ban...I wonder what the numbers are now.
 
SCOTUS is going to change in the next couple of years. I'd even put Roberts down as maybe doing what's best for the country rather than sticking to a strict constitutionalist interpretation of the issue. He did it on ACA.
 
Surely Scotus is unlikely to go more liberal in the next couple of years? He should be able to steady the ship though by replacing Ginsburg and Breyer.

But it doesn't matter... the 2nd amendment interpretation (personal use not militias) is settled law now, right? As much as Roe v Wade.
 
I think the best chance is with the states making their own restrictive laws on guns. The NRA routinely challenges them, which is how the handgun issue was settled. If they can't be banned outright, I'm sure the anti-gun lobby will think up ways of making them all but impossible to own and push for new laws that will end up at SCOTUS.
 
I just got into a debate with an American at my uni who argued that a ban on guns would kill thousands of Americans who HAVE to hunt with guns to survive. Apparently I was incredibly insensitive for killing off thousands of the poor classes who needed to shoot a deer every now and then to survive.

Does anyone have any stats on Americans who need to hunt to survive? Reckon it's bullshit.
 
Twigginater said:
I just got into a debate with an American at my uni who argued that a ban on guns would kill thousands of Americans who HAVE to hunt with guns to survive. Apparently I was incredibly insensitive for killing off thousands of the poor classes who needed to shoot a deer every now and then to survive.

Does anyone have any stats on Americans who need to hunt to survive? Reckon it's bullshit.
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What a feckwitt. Surely it'd be easier for them to shoot a cow.

I hope this wasn't a lecturer you were arguing with.
 
Grinner said:
What a feckwitt. Surely it'd be easier for them to shoot a cow.

I hope this wasn't a lecturer you were arguing with.
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It was an American who come over to Manchester uni last year and has since gone back. But on Facebook he was posting shit about America's gun laws.

I just can't see how it'd be maintainable to NEED to hunt consistently. He was just like "you kill a deer you've got 200 dollars of meat."

I can't see that being how many people live.
 
Red Dreams said:
yes. license and insurance for all gun owners.
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Insurance companies might not want to get into that business though. Think of the liability the insurance companies would pay out on a horrific event like this. Not just to the families of those who died, but every student and adult in that school would have some sort of claim. Then who wants to be the insurance company who insured some guy who ends up being a nut job, but just was not diagnosed properly.

This being a bit different from auto, fire,hurricane , etc etc insurance.

Perhaps if it was limited to how much liability coverage they would have to provide, but that sort of defeats the point.

Assault rifles need to be retroactively outlawed. the loopholes in selling guns need to be closed up, including doing away with private sales. You want to sell a gun you own, take it to your local gun shop and sell it on consignment.

Whatever laws are passed will take a number of years to get into affect as the challenges in the court will take years to be settled, it will not just jump right to the Supreme Court.

I also imagine a few of the more militant gun owners will chose to put the phrase 'You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands" into effect.
 
Not banning handguns would be pointless as they are responsible for most of the deaths. License, insurance, good reason for owning one, annual training, demonstration of safe storage should all be minimum requirements of ownership.

That'd cut out a lot of wackos from having one.
 
Between the price of the gun, the cost of ammo for practice, the cost of ammo for hunting, license fees, gas for my truck to go hunting, and lots of other expenses that I wouldn't have if I went to the grocery store, it probably costs me as much or more to go hunting than it would to just buy meat from the store.

People needing guns for hunting to survive or needing them for anything else is bullshit
 
we need to remember the last 3 such shootings were done by people with mental issues.

a letter from your doctor saying you are mentally capable of using a gun? Not sure how this will work. I think for sure anyone who is on medications like anti-depressants and such must not be allowed to own guns. But this last person took his mother's guns...which tells me we need guns to be locked..like they do in Canada.

But in any case assault weapons need to be banned outright for private individuals.

Those who already own them, need to be give them back as a buyback program.

They will fight tooth and nail.

The key is this is what do the majority want.

Perhaps a National Referendum will settle it once and for all.
 
Lets not forget that the guys mother owned and obtained the guns legally. She probably had them for protection yet ended up getting shot in the face with her own weapon.

I've seen some research on biometric safeguards that will only allow a gun owner to fire the gun. That would reduce most accidental child deaths and prevent stolen weapons from being used.
 
JustAFan said:
Insurance companies might not want to get into that business though. Think of the liability the insurance companies would pay out on a horrific event like this. Not just to the families of those who died, but every student and adult in that school would have some sort of claim. Then who wants to be the insurance company who insured some guy who ends up being a nut job, but just was not diagnosed properly.
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Well they insure all sorts of shit that's hugely expensive and bad publicity when it goes wrong. Point is it hardly ever does. That's how insurance works.

Events like this are terrible and make news for obvious reasons, but compared to the number of people they'd be insuring they're vanishingly rare.
 
I don't see why we can't limit people to a bolt action rifle for hunting purposes and a shotgun for home defence.

Yes they will still be able to kill people, but it's much harder to do it stealthily and efficiently with long-barrel weapons.
 
Grinner said:
Lets not forget that the guys mother owned and obtained the guns legally. She probably had them for protection yet ended up getting shot in the face with her own weapon.
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The mother of the gunman who killed 20 children and seven adults in America’s worst school massacre, was a gun-proud “survivalist” preparing for economic collapse, it has emerged.
Nancy Lanza, whose gun collection was raided by her son Adam for Friday’s massacre at Sandy Hook school, was part of the “prepper” movement, which urges readiness for social chaos by hoarding supplies and training with weapons.
“She prepared for the worst,” her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza told reporters. “Last time we visited her in person, we talked about prepping – are you ready for what could happen down the line, when the economy collapses?”


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/nancy-lanza-collected-guns-2012-12#ixzz2FNhLaUfw

May be not the correct thing to say but this and other report suggests that she was a bit of a gun nut.
 
Grinner said:
I don't see why we can't limit people to a bolt action rifle for hunting purposes and a shotgun for home defence.

Yes they will still be able to kill people, but it's much harder to do it stealthily and efficiently with long-barrel weapons.
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Quite. Handguns and automatic rifles really aren't needed for aything other than killing people. Make the penalties for possesion of one of these firearms prohibative, particualrly if used to undertake a crime, and after a decade things would be much improved.
 
Red Dreams said:
a letter from your doctor saying you are mentally capable of using a gun? Not sure how this will work. I think for sure anyone who is on medications like anti-depressants and such must not be allowed to own guns. But this last person took his mother's guns...which tells me we need guns to be locked..like they do in Canada.
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I don't think that would work. Any Dr signing that a patient was mentally stable enough to use a gun would be considered liable if that patient subsequently proved not to be. Indemnity insurers would have a field day, and Drs would start refusing to sign just to cover their backs.

We have a similar situation in vet medicine - our indemnity insurers teach us that when asked the question "is this horse now safe to ride" the answer is always "no".
 
Safe to say the majority of people here are in agreement.

The question how can this change be brought about? Especially when the Republicans control the house.
 
Grinner said:
I don't see why we can't limit people to a bolt action rifle for hunting purposes and a shotgun for home defence.

Yes they will still be able to kill people, but it's much harder to do it stealthily and efficiently with long-barrel weapons.
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That's pretty much how it is in Ireland & the UK, except saying you want it for protection is pretty much a guarantee that you won't get a license.
 
Eyepopper said:
That's pretty much how it is in Ireland & the UK, except saying you want it for protection is pretty much a guarantee that you won't get a license.
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If they could bring in one single restriction on guns, having anyone that utters , tweets or posts on youtube etc the phrase 'guns are needed to protect me from the government' being banned from having any osrt of firearm would go long way to solve the problems of the US.

fear mongering media and politicians have a lot to answer for, paranoia , half the adult population on anti depressants and its ilk and free access to firearms isnt a healthy mix.

The bottom line is they cling to guns because they are afraid, and it seems afraid of pretty much everything.
 
I can accept that some people feel the need for a hand gun for their own security.
I can accept that some people, like farmers, for instance might need a shotgun.
I can accept that people who like to hunt might want a hunting rifle.

BUT . . .

Who in God's name needs an assault rifle or semi-automatic weapon?

Please explain your answer to the parents of those slaughtered children. :(
 
Megan McArdle has an endless article in Newsweek explaining why gun control is impossible. But when it comes to what she would actually do about all these mass shootings, she wring her hands and then says this:

My guess is that we're going to get a law anyway, and my hope is that it will consist of small measures that might have some tiny actual effect, like restrictions on magazine capacity. I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.
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Although I almost always disagree with McArdle, I do find her extremely clever - annoyingly so. But in this case I'm with Jonathan Chait:

Unless I am missing a very subtle parody of libertarianism, McArdle’s plan to teach children to launch banzai charges against mass murderers is the single worst solution to any problem I have ever seen offered in a major publication.
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Weaponize the kids, it's almost flawless. I know I couldn't take 12 6-year olds at once. Oh wait, yes, yes I could.

Then imagine if you had an AR-15.

Perhaps in Columbine with the hundreds of adults this may have worked, but abject terror doesn't make people, especially young people, turn into hive-mind heroes.
 
There was some Congressman on one of the channels the other day expressing his regret that the Principal didn't keep an M4 in her office, because then she could have 'taken the shooter's head off' before he killed any kids.

You have an elected congressman who thinks action films are documentaries, that Elementary School principals are all Rambo-in-waiting, and people think American has any chance of stopping this madness?
 
I'm waiting for somebody to suggest gun towers with a trained sniper at every school. Create employment and increase security!
 
It's the constant idea from the right isn't it, more guns, more guns, more guns. So I sit and think would more guns help and the only inch of logic I can see in that broad and flawed argument is perhaps schools could employ a security guard armed with a pistol. Malls do it, surely schools could afford it, or otherwise the government would have to help with the fees. It would create thousands of jobs.

The only problem is of course when one of these guards go mad and kills a janitor for looking at him funny.

Or arm the janitor's with weapons grade brooms.

Just do something or else Michael Moore will rear his head again.
 
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