Yes, that has been an argument that has played out before. IIRC the 68 Gun Control Act restricted imports of these types, but the American ingenuity brought us Jennings and Raven and a host of other cheap pocket guns. It sort of highlights the absurdity of trying to outlaw a certain type of thing. Anything.
Like as soon as medical weed became legal, it opened the flood gates to obtain it legally, as it wasn’t that hard to get a paper saying you needed it.
But back to the point, there IS a valid argument that poor people deserve the right to defend themselves. Heck, they are the ones most likely to NEED it. The Hi-Point gets a lot of shit in gun circles, but it actually is a fairly reliable, affordable firearm, though it is ugly as all fuck.
And people wonder why I use Chicago as an example. They have the “common sense gun laws”. The laws are being circumvented. And it isn’t their laws stopping or promoting crime, it is the unique situation within Chicago, the gang culture, the pockets of bad poverty, etc etc. Focusing on a tool isn’t what you should be doing.
Tell me. Say your teacher calls you and says “Your kid is stabbing people with scissors at school.” So what do you do? You take away his scissors, right? Makes sense. Only he takes another kids scissors and stabs them. So you convince the school to institute a “no scissors” policy. So now no one is getting stabbed with scissors, but your kids is running around punching other kids in the nose. And then he finds a math compass…
Or, or, hear me out, maybe you would address the situation specifically with that kid, right? If it were my kid I would be like, 'Why are you stabbing people?" I’d be very concerned and get therapy and possibly drugs if the doctors recommended it. What I wouldn’t do is try to sanitize the world so my little monster was less likely to hurt someone.
“Gun violence” is mostly something you do to your self, as about 2/3 of firearms deaths are suicides. Just like “assault weapons”, it’s used deliberately to confuse the issue (assault rifles are a thing, full automatic, not available to civilians, and legal ones are not used in crime, “assault weapons” is a term the anti gun people came up with to confuse things, and they mean “ugly black gun”). Comparisons to other countries make it seem likely that most of those would switch to hanging, but still die. I think the drivers of suicide are other things, plenty of countries have dramatically higher rates, but no guns to speak of. Since the peak of homicides more than 20 years ago, rates have fallen in half, but the number of guns has tripled. If there is a relationship, it’s not a simple one (mostly, homicides fell, then gun ownership really jumped, and I’m guessing it’s more handguns than before, but no data on that).
That’s the sort of “solution” we arrive at, whether it works or not, with a mindset of “solving a problem”=“passing a law”. In the USA, this mindset is characteristic of (although not unique to) the political left.
I gather from the “libruhl” you’re aware of Congress’s orders preventing the CDC and NIH from doing that?
There’s a ray of light here: the NIH has recently funded a couple studies into how other factors (specifically, substance abuse and gang affiliation) contribute to gun violence, though they still can’t tackle guns explicitly.
That isn’t correct. They aren’t allowed to PROMOTE gun control. They can do all the gun violence statistics gathering and analysis they want. Obama even gave them a green light on it two years ago.
The FBI also has gun violence statistics as does the Dept. of Justice. And any third party, non-government entity has freedom to gather what ever data they want.
I have lived in Chicago most of my adult life. Chicago has a gun problem. Chicago has a gang problem. Chicago has a police brutality problem. It is similar to many large urban cities in America, though perhaps more pronounced. People in rural areas do not see the constant, non-stop gun violence that we have here. Almost ever single day we hear stories of small children being shot by stray bullets (just two weeks ago) or people killed while innocently sitting in their own homes (just two nights ago). It is sickening. It is obscene. And it is preventable! I will go halfway and say yes, I support people’s rights to own firearms – IF they are responsible. I will also go halfway and say yes, people in rural areas have a different relationship with and need for guns. But then gun supporters have to meet me halfway and say yes, something MUST be done about the rampant abuse of the 2nd amendment that allows teenaged gang members to easily buy guns and shoot an innocent 5 year old girl in the head. By the way, she still has the bullet in her head!
They do still gather gun death stats, including accidents and suicides. And again, there are other gov. agencies to who also gather statistics, and NOTHING is stopping 3rd party statistics gathering. Which is what some people started to do with the police shooting stats which weren’t being tracked well. And at the risk of being accused of things again, the http://heyjackass.com/ sight is another example of 3rd party statistics gathering.
You sound like the ants in the beginning of Bug’s Life where there is a leaf in the middle of their harvest line. “Oh nos, what ever shall we do?” No wonder some people think more laws would work against criminals. They give up so easily, they assume others will too.
It removed it’s own posts. I mean geez if you are go full on dickweed just do it instead of ‘haha racist comment’ oh let me delete this cause I am getting flagged cause duh.
ETA I just noticed it got banned. We really need to start a gofundme or something to keep @falcor supplied with TUMS.
The one difficulty with reloading is obtaining the primer. On the other hand, if primers were restricted or heavily taxed, people might start trying to make their own. I don’t like the public health implications of that…
Mea Culpa that isn’t YOUR argument. But people have harped on the reason we don’t have data is from one law passed in the mid 90s, which doesn’t actually restrict gun violence statistics gathering. It is political finger pointing.
I will try not to harp, or to point fingers! These particular orders do have an effect, though. And they are part of a broader pattern of Congress deliberately ignoring and undermining science when it doesn’t suit them.
The police know who the gang members are. The colors, the signs, the tags are not secret.
(1) Stop every gang member seen on the street. Search them for guns. Take any guns away.
(2) Stop every gang member seen in a vehicle. Search for guns. Take any guns away.
(3) Once a gang member has had guns taken away under (1) or (2), get a warrant to search his residence for guns. Take any guns away.
This will start to work even if the laws regarding firearm purchase are not changed. Gang members will eventually start to think twice about casually carrying guns when they can be confiscated at a moment’s notice. And it’s the casual carrying of large quantities of guns which produces the street shootings in which innocents are killed or injured.
Conversely, come up with the strictest laws possible related to buying and legally owning guns, but don’t do (1)-(3) above, and the drive-bys will continue for a couple of generations, until the supply of available guns starts to thin out. Because the gangbangers don’t give a shit about those laws.
Wouldn’t this be a 2nd Amendment violation? I thought that they were legally allowed to carry guns, as long as they didn’t have a felony conviction.
Wouldn’t this be a 4th Amendment violation (in addition to the aforementioned 2nd Amendment violation)? Without a warrant, cops aren’t allowed to search your car (unless you’re on probation or parole).
AFAIK, EVERY state that allows Conceal Carry requires a license. Kansas is the only one who passed a Constitutional Carry law.
Some states allow OPEN carry, but not Illinois.
Illinois has one of the strictest regulations for conceal carry, and requires a FOID card for purchases.
If you look at the pdf I linked to above, a LOT of suspects are under 21, who wouldn’t be able to legally buy or carry a hand gun.
Here is the wiki article to at least familiarize yourself with the laws:
Yes. NYC has/had a similar law called “stop and frisk”, and it DID help get some guns off the street. It also has very lop sided applications. Therein lies the rub - how do you try to target people with out unfairly targeting people. Even among the poor blacks in a really bad neighborhood, MOST of them aren’t engaged in criminal activity, and even those who are MOST of them aren’t actually killing others.
As I understand it, you need a “gun owner’s ID” to purchase or carry a gun in Chicago.(I haven’t lived there since the eighties and will cheerfully stand corrected if shown wrong). Possession of a gun without that ID would seem to be an obvious violation.[quote=“nimelennar, post:65, topic:77813”]
Without a warrant, cops aren’t allowed to search your car
[/quote]
Yep, that’s correct.
But what I was doing was responding to Brian_Blank’s impassioned comment … [quote=“Brian_Blank, post:56, topic:77813”]
say yes, something MUST be done about the rampant abuse of the 2nd amendment that allows teenaged gang members to easily buy guns and shoot an innocent 5 year old girl in the head.
[/quote]
…with a suggestion about what might actually have to be done to protect innocent five year old girls from gangbangers.
And yes, maybe we have to amend the Bill of Rights if we want to seriously reduce the number of those events. Or figure out some other way to get the gangbangers out of circulation.
Because requiring some guy in downstate Illinois to get a background check before he buys a gun from his brother in law is not going to do a god-damned thing to prevent drive-by collateral damage at 63rd and Ashland in Chicago.
