A part of the debate that doesn’t get much traction is there is a lot of unregulated firearms. Analogous to tens of millions of cars without VIN numbers or registration.
This is part of what gun buyback programs are about–really more of a statistical assault on gun violence than individual offenders. Taking unregulated guns out of circulation.
Now, you can debate the efficacy of them (indeed there’s some question), but you can guess what the NRA says about them.
You are absolutely right.
There are waaaay more guns than people right now in the US and that’s kind of crazy.
There are plenty of people who are also skilled enough to make their own firearms from scratch. And legally too. Despite my background that easily allows for this, I would never do this because I have no desire to have one.
We need to create a culture that dispels anger and fear at a basic level at all levels of society as much as possible, to remove many guns that are in hands solely out of fear of the people around them.
I think the number one thing that could save many lives in America after some new gun laws would just be people chilling the fuck out. Legalization of pot nationwide would go a long way toward this, honestly.
we need every law and every restriction
BUT
what a total nonsense distraction everyone is falling for yet again
first of all it will take someone hiring a lawyer and taking days off to go to court to get an order, good luck with that
then what stops the person from getting a gun from any one of the loopholes without background checks, or just going to a friend or family member’s house and get a gun from them?
still, don’t let any of that stop any law from passing, it’s a foothold
ps. remember people on the no-fly list can leave the airport and go buy a gun if they want, no ban, no law against it
Putin wants idiots running around with small arms in America shooting each other for the same reason he does not want idiots running around with small arms in Russia shooting each other – he believes idiots running around with small arms are bad. He wants bad things in America, not in Russia.
Or that’s the argument, anyway. I don’t know what Putin wants. Apparently Xeni does.
We are never going to be able to prevent all of these shootings
No. Fuck that attitude. Fuck that defeatism. Fuck that cynicism. We must try. Even if it is in vain, the only right thing to do is to keep fucking trying.
I never said we shouldn’t try!
I am just as sick of all of these back-to-back-to-back-to-back shootings as the rest of us
Now finding a shred of redemption in any part of Trump? That I fully encourage you to give up on, I gave up long ago
One of the great things about the NRA being exposed as a tool of Putin led by corrupt thieves is that it’s finally convinced ammosexuals to stop defending it around here (apparently the NRA’s history of bigotry and support of far-right politicians since the late 1970s wasn’t enough to do it for them, but better late…).
For Russia, or for the US? Because he’s happy to have no gun control here - that’s just more chaos, which is exactly what Russian government efforts have been trying to cultivate.
No, there are just some restrictions on it, some stringent background checks for buyers, and actually serious government record keeping (unlike the deliberate farce we have in the US).
Eh, outside of Hollywood movies, not so much. Unmounted guns really only see bursts of fully-automatic fire for suppression, not when trying to hit anyone. In combat, those guns are mostly being used in semi-automatic mode. (Which means there’s really no meaningful difference between the semi-automatic rifles and fully-automatic versions used by the military, in terms of how dangerous they are.)
Which is weird because “assault rifles” were defined in law for the ban, and while that ban was in effect, the number of deadly mass shootings dropped precipitously. When the ban ended, the number of deadly mass shootings exploded. But what the gun “looks like” is also, in large part, a result of the amount of ammo it carries, the ammo type, the rate of fire, the concealability and accuracy, so…
Did not know that about guns in Russia thank you.
Almost no one even has access to fully automatic weapons, so their likelihood in being used in even the freak nature of a mass shooting is even more unlikely, and yes you are correct about the full auto fire in war,
but we are talking mass shootings. If someone did have a fully automatic weapon, spraying an entire crowd of people with it on full-auto would cause Mass casualties instantly compared to a semi automatic, but again, unlikely for even a criminal to have one, unless they modify a semi auto ak or something.
Functionally speaking, I know they defined assault weapons for the ban, but that was based on a functional understanding of what an actual assault weapon spec-wise would be. I don’t know that it had anything to do with what they looked physically like.
Your last sentence kind of explains this and I agree with it
The thing about auto fire is that it causes the gun to climb, so you’re quickly shooting over people, rather than shooting people (and then spending time recovering). In a mass shooting, unless the gun is mounted (e.g. Las Vegas), or shooting down into a thick crowd (again, Las Vegas), the number of casualties isn’t likely to be increased by being fully auto.
Yeah, the assault weapon ban was based on functionality. I see a lot of people arguing that others get upset about assault rifles because of how they look, with the problem being that the look can’t really be separated from its functionality.
No, we don’t.
We don’t need lists of people with mental illness. And that is one of the things seriously being proposed. By reds and blues.
They will use this as an excuse. And it will make things worse for the most vulnerable.
When you say things like “every restriction” you are laying the groundwork for lists and databases like this.
Gun control is desperately needed in the US. But be careful who’s getting thrown under the bus to make it happen.
Bear in mind Wayne LaPierre opposes keeping guns from the hands of those with mental health issues because it would keep him from owning firearms.
And I bet he was the one member of the NRA hierarchy who Mariia Buttina didn’t sleep with.
Mandatory
Liability
Insurance
Put the role of national level gun ownership data in the hands of private industry which is motivated to both encourage ownership and responsibility at the same time.
Gun hoarding would be flagged by the insurer. Straw buying eliminated due to the automatic national level paper trail created. (Taking guns out of city streets)
The type of guns would simply have premiums reflecting the statistical rate of use in crimes, accidents involving them, rate of theft… Assault weapons having different rates than bolt action hunting rifles naturally and based on objective criteria.
Premiums affected by the level of storage safety one has at home. Discounts for having gun safes or trigger locks.
The best part is law enforcement has to follow 4th Amendment protocols to access the insurer data, so it can’t be used as a pretext to confiscation.
When I bring up mandatory insurance with ammosexuals (especially the privileged white male ones from the burbs), they suddenly get all misty-eyed about it making it harder for poor people and minorities to own firearms. Such an obvious crock.
Mandatory Insurance only works if it can be afforded by the widest available pool of people. Ammosexuals are full of crap, as we both already knew.
Can I add one more to your list?
Edited for clarity:
I did not intend to link mental illness to gun violence though I still believe ‘just taking away all the guns’ is not the only answer.
Apologies if I previously offended anyone.
MENTAL ILLNESS IS NOT THE REASON FOR MOST HOMICIDES OR MASS SHOOTINGS. PEOPLE NEED TO STOP BLAMING MENTAL ILLNESS.
Yes, I am shouting, because apparently people can’t hear.
The mentally ill are more likely to be victims than aggressors. And do NOT put the blame for extremism on the mentally ill. They want us dead, and you’re helping carry water for them.
Exactly. For the gun rights folk, they are mentally ill if they are Right-wingers. And cold blooded antifa murderers if they are left-wingers.
I’m not a hunter either, but if a larger magazine is necessary or useful for hunting larger game like that then have the hunting license for such an animal come with a corresponding endorsement (along the lines of the endorsement on drivers licenses to drive different classes of vehicles) to possess, carry, and use such a magazine. Perhaps such an endorsement would require some slightly more stringent gun safety training requirements to demonstrate that the hunter possesses the increased responsibility required by the increased power.
EH its a little more specific for that. Usually for larger game you would want a larger cartridge, and many hunting rifles have had a fixed capacity of about 3-5 rounds. Some jurisdictions even formally limit you to a 5 round cap when hunting . The main idea in hunting is that you want to kill an animal with one accurately placed shot. Both to ensure a quick, humane kill, and to preserve as much of the meat and or hide as possible when you do so. So you want a round that is large enough to reliably kill in one shot if placed with reasonable accuracy in center mass around the heart, but no larger. For whatever size of game you are after.
The feral hog thing isn’t so much about hunting. Its about pest removal. With that you aren’t typically concerned about preserving meat or hide, so you aren’t concerned about undersized bullets (multiple shots, less humane more damage) or oversized bullets (lots of damage). The idea is depopulation so you’re also trying to take down as many animals as you can, and feral pigs often mass in herds.
So a smaller round that may require multiple hits to take down an animal, but allows you to get more accurate shots off into more animals, is very useful. And a higher capacity magazine makes that more practical. Because the pigs will scatter as soon as you open fire, so you’re time limited.
And that’s the major reason things like AR-15’s have become popular for dealing with feral pigs.
But here’s the thing.
The mass shooting thing isn’t so much about hunting. Its about pest removal. With that you aren’t typically concerned about preserving meat or hide, so you aren’t concerned about undersized bullets (multiple shots, less humane more damage) or oversized bullets (lots of damage). The idea is depopulation so you’re also trying to take down as many people as you can, and people often mass in herds.
So a smaller round that may require multiple hits to take down a person, but allows you to get more accurate shots off into more people, is very useful. And a higher capacity magazine makes that more practical. Because the people will scatter as soon as you open fire, so you’re time limited.
It’s also what makes those exact weapons, and extended magazines so effective in these attacks.
And the popularity of said weapons was much lower. Their sales exploded in the years after the ban expired. Even as a life long advocate for gun control, I was one of the people complaining that that law was badly structured and had minimal effect. Look at all this research. They just redesign around the ban! It has no impact. It misses the most important things about real assault weapons.
In hindsight lot a people were pretty damn wrong on that. Imprecise, badly structured or not it very clearly had some of the impact intended.
You know the Vegas shooter used bump stocks to get multiple of the guns he used to fire automatic? Not technically on the page automatic, TOTALLY legal. But automatic.
It wasn’t it was based almost entirely on barrel length, a list of prohibited accessories on a “no more than 2 of” standard and IIRC magazine capacity. And it included shot guns and some other weapons that didn’t traditionally fit the definition of “assault weapon” and still have very little presence in these shootings. Something in there worked though. If there weren’t bans on using federal dollars to research such things we might be able to figure out what.
Useful yes. Necessary no. And not in a regular hunting context.
Even with that I think it was here, though it could have been comments of some other site. But some one who actually has to deal with feral pigs in Texas was telling me cross bows and compound bows were actually the best approach for this. The animals will scatter as soon as you shoot. But bows are quiet. So you can take an animal with 1 hit, without scattering the entire herd, and there by get more of them in a larger amount of time. Rather than trying to shoot as many in as short a time as possible with whatever gun you have.
Of course IIRC that person was saying that to argue in favor of suppressors.
