gun control

Gun control laws can impact death rates. But we need more research to find what works.

kkrisberg — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 16:30:31 +0000

Gun control laws can impact death rates. But we need more research to find what works.

Guns are the third leading cause of injury-related death in the country. Every year, nearly 12,000 gun homicides happen in the U.S., and for every person killed, two more are injured. Whether Congress will do anything about this violence is a whole other (depressing) article. But there is evidence that change is possible.

Last year, a study published in Epidemiologic Reviews “systematically” reviewed studies examining the links between gun laws and gun-related homicides, suicides and unintentional injuries and deaths. Researchers eventually gathered evidence from 130 studies in 10 countries, finding that in certain places, gun restrictions are associated with declines in gun deaths. For instance, laws that restrict gun purchasing, such as background checks, are associated with lower rates of intimate partner homicide; while laws addressing access to guns, such as safe storage policies, are associated with lower rates of unintentional gun deaths among children. Study co-authors Julian Santaella-Tenorio, Magdalena Cerdá, Andrés Villaveces and Sandro Galea write:

This heterogeneity in approaches and implementation methods makes it critical to identify approaches that are less likely to be effective and to identify which strategies, looking forward, may be more likely to work. In addition, examining the associations between specific policies and firearm-related deaths across countries can improve our understanding about which types of laws are more likely to be successful in reducing firearm mortality rates in similar contexts or within diverse legal frameworks.

The study’s findings are a mixed bag — some of the gun laws studied seemed to reduce gun deaths, while others seemed to make no difference or increase deaths. For example, a number of studies examined found no association between concealed carry laws and gun homicides in the U.S. However, one study using injury data from southern Arizona found higher proportions of firearm injuries and deaths associated with concealed carry. Yet another study in Colombia examined the effects of laws banning the carrying of guns during weekends after paydays, holidays and elections days in two Colombian cities, Cali and Bogota. That study found a 14 percent reduction in homicide rates in Cali during no-carry days and a 13 percent reduction in Bogota.

Studies on background checks and waiting periods came in mixed as well. For example, one study cited found no association between waiting periods and homicides and suicides. On the other hand, researchers have found that gun purchase bans for people with certain mental health conditions were associated with fewer homicides. One study found more stringent background checks were linked with fewer gun homicides. States with laws banning people with domestic violence restraining orders from owning and purchasing a gun also experienced reductions in intimate partner homicide. But one study found no homicide effect for laws that restricted gun access among those convicted of domestic violence.

Two cross-sectional studies analyzed found that gun permits and licenses were associated with lower rates of gun suicide. In Missouri, researchers studied the effect of repealing requirements that people need a valid license to buy a gun, finding the repeal was associated with a 25 percent increase in homicide rates. On laws regulating gun storage, one study found that such child access prevention laws were associated with fewer unintentional gun deaths among children younger than 15, but not among older teens. Another found child access laws were linked to a reduction in all suicides among people ages 14 to 17. A study using hospital discharge data found that such storage laws were associated with lower nonfatal gun injuries among those younger than 18.

The Epidemiologic Reviews study included research on particular laws as well. For example, a study on the U.S. Gun Control Act of 1968 — which restricted the sale of so-called Saturday night specials, among many other measures — did not find associated changes in homicide rates. But a study on Washington, D.C.’s 1976 law banning ownership of automatic and semiautomatic firearms and handguns found an “abrupt” reduction in homicide and suicide rates. Globally, Australia’s 1996 National Firearms Agreement, which banned certain kinds of firearms, was linked with a significant reduction in gun death rates. In addition, Australia has not experienced a mass shooting since the law was enacted. Control gun laws in Brazil, Austria and South Africa were also associated with fewer gun deaths.

Overall, researchers were able to identify some “general observations” in combing through the 130 studies — most notably finding that the simultaneous enactment of laws targeting multiple gun regulations were associated with fewer gun deaths in certain countries. Another big finding: we simply need more research to understand what works and what doesn’t to prevent gun deaths. The researchers also noted that few studies have delved into the impact of gun safety laws on particular populations or whether such laws affect social attitudes, norms and behaviors. The authors write:

To conclude, we have provided an overview of national and international studies on the association between firearm-related laws and firearm injuries/deaths. High-quality research overcoming limitations of existing studies in this field would lead to a better understanding of what interventions are more likely to work given local contexts. This information is key for policy development aiming at reducing the burden posed to populations worldwide by violent and unintentional firearm injuries.

In more recent gun research, a study published this month in Health Affairs set out to quantify the clinical and economic burden associated with emergency room visits for gun-related injuries in the U.S. Researchers examined data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, identifying 150,930 people between 2006 and 2014 who showed up to an ER alive, but with a gun-related injury. That number represents a weighted estimate (that’s a fancy term for adjusting data to represent the greater population) of 704,916 patients.

ER visits for gun injuries was lowest among those younger than 10 and highest among ages 15 to 29. Incidence of gun injury was about nine-fold higher for male patients — among men ages 20 to 24, more than 152 patients per 100,000 visited the ER for a gun injury. Most of the patients had been injured in an assault or unintentionally. The proportion injured in an attempted suicide was more than two-fold higher among Medicare beneficiaries. Handguns were the most common cause of the injury, followed by shotguns and hunting rifles.

Among the more than 150,000 cases of gun injury at the ER, 48 percent were discharged home, 7.7 percent were discharged to other care facilities, about 37 percent were admitted to the hospital and just more than 5 percent died during their ER visits. Overall, 8.3 percent of the gun injury patients either died in the ER or as an inpatient. The average charge for gun injury in the ER was about $5,250; the average charge for those admitted was more than $95,000. Over the entire study period, gun-related injuries cost $2.9 billion in ER charges and $22 billion in inpatient care.

Authors of the Health Affairs study also pointed out the need for more research, citing a 1996 federal measure known as the Dickey Amendment that said injury research funds at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could not be used to advocate or promote gun control. Co-authors Faiz Gani, Joseph Sakran and Joseph Canner write:

Researchers, politicians and government officials must work together to ensure that research funds are allocated to promote the understanding of the complex interplay between social, economic and medical factors associated with firearm-related injuries. Only through the adoption of an evidence-based public health approach can the resulting substantial medical and financial burden be reduced.

To request a full copy of the ER study, visit Health Affairs. For a copy of the gun policy study, visit Epidemiologic Reviews.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years. Follow me on Twitter — @kkrisberg.

kkrisberg Thu, 10/05/2017 - 12:30

Who shot first?

gregladen — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 07:25:18 +0000

Who shot first?

No, this is not about that.

I believe it is true that for decades, shooters and politically violent people (two overlapping categories) in the US were right wingers, almost always. Case in point: the white supremacists who have now all been handed (a little bit of) jail time for emptying a pistol into a crowd of protesters at a #BLM rally outside a police station in Minneapolis (and yes, they were white supremacists).

I've also always believed that one of the reasons the right wing has the privileged luxury of hating any kind of sensible gun law and regulation reform is because they know this. They know that they are the ones with the guns, and the libtards are unarmed.

I have no opinion on what happened today in Alexandria, Virginia, where someone opened fire on a group of Republican members of Congress playing softball. I don't know if this was personal, political, or just "well, he was mentally ill" (I'll leave it to the anti-ableist language mavens to rewrite that sentence and take it out of quotation marks).

But, now, suddenly, things are a little different, no matter what happened in Alexandria.

Killers with guns intent on mass slaughter are no longer just killing elementary school children. They are also killing Republicans in Congress! Yay! Maybe now Republicans in Congress will realize how the rest of us are feeling, and do something about it!

Sorry the guy got shot, though. At least he will make a rapid recovery, according to a Tweet by Fearfull Leader. The ideal scenario would have been if the shooter was a really bad shot and only hit inanimate objects.

A letter from the organization "States United To Prevent Gun Violence":

States United to Prevent Gun Violence and our 32 state affiliates are deeply saddened that our elected officials, their staff and Capitol Police detail experienced the horrific mass shooting this morning - joining the unfortunate class of 33,000 Americans who die and 81,000 Americans injured by gun violence every year. This shooting targeting our respected elected officials is a resounding reminder that even a setting filled with the most highly trained and alert “good guys with guns” is no match the lethal and overwhelming firepower of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the hands of a mass shooter - the same weapons of war used in 28 mass shootings since the massacre of 26 children and school teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School 4 years ago.

It is unacceptable that law enforcement are forced to confront weapons of war in the hand of civilians in their line of duty. It is worrisome that Congress is, today, considering passing a bill that will deregulate silencers - the very instruments that hinder police from identifying locations of shooters - a federal regulation that was designed to prevent ambushing of police. Our Congress needs to stand up to the gun lobby once and for all and ban sales of weapons of war to civilians and say no to deregulating silencers.

Sincerely,

Julia Wyman

gregladen Wed, 06/14/2017 - 03:25

Tags

"Making America Hate Again"

Hmm, I wonder if you work hard at f******things up, things will maybe actually get f***** up...

"Making America Hate Again"

Hmm, I wonder if you work hard at f******things up, things will maybe actually get f***** up...

Nice Greg.

Make excuses for the shooter.

Hard to believe you have no opinion on what happened.

My opinion is that what happened was a crime and I am against it!

Four people were shot - not just "the guy".

Still "Yay"?

One of them was shot in the head (I believe).

Still "Yay"?

You might want to rethink this post - it makes you sound a little off.

Ah,right, making excuses. Talking of which, seen the pundits making excuses for the three dumb monkeys trying to hide trump's problem?

The vast majority of rightwingers didn't have the establisment on their side, so they didn't have to riot. However, that didn't leave anyone on the extreme end an outlet for their (probably imagined) problems, so they went apeshit and shot people up. The leftwing didn't have the establisment on their side and so their unrest had to be by public action (riots) and the extremes there could get their outlet at that point and it wouldn't build up to death.

Now, though, there's a big trumping down on rioting (for leftwing ideas only) and with the moron in charge the need for an outlet is higher.

Still vastly more rightwingers doing the private shooting. After all, if the police will shoot the "bad people" for you, why bother too much doing it yourself?

Funny thing is, such crimes committed by black or muslim people are terrorism. Committed by whites or rightwingers and it's a lone wolf criminal. After all, can't blame people like yourself, can you.

The only good news from this is that the suspect wasn't a good shot, and that nobody at the nearby YMCA -- where at least three rounds were reported to have gone through windows -- was hurt.

It will be interesting to find out what caused the shooter to do this.

Let's see rePUKEians opposed ALL gun restrictions! The dimwit trumpkin was going to allow mentally ill have guns!
And the rePUKEians KNOW guns are bad because they band them from their gatherings of gun happy politicians.
I don't like killing but I also don't feel sympathy either!
I'm sorry for the ones that died, they should be alive and suffering, the results of their dimwitted decisions!

Sorry about the double post. I had a little trouble getting through this morning.

RickA.
No. There were no excuses in the article. I suggest that you stop waging your knee jerk war on nuance and own up to your part in degrading the civility that you pretend to be so concerned about. Time for you to grow up and recognize that societies need sophisticated and enlightened management, not more self-indulgent libertarian fulminations.

Old saying: Blood begets blood.

We've been experiencing some technical difficulties, should be fixed now.

Now that I know stuff, I've formulated an opinion:

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2017/06/14/congressmen-do-we-shoot-th…

Study: Higher gun ownership rates up the risk of a woman being murdered (rerun)

lborkowski — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 10:11:21 +0000

Study: Higher gun ownership rates up the risk of a woman being murdered (rerun)

The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on Jan. 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.

by Kim Krisberg

In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from dangerous strangers with deadly intentions. Physician and public health researcher Michael Siegel set out to study that argument. He ultimately found no relationship between gun ownership and stranger-related firearm homicides. But he did find that gun ownership levels translated into higher homicide risks for one group in particular — women.

“Our data refute the hypothesis that the more guns out there, the more of a deterrent there is to strangers committing firearm crimes,” Siegel, a professor in the Boston University School of Public Health, told me. “However, we found ownership rates were significantly correlated with non-stranger homicide rates. It’s the worst of both worlds because on the one hand, a higher prevalence of guns doesn’t seem to protect anyone…but it does increase the risk that non-strangers will kill each other with guns.”

To conduct the study, which was published in the journal Violence and Gender, Siegel and study co-author Emily Rothman, an associate public health professor at Boston University, examined state-specific homicide data from the Supplemental Homicide Reports of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports. Siegel noted that his study is the first to examine the relationship between state-level gun ownership and homicide rates in which the data is broken down by gender and by the nature of the relationship between the victim and perpetrator (i.e. stranger versus non-stranger). The study found that women living in states with higher rates of gun ownership faced a greater risk of being killed by someone they knew when compared to women in states with a lower rate of gun ownership.

But here’s the really interesting part: Among men, the difference in state-based firearm ownership rates explained about 1.5 percent of the variation in firearm-related homicide rates. For women, firearm ownership rates explained 40 percent of the variation in homicide rates with a firearm. In other words, while multiple factors must be considered in predicting the male homicide rate, just knowing a state’s gun ownership rate would allow a researcher to fairly accurately predict the female homicide rate.

“That finding was pretty striking for us,” Siegel said.

Simply put, more guns in a state means more women are killed. Siegel and Rothman write:

The magnitude of the association between firearm ownership and femicide committed by firearm was substantial. For each 10 percentage point increase in firearm ownership, our model predicts that the female firearm-related homicide rate increases by 10.2 percent. Thus, if the proportion of firearm ownership in Wyoming were 40 percent (the mean for all states) instead of 73 percent, our model predicts that its homicide rate would be approximately 33.8 percent lower (2.2 per 100,000 instead of 3.3 per 100,000).

In studying data that spanned from 1981 to 2013, researchers found that firearms were used in about 62 percent of homicides. More than 78 percent of all homicides involved an offender who was an intimate partner, family member or other acquaintance. In all, a non-stranger perpetrated more than three-quarters of the firearm-related homicides studied. But while men were more likely to be killed with a firearm, women were more likely to be killed with a gun by someone they knew.

The study found no evidence that greater availability of guns protects women from being killed. On the contrary, the study suggests that greater availability of guns translates into a higher risk that a woman will be killed by someone she knows.

“The data is just not consistent with the argument that having a high prevalence of firearms is protective against stranger homicide,” Siegel told me. “But for women, the level of gun ownership in a state is one of the primary factors in predicting her risk of being killed by a firearm.”

One of the obvious policy implications of Siegel and Rothman’s study is underscoring the importance of rules that restrict gun ownership among domestic violence offenders or those who’ve violated restraining orders. However, Siegel said the study also speaks to the critical importance of studying gun violence from a public health perspective — something the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been prohibited from doing for years. In 2013, President Obama signed an executive order allowing CDC to resume gun violence research and has recommended new funding for such research, though such funding proposals haven’t made it through Congress.

“This is a national problem — a societal problem — and everyone needs to be involved in tackling it,” Siegel said. “It really will take national resolve.”

To request a full copy of the new study, visit Violence and Gender.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

lborkowski Mon, 01/02/2017 - 05:11

There has to be some relationship between the rate of gun ownership and the homicide rate so studies like this one should command our attention.

The USA has by far the highest per capita rate of gun ownership in the world so you would expect serious consequences on crime rates

The strange thing is that homicide rates here are highest in places like Chicago that have stringent gun control laws while gun nut capital (Plano, Texas) has the fewest homicides by firearm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE

Knife Attack in Saint Cloud: Terrorism, Racism, Guns

gregladen — Sun, 18 Sep 2016 08:01:10 +0000

Knife Attack in Saint Cloud: Terrorism, Racism, Guns

Update:

From WCCO:

An Islamic State-run news agency claims the man who stabbed and wounded eight people at a mall in Minnesota before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer was a “soldier of the Islamic State.”

Original Post:
We know nearly nothing about the Saint Cloud attack, but I'm going to offer some preliminary context-related thoughts anyway. Not conclusions or guesses, just context. (See below for some basic info on the attack.)

One thing you need to know is that Minnesota is a state with the least racist and most socially and culturally enlightened people in it. And, some of the most racist and anti-civilization people in it. Saint Cloud is, essentially, the capital of the latter subculture, a very racist place. This is Michele Bachmann territory.

This is one reason to be really careful about drawing conclusions about what happened there. When I hear "Saint Cloud," "Stabbing Attack," "Asked if Muslim," and "Said Allah" all in the same report, my best guess is that a local Islamophobe tried to kill or injure recently immigrated Somalis (of which there are some) in Saint Cloud.

Gun nuts will point out that this is a case of a "good guy with a gun" doing some good. It is. But, the "good guy with a gun" was a cop. So, really, this is a cop stopping an attack. Meanwhile, apparently, the attacker did not do a lot of damage to others, because, it seems, he wasn't using a gun. He was using a knife. So, no, "you could do the same thing (as some guy with a gun) with a knife or a piece of string therefore GUN FREEDOM!!!1!!" is not an argument.

If this does turn out to be an attack BY a Muslim on others in Saint Cloud, I suspect there will be white rage turned into violence soon in that community and nearby places such as Little Falls and Big Lake.

Report from the New York Times:

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Eight people were injured during a stabbing attack at a Minnesota shopping mall that ended with the suspected attacker — who was dressed in a private security uniform and made references to Allah — shot dead by an off-duty police officer, authorities said.

...eight people were taken to St. Cloud Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries following the attack first reported about 8:15 p.m. Saturday at the Crossroads Center. One person was admitted. ...

... an off-duty police officer... shot and killed the unidentified suspect, who was armed with a knife and wearing a private security firm uniform ...

Local police had three previous encounters with the suspect, most for minor traffic violations...

gregladen Sun, 09/18/2016 - 04:01

Tags

Not there, but of course they had to shoot him, preventing any way of finding out from him the motivation for the attack.

I think it is great that a cop stopped this attack.

I just wish all of the 8 (now I hear 9) people knifed had a permit to carry and had stopped him earlier.

Best case scenario - the first person he tried to knife stopped the attack.

I predict a pop in small conceal carry handgun sales in Minnesota as a result of this attack.

Thank goodness for the 2nd Amendment.

Scenario: One of the 9 people knifed had a permit to carry, pulled out his gun and started firing. Three innocent bystanders were hit, one dead on the scene, one died in the hospital the next morning, and one is paralyzed for the rest of his life.

Damn the mis-interpretations and mis-applications of the 2nd Amendment !

Brainstorms:

Yes - that could happen.

That fact has nothing to do with a mis-interpretation or mis-application of the 2nd amendment.

It looks like these random attacks will be increasing in the years to come.

So it would behove those who obtain a permit to carry to learn to shoot and learn how to shoot in a crowd.

It could prove to be very valuable training.

Did the cop hit any bystanders?

Scenario:

One of the men (or women even) accosted pulls out a small spray can (not even Mace; any number of over-the-counter things will disable someone when sprayed in their eyes.) and used it.

Then some of the brave bystanders could have grabbed arms and legs and put the guy down. First you grab the knife hand and start breaking fingers. Start with the pinkie-- it doesn't take a lot of strength. Or, pull out your own knife and use it as lethally as you like.

Of course, the flaw in my plan is that people in the US are Weenies of the first order. They yammer on on line about the Second Amendment, but they would crap in their pants at the first encounter with real violence. (Yes, that's for you, RickA, along with all the other tough-guy wannabees.)

But, it would have the advantage that it will not be Brainstorm's scenario where other people get hurt. We need to make active response a reflex, even (if tactically appropriate) when the attacker has a gun.

"Did the cop hit any bystanders?"

There are two possibilities for that comment:

a) The writer is too stupid to realize that a police officer should have more training with his/her firearm than the typical concealed carry civilian, and that training is responsible for more calm under fire

b) The writer is too dishonest to admit that he knows it, so is trying to deflect rational thought in favor of a preferred point

Given the well-documented history of both the author's willingness to lie and his utter lack of capability to understand things, assigning 'a' and 'b' equal probability and viewing the post as motivated by a mixture of them is the logical choice.

Learn how to shoot in a crowd?

I predict a big uptick in sales of mace.

There won't be an uptick in sales of guns in Minnesota because we have had so many of those in recent years, everybody who wants a gun has a gun.

I have no doubt that if everybody had a gun, this crime would have been stopped sooner. I'm reminded of the good old days when Jesse James and his gang tried tried to rob the bank in Nothfield, Minnesota. The bank was invested in by a former General who had been favorable to civil rights, etc., which annoyed these outlaws.

The robbers were stationed all over, by the bank doors, elsewhere outside, and inside the bank. One of them pulled out a gun and announced "this is a robbery."

The good citizens of Northfield took up arms against the robbers. There was a big gun fight. The robbery was stopped, some of the robbers were killed, some eventually arrested, some escaped.

Two non-robbers were killed, one possibly by "friendly fire" (no one knows where that bullet came from .. .he was just a guy standing down the street) and one was wounded.

Those were the days!

But ...

A) Everybody in those days knew how to use their guns.

B) The guns were different, no automatic, few semi-automatic.

C) Since those days we've gone ahead and socialized security, so we have things like police forces and stuff.

D)Those were the days after the Civil War when lots of Americans carried around guns, and the national homicide rate reached over 30 per 100K per annum. Our current homicide rate is less than 5 per 100K per annum.

See, it isn't just what the guys can do with the guns they have now. It is what our entire society has to endure because monsters like RickA want everyone to walk around armed all the time.

Fuck. That.

It's all been said, but in the spirit of Johnny-come-lately, the only thing more dangerous than a nutter with a knife in a crowd is half a dozen panic-stricken weenies* blazing away with handguns.

*Lately, I seem to be in agreement with zebra all the time. Just goes to show.

One in eight people should be armed with a gun. They should each wear a t-shirt that says "try to stab me first."

That would work.

Provided those "one in eight" are police officers, off-duty peace officers, military members, national guard, or members of an organized and disciplined militia...

This event took place in a shopping mall.

Scenario: The attacker made his first move outside a sporting goods store. The man he attacked ran into the store, grabbed a baseball bat, ran back, and cold-cocked the attacker with it.

Also works with a golf club, a canoe paddle, even a hockey stick.

Scenario: The attacker made his first move outside an art supplies store. The young woman he attacked ran into the store, grabbed a can of spray paint, and blinded him with it.

Scenario: The attacker made his first move outside a white goods store. The man he attacked ran into the store, grabbed a bath towel, and fended off the attacker by snapping it at his face until the police showed up.

Scenario: The attacker made his first move outside a grocery store. A woman had just pulled a shopping cart from the line of carts. She used it to keep him away, and so saved herself.

Scenario: The attacker made his first move outside a MacDonald's. The woman he approached had just bought a large cup of coffee. She threw this in his eyes, causing him to drop the knife and clutch his face in pain. A man kicked the knife away, and several others held the attacker until police arrived.

Yes, all of these are somewhat unlikely — but they are far from impossible. My point is that if you keep your cool, there are things you can do to defend yourself against a single attacker wielding a knife.

An attacker with a gun, of course, is much more of a problem.

dean:

If cops can be trained to hopefully cut down on bystanders being hit when firing in a crowed place, than regular civilians could also benefit from the same training.

That was my point.

zebra:

I probably would be crapping in my pants.

But I would rather be defending myself with a handgun with crap in my pants than have a knife versus a knife, or no weapon at all. It is because I am such a wimp that I want superiority of weapons if I am attacked.

Tell me - with what sounds like your much greater experience, what is easier to learn - how to knife fight or how to shoot an attacker coming at you with a knife? Go ahead and assume crap in the pants under both hypos.

"That was my point."

I don't believe you for a second - you've never been that direct - but if it was, that isn't the status of people with carry license.

it's worth pointing out that the person who shot the attacker wasn't simply (or even, it isn't clear) an off duty officer, he was highly trained:
"USPSA Shooter, 3-Gunner, and NRA-certified firearms instructor Jason Falconer"

A typical civilian is not going to have that training.

I'm sure you'll continue your (at best) misleading and (more commonly) dishonest comments.

dean:

I am advocating for more training for the typical civilian.

So the typical civilian's skills are better than they are now.

Surely you are not against that!

I don't think regular citizens have the time, and may not have the ability in many cases, for such training.

Remember that cops are not actually randomly picked form the citizenry. After passing basic qualifications, they go through police academy. Not the movie with OJ Simpson, but actual cop school. They have to qualify on firearms, and requalify regularly. As methods and approaches to minimizing unintended consequences, or being more effective, arise, they are caught up on that. This is a major things that cops do.

The idea that "if cops can learn this, regular citizens can learn this" is way, way wrong.

Greg:

Your points are well taken.

And still - regular citizens who have a permit to carry and are carrying would be safer to bystanders if they had additional training.

Since it seems probable that many more citizens will be attacked (St. Cloud, The Pulse, and other examples) it couldn't hurt for those citizens who wish to to obtain additional training on using a firearm in a crowd (say a mall).

Is there anything really to disagree with in my point?

Based on what dean quoted above, it seems we were very lucky indeed with the level of training and skill this person had.

Still - given some of the latest police shootings, it seems even the police could stand a bit more training on shooting while afraid or under adrenaline.

So I would advocate more training for police (more on when not to shoot) and more volunteer training for civilians (on shooting in a crowd).

Just my opinion.

I don't think you get it, RickA.

Ordinary civilians should not be allowed to carry guns in public.

More training for people who want to carry? Good luck getting that past the NRA lobby.

BBD:

I don't think you get it.

Ordinary civilians are allowed to carry guns in public.

dean:

How can they stop it? Are you proposing trying to make it illegal for a civilian to take a voluntary course on shooting a firearm in a crowd? Good luck with getting that law passed.

You seem under the misapprehension that I want this training to be mandatory and part of getting the permit to carry. Of course, a State could pass such a law - but I am merely talking about a civilian taking additional training all on their own - if they want - voluntarily.

RickA 17,

You miss the point of my comment completely.

How you can best defend yourself is a matter of the specific circumstance. You are imagining being trapped in an alley by a big young thug at two in the morning-- sure, gun is better than a knife for you. If you spend time in alleys in the wee hours, in rough parts of town, maybe you should carry.

But let's put aside your Hollywood fantasies and get back to the "public space" situation which is the topic. The kind of attack in that case could easily be stopped as I described earlier. If I had a gun in such an instance I would hesitate to intervene, but I would readily employ a chemical spray if I saw someone being attacked with a knife. Not much training needed at all, no risk of killing bystanders, and not likely to be mistaken for the terrorist by actual cops arriving on the scene.

What's not to like about that alternative?

Self defense is not so much about physical ability and weapons, but rather situational awareness and understanding of the dynamics-- time and distance and stuff like that. It's what you "see" when your adrenaline starts to kick in, and how calm you can remain. And, as you point out yourself, even lots of cops panic with a gun in their hands. (Hunters experience a version called Buck Fever.)

So in a public space like a mall, even if you are the target of the assailant, how much is a gun going to help you? A guy in a security guard uniform walks up to you, the knife is behind his back-- what's your plan, Rick? How close will you allow a security guard to get to you before you shoot? How about someone in a Santa Claus suit? It just doesn't make sense.

I don’t think you get it.

Ordinary civilians are allowed to carry guns in public.

Not in all States and perhaps not in any, eventually.

Fucking stupid laws get changed, sometimes.

What hollywood fantasy?

I am merely putting myself into the shoes of one of the 9 (now 10) people attacked at the mall in St. Cloud.

Sure - if you have mace - you could use that.

If you have a knife - you could use that.

If you have no weapon- you can run or dodge, or get stabbed.

There are lots of things you could try to defend yourself (or not).

I was merely positing the situation that it would have been nice if one of the 10 happened to be carrying, and stopped this before 10 people got stabbed (preferably without any bystanders getting hurt).

As to how close I would let the guard get - pretty damn close if I was the first victim - presumably further away if I was the 2nd or subsequent victim.

No different for the Santa.

But this really happened.

It could happen again.

No point in pretending it might not happen again, anywhere in the country.

This is why the number of permit to carry or conceal carry permits have increased so much over the last 15 years.

It is not just crime you have to watch out for now - but terrorism.

BBD:

Every state in the United States has some form of conceal carry (eight states do not even require a permit).

So ordinary citizens are carrying in public in all 50 states.

"This is why the number of permit to carry or conceal carry permits have increased so much over the last 15 years."

The large drivers are
- people are incredibly bad at judging actual risk
- people are urged to be incredibly bad at judging risk thanks to the scum who continue to harp, in face of reality, that crime is climbing out of control and is at unprecedented levels
- people who continue to say, against all data, that people with guns prevent huge numbers of crimes

RickA,

You asked my opinion and then ignored my reply.

In the mall situation, a gun is the least useful.

More citizens who understand the basics of self-defense, are willing to attack the attacker, and have low-tech "weapons" that don't require training and don't actually inhibit use (which firearms do for the reasons cited) would be the best solution to future attacks of this nature.

You did not answer my question-- why wouldn't you prefer that someone would intervene in a way that is safer for all concerned (except the terrorist)?

zebra:

Sorry - your question was not apparent to me from your earlier post.

Of course, if there is a safer way to intervene - that would be my preference.

In the actual events - from what I understand - none of the 10 injured intervened. It took someone with a gun to stop this terrorist.

Perhaps if Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee had been there, things might have been different.

Perhaps an expandable baton or a cane might have been used to stop this terrorist - but it was a gun which stopped him.

In this instance - a gun turned out to be very useful.

That is why the 2nd amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms - sometimes they are useful. Sometimes other things are useful and less lethal. It is all very situational - but it seems to me that this well trained officer did the right thing (from what little I have read).

We are now learning more about the police officer who shot the St. Cloud stabber.

He was an exceptional case. He trains police officers in responding under pressure, in crowds, focusing on firearms -- he is a kind of specialist firearms instructor.

He is, in essence, the Special Forces, James Bond, Superhero version of a "good guy with a gun" far beyond anyone else's ability, who happened to be on the scene.

Translating his highest end ability in this sort of situation to the average individuals, assuming the average gun toting citizen can have these skills, is dangerously delusional. Looking at you, RickA.

Now you know.

It was not a gun that turned out to be useful. It was a highly trained gun-under-stress-in-a-crowd specialist with a gun that turned out to be useful.

Quite probably, literally, "one in a million".

All else: Leave your guns at home. Locked up.

So ordinary citizens are carrying in public in all 50 states.

Legislative capture by the US gun industry has progressed further than I realised.

Greg,

Your point is well taken as a rhetorical counterpoint to "guns don't kill people, people kill people". However, I am concerned that we not reinforce the adolescent mindset displayed by Rick:

"What Hollywood fantasy?" followed by a reference to "Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee." Sigh...

We don't need superhero cops to stop someone like this. We don't need to feed the fantasy that all of these attackers are ninja assassins, and everyone must cower in terror and plead for their lives. This was some kid with a knife, and he could have been stopped by two fit young men even without extensive training or the types of weapons I have described.

The NRA sales pitch works because of the Hollywood fantasy. In fact, it is antithetical to the scenario you described earlier of townspeople working in concert to stop the bank robbers, and to the original sense of "militia".

Zebra, good point.

But to reiterate: The concept that because an off duty cop managed to kill a bad guy while injuring no one else is NOT evidence that every average citizen can do this, not just because that is a stupid idea, but especially because this particular off duty cop was actually an off duty Nija Warrior Sensei.

Greg - I never said this feat was evidence that every average citizen could do it.

I said it would behoove people with a permit to carry to get more training on shooting in a crowd (since it will likely become more common).

5% of Minnesotans have a permit to carry.

But none of them will ever be able to do what this off duty cop did.

Nor should they even try to get better trained.

Got it Greg.

RickA You said:

If cops can be trained to hopefully cut down on bystanders being hit when firing in a crowed place, than regular civilians could also benefit from the same training.

And the response to that, from everyone, was no, that is not likely to work. I added, when we learned more about this particular cop, that the event in St. Cloud is an especially bad example of how regular civilians could be trained for this.

Since you made that remark you've been backing off, back pedaling, etc. so you clearly accept the fact that you were wrong.

Greg:

Nope - not backing off at all.

I stand by my statement that regular civilians who have a permit to carry could use additional training on firing in a crowd.

The simple - know your target and whats beyond won't cut it in a mall (in my opinion).

But it is ok with me if your opinion is that regular civilians cannot learn how to shot better in a crowd, or even that additional training is desirable.

It is a free country - and you can believe what you want.

I meant "shoot better ".

RickA

I stand by my statement that regular civilians who have a permit to carry could use additional training on firing in a crowd.

They'll still be a liability-multiplier in an actual incident. They're still civilians, just as you are still a fantasist.

I guess RickA just hopes that the gun-carrying civilian isn't shot by another gun-carrying civilian who sees the first one shoot someone else, and considers him a threat...

Marco:

Yes.

Will anyone mention that the mall is/was a "gun free zone"?

How did that potentially impact the assailant's decision to assault people?

Should the off-duty cop "superhero" be charged with a crime for his disobedience?

ron, police officer, on or off duty, and some others, I believe, can have firearms in gun free zones in MN.

Not sure of the details, but I think he was legal.

Greg and Ron:

If the mall was a gun free zone, that would prevent regular civilians with a permit to carry from having a gun in the mall.

However, the Minnesota law doesn't apply to police officers - just permit to carry folks.

So I think Greg is right.

That's probably the only time you'll EVER hear RickA admit that Greg is right.

I'm going to have my monitor bronzed to commemorate it.

I assume he's a superhero because of his amazing amount of training?...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/19/health/jason-falconer-minnesota-mall-stab…

QUOTE
He owns a firing range and firearms training facility called Tactical Advantage. He's considered an expert in firearms training and education and has helped teach classes on law enforcement skills at St. Cloud State University for nine years, his company website says.

Falconer was the former police chief of Albany, Minnesota. Now, he works as a part-time officer with the Avon Police Department. ENDQUOTE

So, he trains people who are cops and others who are not cops...but some believe that only those with the government paycheck are capable of proper firearm safety in public?

ron:

Yes - dean pointed out his high level of training at #18.

My main point on this thread, was that more and more people are obtaining permits to carry.

Given that, it would behoove those people to obtain additional training in firing in a crowd (in case that came up).

Some people on this thread have a different opinion than me on this issue - and that is their right.

I don't expect everybody to agree with me.

But I do think it is possible for a regular civilian to learn more about how to use a firearm safely in a crowd (or a place with more people than a deer hunting situation).

I only had to fire 30 bullets to obtain my permit to carry - 15 at 10 meters and 15 at 15 meters. I was shooting at a target.

That is it.

Even a 2nd amendment guy like me, who believes in the right to keep and bear arms, would not feel comfortable just blasting away with a weapon with lots of people around.

However, if I happened to be standing around in a public space (like a street or parking lot) and saw a person knife 10 individuals, one after the other, with no end of victims in sight - I might feel obligated to try to stop that person from continuing to stab more individuals.

Maybe I would just run away - like others - but maybe I might pull out a gun and try to save other people from getting stabbed.

In that instance, it might be nice to have done more than fire 30 bullets at a firing range and have some advice on how to shoot so you don't accidentally kill innocent bystanders.

Based on the tenor of this thread - I think many here would prefer that even if a person with a weapon and a permit to carry were right at the scene - and police were many minutes away - they would prefer that such an individual simply run away - so as not to use a weapon which they feel the person should not have in the first place.

I reserve the right to disagree.

Rick,
Additional (proper) training is always desirable. As everything else in life, its a trade-off between time/currency and skill set increase.
The question becomes where does government properly draw the line of Justice regarding people carrying and utilizing these weapons. And should those who attain certain levels of training and/or obtain a government paycheck are held to a higher or lower standard than others.

ron:

Good question.

I think the same standard as others.

The cop in Tulsa was charged with a crime.

I suspect if a regular citizen had made the same shot, they too would be charged with a crime - and that seems fair.

It is pretty clear that you are not allowed to shoot someone for not following instructions, unless there is a danger to someone.

Even if the window was open (in dispute) - reaching into a car is not enough (in my opinion) to put someone into reasonable fear of gross bodily harm (whether a cop or a regular citizen).

So the same criminal laws apply to the police as they do to the regular citizen.

An argument could be made that the standards should be a little higher for police and SWAT - but they should be at least the same level.

(many grammar errors in 51)
RickA,
I'm a pro gunner. I'm as pro-2A as they come

You and I both know that the riots and the unrest today has come about because there have been too many costumed officials who have made the excuse that cops gotta "make it home" every night. Therefore, officer safety has frequently trumped the concept of de-escalation and made concepts like "furtive movement" a household topic. We now live in an era of "Comply or Die", and that is a lower standard for the officer, while expecting much of the citizenry.

This behavior pattern is anything but "heroic" and often cops are treated as "superheroes"/unquestionable instead of being held to a very high standard.

See Tamir Rice...see Crawford WalMart case...See Ray Tensing / DuBose...and that's just in Ohio!

ron #53:

I agree and see your point.

I will say that being a cop is a very tough job and I can see why they are scared 1/2 the time.

But I do think that they need to hold off on pulling the trigger a bit longer in these ambiguous situations.

Remember the social worker laying on the ground with his hands up, who got shot in the leg. There was no excuse for that. Somebody just pulled the trigger by mistake or reflexively when startled. I am afraid more training on when not to shoot is in order for our nations police.

Trevor Noah recognizes that "gun free zones" don't work...
https://twitter.com/LeahR77/status/779063107469582336

As to the cops being 'Heroes"? Heroes don't shoot until they have to, right? Heroes don't kill innocents, yeah? Heroes don't wear armor and claim to be in fear of their lives, do they? Heroes don't claim special legal rights, in the stories I have been told. Heroes don't withhold video evidence of their acts or wait for a few days before making official statements for the investigators. If you want to have multiple summer parades for these "Heroes", shouldn't they perform like heroes? RANTOFF

Today is Lock Up Your Gun Day

gregladen — Sat, 10 Sep 2016 09:26:14 +0000

Today is Lock Up Your Gun Day

Not really. But it is World Suicide Prevention Day. And, one way YOU can help prevent suicides is by keeping your gun locked up, separate from the ammo, and keeping the ammo locked up as well.

Why?

Here’s why:

Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among teens and young adults and the 10th leading cause of death among all Americans.
On average, 4 teenagers and 118 total Americans complete suicide every day.
90% people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.
Many suicide attempts occur with little planning during a short-term crisis.
50% of suicide deaths in the United States are by firearm.
Access to firearms is a risk factor for suicide.
Firearms used in youth suicide usually belong to a parent.
Reducing access to lethal means, like firearms, saves lives.
A gun in the home is 22x more likely to be used in a suicide, homicide, or unintentional shooting than for self defense.
If there is a gun in your home, keep it unloaded and locked up or with a trigger lock. Store the bullets in a different place that is also locked.
If there is a gun in your home, do not let children and teens have a key to the places where guns and bullets are stored.
If a household member becomes depressed or has severe mood swings, store the gun outside the home for the time being while you seek help!

Adapted from this source.

gregladen Sat, 09/10/2016 - 05:26

Tags

A friend of mine who has a family history of suicide (father, brother, sister), and who also has had a decade or more of treatment for depression, has turned into an ideologically driven gun rights advocate, to the point that I will no longer discuss it with him anymore.
In his eyes, he is in constant danger that can only be quelled by carrying a gun, and he is sure that at every turn, the government is ready to disarm him and all of his fellow patriots, and the only American thing to do is to arm yourself even heavier.
Deep down, he is really a nice person (even though it might seem contrary), but after years of being brainwashed by right wing pundits, and by refusing to engage in critical thinking skills, he has brought himself (and possibly others) to a precipice of potential danger that I hope that he never steps over. Very concerning to say the least.

Gun violence epidemic: let's try a public health approach

cmonforton — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 10:20:57 +0000

Gun violence epidemic: let's try a public health approach

Citizens shot by police. Police shot by citizens. Citizens shot by citizens.

Too many victims. Terror. Tears.

Somebody else's neighborhood. Never in mine.

Racism, disrespect, mental illness, hatred, anger, economic inequality, hopelessness.

Rationalizing? History. Reality.

The Gun Violence Archive lists more than 27,390 gun-related incidents in the U.S. which have occurred since January 1, 2016. The result includes nearly 7,100 deaths. Some of the latest additions are those who sadly made this week's headlines: Officer Lorne Ahrens, 48, Philando Castile, 32, Officer Michael Krol, 40, Alton Sterling, 37, Officer Michael Smith, 55, Officer Brent Thompson, 43, and Officer Patrick Zamarripa.

Treating gun violence as a public health problem is a special focus of the American Public Health Association (APHA). The association's executive director, Georges Benjamin, MD, urges policy makers and the public to use the term "epidemic" to characterize our country's gun violence problem. In a commentary published in The Guardian he wrote:

"To reverse the gun violence epidemic – and it’s important that we use the word “epidemic” – we need to do the same thing we’d do for any infectious disease outbreak. ...Time and again a public health approach to solving health threats is a proven, evidence-based approach to improving health and preventing injury. That approach looks upstream to prevent bad things from happening downstream, and then doing everything possible to prevent them.

Looking upstream is the uncomfortable task we continue to avoid.

cmonforton Fri, 07/08/2016 - 06:20

Tags

Looking a little farther upstream…
“… Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that blacks were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 biggest counties in the country, despite only comprising roughly 15 percent of the population in these counties.”
http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-know-about-cop…

Do you have a point sn, or are you just leaving partial information in another of your racist rants?

One thought Gun Violence costs the country over 2 billion in medical expenses: Why not tax bullets to pay for the medical expenses (and funeral expenses in some cases). Say for example $1 per bullet. sold. Then you could provide coverage for costs for ems and hospitals etc.

Lyle; Chris Rock had a great bit about how bullets should be expensive, like $1,000 each, so if you wanted to go shoot at a guy who said something nasty about your girlfriend, you'd have to get a second job first.

(Obviously, Chris Rock is much, much funnier than I, and tells it much, much better. )

One thought alcohol related Violence costs the country over 2 billion in medical expenses: Why not tax alcohol to pay for the medical expenses (and funeral expenses in some cases). Say for example $1 per ounce of alcohol sold. Then you could provide coverage for costs for ems and hospitals etc.

---------

If peopel can sue gun companies for the actions of violent idiots why can I not Sure Ford Motor company or budweiser if I am in an accident? same concept.

@Lyle2
First of all, think long and hard about what a gun is for and what a car is for

Second, tax on alcohol (or raising the existing tax) - great idea.

As for those people sueing gun companies - any example? Because people have totally sued motor companies for the death of loved ones.

@JustaTech
Thanks for sharing that nice piece from Chris Rock! :)

however one "treats" gun violence please recall that the right to keep and bear firearms is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Study: Higher gun ownership rates up the risk of a woman being murdered

kkrisberg — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 17:07:56 +0000

Study: Higher gun ownership rates up the risk of a woman being murdered

“That finding was pretty striking for us,” Siegel said.

Simply put, more guns in a state means more women are killed. Siegel and Rothman write:

The magnitude of the association between firearm ownership and femicide committed by firearm was substantial. For each 10 percentage point increase in firearm ownership, our model predicts that the female firearm-related homicide rate increases by 10.2 percent. Thus, if the proportion of firearm ownership in Wyoming were 40 percent (the mean for all states) instead of 73 percent, our model predicts that its homicide rate would be approximately 33.8 percent lower (2.2 per 100,000 instead of 3.3 per 100,000).

“This is a national problem — a societal problem — and everyone needs to be involved in tackling it,” Siegel said. “It really will take national resolve.”

To request a full copy of the new study, visit Violence and Gender.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

kkrisberg Fri, 01/29/2016 - 12:07

Tags

government

Gun Control/Violence

Legal

Public Health - General

Before seeing this article, I hadn’t realized gun-control was becoming a gender issue or something on the feminist front lines.

I don’t know if more women are being murdered by guns, but the data appears to indicate firearm-related murders have dropped significantly while firearm ownership has risen robustly.
Between 1994 and 2009, the number of guns is up 60%, handguns up 75%, while the rate of gun-related murders is down 46%.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32842.pdf

And once again sn, you completely miss the point of a discussion.

Why don't you ever for understanding? Has your life of denialism killed killed every brain cell you have/

Which US Senators Voted Against Expanded Background Checks For Gun Purchase? UPDATED

gregladen — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 18:55:41 +0000

Which US Senators Voted Against Expanded Background Checks For Gun Purchase? UPDATED

UPDATE! This post was written months ago when, yet again, the Senate tried to do something about guns. You are probably looking for information on the more recent chance for the Senate to show that the are not up to the task of protecting American Citizens. For information on who voted for what in this round, CLICK HERE.

We've had a spate of spree killings lately, most recently and famously the killing of 14 people in San Bernardino by two people who should not have owned firearms but were apparently able to legally purchase assault rifles, pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammo.

So, Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, a Democrat and a Republican, introduced an amendment that would expand background checks for commercial gun sales. This would be a helpful provision, but really wasn't much of a restriction. No one in the Senate should have voted against it. But several did. By definition, those who voted against the proposal are gun nuts, and they should not be in the Senate or any other elected office. Here are their names:

Democrats Who Voted Against the Proposal

Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
Mark Begich (D-Alaska)
Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.)
Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) (Voted "no" as a procedural move to preserve option to reintroduce the bill.)

Republicans Who Voted Against the Proposal

Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)
John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)
Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)
John Boozman (R-Ark.)
Richard Burr (R-N.C.)
Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
Dan Coats (R-Ind.)
Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)
Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)
John Cornyn (R-Texas)
Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.)
Deb Fischer (R-Neb.)
Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
Dean Heller (R-Nev.)
John Hoeven (R-N.D.)
Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.)
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)
Mike Johanns (R-Neb.)
Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
Mike Lee (R-Utah)
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
James Risch (R-Idaho)
Pat Roberts (R-Kan.)
Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
Timothy Scott (R-S.C.)
Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)
John Thune (R-S.D.)
David Vitter (R-La.)
Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)

gregladen Thu, 12/03/2015 - 13:55

Tags

gun ownership

gun control

gun nuts

San Bernardino Shooting

Senate Amendment

gun ownership

Sorry, I'm not familiar enough with the US Senate... Did the the bill pass?

@phanmo: Assuming Greg's list to be complete and accurate, that's 45 votes against background checks (not including Reid, who is noted as voting that way for procedural reasons--something he would only do if the vote didn't go the way he would have preferred). That implies that a cloture vote failed: 54 voting for cloture (if there were no abstentions or other non-votes, and again I'm not counting Reid), but those motions require 60 votes to pass. But I don't actually know whether that's the case.

Eric Lund, 3 senators didn't vote.

Under the ":Haw! That's nothing!" category: there is currently a bill that, if passed by both houses and signed by the president, would "restore the freedom" for a class of mentally ill people to buy guns without the permission of a judge. The bill was sponsored by the NRA of course, and introduced by some clown named Cornyn or something like that. I suppose the idea is to make more USA citizens terrified of people with guns, and induce them to go buy guns to defend themselves (and shoot their own children accidentally).

This is what I read:

"The Senate rejected a measure from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to expand background checks for guns purchased online and at gun shows on a 48 to 50 vote and an amendment from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to prevent individuals on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms on a 45 to 54 vote. The amendments were offered to an Obamacare repeal package currently being debated in the Senate and they needed 60 votes to be adopted."

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/12/03/senate-demo…

...except when they're shooting their grandchildren unintentionally. Or, their spouse shoots them in a fit of rage. Or ... (the list is LONG)

Pryor, Begich, and Baucus are no longer U.S. senators. Manchin and Toomey have introduced gun control bills twice, after Sandy Hook and again after San Bernardino. The list above records the vote after Sandy Hook, not the recent vote.

"
most recently and famously the killing of 14 people in San Bernardino by two people who should not have owned firearms but were apparently able to legally purchase assault rifles, pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammo.
"
Why should these two people have not been allowed to purchase firearms? Their intent could not have been known.

Kevin: "Why should these two people have not been allowed to purchase firearms? Their intent could not have been known."

That is an excellent question; Greg's statement is vacuous. There is no way in the world to demarcate between A Good Guy With A Gun and A Homicidal Sociopath With A Gun--- until after the dead are counted. This fact makes the necessity of strick gun regulation much more urgent.

With the vote on the terror watch list amendment, compounded by the evidence that the San Bernardino shootings were an act of terrorism, it now seems clear that the Republicans are more interested in protecting terrorists' “second amendment rights” than in protecting Americans from terrorists.

OT, Paul Krugman had this to say about the Republican Party's contribution to modern civilization:

“Future historians — if there are any future historians — will almost surely say that the most important thing happening in the world during December 2015 was the climate talks in Paris. True, nothing agreed to in Paris will be enough, by itself, to solve the problem of global warming. But the talks could mark a turning point, the beginning of the kind of international action needed to avert catastrophe.
Then again, they might not; we may be doomed. And if we are, you know who will be responsible: the Republican Party.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/opinion/republicans-climate-change-de…

cosmiccomics: "'Then again, they might not; we may be doomed. And if we are, you know who will be responsible: the Republican Party.'”

Well, not the entire Party. There are many members of The Party that accept the evidence and also accept the fact human-caused climate change is a major threat; there are also a few Party Members in the 114th Congress who do so.

My sibling has an on-going "time capsule" project, wherein he has cached (at last count) 35 canisters of 6-inch PVC sealed pipe in various mine shafts in the USA Southwest. Each canister holds a list of the 111th, 112th, 113th, and 114th Congress members who opposed mitigation efforts against human-caused climate change, and those who supported mitigation efforts--- along with their corporate sponsors. Perhaps 1,000 years from now people (if any) will known whom most to blame for inaction. Inside each canister is a 2-liter plastic bottle "blank" tightly sealed, with an atmosphere sample inside, though I assume osmosis will change it.

At what point do we consider NICS a failure? http://tinyurl.com/d65aedq

At what point do we favor liberty, with all it's potential problems, over the false security of a police state?

At what point do the antis concede that their policies are spectacular failures responsible for disarming the law abiding while the armed criminal runs amok?

If certain politicians are loathe to deport 10 million people, how do they propose finding and acquiring hundreds of millions of weapons that are now in private hands?

ron: "At what point do we favor liberty, with all it’s potential problems, over the false security of a police state?"

No.

"At what point do the antis concede that their policies are spectacular failures responsible for disarming the law abiding while the armed criminal runs amok?"

No.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html

ron points out that all the countries in Europe who are "responsible for disarming the law abiding", are famous for having "armed criminals running amok".

Yes, ron, Europe has been overrun with armed criminals gunning down the populace for decades. They have about one mass shooting there per week.

Wait... Wait...

No, that's "The United States has about one mass shooting per week."

ron is insane.

Brainstorms: "ron is insane."

There are other explanations. Perhaps Ron's fear of The New World Order is vastly greater than his concern, if any, that some sociopath will go on a shooting spree and butcher him and his family and his friends. Perhaps Ron has no sense of empathy, morals, ethics, and compassion. Perhaps Ron believes that the easier it is for a person to kill large numbers of people equals the more freedom that person has.

I would wager US$100 that if President Obama was against gun regulations that includes expanded background checks and denial of ownership for crazy people, Ron would be for it. I suspect what ever Obama is against, Ron is for--- no matter what it is.

Why should these two people have not been allowed to purchase firearms? Their intent could not have been known.

Kevin, why should they not have been able to purchase pipe bombs, too? After all, their intent could not have been known.

For that matter, we should start allowing children to buy guns. As Kevin counsels us, their intent as far as what they'll do with them can't be known either, therefore "it's safe" for society to allow this, too. (The NRA is all for it; why shouldn't you be?)

Brainstorms: "Kevin, why should they not have been able to purchase pipe bombs, too? After all, their intent could not have been known."

In the early 1960s in Nevada my uncle bought dynamite and detonators at the hardware store near Indian Springs Auxiliary Air Force Base, using a driver's license. Golly, how I miss those days when just anyone could drill and blast their way through life's boulders and tree stumps. Then the goddamned socialist liberal commies put regulations in place to block us Good Guys With A Dynamite Stick from buying Dupont's finest 66% and #6 blasting caps. My generation's freedom has been curtailed.

What would happen to me if I formed THE NATIONAL DYNAMITE ASSOCIATION ("The NDA") and lobbied Congress to remove those leftist commie socialist homosexual hippy regulations?

Kevin, why should they not have been able to purchase pipe bombs, too? After all, their intent could not have been known.

Kevin could be the one member of our faculty members who believes that possession of any weapon, from .22 calibre single shot pistol to a tank or military aircraft (his words) should be available for civilian ownership - "how else will you defend yourself when the government turns on you?"

Pointing out that if you live in that fantasy world you have to realize that the government could simply call Lt. Handerson at station 3 in an air-conditioned room in Kansas and task a drone+Hellfire missile to do the job hadn't occurred to him or change is mind. Stupidity like these radically extreme gun clowns possess is impossible to stamp out.

dean: "Pointing out that if you live in that fantasy world you have to realize that the government could simply call Lt. Handerson at station 3 in an air-conditioned room in Kansas and task a drone+Hellfire missile to do the job hadn’t occurred to him or change is mind. Stupidity like these radically extreme gun clowns possess is impossible to stamp out."

Nothing is more American than apple pie and Napalm from 30,000 feet.

One should maybe ask Kevin, “How else will my government defend itself when the like of you turn on it?”

#12
There are many Republicans who accept evidence, but it's those who don't, or who find it expedient not to, who call the shots.

And to anyone who espouses the thought that our government is somehow "bad" and should be torn down, rendered incapable through starvation of revenue, etc., I suggest you pack up and go move to the land of your government-free nirvana.

Somalia should be on your short list, if not #1. Enjoy the FREEDOM of NO TAXES and NO GOVERNMENT to impede you. Or your friends. Or your neighbors. Or the criminals down the street. Or terrorists.

Good luck with that. Please write when you get there. 'K, bye.

Enjoy the FREEDOM of NO TAXES and NO GOVERNMENT to impede you. Or your friends. Or your neighbors. Or the criminals down the street. Or terrorists.

And the teams of special ops folks from several other countries who really are roaming around that country looking for bad guys. You'll get a chance to see how well you stack up against them.

...but they'll have their guns. So, ipso facto, they'll be "safe".

Nothing is more American than apple pie and Napalm from 30,000 feet.

It does seem to be the export of preference for the right.

We had several groups of 5th graders on campus today. A couple of us from math/stat ran a little lesson on basic modular arithmetic (literally, clock math) for them - using remainders from division to tell time x many hours in the future. We told them they could challenge their parents and grandparents with it. (My suggestion to present the basics of statistical functionals and Gateux derivatives on spaces of distribution functions, and use them to indicate how robustness properties for and asymptotic distributions of various estimators can be developed was voted down by my colleagues. Maybe next year. :{ )
Overall the kids loved it. One little girl I walked past had finished her worksheet before everyone else and was taking apart her pen. I asked her whether she liked taking things apart: she said yes but that putting them back together was more fun, and that "I want to be an engineer."
It is infuriating to think of all the roadblocks to education the right would put in her way if they are successful in their plans for the country.

Ah yes, the "Republican War on Women"...

Which should more properly be termed,
"The Republican Assault on Women".

Congress Moves to Sabotage the Paris Climate Summit
BY ELIZABETH KOLBERT
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/congress-moves-to-sabotage-…

Ah yes, the “Republican War on Women”

I was referring more to the republican war on anything that makes for a civilized society, subset of access to education, but your comment works too.

I prefer "assault on" in place of "war on", as 'war' is one of their cherished terms and (for them) connotes goodness: Power, Military, Honor, Fighting the Good Fight, Defending their Ways, etc.

It's not a war; it's an assault. As in, Sexual Assault, Assault & Battery -- something repugnant and shameful.

"...disarming the law abiding while the armed criminal runs amok..."

Speaking of the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit, gotta feel sorry for those poor geniuses who get their world views from NRA bumper stickers. It must be hell on the laundry budget, constantly having to bleach those brown streaks out of your shorts.

Gotta admit though, it's great for the ol' gun bu$ine$$, what with sales going up after every bloodbath.

Yes, the cancer-stick industry should have taken a lesson from them:

Cigarettes do cause cancer! Here, smoke this, it will calm your nerves about it.

Maybe they're jealous that the gun industry's victims tend to die in public in bloody splashes, while the tobacco industry's victims go out with a whimper in the privacy of hospital wards, with the only burst body parts being those cut open by a surgeon's knife...

::sigh:: Some industries get to destroy mankind with such glamor -- and so much glorification and hype (all free) by those conspiratorial news organizations. Even the illicit drug industry has their celebrity customer base to promote their instruments of misery and self-destruction.

What's the world coming to?

A 7-year-old girl was shot and killed by a man police called paranoid at a soccer practice last night in Michigan. He had a concealed carry license and had purchased the gun legally.

The senators who voted 'No' are culpable, as are all the other members of the pro-gun-death lobby. And they will be culpable for the killings that happen tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day...

What people fail to realize is that background checks do not work if the person purchasing a gun has no prior criminal record. If a person has ever been jailed for domestic violence, armed robbery, simple assault, drug abuse and /or selling drugs, or a whole host of felonies and misdemeanors, these things will show up on any background check.

A background check cannot tell the future of crime. If the purchase who purchases the gun has never been arrested or even issued a citation of anything illegal, then his record will be clean. With a clean record of a crime free life, how does that background check then prevent that same person from then using his newly purchased gun to go out and commit a crime with it?

I have purchased guns before and have never not had to go through a background check. The gun show loophole as the some call it is a joke. Even dealers have to conduct a background check at a gun show . At least they have at every one of them I have ever been too. The so called gun show loophole is not actually where a representative from a store sells an individual a gun with question. It is merely where one individual shows up and sell his privately owned firearm to another individual with absolutely no affiliation with a registered FFL dealer.

You can do the same thing from home. I would never do such a thing in fear that the other person would use the gun I sold him to commit a crime with it and the serial number would be registered in my name. That is a stupid thing to do, but people do sell guns right out of their own home. In my state that is legal.

There are over 200 million guns floating around America with over 12 trillion rounds of ammo stockpiled around the country. If people were as violent as the left wing media makes them out to be, civilization would not exist.

I do not own guns to hunt with, though I have hunted before. Firearms is a hobby for some. Collecting, etc. Shooting is also a sport. An Olympic sport to be exact. MY hobby of target shooting as an enthusiast does not make me a cold blooded killer. I have never shot anyone and hope I never have to. I support the right for others to open and conceal carry if they so choose (a right to choose), but I personally do not carry a firearm on me or even in my vehicle unless I am going for a stroll in the pasture, field, or woods. Even then it is more for self defense than for hunting. We have stray feral canines and feral hogs and a quite a few aggressive coyote packs running around killing off horses and goats and such. I carry in the wild because i would rather be able to fend off a wild creature than become the next victim of one. I do not necessarily carry to kill on purpose, but if I see an attack coming, I would feel better with a gun or some defensive weapon than not having one.

As for home defense, I support guns for that and it is legal to defend your family against a threat if the police is not able to get there in time. Of course you should always call the police first, but self defense is a right.

As for the purpose of guns, left wingers have it correct. Guns are made for killing. So are bow and arrows, spears, swords, etc. They are weapons, but are also used as a tool. Hunting requires these tools. The absolute purpose of the second amendment has absolutely ZERO to do with hunting though. It is put into place in order that citizen have the right to form militias to protect themselves from their own government should that government become a tyranny.

Sorry if people do not like it, but that was the intent. People say even if America did become a tyranny, citizens could not fight off the military with its superior firepower and capability. Not entirely true. all that superior firepower and training has not helped them in their struggle against private citizen militias in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria yet. It bothers me that we have weapons that can provide a bright flash and make an entire city disappear, but cannot defeat a bunch of goat humpers driving stolen Toyotas and firing antique weapons. either they have a super powers of invincibility, o we are holding back our capabilities.

Harry Edmundson: "What people fail to realize is that background checks do not work if the person purchasing a gun has no prior criminal record."

Idiot.

"If people were as violent as the left wing media makes them out to be...."

The subject is gun violence in the USA, not some unnamed country that has a left-wind media.

By the way, did you happen to notice all the murdered and wounded in the USA lately?

This web page claims that people who live in "more conservative states" are more likely to be killed by guns than people in "more liberal states." I have not bothered to examine the claim, but I do know that according to the FBI and religious affiliation surveys, violence increases as religiosity increases.

https://www.crowdpac.com/blog/gun-deaths

It looks like the web page does not take in to account population density. That invalidates the chart.

https://www.crowdpac.com/blog/gun-deaths

@#16 Did you mention something about poisoning the well?

Do any antis ever discuss what liberty is, how it should be exercised, how government must not impede it...or are these concepts foreign to those who avoid firearms?

You're getting back to that idea that only government can be trusted with weapons. Is corruption something to be encouraged? Do we deny human nature regarding power or try to govern it in any way?

Basic history lesson: Once upon a time, there was a King. He did as he pleased. Eventually, those the King ruled escaped and began a new nation that split the power between many government officials who were answerable to the people, making the people the final authority on matters of law. You now reside in that new nation where the government is to obey the laws of the land established for the Liberty and benefit of the people.

ron: "Do any antis ever discuss what liberty is, how it should be exercised, how government must not impede it…or are these concepts foreign to those who avoid firearms?"

Mass murder made easy = "liberty."

ron gets today's award for the post where thought is most seriously lacking

How ironic, ron. "Laws", by their very nature, limit "Liberty".

Which do you favor? Your sense of "Liberty" appears to more closely match "license" and "anarchy" than the true definition of "Liberty".

(P.S. ron, your referring to the scholars who post here as "antis" is Poisoning the Well.)

Brainstorms: "(P.S. ron, your referring to the scholars who post here as “antis” is Poisoning the Well.)"

I am proud to be called "anti-death." I am also pro-Second Amendment: I think everyone with a firearm should enlist in a county militia.

I see in the news that two hours ago another lunatic with a gun has been apprehended after he fired off more than 30 projectiles, taking hostages, and "negotiating" with police. Two victims reported so far. Reading the news, it is like I'm 19 years old in El Salvador again (but with Internet), enjoying the CIA's civil war and wondering each morning if it's safe to go to the market for tortillas.

#37
"Basic history lesson..."

I'm always amused by the ignorant provincialism of the many Americans who assume that America is the world; here that American history is History. Not all democracies developed in the same way as the U.S. Some of them are indisputably more democratic, and considering (among other things) the somewhat feudalistic lack of mobility and the oligarchical distribution of wealth in today's America, more free. Worshiping an illusory Liberty has become a device of enslavement.

cosmicomics: "Worshiping an illusory Liberty has become a device of enslavement."

Well said.

...especially when it comes bundled with a political agenda that insists on "Liberty for me & my faction at the expense of Liberty for everyone else".

Brainstorms: "…especially when it comes bundled with a political agenda that insists on 'Liberty for me & my faction at the expense of Liberty for everyone else.'"

FMLN death squads were my favorite liberators for awhile. They liberated the bloody hell outta thousands of people, and they were gallant and brave--- anyone helpless and unarmed was worthy of their services. They paused liberating people briefly when the USA Navy steamed past them on their way to liberate Panama. It's great to see liberty like that is now here in the USA; it's like I'm young again.

"Basic history lesson: Once upon a time, there was a King. He did as he pleased. Eventually, those the King ruled escaped "

No, he didn't. He needed the support of Parliament, in particular the Commons, where bills providing him money came from. His policy against the north american colonies was subject to constant attack, by the likes of William Pitt ("Pittsburgh", you may have heard of that American town). The members of the Commons were elected, and the property restrictions and the like weren't that different than those adopted by the new United States.

Our Founders would've been happy with an outcome that gave them the same democratic rights as those held by Englishmen in England. Their fight against the King wasn't against the English form of semi-democracy, but rather the refusal of the King to make the Colonies full partners with England.

Ron misunderstands history, just as he understands everything else.

dhogaza: "Our Founders would’ve been happy with an outcome that gave them the same democratic rights as those held by Englishmen in England. Their fight against the King wasn’t against the English form of semi-democracy, but rather the refusal of the King to make the Colonies full partners with England."

The pamphlet COMMON SENSE gives a fine summation of the economic, political, and emotional reasons to Independence from United Kingdom rule. The writer even coined the phrase "The United States of America."

"Ron misunderstands history, just as he understands everything else."

As dependably wrong about reality as half the 114th Congress.

#43
My point is that the persons who are most obsessed with LIBERTY as a grand abstraction fail to see how and by what it's being constrained, and in fact support the forces that constrain it. In practice the liberty they so vocally proclaim is the right of the powerful, i.e. the ultra-rich and the large corporations, to screw the powerless, a category they themselves usually belong to. An example: those who believe in LIBERTY are against unions and regulations. The institutions and rules that protect them are weakened, and their identification with the powerful leaves them even more defenseless.

#44
Thanks.

#46
Yes. Ron reduces history to a fairy tale.

cosmicomics: "An example: those who believe in LIBERTY are against unions and regulations. The institutions and rules that protect them are weakened, and their identification with the powerful leaves them even more defenseless. "

Apparently a study published three weeks ago shows that people who vote against the interests of themselves, their family members, and their neighbors are motivated by resentment that other people don't deserve living as well as they do. I thought it was due to ignorance.

Recall the USA Republican Party's "contract [on] America" where they promised to spend the first 100 days controlling all three branches of government to destroy the social, economic, and environmental gains USA citizens fought for 50 years to gain. The USA media called it "a revolution," but it was the first time in USA history where the people in power became even more firmly in power. This was the period when personal income diverged from wealth production, and it has steadily diverged since then.

The horrible thing is that the dictators who inflicted this "contract" on the country stated clearly and explicitly what they were going to do before they did it, and their victims approved.

Now this guy, clearly anti-American, is warning folks in Europe not to fuck up their response to terrorism the way the United States did after September 11. /snark

Too little too late?

Of course, life would be much simpler if my computer would sense my intent to include a link and just do it, rather than making me actually do it.

http://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-warns-eu-against-dragnet-resp…

#40 Referring to posters as "scholars" gives them more credibility than they deserve.

Let's talk Liberty...http://tinyurl.com/jr8sxro
The Principle

1. The traditional American philosophy teaches that the God-given, unalienable right of Man to "Liberty" means primarily Freedom from Government-over-Man--or, otherwise stated, Liberty against Government-over-Man.

Liberty-Responsibility

3. According to this philosophy, Liberty must always be taken to mean Individual Liberty-Responsibility, with emphasis upon the duty of respecting the equal rights of others and just laws expressive of "just powers" (to quote the term of the Declaration of Independence) designed to safeguard the equal rights of all Individuals. Individual Liberty-Responsibility involves the self-governing Individual's being burdened with the duties underlying his share of the responsibility for their safety of the Liberty of all Individuals, and of their other unalienable rights. Lacking such a sense of responsibility, Liberty can readily degenerate into license. Individual Liberty-Responsibility denotes that challenging freedom which tests the courage and wisdom of Free Man because of the truth that:

Only the brave dares to be--only the wise can remain--Free Man

By accepting the challenge, performing the duties, of

Individual Liberty-Responsibility under constitutionally limited government."

#47
That's a very well-written comment which my #43 summarizes (in too few words perhaps).

ron, did you get your entire education from bumper stickers?

#43...how does this show favor to one side vs another?
#54...public education...and college degree at a State run Liberal Arts deal...

Kevin (#8): Why should these two people have not been allowed to purchase firearms? Their intent could not have been known.

The woman had been posting praise for the ISIS leader on Facebook (under an assumed name.) This was discovered quickly after the massacre; it might have been discovered beforehand.

Ron (#10): At what point do the antis concede that their policies are spectacular failures responsible for disarming the law abiding while the armed criminal runs amok?

When 20,000 people are not denied guns when they should be. The linked article says the 20,000 were denied guns. It's hypothetically possible to make a case that they should have gotten their guns — but you haven't made that case.

If certain politicians are loathe to deport 10 million people, how do they propose finding and acquiring hundreds of millions of weapons that are now in private hands?

Who has proposed this?

If certain politicians are loathe to deport 10 million people, how do they propose finding and acquiring hundreds of millions of weapons that are now in private hands?

Who has proposed this?

*CRICKETS*

No "certain politicians" in the USA have proposed such a thing. It is spooky to see what people who are manipulated by fear can and do believe.

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/11/20/democrats-push-…

This article makes clear the basis of the NRA's objection to preventing those on the FBI's terrorist watch list from buying guns. It's the same as it ever was: that some names on the watch list may not belong there.

It is in principle a valid objection. Many have in the past been prevented from boarding airplanes because they shared a name with someone on the list. However, I haven't heard of that happening for years. And in any case, the NRA's solution is exactly the wrong one. The right solution would be to prevent those listed from buying guns, and then give them a way to challenge the decision. This provision already exists for those who think they are on the list by mistake.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/terrorist-watch-list_n_5617599… This is a point that we should all agree to...that government watch/no-fly lists are inappropriately wide nets burdening more innocent people than is acceptable. ( A different rabbit trail...)

Even POTUS admitted the impotency of the State to keep people safe via intrusive surveillance. The impotency of all the previous "gun safety" laws is evident, and everyone agrees that further measures will not eradicate these criminal acts.

#59...no...they've not openly admitted it...why would they? NYT just did , though...do we think they stand alone? http://tinyurl.com/nje4gru

Oh wait...sure they do...http://tinyurl.com/oj5xvyp"
“Australia is a good example, Canada is a good example, the UK is a good example,” Clinton said at a town hall Friday in New Hampshire, referring to mass shootings in those countries.

“That was a buyback program. The Australian government as part of trying to clamp down on the availability of automatic weapons offered a good price for buying hundreds of thousands of guns and they basically clamped down going forward” on gun control, Clinton said.

She conveniently left out the word MANDATORY buy back." "

"MANDATORY Safety for the Public", anyone?

Go ahead say it: "We'll all be safer if everyone has a gun in his hand". In 3.. 2.. 1..

Brainstorms: "Go ahead say it: 'We’ll all be safer if everyone has a gun in his hand.' In 3.. 2.. 1.."

Six days ago on twitter some asinine ammomasturbater complained about expanding background checks. He asserted, under the pretense of "asking a question," why every gun buyer "should be punished" because of a tiny few number of gun owners. I asked him how expanding mandatory background checks "punish" people. Six days, still waiting for an answer......

ron, I'm not surprised you have no idea of the facts behind the situation in Australia, as the coverage of the laws and research on the results has been spotty (and the "research" that gets reported on Fox, Breitbart, and other conspiracy outlets is uniformly false).

First, the notion that Australia's laws for gun ownership were identical to ours is not correct - there were always more restrictions than there are here - there is no provision in their Constitution like we have. That doesn't mean guns weren't widely own, or important, but the situation was not identical to ours. Key point that is repeatedly omitted by the right, as are the facts about the buyback program.
The buyback purchased and destroyed nearly 1 million firearms, mostly semi-automatic .22 rimfires, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns (I don't believe individual states in Australia kept detailed records breaking this information down more completely: If they did I've never seen it). Again, contrary to the writings of commonly sent emails or the facebook "warnings" about the buyback, murders and suicides did not skyrocket after the buyback. The typical bit of deception used to make this point is to give "statistics" in isolation, with no supporting context. For example, I was just sent an email about Australia saying "After the buyback Victoria experienced a 300% increase in gun homicides from 1996 to 1997."
Well, no -that's complete bullshit. A check shows that in 1996 and 1997 Victoria's population was roughly 4 million. In 1996 they had 7 gun homicide deaths. In 1997 they had 19 (which is an increase of 171% - the folks who wrote the email are apparently as numerically challenged as they are ethically challenged). Note that whether you think in terms of raw numbers, or percentage change, if you are claiming to argue there has been a long term pattern of increase, that bit of isolated data and poor representation doesn't do it. It is worth noting that suicide rates by gun and homicide rates by gun are down from their pre-buyback levels.

There are many more problems with the "facts" in your statement, but one thing is clear: your take on what happened in Australia is as far from correct as I would be if I were to try to design a nuclear reactor.

The little summary at this link is about 5 years old but it does provide a decent summary of valid studies and statistics about Australia's program. Read it. And stop getting your "facts" from places known to staffed by people who are nothing more than paid liars.

https://cdn1.sph.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1264/2013/01/bull…

#61...I'm not sure with the state of education in the US, that everyone being armed would be the ideal solution. However, I don't believe that law-abiding people should be burdened or treated like criminals for having the means and desire to defend their families.

People who determine to learn proper weapons handling and usage are not a threat to society. This does presuppose an educated and moral people.

Here's a report on 15 recent mass shootings. It finds that in 7, possibly 8, of the cases, there was documentation of previous crime or mental illness that should have prevented the shooters from buying the guns they used.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-…

The import seems obvious: information on such conditions is not reaching the law enforcement agencies that should have it. The system needs improvement.

Background checks cannot prevent all mass shootings, but they can prevent more mass shootings. That is enough reason for strengthening them.

Christopher Winter: "Background checks cannot prevent all mass shootings, but they can prevent more mass shootings. That is enough reason for strengthening them."

Thank you for the URL.

Expanding background checks for all gun sales and transfers would be a great idea. Also, mandatory registration and permits, to be renewed or denied every two or three years. Also mandatory service in a county militia or state guard for every gun owner.

I dislike the idea of making firearms as difficult to acquire as abortions; I would much rather see abortions as easily acquired as firearms.

I wish people who desire every citizen be packing heat would go live in a country where that is common--- then ask them if they felt safe. I spent three years living in countries where every grocery store had guards at the doors, brandishing machine guns: something the NRA and their employees in Congress say we should implement here in the USA. They call this "freedom."

The last two links in Ron's #60 are to sites slugged "LegalInsurrection" and "AmericasFreedomFighters." Needless to say that in claiming the New York Times and Hilary Clinton have called for confiscation of Americans' guns they are, um, making inoperative statements.

Dean, we're told that "The leopard cannot change his spots".

The import seems obvious: Until the system has been improved, all sales of guns in the United States should be halted.

Wonder how fast the NRA would scramble to make the system work properly?

But.. Wouldn't that only be a form of self-contradiction?

Oh, man, shoulda retorted immediately with, 'Why every Muslim “should be punished” because of a tiny few number with guns.'

Watch his jaw drop and smoke curl out his ears.

(Intentionally didn't add watch his eyes glaze and start rolling around aimlessly, since that's normal for his type... Though most are mouth-breathers.)

I live in the USA. I want to have "Freedom":

Freedom from the Fear that my fellow citizen unnecessarily possesses one or more guns, any of which could be used to shoot me, a family member, a neighbor.

Freedom from the Wants & cravings of my gun-loving neighbor's extremist insecurities that warp his mind into thinking that he should be allow to possess firearms because such power will provide the palliative to soothe his aching fears.

Freedom from the corrupting Speech (influence) of the NRA, which seeks to subvert Democracy and hold my elected political leaders hostage unless they do the bidding of this unpopular minority.

Freedom to live a life in a country that supports and follows the ideals it was founded on, including service to society, personal responsibility, and doing unto others as we would have done to us -- not "every man for himself", Survivalism, or fascist ideologies.

Give me the liberty of these Freedoms!

(Perhaps someone should commission a Rockwell 5th Freedom: Freedom from a right-wing militaristic society.)

Better background checks are a good idea.

If someone is mentally ill that should be a reason not to pass a background check.

Of course, we have to be careful not to include people on lists they shouldn't be on.

However, not the idea for a permit to have a gun is a bad idea (desertphile).

Do you get a permit for free speech - renewed or denied every three years?

No.

You cannot permit fundamental rights.

Ricka: "Do you get a permit for free speech – renewed or denied every three years?"

How many mouths this year in the USA killed and wounded people?

"You cannot permit fundamental rights."

Do you have a license to drive?

#72 "Freedom to live a life in a country that supports and follows the ideals it was founded on, including ... personal responsibility, and doing unto others as we would have done to us — " Are you appealing to the Christian "Golden Rule" as a foundational principle of America? Would that not also include being pro-life and pro self-defense (personal responsibility)?

How is one to defend oneself without weaponry? How will the infirm or weak respond to criminal force? What should the victims of the recent mass shootings have done?

Possessing a gun may currently be a Constitutional right, but it is in no way a fundamental right.

Cosmicomics is spot-on: I’m always amused by the ignorant provincialism of the many Americans who assume that America is the world.

America is an aberration in the world for this "right" to populate our homes with unnecessary deadly weapons. The Civilized World does not allow this, and proves that it is not only not fundamental, it is entirely unnecessary.

The bill of rights (1-10), like freedom of speech (1st amendment), freedom of religion (1st amendment), the right to keep and bear arms (2nd amendment), right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizure (4th amendment); right against self-incrimination (5th amendment); right to counsel (6th amendment); right to a jury trial (7th amendment); right not to be subject to cruel and unusual punishment (8th amendment), etc. are what are know as fundamental rights.

They are individual rights and they are fundamental - pretty much by definition in the United States.

This is a USA thing.

but I disagree with you Brainstorms.

In the USA - the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right - like the right to free speech.

You do not need a permit from the government (Federal or State) to have a rifle in your house. And the suggestion that you can only have a rifle in your home if you get a permit, were it to be passed into law, would be struck down as a violation of the 2nd amendment.

Now the right to carry the gun out in the public can be subject to a permit (we call it the right to carry in Minnesota).

Although most scholars think if a law is to restrictive is would violate the right to BEAR arms, and some courts (lower level) are beginning to strike down laws using the right to bear arms portion of the 2nd amendment.

Bottom line - it doesn't matter if you think America is an aberration - the 2nd amendment is the law of the land and governs in the USA.

Brainstorms #75:

Here is a wikipedia cite for our review:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_rights

I quote from the article:

"This set in motion a continuous process under which each individual right under the Bill of Rights was incorporated, one by one. That process has extended more than half a century, with the free speech clause of the First Amendment first incorporated in 1925 in Gitlow v New York. The most recent amendment completely incorporated as fundamental was the Second Amendment right to possess and bear arms for personal self-defense, in McDonald v Chicago, handed down in 2010."

So in the USA - the 2nd amendment is fundamental - as stated by the Supreme court in 2010.

BoR specifically limits Congress (the Legislative branch of the feds) from abridging these few Rights and reserves the rest to the People.

But as we've traded negative law for positive law ( http://tinyurl.com/q75fgx5 )...MOAR State infringements are demanded by some (because they fear the NRA?).

ron:

"People who determine to learn proper weapons handling and usage are not a threat to society. "

Let me fix that for you:

"People who determine to learn how to properly fly large airliners are not a threat to society" ... or very large buildings.

Right.

Of course, if we were to accept the truth of your original casting of the message, then it would appear that there's absolutely no reason for the NRA or other 2nd Amendment fundamentalists to reject calls for proper training and licensing of people before they're allowed to buy a gun.

dhogaza: "Of course, if we were to accept the truth of your original casting of the message, then it would appear that there’s absolutely no reason for the NRA or other 2nd Amendment fundamentalists to reject calls for proper training and licensing of people before they’re allowed to buy a gun."

Gun fetishers don't believe what they claim to believe about "freedom:" they want people to fear them and their guns. It is low hierarchy submissive males who wish to walk around with weapons. I consider it a self-evident truth that anyone who WANTS to carry a firearm should never be allowed to: that includes police officers, security guards, and the gun fetishers who wander the country's hiking trails with pistols tucked in their pants where other boys and men have real penises.

I am pro-gun ownership. I grew up with guns; all of my peers had and have guns; our parents had guns and our children have guns. It was and is understood that going outside in public with a firearm for any other reason than to shoot meat for food was the behavior of homicidal lunatic. WE HAD AND HAVE UTTER CONTEMPT for people like "ron" and "RickA" here; they do not have, and will never have, any respect from the people they are so desperately seeking it.

Ron:

"BoR specifically limits Congress (the Legislative branch of the feds) from abridging these few Rights and reserves the rest to the People."

And the Constitution specifically decrees that there be one Supreme Court, and among the powers of that Court ...

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution ..."

That last pesky word making it obvious that the Court, and not individuals like you, decide what is, and what is not, a constitutional act of congress.

Desertphile #81:

Driving is a privilege not a right - that is why the state can license it.

That is not the case with having a gun in your home.

No license required.

If you want to change that you will need to get the constitution amended.

RickA: "Driving is a privilege not a right – that is why the state can license it. That is not the case with having a gun in your home."

According to the oldest gun regulation law in the United States (please see The United States of America's Constitution, Second Amendment), the right to own a firearm is predicated upon membership in a militia.

The issue is not "a gun in your home," Silly Goose. The issue is "a gun in public places, killing large numbers of people." Sheeeish.

#82
I guess this gentleman is contemptible for protecting himself and his coworker, in your humble opinion.
http://tinyurl.com/jses2aw

He just needed his "real penis", eh? What do you suggest he did with it at that point?

I got it #82...http://tinyurl.com/j39a6bb

That's the move you think REAL men can put on people with guns, right?

So if driving was a right under the constitution, it would be wrong to license it...

Obstreperous Applesauce: "So if driving was a right under the constitution, it would be wrong to license it…"

According to the United States Constitution, Article 1 Section 9, I have the right to own human beings if I pay US$10 each in a tax. Article Five also states I may own people. Section 2 Article Four also states I have the right to own humans. Section Two Article One states that the people I own are worth 60% in taxation, as a whole, than people who are not currently owned.

At the moment it's the gods damned liberal socialist communists who are prohibiting me from the right to own people, damn them, even though denying me that right is a violation of my Constitutional right.

Since the USA Constitution states every militia member may own a firearm, I must join a militia to own one. The Constitution states I need merely pay a $10 tax to own one human being. I'm sure "RickA" is as equally upset at slave ownership regulations as he is with gun regulations.

the right to own a firearm is predicated upon membership in a militia.

Here in West Michigan we have a not-insignificant number of clowns in the "open carry' sect who assert that every citizen is according to the Constitution, a member of a national military by default, and so is automatically allowed to carry a weapon wherever he/she chooses to go: schools, churches, day care sites, etc.

dean: "Here in West Michigan we have a not-insignificant number of clowns in the “open carry’ sect who assert that every citizen is according to the Constitution, a member of a national military by default, and so is automatically allowed to carry a weapon wherever he/she chooses to go: schools, churches, day care sites, etc."

It appears they are incorrect, according to the Federalists Papers. Only white males 15 years and older qualify as the militia, and this is not only automatic, but mandatory. Military service in the "Regular Army" was voluntary; the "Enlisted Army" was for special campaigns, and they received their weapons from their local armory (via the National Guard) and were expected to return them.

When I was a teenager I earned my first rifle through the federal M-1 Garand Civilian Marksmanship Program. If it were up to me I would like to see every one of these "open carry" shit turds complete the course and then serve two years in the National Guard or Coast Guard--- as the creators of the USA intended. They would learn why carrying a rifle around is not just a bad idea, but also evil.

#87 "...the right to own a firearm is predicated upon membership in a militia."

If you say so... http://lawandliberty.org/what_mil.htm ""Who are the Militia? They consist now of the whole people, except for a few public officers." Yet we also see statutes like 10 USC 311, which defines it as "all able- bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 13 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States." Some state statutes define it as "able-bodied males" of different age ranges, such as 16 through 59.

These statutes also divide the Militia into various classes, such as "organized" or "unorganized","

That's a very broad definition...but it refutes this silliness about militia membership. Wrong tree...

People have listened to so much wingnut radio that it's now mainstream to bloviate about everything. When language has no meaning, reason has no meaning; falsehoods are equal to facts, and idiots swamp the body politic. It's the age of the troll bois! Enter RickA, ron, sn, and all the rest...

Obstreperous Applesauce: "People have listened to so much wingnut radio that it’s now mainstream to bloviate about everything. When language has no meaning, reason has no meaning; falsehoods are equal to facts, and idiots swamp the body politic. It’s the age of the troll bois! Enter RickA, ron, sn, and all the rest…"

I wonder what these "BUT! FREEDOM!" clowns think about laws restricting the human and civil rights girls and women have to abort pregnancies. If they really believes what they claim to believe ("gunz iz freedom, not penis envy!"), then a girls and women should have access to abortions freely, without any regulations.

Desertphile, to quote myself (#43):

The “BUT! FREEDOM!” clowns whore-ship their illusory "Liberty" …especially when it comes bundled with a political agenda that insists on “Liberty for me & my faction at the expense of Liberty for everyone else”.

Given the topic at hand, let's render that, The “BUT! FREEDOM!” clowns war-ship their illusory “Liberty” ...

@#93
Why are guns related to orifices to you?

Pro-freedom and pro-life are related in that people do what they can to protect innocent life. It is natural for people who value life to defend their own and other people's bodies (especially those who are infants). Guns are simply effective items in that cause. Not to initiate violence, but to defend from violence.

Items (guns, knives, vehicles) can be used appropriately or inappropriately, it is up to the user to determine how the item is utilized. Hence, we do not jail the item, but the person who misuses the item.

Crickets regarding #84 & #85?

The reference, ron, is to all of the inherent contradictions people on the right have for rights of people (I have no experience with your views on abortion, same sex marriage, etc., so nothing aimed at you).
For far too many the right to carry is obvious: the right to same sex marriage (as an example) should be prohibited because (plug any of a wide variety of reasons here).

Desertphile #88:

Yeah - they amended the constitution to fix that. See the 13th amendment.

If you want to license gun ownership you will have to amend the constitution also.

I am not sure why that makes you, dean and brainstorms so mad - it is just a fact.

Hey, "RickA!" Should this person be allowed to buy guns and ammunition? Why or why not?

"I'd give a shit if the ones on the opposing end weren't also radical schmucks. Feminists attack us and ignore Islam, and now Islam is in the West, and Feminists get to see what privileged pieces of shit they are. I hope there's a Muslim around to beat the hell out of every Feminist that every tries to start something. I hope they kill a few Feminists. I hate Muslims, but I also hate Feminists. They're both oppressive scum. They deserve each other. What you see in the video is called just deserts. This is what they're supposedly fighting against, however in the West it doesn't fucking exist. Well, until now. Now that our Leftist governments have allowed them in to leech off our welfare systems. So, have at it Muslims... Want to know the fucked up part? Those dumb bimbos probably went home and blamed white men for what happened to them. LOL! So fucking pathetic. I really hope Muslims start fucking raping and killing Feminists. It would be so hilariously ironic. I wouldn't do shit about it either aside from laugh at them. After all, for years now they've painted me as a rapist, a murderer, an oppressor etc. simply because I'm white and a male. Well, let's see how they like the brown Muslim. This is literally the only good part about having this primitive, violent trash in our nations. So I'm going to enjoy it." -- mark bent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM-wxU86v8g&google_comment_id=z120hbkak…

Lunatic terrorized an elementary school because he "has the right:"

http://reverbpress.com/politics/battlegrounds/sons-school-facedown-open…

I am not sure why that makes you, dean and brainstorms so mad

The repeated self-enforced lack of comprehension on your parts. What part of the comment

I am pro-gun ownership. I grew up with guns; all of my peers had and have guns; our parents had guns and our children have guns.

above makes you think Desertphile or the rest of us are against gun ownership.

The problem (for me) is the complete lack of honesty the proponents for open carry give: crime rates are up (not true).
Murders with guns are up. (not true). People with guns stop crimes all the time (not true - it is an incredibly rate occurrence). government has no right to limit where we can carry guns (not true - the Constitution clearly gives courts the rights to make decisions on that).

A little honesty and acknowledgement of facts from the pro-carry group would be wonderful - it just isn't there.

#99 Crime rates have fallen as people have taken to arming themselves. http://tinyurl.com/nb8kw25

As for the rarity of people using weapons to stop crime...I'd reference the link in #84 where a robbery is stopped, but this is unlikely to make the paper or the statistics column anywhere. As the economy sinks and morality is not exactly robust, does one think that society becomes more or less likely to turn to violence against their fellow man? Point being that these incidents can't be quantified, but as more people are dwelling in cities, it seems logical that attempted crimes are more likely.

Government is converting negative rights into positive rights, overstepping their authority and burdening the law-abiding public, while selectively prosecuting law breakers. (Nation of laws or a Nation of men?)

It doesn't matter if crime is down when it happens to you or your family. Stats are interesting, but if you're the 1/10,000...you're still injured or worse.

Do weapons give one the license to be discourteous? No. Violent? No. Anything other than what you'd expect from a law-abiding citizen? No. Have we lost a bit of tact and respect for one another as we're divided along political lines? To be sure. Not to excuse it, but what do we expect as politicians whip the public into a frenzy 3-4 days a week?

Some prefer to hide the weapon and retain the element of surprise, others find exposed weapons easier to access and effective at deterrence.

Anyway, the easiest way to tell if someone is against law-abiding citizens obtaining and using weapons to defend themselves is that they generally speak poorly of metal/plastic devices used to fire projectiles. These inanimate objects become an evil scourge on our society and the STATE cannot go far enough to eliminate them from our conscientiousness.

DP has an interesting line that he draws where people can keep but not bear arms unless they are home. When and where that was ever a societal norm, I'm unaware, but nevertheless, when pro RKBA people are attacked with Elementary School ad hominem "logic", it's a good indicator of where people stand.

Dean #99:

I am not talking to Desertphile about open carry.

We are discussing his idea to license gun ownership (see comment #71).

I am merely pointing out that his idea is not constitutional and he has to change the constitution if he wants to implement it.

Open carry is a different issue than owning a gun.

Now I am happy to discuss open carry with you, rather than licensing gun ownership with Desertphile.

Yes - I agree crime is down in general and murder with guns is down. The data show a giant drop from 1980 to today, and it is all down to about 1/3 of what it was in 1980 ish.

I agree people with guns do not stop crime all the time.

I agree that states have some right to permit where people can carry guns.

In Minnesota - people with a permit to carry cannot carry into a school.

They cannot carry into a business that has a sign saying "Guns are banned on these premises".

However, some states are saying guns are banned everywhere and these laws are being struck down by Federal courts because of the "bear" portion of the 2nd amendment.

For example, recently a court held it was not constitutional to ban guns on federal parks - so now people can bring a gun to a federal park.

State parks are a different issue.

But I would say to you that it doesn't matter if lots of people have used guns to prevent crime.

It doesn't matter if it is a good idea to let lots of people own guns.

What matters is what the constitution says and how the courts have interpreted the 2nd amendment right.

The 2nd amendment has been incorporated and is a fundamental right of each citizen of the USA.

The burden of proof is on the courts to deny a person the right to own a gun.

Like committing a person because they are insane - a court process would have to be launched to deny a person the right to own a gun.

Absent a court order denying gun ownership, after the government met its burden of proof (crazy - felon - restraining order - etc.) - anyone can own a gun.

Even kids can own a gun.

In Minnesota a child of 12 (going off memory - it might be 13) can take gun safety and hunt with a parent.

Some people think this is a bad idea - but that doesn't matter.

Most of the ideas I read require changing the 2nd amendment.

That is all I am pointing out.

Desertphile #101.

Assuming this person is a USA citizen and not a French person, I don't see anything in his rant which would preclude his right to own a gun and even buy ammunition for it.

People have a right to free speech and just because they say something you disagree with does not mean that another right they have is curtailed.

Now if this person was talking about taking his guns and shooting muslims or feminists that might be enough for the government to meet their burden of proof to take away the right of this person to own a gun.

But remember - the person has the right unless the government can meet their burden of proof - just like everybody has the right to free speech - but cannot use it to incite specific actions of violence.

So in principal I say yes - this person can own a gun (based on just your little snippet). His opinion and hate mean nothing with regard to his right to keep and bear arms.

I see that the international predictions market now has a USA gun legislation market: will President Obama close the "gun show loophole" regarding background checks? The stock opened at 9 cents. That's a damning indictment against the USA, recognized by international observers.

Since this is considered such a rare occurrence by some here, I thought it would be of interest...http://tinyurl.com/gl878pg

Riddle me this anti's--What is one to do when at the point of a criminal's gun?

ron: "Riddle me this anti’s-- What is one to do when at the point of a criminal’s gun?"

Er.... the first time or the second time? The first time, when I was shot in the back, I fell on my face in the hot Death Valley sand, stunned and unable to move my legs for about 30 hours. The second time, when the projectile passed so close to my right ear that the "clap!" of its passing damaged my ear drum, I flung down my backpack and ran, zig-zagging, into the Silurian Hills.

Why? Do you believe people have a choice in "what they will do" when a lunatic points a gun at them? You stupid shits, who have no fucking clue just how fucking dangerous guns are, live in a fantasy world where everyone with a gun is Bruce Willis.

Your "question" shows exactly how lazy your thinking is. The problem is FACING THE POINT OF A CRIMINAL'S GUN, which in your tiny little brain you must dimly perceive is a problem, else you would not mention it. You stupid shits are too fucking stupid to understand that a criminal with a gun looks exactly the same as a non-criminal with a gun; that forces us sane pro-life people to assume everyone with a gun is a threat and a danger and a criminal--- we have no fucking choice in the matter.

I realize you are too dim of wit to understand any of these facts.

Ron, why are children's lives less important to you than your hobby?

Greg Laden: "Ron, why are children’s lives less important to you than your hobby?"

Because freedom!

Or, in reality: because submissive, non-alpha male humans desire what they believe to be "respect." See, for one example:

http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/20/2/82

Ron and his pals use firearms as mating ritual tools.

ron, it isn't just a "consideration" that people with guns stopping crime is a rarity, it's a fact - one of those things you don't like.

Facts never get in the way of the agendas of the pro-deathers.

#107 "Ron, why are children’s lives less important to you than your hobby?"

The lives of children (and other innocent people) is THE REASON for armed self-defense (my "hobby"). They're of primary importance to me.

Why are they not to everyone?

(Thanks for asking...and I haven't figured out how to do the move in #85 to keep everyone safe)

ron: "The lives of children (and other innocent people) is THE REASON for armed self-defense (my “hobby”). They’re of primary importance to me.

Your behavior here shows the opposite.

"Why are they not to everyone?"

Ask the NRA.

DP, #111...I'm saddened that you were injured by either negligent or criminal acts involving firearms. I can see where you're coming from and that you may not have had an opportunity to return fire (if malice was involved). You may, however, be painting with too broad a brush regarding people who wish to travel with long guns (or sidearms or both).

I may be stupid, but I knew that you can't distinguish the law abiding from the criminal just on looks alone. I'm sorry you had to learn this in such a traumatic way. "You stupid shits are too fucking stupid to understand that a criminal with a gun looks exactly the same as a non-criminal with a gun; that forces us sane pro-life people to assume everyone with a gun is a threat and a danger and a criminal— we have no fucking choice in the matter."--I suppose that's how intelligent people write and reason, yes? Thanks for documenting those "facts".

Yes, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, and many other action actors have carried my gun in action movies...and it does, indeed, warm my heart.

I see in the news this morning that a three-year-old shot both of his parents with a hand gun, in Albuquerque. The boy has a fine future working for the NRA.

The boy has a fine future working for the NRA.

Shaping gun non-control policies, no doubt.

I agree with the general thrust of this piece, to call out all who voted against MT, a common sense change to our gun laws which will pose no serious obstacle to legal gun ownership when it passes.

However, I disagree with the author's choice to characterize those who vote against MT as being "by definition gun nuts". This is likely true of a few, but extremely unlikely to be true of all. I say this because opposition to any sort of gun regulation proposal, at least at the national level, is always conspicuously spearheaded by the industry lobby group the represents the interests of the manufacturers of the item in question. And like all industry lobby groups, this one is simply doing what they were sent there to do: whip support for any law that helps them push product, and whip opposition against any law which would hinder them to push product.

So, while it may be satisfying to caste all lobby apologists as nutters, this ultimately hurts the cause, because as much as you'd think otherwise, being labelled a gun nut is actually a politically preferable option to being labelled an industry pawn. at least with the gun nut label, Congressional R's can count on the support of the nativist wing of their base. And the gun lobby itself counts on this too. So let's acknowledge this dynamic and not play into it. Call it what it is: it's voting for the interests of an industrial lobby which produces a product whose use results in great physical harm to the American public. A public who, by the way, agrees with the proposed new regulation by a margin of about 9 to 1. Simply pointing out these facts deprives the industry's friends in Congress of the "plausible deniability" they need to continue supporting the lobby. But calling them all gun nuts renews their lease on this excuse.

What YOU can do about gun violence

gregladen — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 10:31:07 +0000

What YOU can do about gun violence

Why you have to do something about guns

This message is primarily for those living in the United States. In the US, we have an outdated Constitutional amendment that has been interpreted by many, including the courts, in a way that hampers effective legislation to address what is clearly a major problem with the proliferation and use of firearms in inappropriate ways. We are frequently reminded of this by the regular occurrence of mass killings such as the recent event in Oregon. But really, that is a small part of the problem, numerically. I lay out some of the numbers below, and address some of the arguments that regulation of guns should be absent or minimal. We have another problem as well, one that is paralleled in many other areas of policy. Special interest groups such as the National Rifle Association, through pressure and campaign financing, control much of the Congress.

Other countries have addressed their gun violence problem effectively. We can too. But in order for that to happen, this has to happen:

1) The specious arguments against gun regulation have to be called out for what they are, and ultimately, ignored.

2) Citizen pressure on our elected representatives has to be increased significantly.

3) Organized efforts against the gun industry and the gun lobby have to be supported.

Your role as a citizen is critical. There are three steps you can take. Here, I’m asking you to take one of them, the one that requires the least effort and would likely have the largest impact. First, the other two. You can learn more about the gun problem, by reading this post to the end, and reading other material. After that, don’t let the gun supporters off easy when they pull out their arguments. Tell them they are wrong, and why. I understand and respect the fact that most of you are not going to do this, but some of you may be inclined to do so, and I thank you for that. Another idea is to check your investments (like your 401k) to see if you are supporting the gun industry. If so, see if you can fix that. You can find information about that here.

The easy step you can take, and likely the most effective, is to send a note right now to your representative in Congress. I’m told (see this) that a written letter delivered by the US Post Office has a significantly larger impact when it arrives on the desk of your Congressperson than an email (or tweet or a signature on a petition), so do please spend the stamp and do that if you can. But an email is good too, and if that is all you have time for, please do it.

Write your own note, but here are a few suggestions.

Write your Senators.

You have two US Senators. Find out who they are and get their contact details here. Usually there is a form to fill out. I suggest you say something like this:

Dear Senator,

I am a voter living in your state, and you represent me in the US Senate.

Firearms have become one of the most significant sources of injury and death in the United States. Yet Congress has done little to address this problem. We have made cars and toasters safer with sensible regulation, but have not done so with firearms.

I am writing you to urge you to take action to address this problem. Also, please tell me what you have done so far and what you plan to do in the immediate future.

Sincerely,

your name here

Write your representative in Congress

You have one representative in the US House. Find out who that is here. Send that person a note as well. An example:

Dear Congressperson,

I am a voter living in your district, and you represent me in the House of Representatives.

I am writing to ask what actions you have taken to reduce gun violence and deploy sensible regulations of firearms. Also, what actions do you plan to take in the near future?

Gun violence has become one of the most serious problems we face in this country, including massive numbers of youth suicide. Yet, Congress has failed to act effectively to address this problem. I urge you to to do so.

Sincerely,

your name here

Read the rest of my post if you want more background before writing the notes. Or, just do it if you don’t feel the need to do so. Ask your friends and relatives to write their reps. Ask your Facebook friends and Twitter followers, and your buddies on Instagram and Pinterest to help out.

Gun morbidity and mortality rivals other sources

When people talk, especially in social media, about this or that alleged dangerous thing (pesticides, nuclear radiation wafting from Fukushima to California, failure to purge, vaccination) it is very rare that Godwin’s Law comes into play (the mention of the Nazis or Holocaust to eventually come up). But quite often someone will make the comparison between the deadly issue of concern and car deaths. “More people die in their cars than by eating GMO corn,” someone will say.

Indeed, we see reference to automobile deaths as a misleading rhetorical device to diminish the importance of firearm fatalities. I’ll quote from Briebart: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) final report on death statistics for 2013 shows there were 35,369 deaths from motor vehicle accidents versus 505 deaths from the accidental discharge of firearms. That is not a typo—35,369 versus 505. Americans are 70 times more likely to die in a vehicle accident than by the accidental discharge of a firearm.”

The truth is that the average annual rate of death by firearms is currently about 32,529. About 67,000 people are injured annually by firearms in the US. So, while you were not looking, cars got safer. The annual rate of death by car has declined steadily in recent decades owing to increases safety standards, even as the rate of cars per person on the road has increased. It is about half as dangerous to ride around in a car these days than it was before aggressive implementation of safety laws, and for some groups this number has declined even more (i.e., children).

It is also true that gun related deaths and injuries have declined over time, but not by much (in recent decades) and the rates are now going back up. The reasons for the decline about 20 years ago are not entirely clear, but probably have to do with changes in crime related violent deaths. In the late 1980s and 1990s, there were major changes in the nature and character of the illegal drug trade, and major efforts to clamp down on drug production and distribution caused a significant increase in violence followed by a decrease in many communities. Murder cities (often with special names like Murderapolis for Minneapolis) emerged temporarily around that time as organized gangs changed territories and tactics. From one study:

Previous research points to several potential contributing factors including the cycling up and down of youth firearm homicides (more so than adult homicides), changes in markets for illegal drugs (particularly the crack cocaine market which swept across urban cities in the 1980s and crested about 1990), changes in juvenile arrest policies and penalties for drug-related crime in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, improved economic conditions, and an increase in community-based policing strategies and primary prevention strategies for youth, families, schools and communities

So the current situation, 67,000 injuries and over 32,000 deaths annually, being one of the major non-disease causes of morbidity and mortality in the US, especially for youth, is a mild improvement from a period of chaos a few decades ago, and the rate of injury and death is staring to climb again.

Most gun deaths are suicide (20,000 a year), followed by homicide (11,000 a year) and accident (under 600 a year). Despite the obvious importance of rampage killings such those over the last few years in Roseburg (10 dead), Charlestown (9 dead), Ila Vista (7 dead), Fort Hood II (3 dead), Washington DC (13 dead), Santa Monica (5 dead), Newtown (27 dead), Brookfield (3 dead), Minneapolis (6 dead), Oak Creek (6 dead), Aurora (12 dead), Oakalnd (7 dead), Seal Beach (8 dead), Tucson (6 dead), Manchester (8 dead), Huntsville (3 dead), Fort Hood I (13 dead), Binghamton (13 dead), most of the homicides are not random mass killings. But, since the victims of rampage killings are entirely innocent, and the killings are sudden, unexpected, shocking, and often target children, they constitute a significant part of the problem.

Anatomy of a suicide

Let’s talk about the single most important gun related problem for a moment: suicide.

Sensible gun laws can prevent thousands of gun related deaths a year. When people talk about suicide, gun owners often bring up the idea that suicide is a mental health issue, not a gun issue. Well, yes, suicide is a mental health issue, but it is abysmally incorrect to say that it is not a gun issue. Here is why.

The majority of firearms related deaths in the US are due to suicide. A recent study showed that about 20,000 people in the US die of suicide using a firearm. This is the largest single cause of firearms related death.

If a person attempts suicide by poison, their success rate is about 2.5%. Cutting and stabbing has a success rate of less than 1%. Jumping has a success rate of just under 20%.

The total amount of time from choosing to commit suicide and carrying out an attempt at doing so, on average, is incredibly short, measured in minutes. (There is obviously a large spread for this number.)

When a person attempts suicide and lives, the chances that they will attempt suicide again is very low. The rate of trying an additional attempt is about 10%. A large proportion of those who do attempt suicide change their minds and seek medical attention, or others find out what is going on and intervene, saving the person’s life.

The rate of success of suicide by firearm is about 85%. When a firearm is used there is little chance to reconsider. A large percentage of those who attempt suicide and do so with a gun probably would have gotten past this period in their lives had they used a different method. I don’t have data on this, but I suspect this is more true for younger people. Also, one could argue that people should be allowed to kill themselves. I’ve seen gun owners make this argument. However, while that may be true for some individuals, especially older ones, it is a rather cynical answer to the suicide problem and certainly does not apply to adolescence or young people.

It is probably the case that a large number of people who kill themselves with guns obtain the guns simply because they are easy to obtain. Given the short span of time between choosing to take one’s own life and carrying out such an act, it is likely that most of these guns were already in the household. It is likely that many young people who kill themselves with guns obtain a gun owned by the adults in the household, a gun that is kept unlocked with ammunition readily available, perhaps the gun already loaded.

Among those who make the strongest statements against any kind of gun regulation, based on numerous conversations I’ve had, seem to be many who prefer to keep a firearm loaded and at the ready, in a nightstand drawer or some other convenient location. In a household with younger kids, this is extraordinarily irresponsible. While it might be difficult to imagine how laws or regulations could change this extremely dangerous and selfish behavior, having such laws would allow for vigorous prosecution after the fact, and may lead to more thoughtful and safe behavior by such individuals in the long run.

But what about guns as self protection?

The most vehement and vitriolic verbiage spewed to support unfettered ownership of guns seems to come from those who live in fear of home invasions or other attacks, and feel that they require a readily available firearm to protect themselves. It is quite possible that this honestly does apply to a very small number of individuals, but that is a special case that we should find a way to handle as a society. Most people who have this view are not such special cases. Also, when one has the view that enemies can enter the home at any moment and kill you, and thus you must be protected, then one must also believe that one’s personal gun must be loaded and ready, not locked up or secured, at all times. And that is unconscionable behavior, and should not be legal.

A gun kept in your home is more likely to be used to kill or injure an innocent person in an unintentional shooting, a suicide, or by a criminal who has taken it, then to be used in effective self defense (see this. A gun can be used to intimidate an attacker, but it is not clear that this is a strategy that is more effective than other non-gun related strategies (see study below). Many call for more widespread gun ownership in order to “take down” criminals involved in random violent acts out in public spaces. But there is about one gun in the US per person, a lot of people claim to carry them around, yet these self-defense guns are almost never actually used. This is probably because criminals are non-random in their behavior, and individuals armed with legal (or illegal) firearms are rarely in just the right place at the right time. Also, when people do pull out guns and start firing them, it is not uncommon for the outcome to be something other than the bad guy being “neutralized” with no one else injured.

Claims that guns are used defensively millions times every year have been widely discredited. Using a gun in self-defense is no more likely to reduce the chance of being injured during a crime than various other forms of protective action. At least one study has found that carrying a firearm significantly increases a person’s risk of being shot in an assault; research published in the American Journal of Public Health reported that, even after adjusting for confounding factors, individuals who were in possession of a gun were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. (source)

A recent study looked at the use of firearms for self protection.

The data for the study come from information on personal contact crimes from the National Crime Victimization Survey for 2007 through 2011. They looked at cases where an offender intended to steal property.

Among 14,000+ cases just under 1% involved the use of a gun in self defense. When the incident was over, on average, 4.2% of the victims were injured regardless of how it went down, 4.1% were injured when a gun was used in self defense. In the case of an attempt to steal property, 55.9 percent of the time the property was taken overall, with a slight reduction to 38.5% when the victim used a gun, and if the victim used a self defense weapon other than a gun, 34.9% of the time the property was lost.

So, you can stop a robbery with a gun, a little. But any weapon at all has a similar success rate. And you have a good chance of being injured.

An interesting result of that study is from the literature review. The researchers found almost no good studies that would inform of the basic question that many assume the answer to: Can you really protect yourself with a gun? The assumption that we should have lax gun laws so one can defend oneself, with the cost of tens of thousands dead each year, is a rather bold and unfounded one. The study is a bit nuanced and complex, and the researchers admit that the data are insufficient to examine many important questions. From the conclusion:

…the data provide little evidence that using a gun in self-defense reduces injury. Slightly more than 4% of victims were injured during or after a self-defense gun use—the same percentage as were injured during or after taking all other protective actions. Some self-protective actions were associated with higher probabilities of subsequent injury. The reader must be warned, however, that the sample of those injured after using a gun (5/127) is really too small to warrant strong conclusions. The large majority of crime victims who are injured are injured before they take any action.

The evidence suggests that using a weapon in self-defense may reduce the likelihood of losing property during the commission of crime. However, it is not clear that using a gun is better or worse than using other weapons…

Gun culture

Having such lax laws, and a loud minority in favor of keeping those laws lax, and of course other factors, probably contribute to a sort of gun fetish among those sometimes referred to as “gun nuts.” How do you know if you are a gun nut? If you keep a loaded gun in your house, if you keep guns and ammo unlocked, if you are just a regular person with no special security requirements but have a concealed carry permit, or if you think 20,000 suicides by gun per year is not a problem related to gun regulation, then you are probably a gun nut. On occasion a gun owner sets up a trap in their home, luring burglars or home invaders known to be working in the neighborhood so they can be shot “legally.” That is of course, very rare. But if you think that is OK you are probably a gun nut. For that matter, if you think it is OK when a teenage boy, on a dare, enters a home thought to be vacant and is shot dead for it, you might be a gun nut. These are all self-justifying excuses to argue against sensible regulation of guns.

Our society as a whole pays a huge cost, greater than the costs of international or domestic terrorism, so that individuals who have this gun fetish can do more or less what they want. The benefit for this lackadaisical and protectionist view of firearms is virtually non-existent. Those who suffer from the nearly unregulated presence of so many guns are accommodating the desires of individuals who want unfettered access to toys they happen to find enjoyable, at best. At worse, our society is accommodating monsters, people who believe that carnage counted in the tens of thousands is necessary so they can be wrong about safety and wrong about security.

With our current gun laws, we are paying a very high price to support unjustified ignorance and madness.

Arthur L. Kellerman et al., Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home, 45 J. Trauma 263, 263, 266 (1998).

Branas, Charles et al. 2009. Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault, 99 Am. J. Pub. Health 2034.

Fowler, Katherine ,Linda L. Dahlberg, Tadesse Haileyesus, Joseph L. Annest. 2015. Firearm injuries in the United States. Special Issue on the Epidemiology and Prevention of Gun Violence. Volume 79.

Hemenway, David, Sara Solnick. 2014. The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007–2011. Special Issue on the Epidemiology and Prevention of Gun Violence. Volume 79.

Hemenway, David. 2004. Private Guns. Public Health 78

ADDED because it is relevant to some of the discussion below:

Hat tip

Added because it is interesting with respect to specific policies that might be implemented:

gregladen Fri, 10/02/2015 - 06:31

Tags

ron, are you listening??

Er.. ah.... more than 99% of USA citizens don't have representatives in Congress, and have not since around year 1981. Ordering our employees in Congress to obey us does not work and will continue to not work until bribery is once again against the law, and treason is once again punished--- which ending the "citizens united" crime against us will do. Only after that is done will our employees obey us.

Thanks, Greg. I'm an hour south of Roseberg, and I regret that I hadn't done my part until now.

(Headline I copied on my way over here: "Mike Huckabee on Oregon shooter: 'It was a cop with a gun that stopped him.'")

Desertphile, you have a bad attitude!

Just send in the damn notes.

Mike Huckabee on Oregon shooter: Making completely irrelevant, out-to-lunch statements to pander to an unpopular and minority political group that holds America in contempt.

Worth adding:many gun "enthusiasts" trot out the old saw that an armed populace is less vulnerable to the government. Such people have usually not been to Afghanistan, or Somalia, or any other failed state where the populace is heavily armed and government basically non existent or very weak.

In fact what I find fascinating is all these people who seem to think that an armed populace will spontaneously form some kind of rebel army. It's a comic-book version of the way politics (and revolutions) work.

Many of these people are right in one respect: if you can go toe to toe with the local National Guard you are less likely to be tyrranized by such horrible ideas as rights for minorities, or women, or ending slavery. Those were so terrible the people took up arms to end them, usually wearing white sheets.

Jesse, I would go along with a plan where Texans can keep their guns, pay for repatriation of Texans who want to move out of Texas, then they can have their own little failed state.

As far as self-protection goes, there *was* that incident in July where a West Virginia prostitute shot and killed a likely serial killer while he was attempting to subdue her in a prelude to murder.

However the NRA isn't likely to trumpet this since the intended victim used the attacker's own handgun. No word whether he was an NRA member.

Gunlawscorecard has interesting map by state, drill-down.

Labels.
Some have asked that the "shooter" not be identified, but for some, "shooter" is a plus.

A modest proposal:
agree on a standard name, like "worthless" or "contemptible" or maybe "scum".
Then, one can give each a unique label by adding year and count, like
scum-2015-294 for this case.

This is at least more methodical, and may make Googling easier, although that might better use 2015scum294.

I have been reading this useful blog for several years without commenting. I am not a working scientist, but I have enough math and science education to be able to follow scientific arguments in some detail.

Kudos to you for making suicide a prominent part of this post. Most people arguing for increased gun regulation don't even mention it which makes me question their seriousness toward trying to reduce firearm injuries and deaths.

I have a number of issues with this post, parts of which I find ad hominem and offensive. I'd like to first ask: have you ever owned or even shot a firearm?

As to the “What YOU can do about gun violence”, one suggestion I’d have is this:
If possible, stay away from “Gun-free” zones.

What you can do about gun violence is also to get money out of US politics. Wolf Pac has a plan that seems to be realistic and some first victories.

Would have with many other political issues and the US culture war in general.

Enon Zey #10,

Why does it matter whether Greg owns or has fired a gun?

I see this all the time on comment threads, and it is a symptom of the "gun culture" that he is talking about. What, are you going to lecture us about the difference between auto and semi-auto now?

If you want to have a serious discussion about what you consider "offensive", please state your position. I may be a bit more objective about the subject than Greg, since I have handled a fair range of firearms, and hunted, and have been in situations where I (rationally) would have preferred to be armed. I get it.

But "gun nut" is a perfectly reasonable description of certain behaviors. Like wanting to carry at the mall or at work or on a college campus. Or stockpiling arms and ammunition, and wanting access to large capacity magazines. Or feeling that you have a "right" to buy and sell without being a licensed dealer and keeping records.

If you think that such behaviors are not indicative of some kind of irrationality, please explain why.

Enon, asking if someone has ever owned a gun does not add anything to this discussion. It derails. Most gun owners' attitudes about this are not much different from the general population. No one is advocating to take our guns away. Sensible regulation could substantially reduce the number of deaths and injuries without infringing on our rights.

"Enon, asking if someone has ever owned a gun does not add anything to this discussion. It derails. Most gun owners’ attitudes about this are not much different from the general population. No one is advocating to take our guns away. Sensible regulation could substantially reduce the number of deaths and injuries without infringing on our rights."

Indeed, the claims about "the gov'ment iz comin' for me gunz!" that some people make are just stupid, asinine, and false. Seven years so far, and Obama still hasn't taken my guns

I want to see ammunition as hard to acquire as it is for black people in Alabama to get a "voter ID." Create a law that mandates background checks for ammunition, with a two-year permit. Also ban Internet sales of ammunition in the USA.

A few years ago I purchased 2,000 rounds for my .45 caliber pistol and rifle, in bulk, and received it in two days (about 90 pounds of lead). It only occurred to me how scary that was when I opened the crate.

@Enon Zey - have you ever flown or owned a 747? Then why should you have any opinion on whether pilots should go on a bender before getting into the cockpit?

Whether someone has owned a gun or not is irrelevant to the discussion of whether the ease of obtaining a gun makes things harder or easier to kill people. And from my perspective it does.

One of the issues I have with guns is that it makes killing easy and escalates ordinary situations. I haven't used a gun. I have used other weapons, and even teach people how. One of the fascinating things is that if you carry one around there's a tendency to want to use it.

"Don't pull it out unless you plan to use it" is a good maxim, but with many people it becomes "I want to pull this out because doing so emphasizes my manhood."

And one of the other interesting things is that using a hand weapon of any sort takes a lot of training to do right. It's not easy to kill someone with a knife -- it really isn't. You have to get up close and personal. You have to know what you are about. You have to commit.

A gun takes part of that away. Guns are frighteningly easy to operate, and separate you from the person you want to kill or injure. that makes it easier to contemplate using one, and it also means that when you're drunk off a few beers and feeling belligerent you're much more dangerous. A guy with a knife or sword, even, who is drunk and stupid can only kill a single person at a time and is unlikely to kill anyone else.

Guns allow you to do something very very stupid very fast, with no time to reflect or even slow down. No other weapon I know of allows for that. it's why people who advocate carrying a gun everywhere scare the shit out of me. Imagine a local bar where everyone is armed. Oh, that's going to end really well, huh?

You want to protect yourself? Fine, use bo (it can be had around the house if you own a mop) or a machete. Carry a knife. I happen to like sais. The targeting is easier, and at close range it's faster, and you can't accidentally kill yourself with them. (Well, I suppose you could, but it would be hard to do).

What, you need to train a bit? Tough luck. You need practice to drive a car too.

I find it odd that we have all kinds of regulations on hand weapons but have a tough time passing even the most mild restrictions on weapons that do so much more harm and are far more likely to do harm in untrained hands. A guy with a katana is dangerous, but he can't do anything to anyone if people stay far enough away. There are restrictions on owning such weapons. But guns? No problem! That says something about American values I think, but I am not sure it's anything good. It's as though we'd rather that taking life should be easy enough for any fool to do.

It's all about POWER. The feeling of, and the projection of, personal power.

The right-wing mentality is built upon a Foundation of Insecurity.

Wielding a gun is an attempt to compensateand overcome these deep-seated feelings of insecurity through the possession of and association with the gun's power.

This does not work, however (but they are blind to this).

Owning guns does not confer security to the right-wing gun advocate, because it only brings a form of physical security and cannot provide the actual forms of security they ultimately crave for themselves. This creates frustration (which often comes out as anger, bitterness, and callousness towards gun victims).

When presented with the evidence of the significant collateral damage that goes hand-in-hand with gun ownership (as there is no widespread gun ownership without the violent, bloody deaths such as Roseburg, Sandy Hook, etc. that come as a necessary consequence), it becomes evident that guns not only fail to provide the desired security, but also guns reduce security because of these demonstrated physical risks of having weapons readily available.

This creates cognitive dissonance within the gun advocate. Pressing them on the issues of these risks and on the inevitable blood letting that will continue to occur heightens this internal tension and aggravates their insecurity; this tends to cause them to double-down on their demand for their security proxies: "More guns are needed" and "if everyone were carrying a gun, society would more secure", etc.

The ultimate way out is to find the means of reducing the insecurities of the right-wing gun advocates, so that they no longer see guns as the solution to their fears, but instead see them for what their are: instruments of violence, death, war, and accidents (and suicides) waiting to happen.

Arguing with them will not achieve this. Attempts to pass intelligent gun-control laws will continue to be seen by them as an attack on them personally, because they are an attempt to take away one of the more tangible things they turn to for security. And this only serves to make them more belligerent towards doing the safe & sane thing for society.

It will be interesting to see how the investigation in Oregon goes, especially with the sheriff in charge being an amazing dick.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-hanlin-sandy-hook-truther

"It will be interesting to see how the investigation in Oregon goes, especially with the sheriff in charge being an amazing dick."

The usual "he was hunting Christians" meme has already swept through the "social media," with the same claims being made that he asked his victims if they believed gods existed or not before he killed them.

@zebra #13 and others

I asked if Greg had owned or even fired a gun because I was curious, for several reasons.

I know that people have the right to hold an opinion even on matters about which they have no personal experience. OTOH, I've noticed that people who have no personal experience with science, even just some undergraduate lab courses, tend not to understand the ways of scientific thinking. Also, I sort of resent unmarried, supposedly celibate priests presuming to tell us about family planning. And Rush Limbaugh, with no biological children of his own, telling us about family values.

Secondly, but more importantly, my experience is that people who have never had any firearms experience at all often have a visceral fear and loathing of guns. That makes it difficult to have rational discussions of practical steps to reduce gun violence and has produced some bad legislation.

There are two issues where I have no political home. One is immigration - just as the American frontier closed, I think the time for high levels of immigration is over, but on ecological grounds. I don't want to see this part of North America with a population of 500 million, which is what we're headed for. Unfortunately, the only political parties and organizations who want to restrict immigration are nativist, know-knowing types. Nothing I care to join.

On gun control, things have polarized between fearful second amendment absolutists, resulting in bad laws, and fearful gun haters, also resulting in bad laws. I'm not comfortable with either side as currently constituted.

@Raucous Indignation #14

"No one is advocating to take our guns away."

Yes? And just what do you think the Australian model is, if not gun confiscation?

@Desertphile #15

Your suggestion we institute background checks for ammunition and ban mail order or internet sales is reasonable, just as we banned mail order sales of guns after the Kennedy assassination. But the most common suggestion I see from gun haters is that ammunition be made very expensive by taxes and fees.

@Jesse #16

If you don't think the ultimate goal of many gun haters is to turn us into England, then I don't think you're paying close attention.

You're absolutely right, alcohol and powerful machines of any sort don't mix. That's a whole another discussion, how can we reduce the power of the liquor lobby and nudge people to more sensible behavior around alcohol without returning to prohibition?

"One of the fascinating things is that if you carry one around there’s a tendency to want to use it."

You're probably right, at least for some proportion of the male population. But it's not my experience. When I'm armed I'm more aware and want to avoid confrontations.

More later.

Jesse +1

It is ironic that people who favor guns for their lethal efficiency, turn around and promote their proliferation by conflating them with less productive methods of destroying lives.

The arrogance, meanness, and stupidity are monumental.

"If you don’t think the ultimate goal of many gun haters is to turn us into England, then I don’t think you’re paying close attention."

If you think that you are engaging in hyperbole. As is the statement that "the Australian system is confiscation."

If you refer to shotguns and rifles, they are still legal, but not as easy to obtain as they were in the past. Estimates for the number of registered guns range from just under 4 to just under 6 million, as of early 2015. People who want a gun must have a license, demonstrate secure storage, and (typically, but there are exceptions) be over 18. Registration (since the mid 90s I believe) had to be by serial number except for some very old weapons (I don't have the year, but it was roughly 100 years prior) which do not need to be registered at all. Regulated militia? Certainly not confiscation.

The rate of deaths by firearms has gone down (since the laws were enacted) from a little over 2.5 per 100,000 to roughly 1 per 100,000. Usually we try to avoid assigning cause and effect to results, especially in uncontrolled experiments, but the fact that the major change in Australia in 1996 was the gun laws' enactment, it is difficult to find many other contributing factors.
Don't bother responding with the many "arguments" (from National Review and others of that ilk) that the changes in Australia didn't result in anything other than a spike in gun violence - they really had to torture the statistics to get there, and in the end all they had was pure crap.

@Enon Zey: I have a better question: Have you been a victim of gun violence? Well...I have. I hate guns. I also know that if I'd had a gun...I'd be dead. You may be too old for this but there was a toothpaste back in the '60s with an anticavity additive they called Gardol. The "Gardol Shield" protected teeth, they said. Guns are not a Gardol Shield. If we could get rid of cavities, we wouldn't need the GS. We can, however, get rid of guns. Australia proved it.

To Jesse #16:

“You want to protect yourself? Fine, use bo (it can be had around the house if you own a mop) or a machete. Carry a knife. I happen to like sais. The targeting is easier, and at close range it’s faster, and you can’t accidentally kill yourself with them. (Well, I suppose you could, but it would be hard to do).”

That might be fine when the attacker is using a bo or a machete or a knife or a sais.

But what if the attacker is shooting?

OR what if he looks better with his sword than you are with yours?
I'd side with Indy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs

The NRO article on the “Australian Model”:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425021/australia-gun-control-obam…
…………………….
I might *briefly* consider giving up my guns,
as soon as the criminals, crazies and the evil no longer have guns.
But then, we’d still have this government.

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century
criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776

@23 - true. My thought was this: This moron not only thought that the Sandy Hook shootings were due to multiple shooters, he actively questioned the findings and conjectured that some of the parents were "crisis actors".

It's scary that someone with that history of foolishness is still trusted to be in office. I sure as hell would not want him overseeing any shooting at my son's school.

Hey, dean#24,

I wonder if your realize how sad what you said really is.

I was able to listen to most of President Obama's interaction with the "mainstream press". If anyone gets it, this President does. Are we really having discussions about who we want "overseeing a shooting at your son's school?".

I don't believe in prayer, but if I did, I would pray that this never comes up for you. I'm waiting for Enon to explain what it is about gun ownership that is so important that you and other parents have to even think about such a thing.

Yes Enon, I get how you feel. Do you get how dean, who has a son, feels?

Zebra, I'm genuinely confused about your point. My comment was about this sheriff, who has demonstrated that he has a screw loose (imo) due to his comments about Sandy Hook.
I won't say I haven't said something stupid, but I can't tell what it would be from your post.

dean, I said it was sad-- you have a son, and it breaks my heart to think about you facing that situation. You don't understand that?

Maybe it's too much time on the internet. For me, sad still mean sad.

Apologies zebra - I took the "sad" as a reference to some intent of what I said.

I spent 3 hours in our local Nature Center woods today walking and taking pictures just to relax after a long week. Apparently I relaxed my reading comprehension away.

I read today that the Congressional Research Service reported that the number of privately owned firearms in America went from 192 million in 1994 to 310 million in 2009, and that homicides involving firearms dropped from 6.6 per 100,000 in 1993 to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2000 to 3.2 per 100,000 in 2011.

"....and that homicides involving firearms dropped from 6.6 per 100,000 in 1993 to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2000 to 3.2 per 100,000 in 2011."

Indeed, cleaner air and water, and the end of the Bush2 Recession, and an increasing secular population, has lowered the number of almost all crimes in the USA.

I am an Australian, and maybe Enon Zey's comment about the Australian model gives me some right to comment.

I am a great admirer of the US, which has given so much to the world including the technology that I am using at the moment. Our countries are very similar, geographically large, Western, federal democracies with capitalist economies and a British heritage. Our societies though have some major differences, especially over this issue of guns.

I am a liberal (1) and cannot understand the US gun culture. I have many Conservative friends, most of whom would be Tea Party supporters if they lived in the States. All of my Conservative mates have a similar attitude to guns as mine. We are amazed that a country as great as the US has ended up in this horrific mess.

I have only known one person who owned a gun - he hunted ducks. All of his work colleagues thought him a kook.

Australia's response to the "Port Arthur Massacre" in 1996 is instructive. Our Conservative Prime Minister, John Howard implemented a gun buy back and a restriction of the types of guns that could be privately owned in this country. Howard implemented these policies in the face of opposition from his own base, particularly in rural areas. It is possible that only a Conservative could have effectively responded to Port Arthur. Such policies would have been more sternly resisted if implemented by the left of centre Labor Party. This holds some lessons for the US on Climate Policy. Will any important Conservative politician stand up to the Republican base on Climate?

(1) I don't describe myself as a liberal to my fellow Aussies, as our major Conservative party is the "Liberal Party". It is liberal in the 19th century sense rather than in a way that would mean liberal in contemporary USA.

See Noevo:

"OR what if he looks better with his sword than you are with yours? I’d side with Indy."

Actually, the Indy clip demonstrates exactly why having armed bozos with concealed weapons responding to imagined or even real threats is a very dangerous idea.

Because most, when confronted by an armed opponent, are going to either piss their pants or get the shakes or both. When they unload their 19 round Glock they may or may not hit their target. They won't hit their target with every round. And in a crowded scene, such as See Noevo's, those round are going to end up hitting innocent bystanders. It happens with trained police officers who often find themselves in stressful and potentially dangerous situations, and should be more likely to handle themselves well in such a situation than an armed bozo (or See Noevo).

It was a movie, See Noevo. Indy was firing blanks. His target was acting. It's not reality.

Reality is losing a leg at 9 because, when you're sleeping over at a friends, the two of you hear a noise in the back yard and your friend's single mom hauls out a 12 gauge and accidently lets lose about five feet from you.

Reality is getting shot in the gut because some punks stole a gun in a jewelry store at night, kept under the counter, for protection, then use it to shoot you while robbing your neighborhood grocery store.

Yes, I am the victim of gun violence, the 9 year old was my neighbor and very good friend, while the second was my father-in-law at the time. and I've shot guns but own none.

I know no one who has successfully defended themselves from an armed criminal with a firearm.

"I know no one who has successfully defended themselves from an armed criminal with a firearm."

In an area where there are many people running and/or hiding, every single Good Guy With A Gun looks and often acts exactly like every single Bad Guy With A Gun ; law enforcement officers cannot tell them apart, and must assume everyone with a gun is a valid and justified target. Potential victims must also assume every Good Guy With A Gun is there to kill them.

The stupid shits walking around with hand guns and rifles in shopping malls, and in restaurants, don't seem to have the brain power to understand why sane people are required to assume the gun-holders are there to kill people.

"I know no one who has successfully defended themselves from an armed criminal with a firearm."

I might also add that when my father-in-law was shot while his grocery store was being robbed, with a gun stolen from a jewelry store where it had been kept for protection, my brother-in-law was in the back with a rifle. He coudn't get a shot off during the robbery because his dad was in the line of fire and he was afraid if he exposed himself by moving to a better spot they'd see him and open fire themselves. As it happened, they shot his father and ran out the door unscathed.

“I know no one who has successfully defended themselves from an armed criminal with a firearm.”

Happens a lot in movies. Records show it to be so rare in real life that it is almost non-existent.

"“….and that homicides involving firearms dropped from 6.6 per 100,000 in 1993 to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2000 to 3.2 per 100,000 in 2011.”

Yes, and it indicates an interesting pattern of action by folks like sn.
On the one hand the cry is that guns are needed to protect people and their property from the ever-increasing threat of assault, robbery, and murder that is plaguing the country, even though numbers show significant decreases in such things.
On the other hand, in cases like this, they lower themselves to touch on facts and say "See, nothing to worry about even though there are more guns around."
Whether they don't realize how two-faced they are, or they simply don't care, I can't tell (I do have strong suspicions).

"I might *briefly* consider giving up my guns,
as soon as the criminals, crazies and the evil no longer have guns." - SN

You *are* one of the "crazies and the evil."

Also you are stupid.

34,35

On the other hand, police officers, who receive at least some firearms training, appear to be good at defending themselves from not-armed, not-criminals who pose no threat. With deadly force.

Go figure.

Yes, the happy endings of hollywood ignore what happens in the real world of buck fever.

On the actual statistical front....

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/number-of-households-with-guns-on-the-decli…

Which brings up one of the issues Enon Zey will apparently not be addressing-- an increase in purchases, and where the guns end up.

There's no way this country will become Australia or UK or Canada, or any of those other places where it is so horrible and dangerous to live. You will always be able to drive around Montana with that rifle in your pickup. But it might be nice if people in urban centers could prevent trafficking from states with few restrictions and little enforcement.

Some 14-yr old gang initiate doesn't acquire a firearm from the local gun shop or the local bodega or from international smugglers (hollywood again). It almost certainly comes from someplace in the former Confederacy, straw-purchased and laundered through "sportsman shows" as we call them now.

But I guess illegal trafficking is protected by the constitution?

"law enforcement officers cannot tell them apart"

True. One veteran, John Parker, was on the campus, was carrying a sidearm, and made just such a comment:

“Luckily we made the choice not to get involved,” he explained. “We were quite a distance away from the building where this was happening. And we could have opened ourselves up to be potential targets ourselves, and not knowing where SWAT was, their response time, they wouldn’t know who we were. And if we had our guns ready to shoot, they could think that we were bad guys.”

One of my students, a former Green Beret (who, I will assume, knew something about handling weapons) talked to me shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings some years ago. He was much less polite about the "citizen loons with guns" so many claimed could have stopped that. Essentially, his argument was "shooting at targets in a training range teaches you how to avoid shooting your nuts off and qualify to have a gun. It doesn't teach you shit about how to handle a gun in a situation where there are other people around, with at least one person shooting back. It's hard to teach us those skills in the military. Civilians with guns in that situation are as useless as balls on a priest."

Yes, anecdotes are not data points, but it is an interesting view.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/armed-vet-destroys-gun-nuts-argument-on…

http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/2012/12/the-greater-the-number-of-gu…

Me: “… privately owned firearms in America went from 192 million in 1994 to 310 million in 2009, and that homicides involving firearms dropped from 6.6 per 100,000 in 1993 to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2000 to 3.2 per 100,000 in 2011.”

Desert-baked: “Indeed, cleaner air and water, and the end of the Bush2 Recession, and an increasing secular population, has lowered the number of almost all crimes in the USA.”

That’s different.
A global warmer/liberal saying
1)our air and water are getting cleaner,
2)the cleaner air and water is a crime stopper, and
3)fewer religious people means fewer crimes.

"A global warmer/liberal saying"

A what?

"1) our air and water are getting cleaner,"

Our? No. The, yes.

"2) the cleaner air and water is a crime stopper, and"

Stop? No. Decrease, yes. It is an observed fact that when pollution in an area increases, crime increases. When pollution in an area decreases, crime decreases. The single greatest step any and all countries can take to reduce violent crime is to reduce environmental lead.

"3) fewer religious people means fewer crimes."

Yes, that is also an observed fact. The less religious a country is, the less violent it is and the fewer crimes. Even in the USA, the fewer religious people in each state correlates with fewer crimes; I gave a presentation on the subject, using FBI data and religious affiliation survey data.

Did you have a point? I stated three facts regarding why murder has been decreasing in the USA, and you repeated them. Why?

By the way, violence is also associated with ambient heat; as the world continues to warm, violence will continue to rise.

To dhogaza #34:

“I know no one who has successfully defended themselves from an armed criminal with a firearm.”

I don’t think I do either.
But I’ve read of a lot of people who defended themselves or stopped crimes with firearms. For almost two years I was keeping a file of news stories about such. I saw about two per month on average. Here are a couple:

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2014/07/03/wheelchair-…

http://www.waff.com/story/25182262/burglary-suspect-recovering-from-gun…

Regarding the story in #43:

Questions for (concealed-carrying against school policy) veteran John Parker:

1)“Saying he does conceal carry in case “I’m in close proximity” to an incident where he might try to save some lives…”:
Would Parker have used his firearm if he HAD BEEN in close proximity to the shooter, and had not been quite a distance away from the building where this was happening?

2)“Parker admitted he’s not the type who believes that “there’s always somebody out there behind your back ready to do something like this.”:
Who in this world DOES believe this? I don’t know of anyone who believes this.

This is a question for Desertphile or anyone who lives in an area as he describes (#49) where people actually do carry guns in malls and restaurants.

WTF do the police do? What does a citizen do? Ignore it? In my part of the country, 911 would be flooded with calls.

"This is a question for Desertphile or anyone who lives in an area as he describes (#49) where people actually do carry guns in malls and restaurants. WTF do the police do? What does a citizen do? Ignore it? In my part of the country, 911 would be flooded with calls."

It is extremely rare that some asshole will carry a firearm into a business where I live. Where I live (the poorest region of northern New Mexico), rifles and hand guns are handled by almost everyone, from a young age; they are necessary tools when working cattle from horseback when up on the remote mesas and isolated canyons, and the Jicarilla Apaches hunt deer and elk as a family duty (a man who cannot or will not, is not a man). So we understand how goddamn bloody dangerous it is to carry firearms, and we don't do so in public places and in businesses.

It's the young white Anglo males from the cities that are the problems. When they show up with a pistol in their pants waistband or a rifle hung on a shoulder (which thankfully is extremely rare in Northern New Mexico), we call the state police and the police rush into the area by the dozens. The police rightfully must assume that anyone with a firearm in a public place is there to kill people.

That is not the case in most areas of Arizona, and parts of west Texas. The local culture is accustomed to seeing men with hand guns at hardware stores and driving in bars. People do not call the police when they see this, because it has been the case for over 100 years and is nothing new.

No Pueblo Indian, Apache, Genizaro, Mexican, or cattle worker in Northern New Mexico would ever think a hand gun is appropriate to have on a college campus, as a student or staff. It's the lazy, uneducated, coddled, obese, self-entitled, angry, frightened, pasty-white young males that do, and that's cause for concern.

See Novo: Regarding "Desert-baked: “Indeed, cleaner air and water, and the end of the Bush2 Recession, and an increasing secular population, has lowered the number of almost all crimes in the USA.”"

Start being respectful to your fellow commenters by not messing up their names, please.

The association between how many guns, the nature of gun laws, and the number and nature of homicides is complex and it is easy to cherry pick and find whatever you want. It is not surprising to me that the complexity is beyond the capacities of many individuals who also happen to be climate science deniers, because that is also complex.

Anyway, there is an overall association between numbers of guns and amount of killing and death/injury. But some of the hikes in numbers (like the Obama Gun Crisis spikes) are people who already own guns buying more guns. that would be an example of complexity. Cases where gun laws are restrictive or more numerous are often associated with regions where there has been a lot of gun related morbidity and mortality. Band aids are found more often on wounds than on non-wounds. This is expected. Also, it is complex.

Overall, though, more guns = more bullets hitting more people.

I added an interesting chart to the end of the post because I thought it related to this discussion.

Sn, is it imposible for you to fins anything on your own. First did you read his comment and understand it?

Google his name and you can find his article. In case you are too lazy to do that (as you always seem to be) he also said he and other students were taken into a classroom by a faculty member who locked the door. The faculty member asked if anyone was armed in case the gunman made it to their roo. He (the veteran inquoted) said he was and in the article said he would have used ilhis weapon if the need arose there.
I'm not sure how you mablnage to misinterpret the rest of his comment. I'm guessing it was intentional on your part, as usual.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/02/gun_control_by_state_…

"But I’ve read of a lot of people who defended themselves or stopped crimes with firearms. "

That would be amazing, because official records show it is extremely rare.
I should say - it would be amazing if the reports you read were real - I have no doubt there are many fake stories floating around.

"That would be amazing, because official records show it is extremely rare. I should say – it would be amazing if the reports you read were real – I have no doubt there are many fake stories floating around."

Indeed, many of the "a gun saved my life" stories appear to by mythical.

Some people argue that hand guns deter violence. The problem with that argument is that so damn many USA citizens don't give a shit if they die, or they have no idea what death means (no, really). People handle guns as if they are toys. In the most recent Los Angeles riot, there are videos of people threatening looters with hand guns, and the looters showed no worry or concern at all at lethal threat.

Greg, with reference to #50, I think President Obama did a pretty good job of un-complicating it. He pointed out that there are angry young men in other countries, there's crime in other countries, there's mental instability in other countries.

While he didn't use the expression, Ockham's Razor cuts quite cleanly here. Is there something special about our angry, criminal, disturbed young men? Is being homicidal one of the things that makes us exceptional?

Or is it simply that the easy availability of guns makes for more deaths when those individuals act out according to their natures?

This is the kind of question for which the term "no-brainer" was invented. We don't need fancy statistical analysis, just common sense.

To Greg Laden #50:

The ‘violence & guns’ issue may be intricate, indeed.
You used a form of the word “association” three times, and of “complex” five times,
but “cause” not once.

“Overall, though, more guns = more bullets hitting more people.”

And overall, more cars = more traffic fatalities.

Maybe we should ban cars, too. It might even help with global warming!

Me: “But I’ve read of a lot of people who defended themselves or stopped crimes with firearms. For almost two years I was keeping a file of news stories about such. I saw about two per month on average. Here are a couple…”
And here are a couple more:

http://wbtw.com/2014/10/21/1-dead-after-nc-grandfather-fires-back-at-tr…

http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/Suspect-Shot-by-Homeowner-during-Bur…

Here’s another, this one from my area:

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Man-Shot-in-the-Chest-Inside-…

This one happened about ten minutes from where I live:

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/suspected-robber-toy-gun-s…

To zebra #54:

“…President Obama did a pretty good job of un-complicating it. He pointed out that there are angry young men in other countries, there’s crime in other countries, there’s mental instability in other countries…Is there something special about our angry, criminal, disturbed young men? Is being homicidal one of the things that makes us exceptional? Or is it simply that the easy availability of guns makes for more deaths when those individuals act out according to their natures? This is the kind of question for which the term “no-brainer” was invented. We don’t need fancy statistical analysis, just common sense.”

Your argument does SEEM to be a “no-brainer”.

Unfortunately for you and President Obama, one of the OTHER things that makes the U.S. exceptional is our Constitution and its Second Amendment. It’ll be tough to change those.

Also, I’m not sure things are so much better in other countries that are less-gunny than us.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Eur…

From the linked article:

“Politicians sell you emergency when they want to take something away from you. Terrorists are not the only people who know that a scared population is a compliant population.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425029/mass-shootings-umpqua-drama

"Who in this world DOES believe this? I don’t know of anyone who believes this."

So, why carry guns in public?

One of my facebook friends was quoting this tale about the 11 yo girl shooting two illegal immigrants, not realizing it was false:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/homeinvasion.asp

It’s the young white Anglo males from the cities that are the problems.

Yeah, we have a bunch of young-to-middle aged white guys on the east side of Michigan who are currently all butt-hurt because one of their group was removed from an elementary school when he sauntered in with a pistol in a holster on his waist.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/shooting-outside-police-headquarters-in-parra…

They should make a law against this kind of thing. (outside a police station, no less)

Greg:

Thank you for posting that chart at the bottom of the post.

Very interesting.

I also live in Minnesota and have a permit to carry (although I own no firearms).

I obtained one just to exercise my 2nd amendment right (and for fun).

One nice feature of the permit to carry in Minnesota is that you are pre-cleared, so you can obtain a handgun without the waiting period - just walk in and walk out with a weapon (if you needed one fast for the zombie apocalypse).

You can already get a rifle in Minnesota without a waiting period - the waiting period is just for handguns (at least that is my understanding).

It was pretty easy to get a permit to carry in Minnesota - take a four hour class, demonstrate proficiency (shooting 15 rounds at 15 feet and 15 rounds at 25 feet, if I recall correctly - pretty easy) and fill out a form and pay a fee.

You get a nice card and everything.

It also shows on the back of your drivers license.

What is your perspective on the chart and where Minnesota falls?

From my perspective, Minnesota is pretty low among states, and I wonder if you think we are an anomaly?

Just curious.

By the way - thanks for not banning me from your site.

You are very tolerant in letting me post about global warming, and I really appreciate it and enjoy your site and sparring with your other guests.

"By the way – thanks for not banning me from your site."

Thank you for doing nothing worthy of being banned for.

RickA,

First, the chart is a bit misleading in the sense that there are background checks. The question is, where do most Minnesotans buy their guns? What percentage of guns are linked to background checks?

In any event, as I said above, the relationship is complex. More gun laws can reduce gun misuse. Or, more gun laws can be a response to widespread violence from guns. That is the reason that the chart is made the way it is. The blue blocks are meant to demonstrate the overall gestalt of the legal and social response to gun ownership, and this grades as expected under the hypothesis that more regulation generally reduces the violence.

Note that in Minnesota the vast majority of citizens want universal background checks. The reason there is not such a rule is because our legislature/governor have almost always been "mixed government" (neither DFL nor GOP in charge in all houses/branches) or GOP only, for a long time. We had a brief DFL only government, but they were swamped with fixing up the mess left behind by a GOP/GOP/GOP mix for several years. Background checks were proposed, opposed in the legislature by the minority, supported by the citizens, but the gun lobby won.

Expect the background check boxes for this chart in Minnesota to turn blue eventually.

ron, is there anything resembling a point for your post at 67, or are you just pulling an sn?

I agree that background checks are inevitable in Minnesota and probably in the entire United States.

With the permit to carry in Minnesota - it includes a background check - and really it would be fine with me if they did a background check before someone purchased their first gun.

Not sure how many times you need to do it - but maybe every 5 years (like the permit to carry renewal).

By the way - I should also say that I don't think a background check violates the 2nd amendment.

So that sort of legislation, so look for mentally ill people, is probably fine.

On the other hand - since so many of the gun deaths are suicide related (like 2/3rds), I think barring anyone who ever attempted to commit suicide (and obviously failed) from getting a gun, just because they tried to commit suicide - would probably not be held constitutional.

I guess it also depends on your definition of mental illness - do only mentally ill people commit suicide? What about terminally ill people?

Do we bar people with depression or bipolar disorder from getting guns?

I see a lot of grey areas and difficulties with background checks and trying to only find mental illnesses which might increase the risk of harm to others (as opposed to the person who buys the gun harming themselves).

I actually see the right to die becoming a personal right at some point (who is the government to tell me I cannot kill myself)?

After all - most of the anti-suicide laws are religious in nature .

#70 People in favor of "common sense" gun laws, who wish to disarm the law abiding populace in order to disarm the criminal underclass often point to Australia as an example of positive reform. The link in #67 demonstrates that there are still events where criminals get their hands on firearms and use them to kill people, even when response times from police are absolutely minimal (as this occurred just outside a police station).

From the story:
"A police source said there had been increased "chatter" detected in the past week relating to a possible attack on the Parramatta headquarters.

The officer, who works at the State Crime Command headquarters, said that every officer had been ordered to wear their guns on them at all times this week, even while at their desks."

So, in response to "chatter", there was an order to keep weapons handy. If weapons were not at hand, one can imagine the carnage would have been much greater.

It doesn't get much more "common sense" than that, thanks for asking.

To Desertphile #63:

“Did you have a point? I stated three facts regarding why murder has been decreasing in the USA, and you repeated them. Why?”

Why? For entertainment value.

In fact some of them are so good I’ll show them again:

-‘OUR air and water are NOT getting cleaner, but THE air and water ARE getting cleaner.’

-“It is an observed fact that when pollution in an area increases, crime increases. When pollution in an area decreases, crime decreases. The single greatest step any and all countries can take to reduce violent crime is to reduce environmental lead.”

-“The less religious a country is, the less violent it is and the fewer crimes. Even in the USA, the fewer religious people in each state correlates with fewer crimes.”

It was pretty easy to get a permit to carry in Minnesota – take a four hour class, demonstrate proficiency ... and fill out a form and pay a fee.

Which is inadequate. All states should require not only demonstrating proficiency in how to correctly point and discharge a firearm, but also demonstrate:

* Proficiency in safety issues, safety features, etc. I.e., show that you know how to be sure that a loaded gun only ends up in the right hands under the right circumstances.

* Proficient knowledge of the laws and legal issues surrounding shooting another human being (civil and criminal). I.e., know what you're going to face when you decide to shoot vs finding another solution to your "situation".

* Proficiency in treating gunshot trauma victims (suicide attempts, accidental discharge, kids playing with guns, domestic violence victims) -- to the level of being able to increase the odds of their survival until paramedics arrive to take over.

Do we bar people with depression or bipolar disorder from getting guns?

If you don't, you might as well advocate for allowing children to carry loaded guns, too. You'll get similar results in the end.

RickA, Ron,

Most of the time, the problem with these discussions is that there is no specificity, which leads to rhetorical fallacies cropping up--like the Nirvana Fallacy (it isn't a good idea because it wouldn't be perfect) and Slippery Slope (if guns are registered they will be confiscated).

So, as I've mentioned a couple of times, we have a problem with trafficking, because individuals are allowed to sell guns to other individuals, and of course there are no real background checks when that happens. This provides access for gang members and the mentally ill as well.

How would you fix that? Or does the second amendment say something about your ability to sell your gun to your cousin, who may be a little shady, or a little unstable, so you have a constitutional right to do that?

And what does it say about buying dozens of handguns and not being required to account for them-- is that a part of "keeping and bearing arms" by an individual as interpreted by SCOTUS?

These are the kinds of common sense issues that most people would probably agree need to be addressed. What do you think?

Brainstorms 77,

This obsession with the mentally ill is just a red herring-- and equating people suffering from depression with children is both absurd and offensive.

Brainstorms #76:

Gun safety and the legal issues is part of the 4 hours.

No treating gunshot trauma required in Minnesota.

I guess that will be up to each state.

Here is an idea (just running it by you):

Draft everybody when they turn 18 for a 2 week intensive training course in firearm safety, medical stuff as you outline above, and reactive fire in a crowd training, etc.

Then make everybody do a weekend per year to brush up on their skills.

Then require everybody to own a firearm and allow them to carry it if they want (carry optional).

I think the Federal Government could also do that - what do you think of that idea?

#78 A bit off topic, but suicides are regularly cited as a reason to restrict Rights also. A woman just used drain cleaner to blind herself. http://tinyurl.com/pu28mb7 Shall we ban all things that are harmful to humans? Sometimes people misuse products. http://tinyurl.com/pjfbdmw I hear you saying that weapons are designed to do what they are doing...but I believe weapons can be used virtuously. You do too, that's why you call the cops, to virtuously use their weapons.

Prisons are very secure. Even so, contraband finds its way in. http://tinyurl.com/oyvmuja That's when you ARE treating everyone like a criminal. On the free side of society, we're supposed to give people liberty.

SCOTUS is not the final authority, nor should it be (Dred Scott?). I can appreciate that now it's become the ATM for Uber Rights based on behavior instead of immutable characteristics that you might agree with them, but I won't even cite Heller or McDonald in order to dash your faith in that august group.

Trafficking is a problem, but why would another set of laws change anything? Background checks are a joke (less than 6% of "prohibited people" caught applying are prosecuted http://tinyurl.com/d65aedq ).

How would I address these issues? I would not begin with civil government having final authority over the matter, because they simply don't. Civil govt isn't around when someone wants to break the law. This is where a strong family unit and upward mobility (aka hope and effort towards a better future) govern one's actions. But when all the available energy is being pumped into destroying the economy and the family unit (aka societal deterioration), you shouldn't be surprised that people misuse a product that can be used virtuously.

zebra:

Yep - those are tough problems you outline.

The 2nd amendment would permit registration laws (you get to keep and bear, but you have to disclose).

If you had a garage sale and sold firearms, a law could require you to register the new owner (like a car title).

You could even require a background check and waiting period before you transfer the property to the new owner.

A good registration law would take care of both the number and resale of guns (and background checks). A gun is like any other piece of personal property - so if the government wanted to, they could make you register how many lawn chairs you own, and who you sell them to (i.e. at a garage sale).

Of course, they wouldn't do it for lawn chairs - but they could if they wanted.

Same thing for guns - they could if they wanted.

I am not advocating this - just saying how your problems could be addressed with a constitutional law.

You could also make it illegal to resell a gun with no serial no. - but that is already illegal and happens all the time so never mind.

Criminals will not abide by any of the laws I am talking about anyway.

Brainstorms #77:

I doubt the depressed or bipolar would agree with you.

How long would you preclude them from getting a gun?

What if a depressed woman had a stalker?

What if a depressed woman had a restraining order?

What if a depressed person had completed treatment and were not symptomatic?
For 1 year or 5 or 10 or 20?

What if you were misdiagnosed as depressed?

You see the legal morass you are getting into with this line of thinking?

Lots of potential problems.

Still, I am sure something fairly minor could be enacted - but I am not sure how much good it will do.

It is a little bit like passing a law wishing that people would just be nice to each other.

zebra, I was not equating people suffering from depression with children. Accusing me of doing so is both absurd and offensive.

I was equating outcomes from giving both groups loaded weapons.

I expect you to discern the difference.

Apparently sn is also ignorant of any results from social statistics, and doesn't think environmental lead is a hazard (or if it is people should just move away). That's the result of never learning math past basic addition and subtraction and never studying "anything that doesn't have a direct application" - at least in his point of view.

Here in Michigan the city of Flint has been having no end of problems with its water supply since a governor-appointed city manager moved them off a supply of water from Detroit "to save money". The reason they were on Detroit water was because of problems with the infrastructure in Flint being outdated, with massive lead problems. Now tests show the local water, in homes and schools, has nasty high lead levels (not that there is a safe lead level) and the recommendation from government to date has been: don't drink the water, buy bottled water. Not a viable option for many of the residents of the city, or for the school district. (Of course, as one tea-bager in the region said on a news site, "If a kid's family can't afford bottled water he wouldn't have a chance of success anyway." Right up sn's alley, write off a generation because they don't have the benefits he enjoys. We also know that the local/state government had not done the required safety/health investigations of the infrastructure, and did not have a plan in place to deal with problems such as this.

http://flintwaterstudy.org/2015/09/commentary-mdeq-mistakes-deception-f…

Thanks Governor Snyder.

(Latest discussions lean toward putting the city back on the pipeline from Detroit, but without the state picking up the tab, leaving that for the city. Because why should a state government be concerned with the health of residents it put at danger?)

The link in #67 demonstrates that there are still events where criminals get their hands on firearms and use them to kill people,

Yes it does. The only people who try to claim that the types of laws discussed here will magically stop people who want to get a gun and do something from doing it are the people misrepresenting the intent of the laws.
The point is that we have ample evidence that shows such laws do not hinder gun rights but do result in a reduction of gun crime - partly by their existence, partly by the increased enforcement.

Rick A

"Criminals will not abide by any of the laws I am talking about anyway."

As opposed to the kind of laws criminals will abide by?

So, you are basically making the Nirvana Fallacy argument. It will not be perfect. But no laws are perfect in their implementation, so you would then logically have to argue that we should have no laws at all. You are obviously smarter than that, but you are trying to defend an indefensible position.

The government doesn't register lawn chair sales because it can't demonstrate a compelling interest. It does regulate automobile sales. That's because autos are items that can be stolen easily and resold, and requiring title transfers inhibits that process. Not perfectly, since VIN numbers can also be fudged, but it makes it much riskier and not nearly as profitable net.

There is no reason for anyone to buy dozens of handguns, but even if you argue that you are a collector, you should not object to demonstrating that the items are in your possession on demand. If, indeed, we have a law that requires sales to be made through licensed businesses or registered with at state agency, that's hardly a burden.

I think Hillary and Bernie (and Biden?) should put ‘more aggressive gun control measures’ at the top of their respective presidential platforms.

Don’t you?

RickA #83: You see the legal morass you are getting into with this line of thinking? Lots of potential problems.

These are not hypotheticals; we already have analogues in our laws:

Someone is diagnosed with epilepsy or macular degeneration... Does the DMV allow them to keep their driver's license?

Do you want them to?

Why does the DMV not allow 14-year-olds to get a driver's license?

Do you want them to?

How about for convicted drink drivers?

"You see the legal morass you are already in with this line of thinking? Lots of potential problems."

88 "I think Hillary and Bernie (and Biden?) should put ‘more aggressive gun control measures’ at the top of their respective presidential platforms."

Why do you think that?

"I think Hillary and Bernie (and Biden?) should put ‘more aggressive gun control measures’ at the top of their respective presidential platforms."

Why do you think that?

He doesn't "think" it, I suspect. He wishes to believe that politicians who say they wish to prevent firearm murders are committing political suicide; he is of course correct--- the USA's culture of death and fear would never allow voters to support measures preventing murder by hand guns and rifles. USA citizens love killing and mailing people easily and from a distance: it's as American as Napalm from 30,000 feet.

I like the idea being spread around Facebook at the moment:

“How about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion — mandatory 48-hr waiting period, parental permission, a note from his doctor proving he understands what he’s about to do, a video he has to watch about the effects of gun violence, an ultrasound wand up the ass (just because).

“Let’s close down all but one gun shop in every state and make him travel hundreds of miles, take time off work, and stay overnight in a strange town to get a gun. Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and beg him not to buy a gun.

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

To Desertphile #91:

“I mean, no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?”

Right. But tens of millions of women have killed over 55 million other people in the U.S. in the last 40 years.

"Right. But tens of millions of women have killed over 55 million other people in the U.S. in the last 40 years."

Heh. Why was that not mentioned in any news media?

To Desertphile:

You’re ready and willing to surrender your .45 caliber pistol and rifle and 2,000 rounds, aren’t you?

I wouldn’t be.

But you are, right?

"You’re ready and willing to surrender your .45 caliber pistol and rifle and 2,000 rounds, aren’t you?"

Huh? I don't get it, sorry. Why in the world would I wish to "surrender" my weapons?

Heard this on the radio news today :

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-06/us-boy-kills-eight-year-old-girl-…

This sort of ... just has to stop doesn't it?

@88. See Noevo : I think Obama should act and start adding reasonable gun laws into the US legal system right now. I think the other politicians form both parties should support him on that too.

I wish I could see that happen although I know it won't.

To Greg Laden #90:

Me: “I think Hillary and Bernie (and Biden?) should put ‘more aggressive gun control measures’ at the top of their respective presidential platforms. Don’t you?”

You: “Why do you think that?”

Well, for starters, for all the reasons you cite.
Please re-read both your piece and President Obama’s statement http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/10/02/president-obamas-statement….

At a minimum, ‘more aggressive gun control measures’ should be in the top two of their platform positions.

The other, of course, would be ‘more aggressive measures to combat anthropogenic global warming/climate change’.

And the more detailed the policy positions with their impacts on the various stakeholders, the better.

It’s the only right and decent thing to do, for them and for you.

@Brainstorms,

The incident StevoR references should give some insight into why you can't focus on the mentally ill in this context. The issue is the gun culture, not the aberrant behavior of the individual.

When I was in elementary school, there was this classic bully-- the kid who got a growth spurt, and was also really heavy (for those days), and who physically tormented everyone during recess. One day, he tormented me one too many times-- the really skinny little kid in the class. It was my first fight, and I had no clue what I was doing-- but I had rage, and I was fast and well coordinated. I remember this still because I went far beyond knocking him down, and got in some serious trouble over it. No psych counseling unfortunately in those days, and it took a lot of time and trouble before I worked it (mostly) out.

But there was no shotgun in the schoolyard, and in all the tv westerns I watched, the good guy never pulled his gun except as a last resort. If not for that rage, I might have been the hero, and maybe there would have been a hollywood ending where we became good buddies as we matured.

If you look at the rage shooters-- ex-wife, family, that little girl-- it is pretty much what I did as a child. They lose it, but the culture says shooting is the first resort, and the guns are there. No chance at all for a hollywood ending, or even eventually growing up and rejecting violence.

If you look at the history of most of the planned mass shooters, they are not hearing voices or hallucinating. They have personality issues, and are immature, and internalize some distorted, paranoid view of the world, and again guns are part of their coping mechanism. My goodness, now we have two at least living with their mothers who take them to the shooting range?

And in the criminal culture, the same applies. It isn't the Jets and Sharks fighting it out with knives and chains, where the appearance of a gun is a Big Deal. SN points out that there is violence in the UK; yep, and something like one fifth of the homicide rate. Go figure.

It isn't about mental illness, and it isn't even about safety training. It's what Desertphile says-- it's about recognizing firearms as tools, not ornaments or statements, or, as you described early on, as a psychological defense against the insecurities imposed on us by just-- reality. The gun culture makes that exceedingly difficult.

Brainstorms #89:

Good examples.

In Minnesota getting diagnosed with epilepsy or macular degeneration does not result in lose of drivers license.

If you have a seizure while driving - you are supposed to report it and then be seizure free for 3 months before getting permission to drive again.

For vision issues - you have to fail the drivers renewal test.

14 year olds can drive on the farm in Minnesota and many do (and own guns).

So you are correct - these are real world issues and the response to these are nuanced and do not demonstrate that all mentally ill people will be banned from owning guns just because they are depressed or bipolar.

I am afraid gun control is not a very simple issue, and background checks, while they can certainly be beefed up, will not stop future mass shootings.

Especially if the nuance which your examples demonstrate are extended to mental illness (which they will be).

Zebra #93:

Yes - it seems to me that these most recent mass shooting are not rage shootings.

They are well planned, cool, calculated events, committed by people who all obtained guns legally, well in advance of their actions.

I think this is a way young people are committing suicide, death by mass killing.

If they don't get shot - they kill themselves.

Not sure how to stop it - because even if all guns were taken away, I am sure this type of person would still find a way to die by mass killing.

" I think Obama should act and start adding reasonable gun laws into the US legal system right now. I think the other politicians form both parties should support him on that too."

The phrase "both parties" implies the USA only has two political parties.

"Huh? I don’t get it, sorry. Why in the world would I wish to “surrender” my weapons?"

I'll take a stab at it:
Because you're a victim and don't know it. If they can take away your slaves, they can and will do absolutely anything. Now is not the time for reason. It is not the time for understanding or nuance or complexity. Now is the time for blind hysteria, paranoia, and berserk whininess against the pagans who refuse to live in the nineteenth century bible belt. For verily the Lord sayeth unto you hug thou, kiss, and fondle your assault weapons lest ye be barbecued and eaten by liberals and goblins. Lo! Verily! And Hallelujah!

Plus mindlessness is fun and easy.

To Desertphile #100:

Me: “You’re ready and willing to surrender your .45 caliber pistol and rifle and 2,000 rounds, aren’t you?”

You: “Huh? I don’t get it, sorry. Why in the world would I wish to “surrender” my weapons?”

Well, in THIS world, if you lived in Australia, would you have refused to surrender your .45 caliber pistol and rifle and 2,000 rounds?

Hopefully, this comment comes out of "moderation" soon. (I didn't bring up abortion, Desertphile did.)

To Desertphile #91:

“I mean, no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?”

Right. But tens of millions of women have killed over 55 million other people in the U.S. in the last 40 years.

Desertphile, sn doesn't need to give a reason for what he says, the fact that he says something automatically means it is correct. /snark

You have to wonder how he would respond to a demand that the Republican "candidates" remove all the bigotry, racism, and outright lies from their campaigns.
I doubt he would endorse removal of things that are fact free, as are the positions and statements from the right: he only has problems with things that are fact based.

Zebra: The incident StevoR references should give some insight into why you can’t focus on the mentally ill in this context.

I'm not. But you sure are. Your emotional issues over it seem to have blinded you to where you can't see the simple point that was being made. This isn't about the mentally ill. I suggest you just drop it.

RickA: I am afraid gun control is not a very simple issue, and background checks, while they can certainly be beefed up, will not stop future mass shootings.

I'm glad that you got the point. We cannot simply wave the 2nd Amendment over our heads and say, "The Bill of Rights is clear and obvious: Guns For Everyone!"

There are many dangerous things in the world that are regulated & restricted by society. There are many situations and conditions of people that necessarily restrict what they can & can't do and what they can & can't possess, all in the interests of public safety.

Guns are not excluded from these considerations, the 2nd Amendment notwithstanding. Just because the 2nd Amendment does not explicitly prohibit allowing 12-year-olds to buy guns and ammo does not mean that it's allowable. The same reasoning holds true for a number of other members of society.

Brainstorms #104:

I agree that guns are not excluded from these considerations.

Unlike most kinds of dangerous things however, the second amendment is added protection over and above most items, applied to guns.

So a knee jerk ban on the sale of guns in Minnesota (as an example) will never survive a constitutional challenge.

Ditto for a city (say Minneapolis) - cannot do it.

No law taking away peoples guns will survive a constitutional challenge.

You could buy them - if the decision to sell was voluntary - that would be constitutional.

You can certainly do background checks - if a state or the federal government wants to.

Where you have to be nuanced is the reasons why you might fail a background check.

Since the 2nd amendment is a fundamental right, on the same par as freedom of speech or your fourth amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure - the law will have to be nuanced or it will get struck down.

That is my only point.

With 350,000,000 guns already in the USA - and more being made and sold everyday - there is just not a lot we can do about this problem - except maybe try to make it uncool to commit suicide by mass murder.

By the way - what did you think of my idea up above in #82.

With a republican house, senate and President, there is no reason the government couldn't do what I suggested.

After all - if they can make us buy insurance, why not a gun?

They already have the power to draft - so why couldn't it be for just 2 weeks?

There are a lot of people who do go the other way - and argue that if everybody was armed (and trained to use them in a crowd), that would be a better solution than trying to reduce the number of guns.

How would you feel if the government ordered you to buy a weapon?

It is always interesting to look at things from a different perspective - because it could happen.

Interesting article from Volokh conspiracy, which is pertinent to this post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/06/zer…

The 2nd Amendment gives you the right to own a gun.

The 2nd Amendment does not give you the right to own explosives, explosive chemical precursors, cartridges, primers, fuses, or any type of ammunition.

Let them buy guns. Keep the ammo in the armories. Then we're safe, and the gun enthusiasts can have their guns.

That's probably about as win-win as you're going to get, and no one's fundamental constitutional rights will be violated.

Re: A lot of people argue the other way. How would you feel if the government ordered you to...[insert pointless demonstration of pique here]...?

There are a lot of people who argue baloney. This is why reason matters.

Brainstorms #110:

Yeah - that won't work.

Heller basically said a gun which cannot fire bullets is useless and struck down the law in question (requiring keep the gun safed, unloaded and ammo in a different room).

Keeping the ammo in an armory would be like requiring your gun to be unloaded and the ammo in a different room - except even more useless if you needed to shoot an intruder (please wait while I drive to the armory and get my ammo).

A gun without ammo is going to violate the right to keep and bear arms - so that won't be an option.

Sorry. That is not even a realistic option.

#106 Brainstorms, you are the one being emotional with your earlier rant about what would properly be described as Authoritarian Personality. I'm being practical, but my opinions are informed by some life experience beyond video games and social media, so I'm sharing some of that. I don't care about sticking it to "those people", because I'm just an AP person who happens to be "on the other side". And as I've said, there are reasonable people with reasonable reasons to have firearms.

I'm trying to deal with how to fix a problem.

I'm also informed by having followed this debate for a while, and there is just a lot of nonsense being spouted. The second amendment, even as interpreted by this ridiculous SCOTUS majority, is not the issue. Take away the second amendment, and the problem would remain. Take away the mentally ill, and the problem would remain. You are simply spouting the NRA position, while at the same time claiming you want a solution. That's how good, as President Obama said, their propaganda machine is.

"because I'm not just an AP person who happens to be on the other side."

Obstreperous Applesauce #111:

The fact you think my idea is unreasonable doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

Sure - you think it is baloney.

But it would be a better deterrent than trying to get rid of 350,000,000 guns which are already here.

My only point is my idea is constitutional - and could therefore happen.

Training everyone is as they turn 18 would sure cut down on accidents.

Other countrys do this. Switzerland and Israel come to mind.

Having everyone over 18 trained and armed would really cut down on death by mass killing (in my opinion) and would probably keep the body count per incident down also.

Something to think about.

"which is pertinent to this post:"

Marginally. The discussion here centers on gun deaths: that article deals with total homicide rate (gun + other means). As has been pointed out here, gun deaths, other than by suicide, are at almost historic lows now. (It is also true that areas with more stringent gun laws tend to have lower gun-death rates. It's an association, not a universal law.)
The point of that article is that there is no meaningful association between gun laws and overall homicide rate (not just homicide by shooting). That isn't a surprise: the coupling of low incidence of gun deaths with the larger incidence of death by other methods washes out the association with gun laws - laws aimed at only one type of homicide.
I found it a pleasant thing that he included the data he used - I saved it to look at later.
That post and this one tackle two different things: here the discussion is focused on gun deaths, there it is a discussion of homicide rate in general.

Lets think through the different solutions to this problem.

1. Take. As in take away all guns. This will never happen.
2. Buy. As in offer to buy all guns. Could offer, many will not sell. I bet desertphile wouldn't sell (for example).
3. Register. As in have everyone report every gun they own. Could happen - not unconstitutional. I would question the compliance rate. What good does this information do for us?
4. Check. Background check at point of purchase. Could be done. Last few mass killings all passed this hurdle, so how useful is it?
5. Mandatory mental exam for everybody - then flag crazies not to be able to buy weapons in the future. Unconstitutional.
6. Make mass killings illegal. Check - already done.
7. Tech to prevent a weapon from firing on innocent people - science fiction - not possible yet.
8. Tech to prevent a weapon from firing without biometric registration - could be done - won't stop crazy from using a weapon they purchased legally, but would cut down on stolen weapons being used improperly.
9. Laws related to ammo - like only 2 bullets per clip. Could probably do. I bet human ingenuity would create huge aftermarket to fix this (like 3D guns, etc.).

Can you guys think of anything else?

#110 For each of the 350,000,000 firearms out there, how many rounds of ammunition do you think there are? More than zero? More than 1? Over/under 50...100...more?

RickA -- 116

No. You missed my point. How I FEEL about your hypothetical is irrelevant. I do THINK that your hypothetical is beside the point however, and that it says more about how you feel about government than what I think about gun control.

Further, gun control is not the same as getting rid of all the guns. You are simply being manipulative.

RickA,

OA is just being polite by saying that you are being manipulative-- what you are doing is trolling, and not very interesting trolling at that.

There is no perfect solution to the multiple problems created by the US gun culture. That doesn't mean that changes in the laws would not have a beneficial effect, without excessively burdening those who would like to own guns.

The first step is to eliminate individuals selling to individuals.
The second step is to share all transaction records with law enforcement, including LE from different states and the feds.
The third step is to require liability insurance, as with automobiles. That way, market forces will operate to improve general safety practices.
Fourth, require that purchasers of more than say 4 firearms demonstrate that all previous purchases are in their possession or sold to a licensed, brick-and-mortar business.
And so on.

Not that hard to figure out and implement. Local laws like CC would vary of course, and local LE would be able to pay attention (or not) to what might be considered dangerous individuals who also have guns.

It's all about responsibility.

“RickA, OA is just being polite by saying that you are being manipulative– what you are doing is trolling, and not very interesting trolling at that.”

RickA,
In case you haven’t noticed yet, zebra’s and Scienceblogs’ definition of “troll” is
“anyone who posts comments which disagree with them and with the liberal agenda (e.g. gun control, global warming/climate change, abortion, evolution, etc.).

It makes no difference how extensive and persuasive your arguments are. If zebra and the others here at Scienceblogs don’t like your arguments, you’re a “troll”.

"It makes no difference how extensive and persuasive your arguments are. "

You would not know that since you've never had any extensive argument or point supported by data. You don't even read the articles you present.

zebra #121

Your point #2 could be done by law - I don't see any legal issue with that.

Your point #1 - I don't know how you do that. Passing a law that you cannot sell an item of personal property? I don't know what the laws of Minnesota are on this? I have heard of scalping laws for resale of tickets - not sure about alcohol or cigarettes to another adult? So I will put this down as a maybe. Is this a taking? Not sure about that either. Could the state of minnesota bar me from selling any item of property? A car, a house, . . . Not sure this would pass the legislature even if it was constitutional.

Your 3rd point is interesting - liability insurance for what?

If you use the gun to commit a crime yourself (like a mass shooting), no insurance claim would be paid (the intentional criminal act voids insurance).

If the gun is stolen, you are off the hook (the criminal act of another voids insurance claim).

It would work for accidents - i.e. you shoot someone by accident cleaning your weapon or something like that.

But your umbrella policy probably covers that already.

Your fourth point - I suppose a law could be passed for this - but it seems tough to enforce.

Of all your points - I would be in favor of #2 - daylight is ok.

Doubt the criminals would report their private sales - but could pass the law.

In SN World:
Extensive = long winded or Gish gallop.
Persuasive = specious verbiage that only gullible fools will gobble up.

SN is all about pushing buttons, baseless assertions, and self-righteous snark. He couldn't construct a reasoned argument if his life depended on it, and wouldn't recognize the difference if Jesus himself came and spelled it out for him.

He is one of those rare people who has absolutely zero critical thinking skills and probably thinks that they are tools of the devil.

"SN is all about pushing buttons, baseless assertions, and self-righteous snark."

I am still waiting for him to explain why he asked if it's okay if I surrender all my guns and ammunition. Surrender to whom? And why?

OA #120:

I really don't like the idea that the Federal government can order me to buy something. However, the Supreme Court said it was ok for health insurance.

I merely extrapolate to the Federal government ordering you to buy a gun, and gave you a rationale which would support that action.

I am not saying they will - merely that they could - partly so you will look at the issue from the other direction.

I was against the government being able to order me to buy anything - I thought it was unconstitutional - but I lost that battle (Supreme Court said it was ok).

This is an example of a hypothetical that would fall under the law of unintended consequences.

But I agree - it is very unlikely to happen.

#121 Zebra,
How do your proposals enhance Liberty?

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/yardstick/pr5.html

To Desertphile #125:

“I am still waiting for [See Noevo] to explain why he asked if it’s okay if I surrender all my guns and ammunition. Surrender to whom? And why?"

I am still waiting for you to explain why you haven’t answered this question of mine:
Well, in THIS world, if you lived in Australia, would you have refused to surrender your .45 caliber pistol and rifle and 2,000 rounds?

"Well, in THIS world, if you lived in Australia, would you have refused to surrender your .45 caliber pistol and rifle and 2,000 rounds?"

To whom? Why?

Sn, you incredible lying tool, are you implying guns were confiscated in Australia?

"Sn, you incredible lying tool, are you implying guns were confiscated in Australia?"

Oh, is that what the genius is implying? If so.... how very odd. I wonder why. No one in the USA is talking about anyone "surrendering" their weapons; no one in Australia did so, or is doing so.

It appears that once again I was "thrown" by the denialism / conspiracy mentality.

Denialists often say or write something that has no basis, no connection, in what everyone else has said or written, and only denialists (I assume) can see the connection (which I also assume is founded in conspiracy ideation). I saw the same behavior among dangerous, abusive cults: it's called "language loading," and it is used exclusively to be divisive--- only cult peers understand each other.

I had no idea why "SN" here asked me if I would be happy "surrendering" my weapons; the question has no connection to anything written in this article, nor to any of the comments, and certainly not to anything I have written. That behavior is like trying to understand the thought processes of an insect. One must be a paranoid conspiracy alarmist to understand why "SN" asked the question, or one must have studied such people.

RickA,

The government can't prohibit me from selling private property?

How about Oxycontin? Which I legally obtained?

Gun regulation as I described already exists to one degree or another in various states. It takes a few seconds to look that up, so I am just going to stick with labeling you as a troll-- a lazy troll.

To Desertphile:

Me: “Well, in THIS world, if you lived in Australia, would you have refused to surrender your .45 caliber pistol and rifle and 2,000 rounds?”

You: “To whom? Why? … No one in the USA is talking about anyone “surrendering” their weapons; no one in Australia did so, or is doing so.”

Maybe I had some bad info, or perhaps more likely, a bad understanding. I guess I was thinking of stuff like this:

“Gun buybacks have been held in Tucson (one in 2013) and Phoenix (three in 2013)…
Unlike the voluntary buybacks in the United States, Australian buybacks of 1996 and 2003 were COMPULSORY, compensated SURRENDERS of particular types of firearms made illegal by new gun laws.

The 1996 "National Firearms Buyback Scheme" took 660,959[2] long guns, mostly semi-automatic rimfire rifles and shotguns as well as pump-action shotguns, and a smaller proportion of higher powered or military type semi-automatic rifles…
The 2003 handgun buyback took about 50,000 licensed target pistols…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_buyback_program

@zebra #40

On the contrary, I think cracking down on straw purchases and the very small number of gun dealers who thereby facilitate trafficking of guns across state lines to criminals is one of the most practical things we can do.

I hadn't looked in on this discussion for a few days. Typical that it seems to have degenerated into the usual name calling and finger pointing. I'm back to where I started from - no political home. The petitions I've seen, and been invited to sign, are appalling non-specific. They come down to appeals to legislators to do something, anything about gun violence, no matter how ill conceived, out of fear. On the other side, the NRA has completely abandoned its founding principles of supporting training, safety and reasonable regulation.

zebra #133:

Good point about prescription drugs - I bet you are right and it is illegal to resell.

I hadn't thought about that.

I was thinking of things like alcohol and cigarettes, and struggling to think of anything I couldn't resell - but I didn't think of drugs.

So I will give you that one - good point.

The government can ban the resale of certain things - like prescription drugs.

Enon Zey, #135

OK, I'm inviting you to sign (metaphorically) a petition along the lines of my #121. Very specific.

So, if you really want to get away from the whole trolling and finger-pointing business, why not take a concrete position on those points?

(I even think you could find a "political home" if you agree with them.)

I await your reasoned analysis.

@zebra #137

I have supported liability insurance for some time. It would provide a strong financial incentive for individuals to demonstrate competence and safety in using and storing the guns they own.

I'd have to see how a ban on individual to individual transfers was structured and enforced - you might get a lot of pushback on this from rural residents. That of course is a big part of the difficulty in coming up with politically practical approaches to gun control - there's a big urban/rural divide.

Better records and requiring people to show they actually have their firearms could definitely put a crimp in the black market in guns.

Now, point me to a gun control organization whose priorities are requiring liability insurance and increased funds for suicide research and prevention, and I might have a political home.

For what's it's worth, I do have a political home of sorts. I am a great admirer of Sam Smith, long time activist, journalist and editor of the 'Progressive Review'. He's walked the walk and achieved many good things (such as help organize effective opposition to the interstate highway system slicing through the heart of DC).

Despite all his excellent journalism, I almost never see him quoted by liberals. That may be because he's been consistently scathing in his criticism of Democrats, he has always supported people being able to have guns in the home for self-defense (that makes him a "gun nut" by Greg's definition), and he has been unrelenting in attacking the Clintons for their venality and corruption. (Sam Smith can't possibly be part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, better to just ignore him.)

http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2015/10/gun-notes.html

Enon Zey,

Can you explain the functional difference between "straw purchases", which you want to "crack down on", and "individual to individual transfers"?

So, I think California has something like what I am talking about-- if you want to sell a gun to someone, you do it through a dealer. Not very complicated or burdensome. See what you think.

As for Greg-- I'm not sure exactly what his position is WRT someone wanting a gun to keep in the house and being a gun nut. I gave some examples of what I think qualifies; that's not one of them. The woman with no law enforcement status who tried to kill a shoplifter, on the other hand, represents the mentality that concerns me.

Sure. A straw purchaser is someone who buys a gun for the specific purpose of transferring it to someone who wouldn't pass a background check. Example: an ex-con convinces his girlfriend to buy a gun for him. Big problem: people who buy multiple guns for the purpose of taking them across state lines to sell to gangs for profit.

OTOH, individual transfers also include transfers within a family and transfers to neighbors and friends. There are a lot of people, particularly in rural areas, who will resent having to drive a hundred miles just to legally transfer a rifle to a favorite nephew.

I am not saying I am necessarily opposed to the idea, just that I'm suspicious of proposals that are drawn too narrowly and provoke people to opposition who otherwise might be on our side.

The woman who shot at the shoplifter was incredibly ignorant. It's illegal everywhere (except perhaps Texas) to deploy deadly force to protect property. I'd say education, but some people are simply willfully ignorant.

Greg plainly stated that anybody who keeps a loaded gun in his house is a "gun nut".

Enon Zey,

My question was obviously rhetorical. The girlfriend can certainly claim that she changed her mind after buying the gun, and decided to give it to her boyfriend as a gift. Just like the uncle and the nephew. Functionally, all individual sales are straw purchases in that they bypass the intent of the law.

I refer you again to the California law, and laws in various states, which you can easily find with a quick search. You and I are not going to work out all the tiny details of the "ideal" law here, but there will certainly be accommodations for specific circumstances.

I'm also not going to quibble about Greg's wording and intent-- you and I would agree that if it is too hard to access and get the gun loaded, it defeats the purpose of having it. That may be where regulations regarding insurance would come in; again, details to be worked out by the interested parties.

As for carrying at the Home Depot-- I go there all the time, and yes, anyone who shows up armed is a gun nut. I would argue that whatever fantasy prompts someone to do that is indicative of a questionable mental state to begin with. Talking about education and training is just silly; the more people doing it (goal of the NRA and right-wing politics), the more the group will include those for whom training will never work.

Enon Zey:

I am sure it would be jarring to see a civilian carrying a gun at Home Depot.

However, what if you saw a cop carrying a gun at Home Depot?

That seems almost normal.

Cops carry guns at schools and no one even blinks.

Put a uniform on and it is ok to carry a gun.

Where street clothes and people think you are a gun nut.

Kind of interesting.

"However, what if you saw a cop carrying a gun at Home Depot?"

Police officers in the USA tend to be low hierarchy, submissive males; they are therefore more dangerous than average citizens. When I see a police officer anywhere who is carrying a gun, I get the fuck out of the area just as quickly, and for exactly the same reasons, I flee when non-police are walking around with fire arms.

While I mostly agree with desertphile, I'll simply mention that the comparison between a police office carrying at a public store and someone not clearly identified as such doing the same fails on its face. Rightly or wrongly, there is the expectation that an officer has had more training in the handling of a weapon than the typical civilian who simply wants to "exercise a right", so the first reactions to the two situations will not (in general ) be the same. It is as false as arguing therr should not be any speed limits on public highways because "there aren't any on a race track and very few accidents there result in death."

So yes, when I see the local clown carrying an automatic on his hip, wearing an NRA cap and a cameo shirt heading for my table at the bookstore, it isn't a soothing sight, it is disconcerting.

So it is not necessarily seeing a person with a gun that is scary. It is seeing someone who you assume is less well trained, is associated with the NRA and wearing cameo.

What if a state required permit to carry holders to wear a uniform (to be determined) when they carried, to permit ease of identification? That way when the cops get to the scene and there is a permit to carry person there - they can be easily identified, to lower the chances of friendly fire from the cops.

I think that the number of people shot by permit to carry holders is a lot smaller than the number of people shot by cops (at least in Minnesota) - so I am not sure your local clown fear is rational.

But everybody is entitled to their own phobias.

What one or two new measures which have been proposed here or in Washington D.C. would have prevented Roseburg?

Desertphile – No response to #134?

So it is not necessarily seeing a person with a gun that is scary. It is seeing someone who you assume is less well trained, is associated with the NRA and wearing cameo.
Maybe I didn't make my point clearly l. It would be the second time today, in two different spots.

It is a reasonable assumption that an ordinary joe who thinks there is a need to carry a weapon is not as well trained as a typical police officer. There may be exceptions - it is impossible to tell whether a person is or is not former military, for example - but in general there is no great hurdle to get a carry certification. That in itself is concerning. Second is the appearance issue - the difference you picked up on.

I don't think the dress idea you give would matter in general (I know it wouldn't to me) as the training issue isn't addressed. I also have doubts that it would be accepted by the folks we're talking about: I could see the objection being it isn't needed because they are simply exercising a right.

Well poop. Not the day for phone posting. Rock (and others) sorry about screwing up the blockquote tag.

Sn, when you advance to the point of being able to ask an intelligent question you'll get an answer. I have a feeling that will not happen for a very long time, if it ever does.

RickA, not Rock. Crap on autocorrect.

RickA 143

I was going to forego anymore commenting today, but what the meh...

I go on heightened alert around anyone with a gun, but there is a difference. Police have an institutionalized and regulated role in society to keep the peace. It is a fulltime, supervised career (often life long) and snarky objections aside, is about more than just strutting around with a gun pretending to be John Wayne.

However problematic policing is (and it is a relatively new concept as we understand it today) it's not helped by a situation where every wingnut and his half wit cousin self-deputizes, essentially turning the clock back to a time before law and order came to the wild west.

So no. It's not about who designs your clothes, even though seeing police decked out in military gear and looking hopped up on roids is disconcerting. It's about everybody moving their mindset out of the 1800s and into the 21st century.

dean #149,

Sorry, but I think you miss the point here. The reason to be concerned is not training. The reason to be concerned is that it is irrational to be carrying a loaded gun at HD.

There is no explanation-- "I'm packing heat while shopping for plumbing supplies because..."-- that makes any sense.

The cop is armed because it is part of the job description to engage with violent people, even if all she is doing at the moment is directing traffic. But it is not desirable, and you can ask any cop, that some wannabee citizen responds to a bank robbery with guns blazing.

So-- what is the justification for carrying a loaded gun into a public space? "Because I can get away with it", or "because I can even recklessly discharge it and get away with it" does not count as justification.

RickA 143

If you've ever been exposed to security work, you've probably run into people who've failed to make the cut onto the police force. Some of them are great, but some are just gun toting cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and they have more than your average amount of training.

You really ought to step back and have a good, hard rethink before you further advocate slathering society with extra unregulated lethality -- especially if all you are doing is trying to fulfill some dogmatic, social Darwinist vision of the "intelligence" of uninhibited marketplaces.

To zebra #153:

“The reason to be concerned is not training. The reason to be concerned is that it is irrational to be carrying a loaded gun at [Home Depot].”

At what, if any, locales do you think it IS rational for a citizen to carry a loaded gun?

I’ve carried concealed into Home Depot. No problems. In fact, I carry to virtually all places as a matter of routine.

"The reason to be concerned is that it is irrational to be carrying a loaded gun at HD."

Personally, I agree. There is no need for these folks to be walking around with a gun strapped to their hips, especially when the reason so often given (protection against an attend by a bad guy) is so lacking. As the saying goes, the fact you can do something doesn't mean you should.

But my view of what's irrational is something I feel like basing a nan argument on. The lack of training is, in my appraoch, a more solid point

dean,

I understand your position, but irrationality is not a subjective call. Where there are remaining stricter laws, you have to justify a license to the issuer. For example, transporting lots of cash or jewels or some other occupation that might make you a target.

See Noevo 155: There are no such public spaces.

An ordinary citizen (and I include myself) would rationally be concerned in isolated situations, even though the probability of a confrontation is low. For example, if I drove a lot at night far from police response, I would keep a gun in the car. But I would leave it there when I went to the mall or a stopped at a diner.

If you feel afraid when you are surrounded by fellow citizens, that probably indicates that you should not be armed. I would use a yes answer to "would you carry a gun to go shopping at HD" to disqualify someone who was applying.

And FWIW, if I saw you, armed, "reaching for your waistband" at Home Depot, I would grab a shovel and take your head off. And ask questions later, because "I feared for my life". See how that works?

It is far more rational for me to do that than for some random idiot to shoot at a shoplifter.

It is precisely because of flawed people like sn carrying a weapon that we should be concerned when we see an open carrier.

"It is precisely because of flawed people like sn carrying a weapon that we should be concerned when we see an open carrier"

The odd person wants us to believe he believes women in the USA have killed 55,000,000 people. If he really does believe that, he shouldn't have access to knives, let alone guns.

@zebra #142

I thought that there was a significant difference between those trafficking guns for profit and those transferring guns as gifts or favors. After looking into the latest information about trafficking from police and other investigators, I see that I was wrong. We need to address all forms of gun transfers if we are to reduce the number of guns getting into the hands of gangs and other criminals.

Where I live we have had a rash of shopping center parking lot robberies in 'nice' neighborhoods, so I can see why some people might want to conceal carry to and fro HD.

Enon,

You sound like someone willing to learn, but you also sound like you are trying to justify something that has an abstract appeal without the life experience and understanding that provide a pragmatic context for your analysis. More study and training is in order.

Not to go all Sun Tzu on you, but if you end up shooting someone to prevent being robbed in an HD parking lot, you have demonstrated that you are an inept and pathetic loser on the field of individual combat.

Say you are a nice suburban mom and you need to pick up some mums to put on the front porch this time of year. What are you thinking?:

"I'm carrying, so I will park at the far end of the building where it isn't well lit, and there is a pile of lumber someone can hide behind, even though it is almost closing time and very dark. And of course, it would be embarrassing to ask someone to help me, so I will go out all alone and make myself vulnerable loading the plants into my SUV."

Come on, dude. Someone is approaching you in that situation saying "I work here would you like me to help?" How close do you let him get before you brandish? How stupid will you feel if he does work there? Will that make you hesitate too long? How horrible will you feel if he just doesn't get the danger, as Desertphile says, and he does work there, and keeps coming, and you kill him? Or.... will that make you hesitate too long?

Well, OK, I will be all Sun Tzu, even thought it is often incorrectly overused. If you need a gun to buy mums....

You have already lost.

@zebra #161

The tone of your post is very condescending - I just noted that considering some of the robberies where I live I could understand why some people might want to conceal carry, not that I do. I don't even shop at HD.

I would never brandish a gun just because someone walked up to me - you're just coming up with hypotheticals to label me as some sort of gun toting gun nut.

OTOH, I have been knifed. Considering the statistics, it is very unlikely that I'll be knifed again. I wasn't prepared the first time, but I am now.

Enon,

I am not being condescending to you. I am, however, putting you on the spot, because the points are important, and you appear to be one of the rare people in these discussions who is not so constrained by ideology as to never see beyond it.

I said I get it, and I do. But that's empathy; I know how you feel. I'm not sure that you are correctly projecting that onto the people we are talking about, who for the most part have not experienced violence and fear in the real world.

It's a serious question, open to anyone who wants to give it a shot (heh). How exactly would carrying in any public space like HD help? What possible scenario produces a net positive outcome?

To aebra #163:

“It’s a serious question, open to anyone who wants to give it a shot (heh). How exactly would carrying in any public space like HD help? What possible scenario produces a net positive outcome?”

I could give you limitless possible scenarios producing a net positive outcome, but here’s one that happened about fifteen minutes from me.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Mercy-Fitzgerald-Hospital-on-…

P.S.
The doctor who saved the day was actually breaking the hospital’s gun-free zone rules by having his weapon on him. Good for him, and for those he saved.

"The doctor who saved the day was actually breaking the hospital’s gun-free zone rules by having his weapon on him."

Hurray! One person with a gun did a good thing, while 32,000+ people with a gun did an evil thing. Woo hoo! We need more guns, so that two people with a gun can go a good thing, and 64,000+ people with a gun can do more evil. Why, it's just common sense!

See Noevo 164,

You could give me "limitless possible scenarios" but you chose one in which the doctor in question was not carrying in a public place like HD, but was armed in his office-- a private space, just like one's house.

So, the woman wasn't saved. Perhaps the doctor was saved, because he had a gun in his private space. There is no objection to that from me, and if someone like a psychiatrist who deals with potentially violent patients wants a carry license, I would gladly give him one. As I suspect most people here would.

It's people like yourself that are the problem. And your inability to justify your position even with a hypothetical reinforces that concern.

There are some people who carry a leatherman on their belt and some who don't.

There are some people who carry a gentleman's folder (knife) in their pocket and some who don't.

There are some people who carry a gun and some who don't.

A gun is a tool like a knife or a leatherman and sometimes a tool can be handy and other times you will not need it.

In our country, I get to decide what tools I carry on my person (everyday carry). It is my choice - not yours.

In Minnesota, stores have the right to post "Guns are Banned on These Premises" - and then I cannot carry my tool (the gun) into the store. That is their right.

Some stores ban guns and some don't - that is their right.

Individual freedom and individual rights are a good thing.

I am glad my constitutional rights (the first 10 amendments) are not subject to a majority vote - or I would find my speech banned, and my house subject to unreasonable searches, and have no representation.

Desertphile #166:

You said - 32000 people with a gun did an evil thing.

22,000 of those killed themselves with a gun.

Is that an evil thing?

I don't think so.

Religious people think it is evil to kill yourself - but I am neutral on this issue.

So I set aside 2/3 of the gun deaths per year - which only leaves 11,000 who killed someone else with a gun and which you consider to be an evil thing.

Some of those were justified homicides and some were criminal acts (I cannot remember who many of each).

But your number is exaggerated by counting suicides.

To zebra #165:

“You could give me “limitless possible scenarios” but you chose one in which the doctor in question was not carrying in a public place like HD, but was armed in his office– a private space, just like one’s house.”

A hospital seems like a pretty public place.
It’s just another place of business, and anybody can walk into one off the street.
Just like they can walk into a limitless number of places. I bet you’ve heard, and know the derivation of, the phrase “going postal”. But fired, disgruntled employees aren’t unique to post offices, of course. Here’s another
http://www.11alive.com/video/61515386001/1/Disgruntled-Ex-employee-Open…

And what’s with the “It’s people like yourself that are the problem”?
You want to take my guns and CC permit away? On what Constitutional and legal basis, and how for me, specifically?

See Noevo,

I would deny a carry permit to <i<anyone who doesn't supply a rational explanation for why he or she wants and needs it. You have failed to do so, given a couple of opportunities.

"I would deny a carry permit to anyone who doesn’t supply a rational explanation for why he or she wants and needs it. You have failed to do so, given a couple of opportunities."

Indeed, and being unhappy with one's penis is not a valid explanation.

#170...how's about "it's the most compact and effective tool that can be utilized (since you'll dispute safety) to defend my body and those of innocents in my proximity"

We can go into why my body is valuable in society, but this would go the way of a pro-life argument, which I'm going to guess you'd oppose.

On what basis would Darwin have any objection to my weapon of choice?

"We can go into why my body is valuable in society, but this would go the way of a pro-life argument, which I’m going to guess you’d oppose."

Do you *REALLY* not understand how asinine your "guess" is?

Ron 172,

But you haven't provided a rational explanation of why you think you would need it at Home Depot or the mall or other such public spaces.

(I'm putting aside the question of efficacy for the moment.)

(And by the way, bringing up Darwin, if you mean the Darwin, makes one question your rationality a priori. No possible connection I can see.)

"But you haven’t provided a rational explanation of why you think you would need it at Home Depot or the mall or other such public spaces."

One never knows when a gun battle will break out between the human carnivores near the meat section and the vegans near the produce section.

#174 The rational explanation of RKBA at a place outside the home / public spaces is that it is where my body is. In order to defend my body the weapon needs to be in close proximity to my body.

Attempting to predict when and where a crime will take place is not something to wager one's well-being on. Indeed the "gun-free zone" shootings seem to prove my point. Movie theaters to military bases have been recent crime scenes...many retailers declare themselves to have a no gun policy on their premises. Does softening a target make it more or less attractive to criminals?

#173...are you asserting that being pro-life and pro-self defense against criminal violence via weapons is asinine?

"#173…are you asserting that being pro-life and pro-self defense against criminal violence via weapons is asinine?"

I am "asserting" that your assertion that someone in this blog forum is not pro-life is asinine.

zebra says #170:

I would deny a carry permit to <i<anyone who doesn’t supply a rational explanation for why he or she wants and needs it. You have failed to do so, given a couple of opportunities.

It would be good to be king.

However, you don't control permits to carry in the United States.

Ron doesn't have to justify his decision to carry - that is his choice.

Home Depot can ban guns with a simple sign - and if they don't that is their choice.

See gun rights are like free speech rights - the default is they exist.

The burden of proof is on those trying to take them away.

So it is your job to justify why someone shouldn't have a permit to carry.

You can do this by showing the person is a felon, or has a restraining order against them, or is mentally ill.

You cannot (nor can anyone else) justify taking away someones permit to carry because you don't agree with their reason for wanting one.

The 2nd amendment is a personal right, no matter how irrational you think that fact to be.

Ron 176,

You sound more and more irrational the more you write.

You are talking about the mass shooter scenario?

So, if I were interviewing you as to why you want a permit, you would say "because I am concerned that I will be the target of a mass shooter"?

I'd put you on the no-sell list in a heartbeat. Maybe even have you in for an involuntary psych evaluation.

Look, there is an infinitesimally small probability of that happening to you. As Desertphile has pointed out, you and your gun and your paranoia are much greater threats to us than any shooter is to you. That's why it is rational for us to attempt to minimize the number of people carrying firearms in public spaces-- we are protecting our bodies and the innocents in proximity from your potential dangerous acts.

#179 I'm not only speaking about "mass shootings"...I'm talking about crime, from theft to murder, done against me or those in my proximity. I recognize that these rates are dropping, and that's positive...there are places and times that are likely more safe than others, and that's positive. In that awful instance of a mass shooter, there are not many other things I'd want at my disposal than a weapon.

I appreciate that the odds against me are minute. I can make them even smaller, and I will, with or without Official Government Blessing.

You can call me paranoid and I'll call you irrational. We're back on the playground...

If we're going to debate what is and what is not rational...it sounds like a moral argument, to which I would wonder what is your external standard of morality? If you don't think rationality is a moral question, to what authority do we turn to determine what is rational thought and what is not?

It's called freedom. Funny how some pro-choice people (#178 this is an atheist blog, is it not?) would advocate choice in one realm and not in another.

Unless you want to make the E PLURIBUS UNUM case...which would favor concepts like property rights http://tinyurl.com/p5v7nvf and man over government http://tinyurl.com/mcmhe7...we're all left to do what is right according to our conscious...so if some wish to not carry a weapon, they should be allowed that freedom, but others do..."The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may
exercise it by themselves, ...that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press." Thomas Jefferson writing to Major John Cartwright June 5, 1824

It's called a negative right because it doesn't impose a duty on others. http://tinyurl.com/q75fgx5 You're turning a negative right into an imposition on individuals to provide a justification or ability to clear myself from suspicion.

What we're doing now is taking property rights and negative rights and turning them into positive rights (see bakers/photographers being forced to provide services). People are no longer allowed to refrain from health insurance, etc...

Ron 180,

Irrational is not an insult. But now you are just being incoherent, and I can't follow what you are trying to say at all.

I was just in a big long debate involving "rights" and "morality", where "the liberals", as you would call them, were all ganging up against me. So if I could figure out what the heck you are talking about, I might find it amusing. But just being practical:

Some lady in a Home Depot parking lot started shooting at someone who was running with some merchandise, being chased by HD security. That's one of the things we're talking about here.

Do you feel that you have a "right" to just start shooting at someone because "theft is being done to those in proximity to you"?

If so, what I said about not giving you a carry permit holds. You are obviously not qualified to be in possession of a firearm, whether in a private or a public space. You present a threat to others (me, for example, who goes to my local HD fairly often,) if not yourself.

Don't I have a "right" to shop in an environment free from the risk of death at the hands of some nutjob?

zebra #181 asks "Don’t I have a “right” to shop in an environment free from the risk of death at the hands of some nutjob?"

The answer is no.

The reason is because nobody has the power to grant you that right.

Nobody has the right to be free from a criminal act.

Who would give you that right?

That is like saying you have the right to flip heads 100 times in a row - who has the power to grant you that right?

Nobody can give you the right to be free from death at the hands of a nutjob.

That is why some people find it rational to carry.

Because they know they have to protect themselves - they cannot rely on government to protect them. Because any individual can be subject to a crime committed against them at any time, anywhere, by a nutjob or even by a rational criminal.

That is reality.

If a person wants to pretend that just because a law is passed saying nutjobs shouldn't shoot people in mass killings - that this will protect them somehow - well - that is their choice.

Other people know that no matter how professional the police force, and no matter how many laws are passed - that shit happens and you have to be responsible for your own safety - because sometimes you just don't have the luxury of calling the cops and waiting to be saved from harm.

To zebra #170:

Me: “You want to take my guns and CC permit away? On what Constitutional and legal basis, and how for me, specifically?”

You: “I would deny a carry permit to <i<anyone who doesn’t supply a rational explanation for why he or she wants and needs it. You have failed to do so, given a couple of opportunities.”

I have a feeling what you consider a rational explanation and what my state considers a rational explanation are different, thank goodness.

‘Target shooting and self defense’ were explanation enough for them, as I recall.

#181 perhaps you're referencing this Home Depot incident:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3270903/Michigan-woman-charged-…

My understanding is that this woman was not directly in harm's way. I wasn't there. The criminal seems to be attempting to disengage as he flees. So, IF those are the facts, it's a "bad shoot". Shooting a fleeing suspect, unless he poses a threat, is not appropriate. That being said, a tire seems to have failed shortly after she shot, helping police apprehend the criminal.

By way of contrast, this seems to be a "good shoot": http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/1-Shot-Dead-at-Waterbury-Cafe-…

What say you about this case?

We who wish you no harm are not the one's you should fear, but the random, unpredictable criminal is the "nutjob" we all wish to avoid.

Just because this language of "rational" is being linked to RKBA...http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/10/14/a_rational_case_fo…

"There is a legitimate, rational use for guns, a use that results in crimes deterred and lives saved. The left’s argument that people may use guns for illegitimate purposes is senseless. Why should those who use guns rationally be sacrificed for the sake of those who will use them irrationally? We don’t ban cars simply because some people will drive recklessly. We don’t ban alcohol simply because some people will get drunk and attack their neighbors. The same should apply to guns. The individual has volition and he has inalienable rights. The freedom to possess a gun to defend himself follows logically from those two premises."

**Note: I didn't label "the left"...

ron and friends,

I would feel much safer being robbed by a rational criminal than being "protected" by immature and irrational wannabees like yourselves.

And I expect the majority of citizens and LEO would agree; it's just common sense. You are that woman at Home Depot, and she is you.

"I would feel much safer being robbed by a rational criminal than being “protected” by immature and irrational wannabees like yourselves."

Now who's being irrational?

Why would you take guns away from women?
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/burglary-suspect-in…

"a use that results in crimes deterred"

But again, that is so rare as to be immaterial to the broad discussion. It is the same as arguing against seat belt use in cars because someone knew someone who wasn't wearing a seat belt and survived a severe accident.

#188 Are you willing to be consistent, then, in your belief that crimes are so rarely deterred by guns, that you would call for all police / military to eschew their weapons?

a) It is a fact that a civilian with a gun stopping a crime is incredibly rare
b) Are you trying to say the role of the military is equivalent to a civilian carrying a gun in daily life? If so, that is too foolish to deserve a response.

@zebra #163

I didn't express myself well. I avoid violence by being aware of my surroundings in a way I didn't used to, but not by carrying in HD.

"One point I’d like to make in this context is that the best defense against violence is always your own mind. People tend to overlook this because it sounds like an empty platitude, but it’s true. Some people acquire the maturity and understanding to avoid violence early on, but these days—and this is obviously a good thing—most of us go our whole lives without encountering violence, so we need to be taught what to look for. We also need to be willing to see it, and we need to know how to manage our distance from it."

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/self-defense-and-the-law

I am sure we can both come up with scenarios where it would be good to have a well-trained person with a gun around even in a retail environment. Why else hire armed security guards? Unfortunately, the requirements for concealed carry permits are pretty superficial.

Enon 163,

I appreciate you taking the trouble to find a quote that shows you understand what I am talking about. I think we could have some good debates, since I don't agree with many aspects of Harris's approach, but that is spot on.

As for retail spaces and armed security guards-- no, I'm just trying to be practical, and I can't see how it helps, except for the extremely rare active shooter case with ideal conditions. Some places in the developed world still have actual police that don't carry guns, but relatively non-lethal weapons.

(Not to mention, we have cases of psychologically unfit cops who are "trained" but still kill people with no justification. Where do you find people to fill those armed security guard slots in all the stores in the country?)

I wasn't kidding when I said earlier that, if I were in an advantageous position, and I saw someone in a public space reach for a gun, I would do my best to take them out, even by using potentially deadly force like a knife or a club. I think a citizenry with that attitude is far better protection than some yayhoos like those commenting here parading around with their guns.

Anyway, stay vigilant. And if you have bad dreams, I hope they get less difficult over time.

@zebra #192

Thank you for the good thoughts. Actually, the attack was a long time ago and the wound minor. It did act as a wakeup call - having had a sheltered childhood, I had no street smarts at all, zilch. I do like Harris' point that many (most?) people have a 'can't happen to me' attitude and avoid thinking about the possibility of violence happening to them. The probability is small, smaller than many other bad things that can happen, but it's certainly not negligible. We know that people in general are very bad at probabilities and risk assessment.

I continue to be astonished at how people move in an urban environment without any awareness of what's happening around them. The pocket computers (aka smartphones) that people are absorbed in have just made things worse, I OTOH, never wear earbuds - one's ears are a front line of defense.

What do you think of Sanders' point that there is a urban/rural divide about guns? I do open carry when I'm out in the boonies, where law enforcement is sparse and wild animals common.

I find it interesting that there are states (Vermont, the Dakotas) with very liberal gun laws and high rates of gun ownership, yet their homicides rates are similar to the UK. Gun violence in this society (outside of suicide) is primarily an urban phenomenon. DC, with its strict gun regulation, has a homicide rate an order of magnitude greater than Vermont's.

While I think that absence of effective gun control is a problem, it's not a monocausal, or one dimensional issue. It's worth considering that the environment in which people live can foster a culture of fear, lethality, and the cult of the gun. Poverty matters. Race matters. Demagoguery and crappy politics matter.

And city planning certainly matters. For instance, it's now understood that warehousing people in housing projects is one of the things that effectively destroys communities and fosters chaos. If you're interested in this, the writing of Jane Jacobs makes for a very readable way into the otherwise boring subject of planning and zoning.

#190 b
I'm trying to say that you're targeting guns, and to be consistent you should be eager to express that nobody should have them...otherwise we're bickering over training and who trains...and that the general citizenry is less able than other classes of citizen...creating a tiered system for Rights (something I might assume is a non-starter, but I could be wrong).

“a) It is a fact that a [law abiding] civilian with a gun stopping a crime is incredibly rare”

[Note: I took the liberty of inserting “[law-abiding]” because it’s assumed in the sentence and because it’s useful in my last sentence below.]

Actually, it’s not incredibly rare. I could post lots more stories of such, in case you haven’t read the ones I and others have already posted above.

What IS incredibly rare [and technically non-existent] is a law-abiding civilian with a gun committing a crime.

"What IS incredibly rare [and technically non-existent] is a law-abiding civilian with a gun committing a crime."

Do you still some times wonder why people think you are an idiot, or pretending to be an idiot?

Actually, it’s not incredibly rare. I could post lots more stories of such, in case you haven’t read the ones I and others have already posted above.

sn, your cluelessness about reality and general dishonesty is astounding. Are you truly so stupid that you think unsupported personal claims are the same as data?

You know that old saying, usually stated by liberals:
“If it saves just ONE life, it’s worth doing.”

Well, maybe some would advocate disarming everybody, including the police.
It would have saved this guy:
“[Suspect] Hammond grabbed [sheriff’s deputy] Sandberg's gun during the struggle and shot…”
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sheriffs-deputy-fatally-shot-patien…

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/10/18/man-trying-to-be-good-guy-with-…

"As if to reinforce the fact that shooting incidents are so commonplace as to be business as usual, the undeterred theater managers told guests they could get a free coupon to see another film some other day or wait until staff could mop up the blood and resume the film."

While we’re at it, lets’ ban Taco Bell signs, walking next to tall buildings, chocolate manufacturing, condoms, roller coasters…
http://www.oddee.com/item_96835.aspx

" It was certainly not his intention to shoot himself in the leg. But his gun went off, because that’s what guns do."

Golly. Mine must be defective. They only go off when I touch the "bang switch".

Again, as in post #81, some will misuse the product, but that's not the fault of the product. These products can be use for virtuous purposes. (Like this woman did...http://www.wtok.com/home/headlines/Man-Killed-During-Alleged-Burglary-3… Why do we want to disarm women and lower their odds of surviving a hostile encounter?)

"Again, as in post #81, some will misuse the product, but that’s not the fault of the product."

"Misuse?" ROTFL! Good gods that's hilarious! Dude! Hand guns are *THE SAFEST* when they are not used as intended! I wish everyone misused them.

#204 Guns don't "go off" spontaneously, just as toasters and ovens don't heat when you leave your dwelling.

This whole discussion is twisting language in order to attack an inanimate object, when the desire is to take away the ability of the individual to KABA...which is why post 195 goes unanswered.

In a culture where we force people who sell booze or cut hair or teach children to pay a tax for a government license, I'm sure it does seem odd to let people roam free with firearms, but just as scissors don't randomly cut your hair, neither do firearms spontaneously discharge.

Desertphile #204:

I cannot tell if you think a handgun is misused for a suicide or if that is an intended use.

Please clarify.

Since 2/3's of gun deaths are suicide I figure I should understand what your definition of intended use is.

I am pretty sure the label says - be careful not to shoot yourself with this gun - so I doubt suicide is an intended use.

2/3 of the deaths caused by misuse is not "the safest" - but that is just my opinion.

Or maybe you mean the subset of accidental shootings - maybe those are intended use?

Or wait - maybe you are referring to when the gun is pointed at somebody else and a person is shot on purpose?

Please clarify.

"I cannot tell if you think a handgun is misused for a suicide or if that is an intended use."

Heh. You are complaining about not being intelligent. No one can help you there.

The proper use of a hand gun is to kill a human being. It is therefore a good thing when hand guns are misused.

“Since at least 1950, all but two public mass shootings in America have taken place where general citizens are banned from carrying guns. In Europe, there have been no exceptions. Every mass public shooting — and there have been plenty of mass shooting in Europe — has occurred in a gun-free zone. In addition, they have had three of the six worst K–12 school shootings, and Europe experienced by far the worst mass public shooting perpetrated by a single individual (Norway in 2011, which from the shooting alone left 67 people dead and 110 wounded).

“Mass killers have even explicitly talked about their desire to attack gun-free zones. The Charleston, S.C., church shooting in June was instead almost a college shooting. But that killer changed his plans after realizing that the College of Charleston had armed guards. Holmes decided not to attack an airport because of what he described in his diary as its ‘substantial security.’ … Holmes decided not to attack an airport because of what he described in his diary as its “substantial security.””

And more examples of concealed carry to the rescue…
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425802/gun-free-zones-don't-save-…

Well look at that.

In a recent poll, 63% blamed mass shooting on mental health and only 23% on gun control laws.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/26/gun-control-a…

the gun violence culture can also be blamed on gun violence tv shows watched by parents with children in the same room digesting it all. i hope tv executives think about this. not every child copes well with seeing drugs and guns so much a part of our culture

It is a shame that Gun Violence has become a part of the American Culture. The violence is doing nothing but tearing this country down. There is not a source to blame but I think it is very important that we start pay attention of deranged behavior.

President Obama's Statement on Shootings in Oregon

gregladen — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 07:42:35 +0000

President Obama's Statement on Shootings in Oregon

"We are the only advanced country in the world that sees these shootings every few months."

gregladen Fri, 10/02/2015 - 03:42

Tags

I deny the absurd claim that the USA is an "advanced country."

So long as there are people and organizations in this country who profit politically and financially from these atrocities by fostering gun fetishism and paranoia about gun control we won't be able to fix this.

Ways to makes things better exist, We need to hold those who stand in the way responsible for the death.

Dear POTUS, how does your office intend to stop criminals from committing crimes? Can we agree that the shooter broke a number of laws? How would another law or set of laws make crime impossible?

The State is not a Savior. It's laws will not protect people in the face of criminal behavior. Tilt at that windmill all you want, and go for full on confiscation if you so desire, but your faith in the State is simply misplaced.

Another gun free zone, another mass shooting.

None of the laws which were proposed and are being proposed are constitutional.

If people want to "fix" this the 2nd amendment needs to be amended.

I don't think that will happen - but that is the solution.

"If people want to “fix” this the 2nd amendment needs to be amended."

Good fucking grief. Is there *ANYTHING* you comment upon that you actually know something about? That is, something that is not wrong, stupid, asinine, and based upon conspiracy ideation?

Well-regulated militias (the Second Amendment) exist in many dozens of countries, and they lack the violent, death-centric culture the USA has. Do you *REALLY* believe your solution (changing the USA Constitution) will magically make USA citizens less violent? Or are you just pretending to be a moron?

"None of the laws which were proposed and are being proposed are constitutional."

So you use denial by personal opinion on this just as you do with science. How telling.

"So you use denial by personal opinion on this just as you do with science. How telling."

It is spooky behavior. Denialists do not accept the fact that their behavior is frightening and incomprehensible to people who accept reality; when people tell denialists that the denialists' behavior is creepy, denialists think those people are not being honest. Seeing people insist observed reality isn't real just.... gives me the screaming willies. More spooky yet, denialists tend to know the reality they reject is true, even as they reject it--- they really can, and do, believe diametrically opposite things, and they know they do, even as they also know they don't.

Pliny the Younger mentioned the ability among some Roman senators around 1,890 years ago. The senators literally believed the catastrophic social disasters they were observing happening were not actually happening.

#2 "Ways to makes things better exist, We need to hold those who stand in the way responsible for the death."

Love that we can blame those law abiding citizens who wish to retain the ability to physically defend themselves. POTUS can come out and make disparaging remarks at such people and target executive orders and cabinet members to victimize those who play by the rules (even if nobody else does). 'Merica

Obviously the more mass shooting there are the more people may buy guns to "protect" themselves.
They may also see any attempt to curtail the purchase of firearms as the Government attempting to put them "in harms way"
Trying to implement any changes on a continental scale are doomed to failure, even such a change here in Europe has never been attempted. Perhaps in the US a start could be made not at the continental or the state level but at the county level

dean #5:

This is not based on personal opinion but on Supreme court decisions.

In addition to being an electrical engineer, I am also a patent attorney - so I read a lot of supreme court decisions and am fairly current on gun control legal opinions.

Heller held the 2nd amendment is a personal right, just like the 1st, fourth, fifth, sixth and so on amendments.

Most of the legal attempts to control guns have been struck down and I anticipate that most of what is being proposed would also be struck down.

Not everything - I am sure we could legislate for mental health and background checks - but if it got to strict it would probably get struck down.

So this is more than just personal opinion - it is part history, part fact and part an informed legal opinion.

Desertphile #6:

Of course amending the 2nd amendment will not change people's behavior.

I am telling you that to ban guns or take away guns or any other law which gun control advocates wish to pass to "fix" this problem - you will need to amend the 2nd amendment.

Do you disagree?

Desertphile:

If you could magically take away all the guns in the USA - do you think people who engage in mass shootings would just shrug their shoulders and give up on mass murder?

Or do you think they would build bombs out of propane tanks, or use knives or some other technique to kill mass quantities of people?

I don't think passing laws or changing the constitution will stop mass killings - do you?

A gun is just a tool - take away the gun and people will just switch to another tool.

Do you disagree?

I am truly interested in your thoughts on gun control.

"If you could magically take away all the guns in the USA ...."

No: I refuse to consider it. I have the right to own guns, and I emphatically defend and support that right for myself and every sane, competent USA citizen.

"do you think people who engage in mass shootings would just shrug their shoulders and give up on mass murder?"

Idiot.

Dear ron, how do you intend to stop those in possession of guns from committing crimes? Can we agree that the shooter broke a number of laws because he had access to guns & ammo? How would avoiding another law or set of laws to control gun access make crime and/or gun ownership impossible?

The Gun is not a Savior. Its power will not protect people in the face of criminal behavior. Tilt at that windmill all you want, and go for your own full-on gun ownership if you so desire, but your faith in the Gun is simply misplaced.

Another easy-access gun zone, another mass shooting.

"Dear ron, how do you intend to stop those in possession of guns from committing crimes? Can we agree that the shooter broke a number of laws because he had access to guns & ammo? How would avoiding another law or set of laws to control gun access make crime and/or gun ownership impossible?"

A few hours ago some batshit carzy lunatic told me, via Youtube, that if USA citizens would just all walk around with pistols and rifles, mass shootings would not happen. He insisted people should walk around in restaurants and shopping malls with hand guns, and that would solve the problem.

Any time and every time I see someone with a hand gun in a shopping mall or restaurant, I'm going to warn people to flee, then call the town, county, and state police. It is my civic duty to do so.

"Denialists do not accept the fact that their behavior is frightening and incomprehensible to people who accept reality"

As I've said, locally the anti-vaccination folks are the largest group of science deniers, with a few who view children as property and so base opposition on "don't mess with my property."
The one thing they all have in common with their beliefs is an immense amount of self confidence - not just about the vaccination stuff, but everything. Somehow they've become so sure of themselves that a moment of self-doubt never happens - but as a consequence neither does a bit of reflection on what they say or do. The results, when I've some in class, or a friend or another faculty member sends me a bit of "research" an anti-vaccer has submitted, the fact that it doesn't take long at all to point out the mis-stated or fabricated statistics and explain why they are wrong isn't important. My degrees (or those of other faculty) are meaningless, as are the explanations - because they KNOW they are right.
Long winded comment, but that is the basis for my comment that rickA is very similar to our anti-vaccination folks: no end of comments which are without substance but presented as though they had all the evidential weight of the universe behind them.

They project the same opinion one of my wife's nieces stated about the two of us: "The problem with you two is that you wait to make decisions based on facts rather than what you know is true."

RickA hasn't tried that one yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did.

"As I’ve said, locally the anti-vaccination folks are the largest group of science deniers, with a few who view children as property and so base opposition on 'don’t mess with my property.'"

Pardon me while I shudder in dread....

How many of those anti-vaccination lunatics claim they are "parents' rights activists?" I have been avoiding these assholes since my dance ticket is full already, with Creationists, free energy lunatics, and deniers of climate change--- in the past I have seen articles about ":Parents' rights activists" (and "men's rights activists) but one must draw the line on how many k00ks one deals with.

Since year 1985 I have worked against the child-rapist cults in southern Utah and the Arizona Strip, where old men insist they have the right to rape little girls because they are "married." You may recall the outrage in these areas when the legal marriage age was *RAISED* to 16 years: the child advocacy groups I belonged to had tried to get the age raised to 19 years old, up from 13, and the state "compromised" to 16.

#8 Laws were broken but not "because he had access to guns & ammo". They were simply his weapons of choice.

A gun indeed can protect one in the face of criminal behavior. That would be what they call "The Point of the Argument". There are many documented self-defense uses of firearms every year, from minors to the elderly, the firearm is a great equalizer (but when one believes in Darwinistic Natural Selection where it is appropriate that the strong kill the weak...it does follow Darwin's twisted logic that the weak should remain weak / unarmed).

What's an "easy-access gun zone"?

My arguments don't work in the reverse, and yours don't work in any direction.

"A gun indeed can protect one in the face of criminal behavior"

"... but almost never does," you forgot to add.

"In addition to being an electrical engineer, I am also a patent attorney "

So your opinion on issues like this should be taken just as seriously as the ramblings of an engineer who dismisses evolution, or lawyers who dismiss climate change - not at all seriously.

ron, you're ignoring the (blood) price that goes along with your gun worship. Are you that callous towards everyone? Or (for you) just faceless victims of gun violence, accidental & intentional? I'm sure the families of those Oregon victims feel otherwise. Go ahead and tell us all how you invalidate them.

Go ahead.

More guns bought "for protection" end up killing children & others related to the owner (plus suicides) than kill or deter "criminal behavior" -- by a wide margin.

ron will now invalidate this... Go ahead, ron.

Now tell us how owning that gun protects those children from the criminal behavior of having a loaded firearm available to them in the first place. Go ahead, ron. Tell everyone how my arguments don't work.

Be sure to write it in blood.

I'm not ignoring the blood. I'm advocating the bloodshed of the criminal over the bloodshed of the innocent (current policy's product).

The victims of crime are innocent and should not be disarmed (but, by policy, they were!). Families in Oregon should be armed if they desire to learn proper usage and handling of firearms for personal protection (http://tinyurl.com/o44xeo3). I'm advocating in favor of innocent victims of crime. Others are advocating disarming people who will not break the law. The results are abhorrent to all who don't follow Darwin's delusions.

When seconds count, the cops were 480 seconds away.

Why do we call the cops? Because we need someone to shoot back! Deny that. Go ahead and tell us we call the cops so that we can read poetry together or some such.

Go ahead.

#19 almost never does? Even the CDC disagrees with you. http://tinyurl.com/o3x9q73

#20 Kids using weapons to protect themselves

http://tinyurl.com/osysm6s
http://tinyurl.com/q7u53r7

dean #17 said:

"So your opinion on issues like this should be taken just as seriously as the ramblings of an engineer who dismisses evolution, or lawyers who dismiss climate change – not at all seriously."

It is totally up to you what weight you give my personal opinion. And the fact that I am an attorney does not mean you should turn off your own brain and just agree with what I have to say.

If you choose to give it zero weight - that is up to you.

No hard feelings.

Unless you want to just ask wanta-be mass murders to just please don't kill people - I assume people who want to "fix" this problem will do it by passing laws.

I just thought you should be aware of the problem with most of the gun control laws passed in the USA - which is that they are unconstitutional.

Many have been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and they continue to get struck down at the rate of one or two per year.

For example, the law that Heller struck down was a DC law which required the gun to be safed, locked and the ammo had to be in a different room (and I believe also locked).

Heller (who was a retired police officer) pointed out that a gun for self-defense needs to be loaded and ready to be used, to be of any use - and the Supreme Court agreed and struck down the law in DC.

Bans on possession of pistols in Chicago were struck down.

Bans on bearing guns are being struck down (the right to keep and bear arms has two parts).

Bans on guns at Federal parks are being struck down.

And so on - many many laws are getting struck down in many states.

Those are facts (sorry).

So - you tell me what law you think should be passed and I will tell you if I think it will pass muster (if you are interested in my opinion).

If you are not interested - that is ok to.

Desertphile #22:

Then we agree.

I guess I am confused about what you found so objectionable about my point that to "fix" this we need to change the 2nd amendment.

How would you "fix" it?

The interpretation of the 2nd amendment has changed:

"Justice Stevens and his colleagues were not saying, a mere seven years ago, that the gun-control legislation in dispute in Heller alone was constitutional within the confines of the Second Amendment. They were asserting that essentially every kind of legislation concerning guns in the hands of individuals was compatible with the Second Amendment—indeed, that regulating guns in individual hands was one of the purposes for which the amendment was offered.

So there is no need to amend the Constitution, or to alter the historical understanding of what the Second Amendment meant. No new reasoning or tortured rereading is needed to reconcile the Constitution with common sense. All that is necessary for sanity to rule again, on the question of guns, is to restore the amendment to its commonly understood meaning as it was articulated by this wise Republican judge a scant few years ago."
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-second-amendment-is-a-gun-c…

"Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law.

For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon."
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-s…

The Supreme Court case before Heller was Miller from the 30's.

In Miller the weapon was a sawed off shotgun and the Court held that because the military didn't issue sawed off shotguns to each infantry soldier as a normal part of their arms, that it was ok to regulate sawed off shotguns.

The implication being that since each soldier gets issued a rifle and a pistol, it was not ok to regulate those.

Then Heller held the 2nd amendment is a personal right.

So I don't think it will be very easy for the Court to reverse Heller.

It would be a bit like the Supreme Court reversing Roe v. Wade.

So while it is possible for the Supreme Court to reverse Heller - I consider it very unlikely.

Which is why if laws are desired to control guns, the 2nd amendment will have to be changed (in my opinion).

I don't think that is very likely to happen.