Chiburbian

iTrader: (1)

Sorry, I don't mean to raise your defenses here. I am pretty far to the left on a lot of issues myself yet I find myself most offended by people to attack the right, especially the tea party which is funny because I don't identify with most of what the tea party stands for anymore.

I get where you are coming from. In regards to your selection of firearms for squirrels we can move that over to the "right to own a flamethrower" thread or perhaps the other gun thread we have here. I don't want to derail this too much.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

i think im going to pretend that criminals follow laws today and ignore all the actual hard evidence that shows as gun ownership increases bad things fall


god forbid.

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

You didn't. No harm done. It reminded me of an argument my father in law and I had one day over the purpose of assault weapons in our society. He was a bona-fide collector with a dealers license and I'm just an ordinary guy who enjoys hunting.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

No firearm in that picture is an "assault weapon". They are just scary looking to the ignorant.
With the exception of that M1A, they aren't particularly high powered either.
Get one in 22LR. It'll thin the squirrel horde quite nicely.

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

Thanks, I have a pellet gun that does a nice job. The 22LR would **** off the neighbors behind me.

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

WaPo: Gun Violence Declining, Except in Gun-Free Zones

njn63

iTrader: (4)

That Breitbart article is a flaming pile of garbage.

They all are though so I'm sure you already knew that.

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

Gun ownership has been going up (cited by GOV). Gun deaths have been going DOWN (cited by GOV). Massacres in gun-free zones are the only place these pussies can hurt people anymore.

njn63

iTrader: (4)

Total guns has increased, percent of households with a firearm has been flat or even decreased slightly and I would argue that is more representative of "gun ownership":

Note that this is through the increase in murder rates through the late 80s and the decline since. I see no link to gun ownership and murder rates.

There is no link presented in the study linked to gun free zones. By nature that is going to be a very difficult link to prove because of small sample size and the bias of places where large quantities of people gather being gun free.

Breitbart is great if you want to feel warm and comfy about you predetermined conclusion but I wouldn't reference them as a source on anything.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

There are more than 40 million more households in the US now than 1980.
Percent of households with firearms may have stayed flat, but the number of people who possess firearms is much higher.

In fact, if that Gallup pole is accurate, there are around 17 million more households in the US with a gun.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I read a recent open letter to all gun-owners entitled "Your opinion on gun control doesn't matter" from a bleeding-heart liberal type which included a statement that actually made me choke on my tea. I will quote her directly:
So, yeah. The fact that she thinks a certain gun looks scary is apparently a valid policymaking criteria now.

Hell, most high-end painball markers look like a prop from the movie Aliens these days. They hurt, but they ain't precisely fatal...




Anyway, the false-flag claims have already started. Source, and discussion: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-tells-us-why/

Monk

iTrader: (3)

Your entire post made me laugh until I realized that these idiots on both sides are real.
Then I got sad.

Oh well. Time to go make some IEDs (improvised explosive dicks) for tomorrow's mail run.

xturner

For the time being, I'm stuck with a job that requires me to be in CT most of the time. I live about 6 miles from the Sandy Hook school. It is still "all-assault-rifles-all-the-time" around here, especially when something happens elsewhere - "When will we learn the lessons of Sandy Hook?"

I know it happened - a friend was a first responder and an acquaintance lost a daughter, but .... I almost take a perverse joy in the hoax theories, watching all the self-righteous panderers get their panties in a bunch.

One of the lessons of Sandy Hook is that, even in a state where they make gun ownership hard, it's possible for a perfectly normal person to buy weapons legally, and then give them to her nut-case kid. I mean, a 10mm Glock is not a "ladies' gun."

Chiburbian

iTrader: (1)

Fixed that for you.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

You just gave me a great idea! Thanks.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

Yeah, update.
Child dead.
7-year-old girl dies after being shot outside Taylor Sportsplex; mother hospitalized | News - Home


This man should of never been able to buy a gun. No matter what your political persuasion or views on the 2nd Amendment, EVERYONE should the support "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act"

It needs to get a LOT easier to identify people who are going over the edge, get them help, take away/prevent gun access, into an institution if necessary, BEFORE they harm themselves and others.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I'm going to make a very abstract, devils'-advocate style observation here, and I want to very clearly disclaim it by making clear that I am not condoning any specific philosophy or advocating any particular course of action. This is a thought experiment.



The "problem," in simple terms, is that there seem to be a lot of people being illegally murdered with legal guns firing legal ammunition.

At least some of these murders are the product of rage or passion, and are directed towards a specific individual (eg: jealous spouse), or at least a specific group of individuals (eg: gang violence).

Clearly some of these murders are being committed incidentally and pseudo-randomly, such as the byproduct of a robbery (eg: you shot a liquor store clerk, but only because he was trying to stop you from robbing him. Nothing against the specific individual who happened to be working at the liquor store that night per se.)

And finally, it also appears to be the case that some percentage of these murders are committed truly randomly, either for the purpose of furthering a political or religious ideology, or as the product of a deranged mind.




In general, discussions in favor of gun control advocate for laws which govern who can and cannot buy firearms. Such laws appear to be at least partly ineffective, for two reasons:
I mean, there's a guy in Vancouver, Canada who makes a living just driving a van down into the US once a week, loading it to the brim with stuff from Trader Joe's, and then driving back up north, paying the appropriate import taxes, and re-selling it all at a slight markup from his own store which he calls Pirate Joe's.




It's not really practical to regulate crazy. I mean, you can do it, but this inevitably raises questions concerning the 5th, 6th, 8th, 13th and 14th amendments, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Geneva Convention, etc., and also tends to inspire the comparison of whichever politician is proposing them to such beloved characters as Heinrich Himmler and Ernst Kaltenbrunner.



What you can* do is regulate the civilian ownership of firearms. And by "regulate" I mean "eliminate." This is different from merely banning them as they did in the UK, and generally involves violating the 4th amendment by actually going into everyone's home and confiscating them, in addition to completely outlawing the civilian sale of both firearms and ammunition. If there are literally no firearms, then there can, by definition, be no firearm-related homicides. Sure, you can argue that people will just switch to knives and swords, and there have actually been cases of this occurring, but as a matter of both historical precedent and plain ole' common sense, most people** can't kill anywhere near as many people in a short space of time with a knife as with a gun. You can't outrun bullets, and it's hard to accurately throw a knife 50 feet.



Of course, such an action would inevitably also invite outrage and provoke comparisons similar to those noted above, and that would also be politically unpopular.




We sometimes find that liberty has unexpected consequences.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

Are you implying that the American people will take this lying down?

Lets back up a step further, who exactly is going to enforce this and who will keep them in office* long enough to do so?



*i think you know what i mean

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Nope.

To be clear, I'm not advocating confiscation. I'm quite certain that it would have undesirable and unexpected consequences.

Also, I quite clearly stated that it would "inevitably also invite outrage and provoke comparisons similar to those noted above, and that would also be politically unpopular."




Presumably, the people who still have guns (eg: law-enforcement and / or the military.)

Monk

iTrader: (3)

I was just thinking this too, although I understand the hypothetical nature of your comment.
There would be very little compliance outside of major urban centers.
It's also doesn't take into account the massive black market that would be left behind.
I also don't believe the next weapon of choice would be a knife or sword.
Let's not forget that the worst mass murder in our history was committed with a little old gasoline.
I just read a story today about someone outside of the US killing 17 people with a Molotov cocktail.