Gun Control

[gunnut]

That is exactly what Chanakya is proposing when he shares stats from Europe :)

Why don't the damn emoticons work ? :(

Unfortunately there's this annoying thing called the Constitution which guarantees our right to keep and bear arms. Repeal the 2nd Amendment if we want to ban guns. While we're at it, let's repeal the 1st Amendment too. It's annoying to not be able to jail people who don't agree with me.

Don't European police still carry guns? When I say a complete ban I mean remove guns from police and all government forces as well. The reason is bad guys won't have guns, why does the government need guns to protect us from bad guys not armed with guns?

[Officer of Engineers]

Not a for/ against argument but an observation: Most police forces across former/ current British colonies (not sure about Canada) do not carry guns (for the policemen and officers on the street).

Canadian police are armed with lethal firearms. Recently, however, they also started carrying tasers as well.

[antimony]

Unfortunately there's this annoying thing called the Constitution which guarantees our right to keep and bear arms. Repeal the 2nd Amendment if we want to ban guns. While we're at it, let's repeal the 1st Amendment too. It's annoying to not be able to jail people who don't agree with me.

Don't European police still carry guns? When I say a complete ban I mean remove guns from police and all government forces as well. The reason is bad guys won't have guns, why does the government need guns to protect us from bad guys not armed with guns?

But what do you do when the Mounties with their lethal firearms and tasers decide to invade? :)

[Officer of Engineers]

But what do you do when the Mounties with their lethal firearms and tasers decide to invade? :)

Give them the wrong directions.

[Monash]

Unfortunately there's this annoying thing called the Constitution which guarantees our right to keep and bear arms. Repeal the 2nd Amendment if we want to ban guns. While we're at it, let's repeal the 1st Amendment too. It's annoying to not be able to jail people who don't agree with me.

Err... the US constitution is a 'living document' by which I mean it has been and can be amended subject to the provisions set out in, is it Article 5? Its not the ten commandments i.e written in stone by God himself.

Don't European police still carry guns? When I say a complete ban I mean remove guns from police and all government forces as well. The reason is bad guys won't have guns, why does the government need guns to protect us from bad guys not armed with guns?

I would suggest that if all firearms of all types were suddenly to be removed from any western nation there would very quickly be moves made to remove or severely restrict their use by Police. The only sticking point I can see is the continued risk of death/injuries due to edged weapons. Depending on the relevant 'incident rate' for assaults with knives and axes etc this might be managed by the use of tazers, mace and anti stab armor with firearms being removed from general duty officers. Alternatively it might still be necessary to have specialist armed response officers who can deal with incidents involving terrorism or situations where there are mentally ill or drug affected individuals who are acting aggressively while armed with blades etc.

[Chanakya]

"Gun control doesn't work just like "gun free zones" don't work.

The only way gun control will work is a total and complete ban of guns"

I may have a perspective which is either center-left or Leftist, yet I'm a realist ! I know that the the attachment , the opponents of gun control and and any stringent and rational regulations governing gun-ownership, harbor towards the hallowed , sacrosanct and infallible IInd amendment , is more formidable than the umbilical cord tying the newborn babe to its mother.

So even though it would be ideal, I am not suggesting banning of guns nor seizure of guns, like they have done in Australia. My ideas are mostly borne out by some of the recommendations made in the following article:-

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/...uce-gun-deaths

The ideas written as a narrative and recommendations made which struck a cord with me are:-

"I don’t think I’m being reductionist in describing the NRA’s position on gun safety as pretty basic: Guns are good; gun regulations are bad. That’s unfortunate because the key insight in the perpetually fruitless gun control debate is that our social problem is deaths from guns, not the guns from themselves.

That distinction opens up the door to what I’ve always believed is the sanest approach to gun policy: a public health approach. What if we treated guns like cars, cribs and small electrical appliances? What if we focused less on the guns and more on when, where and why people get hurt or killed by them?

Automobile safety is an encouraging example. America’s roads are much, much safer than they were a half century ago. We didn’t become anti-car. We didn’t take cars away (except for some chronic drunk drivers). We made cars and roads safer and minimized the situations in which Americans were most likely to kill themselves on the road.

[Check out editorial cartoons about gun rights and gun control.]

In 2010, the last year for which we have data, roughly 11,000 Americans died in gun homicides; 19,000 died by gun suicide; and 600 died from gun accidents – over 30,000 gun deaths a year. To put that in perspective, the faulty General Motors ignition switch at the heart of the current massive recall has been blamed for 13 deaths. Not 13,000. Not 130. Thirteen.

Experts believe that a high proportion of gun deaths are preventable. David Hemenway, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, has been an advocate of the public health approach to gun deaths for decades. I first met him when I was writing about this subject for The Economist in the late 1990s. The NRA annual meeting prompted me to call Professor Hemenway and ask what his top three reforms would be if our goal were to reduce unnecessary gun deaths.

Here are three sensible policy changes that would enable Americans to keep their guns and not die from them, too:

Universal background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Unlike drugs, just about every gun starts out legal. (You can make heroin in the remote regions of Afghanistan; you can’t make a handgun that way.) Regulations that make it harder for legal guns to end up in the hands of criminals and psychopaths will make it less likely that those criminals or psychopaths rob or shoot the rest of us.
More responsibility on the part of manufacturers for producing safer guns. The phrase “safer gun” may seem like an oxymoron; it’s not. There are many ways that gun technology can be improved to reduce inadvertent harm. Guns can be childproofed, so that young children cannot fire them. Guns can be equipped with “smart chips” so they cannot be fired by anyone but the owner. (This makes them both safer and less likely to be stolen.) Recording the unique ballistic fingerprint on every firearm would make it possible to trace any gun used in a crime back to its owner.
Lean on gun dealers to do much more to prevent “straw purchases,” in which a person buys a gun legally with the express intent of passing it on to someone who cannot buy a gun legally (e.g. a convicted felon). We do not consider it acceptable for retailers to sell liquor to people who are underage. So why is this practice in the gun trade not more rigorously opposed, including by gun enthusiasts? Let me connect the dots: If it is harder for bad people to get guns, then fewer bad people will have guns. "

However the recommendations made by Charles Wheeler the author of the above-article, forgets to make one very important recommendation which is :

> Mandatory annual neuro-psychiatric evaluation before annual "concealed firearms permit" and "gun registrations" can be renewed. An evaluation which would be comprehensive enough to reveal any abnormal /significant decline in safety awareness, safety judgement, visuospatial perception abilities {not just confined to simple vision testion such as errors of refraction but also depth perception, retinal evaluation, visual figure versus ground distinguishing ability ,etc), hearing (both peripheral and central auditory ) evaluation, and gross and fine motor abilities of our fingers, hands, arms, etc }. When I become a responsible gun owner which I intend to become fairly soon, I do not mind to pay extra taxes to the Federal Govt and perhaps extra premium to the Health Insurance Provider (and I would prefer a single payer system similar to what they do in Ist world nations with socialized medicine--topic for debate on another thread :-) ) to enable the Federal Govt to pay for these evaluations and also subsidize based on an obvious means-tested sliding scale of income, for people who cannot afford to pay higher taxes or higher health insurance premiums.

> Accelerate research in the Universities and research institutions of the US to fund more studies by Bio-mechanical Engineers (whose domain of research it would be) to constantly improve and evolve the "smart gun" technology and options.

> Make the revocation of the immoral ban imposed by the Right-Wing sects of the Democratic party and the Republicans---legislative and executive branches of the Federal Govt --on public health organizations like the GA based CDC from conducting studies exploring co-relational or causal studies of public health hazard from gun ownership and gun use.

The above list is not exhaustive ! But lets make safer guns, and lets have stringent "concealed firearms permit" and "gun registration" annual permits and lets all enjoy gun use , abiding by and NOT infringing on the "divine" IInd amendment--worshiped and fiercely protected-- as though written in stone by none other than the seemingly omniscient and omnipotent DIVINE POWER -- and not human, fallible, legislators--even if they were our revered founding fathers !

[zraver]

Maybe you can also ask the author why crime rates have fallen since the '90s, even as gun ownership has risen. I am not trying to say that rising gun ownership brought crime down, I am trying to point the danger of linking unrelated phenomenon

Crime rates plummeted with the removal of leaded gasoline. Violent crime as it exists now is overwhelmingly concentrated in areas that are economically and culturally isolated, filled with fatherless men who do not have an education or economic prospects and who already have extensive criminal records and are legally prohibited from having guns. Meanwhile the group with the most guns on the planet- white males, have crime rates that rival Western Europe. Whites also tend to have the benefits of a solid education, live in an area that is economically and culturally vibrant and have a two parent home. It stands to reason that if form follows fucntion, then function follows form. The social welfare and social engineering policies since LBJ may have had good intentions but I dare say you could not create a better system to destroy culture and family to create a broken barbarian society if you tried

[Officer of Engineers]

"Gun control doesn't work just like "gun free zones" don't work.

Here's your fucking problem.

Gun rights do not work like what you want it to be!

Who the hell cares about people who don't have gun rights?

Russia and China do not have your voting rights. Do you want Washington DC to give you the same voting rights as China and Russia?

If so, you can move to China or Russia. Hell, you want European Gun Rights? You are free to move there.

So, tell me, Hitler, why do you want to impose Nazi gun restrictions on your fellow Americans? Heil Hitler!

[antimony]

Here's your fucking problem.

Gun rights do not work like what you want it to be!

Who the hell cares about people who don't have gun rights?

Russia and China do not have your voting rights. Do you want Washington DC to give you the same voting rights as China and Russia?

If so, you can move to China or Russia. Hell, you want European Gun Rights? You are free to move there.

So, tell me, Hitler, why do you want to impose Nazi gun restrictions on your fellow Americans? Heil Hitler!

Col.,

Do we need to go all Godwin's Law just yet? I think there are plenty of holes in his argument that we can talk about without going there.

Like how he treats automobiles and guns in the same breath. I wonder how people will react if "gun control" type restrictions are actually applied on people trying to buy cars.

"Hey you, you got a felony record? No car for you!"

[antimony]

Universal background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

UBC is mandated by FFLs. And if Obama gets his way, more funds are going to be devoted to this. Looks like you are getting your wish at least for gun store sales

Unlike drugs, just about every gun starts out legal.

Wrong

(You can make heroin in the remote regions of Afghanistan; you can’t make a handgun that way.)

Heard of Darra Adam Khel? Now add American tooling capabilities and ingenuity on top of that.

More responsibility on the part of manufacturers for producing safer guns. The phrase “safer gun” may seem like an oxymoron; it’s not. There are many ways that gun technology can be improved to reduce inadvertent harm.

Please explain with specifics

Guns can be childproofed, so that young children cannot fire them.

Child locks are already available, though not mandated

Guns can be equipped with “smart chips” so they cannot be fired by anyone but the owner. (This makes them both safer and less likely to be stolen.)

Please explain how an electronic devices would work on a mechanical device like a gun

Recording the unique ballistic fingerprint on every firearm would make it possible to trace any gun used in a crime back to its owner.

I agree with this one. You would need to assign serial numbers to barrels though. Sales of barrels can be mandated to go through FFLs and UBCs like that of receivers.

Lean on gun dealers to do much more to prevent “straw purchases,” in which a person buys a gun legally with the express intent of passing it on to someone who cannot buy a gun legally (e.g. a convicted felon). We do not consider it acceptable for retailers to sell liquor to people who are underage. So why is this practice in the gun trade not more rigorously opposed, including by gun enthusiasts?

Straw purchase is already illegal. UBC may be able to prevent it.

> Mandatory annual neuro-psychiatric evaluation before annual "concealed firearms permit" and "gun registrations" can be renewed. An evaluation which would be comprehensive enough to reveal any abnormal /significant decline in safety awareness, safety judgement, visuospatial perception abilities {not just confined to simple vision testion such as errors of refraction but also depth perception, retinal evaluation, visual figure versus ground distinguishing ability ,etc), hearing (both peripheral and central auditory ) evaluation, and gross and fine motor abilities of our fingers, hands, arms, etc }. When I become a responsible gun owner which I intend to become fairly soon, I do not mind to pay extra taxes to the Federal Govt and perhaps extra premium to the Health Insurance Provider (and I would prefer a single payer system similar to what they do in Ist world nations with socialized medicine--topic for debate on another thread :-) ) to enable the Federal Govt to pay for these evaluations and also subsidize based on an obvious means-tested sliding scale of income, for people who cannot afford to pay higher taxes or higher health insurance premiums.

This is too restrictive

Accelerate research in the Universities and research institutions of the US to fund more studies by Bio-mechanical Engineers (whose domain of research it would be) to constantly improve and evolve the "smart gun" technology and options.

Here, go start a kickstarter project : https://www.kickstarter.com

Make the revocation of the immoral ban imposed by the Right-Wing sects of the Democratic party and the Republicans---legislative and executive branches of the Federal Govt --on public health organizations like the GA based CDC from conducting studies exploring co-relational or causal studies of public health hazard from gun ownership and gun use.

Now we are going off the rails...

The above list is not exhaustive ! But lets make safer guns, and lets have stringent "concealed firearms permit" and "gun registration" annual permits and lets all enjoy gun use , abiding by and NOT infringing on the "divine" IInd amendment--worshiped and fiercely protected-- as though written in stone by none other than the seemingly omniscient and omnipotent DIVINE POWER -- and not human, fallible, legislators--even if they were our revered founding fathers !

"Gun registration" infringes on the 2A

[Officer of Engineers]

Do we need to go all Godwin's Law just yet?

Not Godwin's law. Just a hammer over his thick skull! I really don't care how the IIA is abused. When you have a right, you also have a right to abuse that right. The US Consitution allows you the right to vote for a Hitler. However, the US Consitution does not allow a Hitler to destroy it.

In essense, that is his arguement. He is arguing for a Hitler's right to destroy the 2A.

[Officer of Engineers]

I may have a perspective which is either center-left or Leftist, yet I'm a realist ! I know that the the attachment , the opponents of gun control and and any stringent and rational regulations governing gun-ownership, harbor towards the hallowed , sacrosanct and infallible IInd amendment , is more formidable than the umbilical cord tying the newborn babe to its mother.

I really don't care how you shape your arguement. Your arguement is still about destroying the 2nd Amendment.

NOTHING AND I MEAN NOTHING YOU WROTE IS NOT A DIRECT VIOLATION OF 2ND AMENDMENT.

I challenge YOU to prove to US that you're not VIOLATING the 2nd Amendment. At this point, EVERYTHING AND I MEAN EVERYTHING YOU WROTE VIOLATES THE 2ND AMENDMENT LEFT, RIGHT, AND CENTRE.

You are the one advocating destroying the US Consitution.

[antimony]

I challenge YOU to prove to US that you're not VIOLATING the 2nd Amendment. At this point, EVERYTHING AND I MEAN EVERYTHING YOU WROTE VIOLATES THE 2ND AMENDMENT LEFT, RIGHT, AND CENTRE.

You are the one advocating destroying the US Consitution.

Chanakya

This is the crux of it. Most of the "common sense measures" dictated by you involve some rigorous forms of registration or similar measures, which goes against the very essence of the 2A. the essence of the 2A is not just the ownership of guns; it is the ownership of guns with a view to prevent govt. tyranny. You may long for an authoritarian state, we do not.

Others ("smart chip", "smart gun") talks about technologies that either do not exist or make the defensive use of guns unviable. In other words, they do not work.

[DOR]

FOR THE PURPOSE OF A WELL ORDERED MILITIA ...

Not for fun, not for sport, not even for preparation in case the guy you didn't bother to vote against goes off like Adolph.

Solely, deliberately, exclusively "For the purpose of a well ordered militia."

Why?

Because, that's where guns belong: in the hands of those focused on the security of the population.

The rest is just late 20th century NRA mythology.

[Mihais]

You forget the continuation.

Anyway,if guns alone would help in commiting crimes,the 400 millions firearms would produce each year the equivalent of a Verdun.

Unfortunately for the lefties,the reality is that blacks and hispanics slaughter each others merrily.Why not ban them instead?