Gun Control Thread -- (Pros and Cons) -- Aftermath of Connecticut Shooting

[chanson78]

To discount the value of freedom in cost/benefit calculations is what is closed minded and short sighted, as is the impulse to "do something" even if it accomplishes nothing, and causes immeasurable harm.

So if you are performing a cost/benefit analysis how much freedom does 1 innocent bystanders life buy? None of what I said even began to suggest that the freedoms guaranteed by the 2nd amendment shouldn't be taken into consideration. However I did say that to begin analyzing a problem and its potential solutions when some of those potential solutions are treated as sacrosanct and not eligible for inclusion is closed minded and short sighted.

 

[chanson78]

And he was denied the purchase of a firearm the week of the shootings - the system worked.

We can't expect legislation to protect us from the acts of the criminally insane, unless the legislation is to actively treat the insanity.

In this instance you are right, given what information has been released, he had the means and the ability to perform this without even going into the system at all. However, could there have been more done to potentially flag that he was considering something like this? I have never advocated stopping the sale of firearms. I do think however there are some things that could be done to ensure that people who are exhibiting signs of mental illness could be investigated in some manner.

To assume that I know what that thing may be, would be presumptuous. Yet there are some things that could potentially be used to try and build a profile of what people who go off the rails do before they carry out an attack. Again, I don't think that there is any magic solution, but to discount the possibility that some measure of regulation could even save one life before analysis has been done is an awful callous position.

As an example:
Lets say that by data mining and watching for trends, it is seen that people who consider performing acts like this typically visit a gun store and purchase extended magazines and usually buy or attempt to buy at least one AR platform firearm. Currently there is no means of tracking magazine sales, and the system that performs the background check does not contain history of the purchaser. If someone came up with a system that said if only we tracked those sorts of things we could prevent 20% of these incidents, the backlash would be huge. Not because you couldn't buy those items any more but because the government would have that data stored. Even if some numbers genius figured out that this system had a 90% accuracy rate, the chance that it would ever get implemented is still somewhere between zero and none.

Caveat: This is by no means a fleshed out example or even something that has the remotest possibility of working. It is merely an example of something that could possibly be considered to help but would immediately get no traction.

 

[bamacon]

I just hope this isn't used as a pretext to go after guns. I think it could lead to very big problems that are unintended.

 

[cbi1972]

So if you are performing a cost/benefit analysis how much freedom does 1 innocent bystanders life buy?

Not much.

Governments kill a lot more of their own citizens than citizens do, almost always after large scale disarmament. You'd have to have a kindergarten massacre or a 9/11 practically every day to rival what a government can do to a disarmed citizenry if not kept in check. It may sound paranoid, but I don't care. I do not want such abuses to even be possible here, even if schools and movie theatres get shot up from time to time.

None of what I said even began to suggest that the freedoms guaranteed by the 2nd amendment shouldn't be taken into consideration. However I did say that to begin analyzing a problem and its potential solutions when some of those potential solutions are treated as sacrosanct and not eligible for inclusion is closed minded and short sighted.

The 2nd Amendment IS sacrosanct, as the ultimate guarantor of every freedom we possess, including the ones you take for granted. Our rights aren't issued to us by government, they are ours. Unfortunately, if they are not defended, they are taken away, ultimately by force. This is easy to forget when we are all making sad faces over dead kids, when liberty is at its most vulnerable.

As an example:
Lets say that by data mining and watching for trends, it is seen that people who consider performing acts like this typically visit a gun store and purchase extended magazines and usually buy or attempt to buy at least one AR platform firearm. Currently there is no means of tracking magazine sales, and the system that performs the background check does not contain history of the purchaser. If someone came up with a system that said if only we tracked those sorts of things we could prevent 20% of these incidents, the backlash would be huge. Not because you couldn't buy those items any more but because the government would have that data stored. Even if some numbers genius figured out that this system had a 90% accuracy rate, the chance that it would ever get implemented is still somewhere between zero and none.

I would hope that the chance that it gets implemented is zero, but I fear that it is not.

 

[rizolltizide]

Great post!

In Wyoming you can open carry. The crime rate there is extraordinarily low. I know there are other states, too. My home state (Florida) is currently considering it. Trust me, if it passes, I'll have one on each hip and another one (or two) concealed.

Criminals will ALWAYS take the path of least resistance.

Wyoming crime is extraordinarily low because the poulation is low. God forbid if florida ever allowed open carry. I'd probably leave the state.

And I'm a gun owner.

 

[chanson78]

Not much.

Governments kill a lot more of their own citizens than citizens do, almost always after large scale disarmament. You'd have to have a kindergarten massacre or a 9/11 practically every day to rival what a government can do to a disarmed citizenry if not kept in check. It may sound paranoid, but I don't care. I do not want such abuses to even be possible here, even if schools and movie theatres get shot up from time to time.

You and I have gone round and round on this one before. Pistols and AR platforms are not going to amount to much against a concerted effort by the US government to quell the population. Again, the actual chance for a disarmed society is between zero and none. Ask any gun owner what is their greatest fear and they will say "The gubmint trying to come get my guns." Which invariably leads to every single one saying that they will go dig a deep hole, bury every single one and say they were stolen. An armed US populace is not a rabbit that the government can ever put back in the bag.

It has never ended very well for well meaning militant groups and they didn't even have to go up against the US Military. Waco proved that the ATF was perfectly capable of handling that issue.

 

[bamacon]

You and I have gone round and round on this one before. Pistols and AR platforms are not going to amount to much against a concerted effort by the US government to quell the population. Again, the actual chance for a disarmed society is between zero and none. Ask any gun owner what is their greatest fear and they will say "The gubmint trying to come get my guns." Which invariably leads to every single one saying that they will go dig a deep hole, bury every single one and say they were stolen. An armed US populace is not a rabbit that the government can ever put back in the bag.

It has never ended very well for well meaning militant groups and they didn't even have to go up against the US Military. Waco proved that the ATF was perfectly capable of handling that issue.

Really? You are comparing your average gun owner with militant groups and the religious nuts in Waco? This ain't a tax debate, or reducing loopholes. Many average Americans see the 2nd Amendment as the final guard against loosing all the other freedoms we cherish. Like CBI stated, many of us see an attack on that right as an attack on allllllll the others. We don't distinguish the two and neither did the Founders. Govts in the past have slaughtered, yes slaughtered MILLIONS using the pretext that they are only doing X (i.e. taking guns away from the populace) to "protect" the citizenry. We just have a fundamentally different view of a government's action. Where one sees protection, the other sees control.

 

[TheAccountant]

It has never ended very well for well meaning militant groups and they didn't even have to go up against the US Military. Waco proved that the ATF was perfectly capable of handling that issue.

How many children were killed at Waco?

 

[cbi1972]

You and I have gone round and round on this one before. Pistols and AR platforms are not going to amount to much against a concerted effort by the US government to quell the population. Again, the actual chance for a disarmed society is between zero and none. Ask any gun owner what is their greatest fear and they will say "The gubmint trying to come get my guns." Which invariably leads to every single one saying that they will go dig a deep hole, bury every single one and say they were stolen. An armed US populace is not a rabbit that the government can ever put back in the bag.

It has never ended very well for well meaning militant groups and they didn't even have to go up against the US Military. Waco proved that the ATF was perfectly capable of handling that issue.

Yet, no matter how many times we go around, you never seem to learn how armed resistance actually works on a large scale. All the might of the US military can't even keep a small country under control, much less a large one. Besieging a compound in Waco is a fun little exercise compared to subjugating an armed and determined populace, which is all but impossible. When a population is armed and willing to fight, occupiers may gain victories with military might, but it is too costly, and they ultimately lose or give up. See the history of Afghanistan. Could the Soviets have destroyed the country? Sure, but they could not control it, and neither can we. If the Afghans had been unarmed, there might not be any Afghans today. The cold reality is that the weak are destroyed when they submit, not that the strong cannot hope to prevail.

 

[Bamaro]

Every gun murder is different whether it is the thug on the street, the household crime of passion, the mentally deranged mass murder like this one or others. No laws will prevent all. All we can do is try our best to lessen these acts. This act, as horrendous as it was, would have been very difficult, if not impossible to prevent with laws. That is no reason to not use this murder of 20 innocent 6 & 7 year old children as a reason to prevent other acts like this in the future.
I really dont care if my or your next gun purchased is delayed a week or two while that purchase is cleared. If it stops images like these in the future, its OK with me:

 

[2003TIDE]

I really dont care if my or your next gun purchased is delayed a week or two while that purchase is cleared. If it stops images like these in the future, its OK with me:

It won't and didn't. Keep ignoring the facts. Dude tried to buy a gun and was denied. So he went and killed his mom and stole hers. How will laws around purchasing guns stop that?

 

[cbi1972]

If it stops images like these in the future, its OK with me:

These look like a "first world problems" meme compared to an image search for "mass graves" or "Srebrenica"

 

[crimsonaudio]

I really dont care if my or your next gun purchased is delayed a week or two while that purchase is cleared. If it stops images like these in the future, its OK with me:

Again, but tell us how it will help. I'm not saying it shouldn't be discussed, but how is that going to help? We see from this shooting that if the purchaser is denied, they'll find the firearms if they want them - they're unbelievably plentiful in this country.

So far, and I'm just being honest, you sound like you're allowing your emotions to drive your thoughts on action - not logic. So please tell us exactly how more detailed background checks will stop these shootings? Be logical and explain it, otherwise you're simply proposing hurdles for legal gun purchasers that will do nothing but increase cost.

I've said it over and over - gun control is treating the symptom, not the issue. Until we, as a society, get past our current flippancy regarding mental illness, no amount of new laws about who can legally purchase firearms will do anything to address this violence.

 

[bamacon]

Groups are planning to march on the NRA. That's just stupid. Protest a group that is a leading voice in sensible laws, gun training and safety? That is like blaming weathermen for the rain.

When you can prove that reducing gun access to the population makes the society safer then fine, but statistics are hard to come by...see Washington D.C., Chicago, New York etc. Strict gun laws....crime rates go up. Britain bans guns crime rates go up.....

 

[rizolltizide]

My mom said the killer looked like a nerd. Now, I don't know if that had anything to do with the killing or not. But after reflection, I would be in total support of incarcerating nerds. Society just doesn't need them. Or maybe we could expel them to fight atrocities around the world.

 

[Bamaro]

It won't and didn't. Keep ignoring the facts. Dude tried to buy a gun and was denied. So he went and killed his mom and stole hers. How will laws around purchasing guns stop that?

I already acknowledged that. The next one however may be very preventable.

 

[Bamaro]

Again, but tell us how it will help. I'm not saying it shouldn't be discussed, but how is that going to help? We see from this shooting that if the purchaser is denied, they'll find the firearms if they want them - they're unbelievably plentiful in this country.

So far, and I'm just being honest, you sound like you're allowing your emotions to drive your thoughts on action - not logic. So please tell us exactly how more detailed background checks will stop these shootings? Be logical and explain it, otherwise you're simply proposing hurdles for legal gun purchasers that will do nothing but increase cost.

I've said it over and over - gun control is treating the symptom, not the issue. Until we, as a society, get past our current flippancy regarding mental illness, no amount of new laws about who can legally purchase firearms will do anything to address this violence.

For starts, if what I am hearing is true, forty percent of gun acquisitions do not even include a background check.

 

[chanson78]

Yet, no matter how many times we go around, you never seem to learn how armed resistance actually works on a large scale. All the might of the US military can't even keep a small country under control, much less a large one. Besieging a compound in Waco is a fun little exercise compared to subjugating an armed and determined populace, which is all but impossible. When a population is armed and willing to fight, occupiers may gain victories with military might, but it is too costly, and they ultimately lose or give up. See the history of Afghanistan. Could the Soviets have destroyed the country? Sure, but they could not control it, and neither can we. If the Afghans had been unarmed, there might not be any Afghans today. The cold reality is that the weak are destroyed when they submit, not that the strong cannot hope to prevail.

You and I will just have to agree to disagree. I understand your points regarding a guerrilla force. I just don't happen to believe that it is possible anymore due to decentralization of military power and the lack of true organization that results from a central unifying sense of wrong. In all of those instances, specifically Afghanistan, there was a unifying sense of occupation to be overthrown that led people to be willing to fight and deal with all the hardships associated with it. It is my position that Americans are too happy being fat, dumb and comfortable to trade that lifestyle for the hardships that would come with what you say is still possible by having an armed populace. That is even before my contention that should it even happen, there would be overwhelming force that would stop it before it got out of hand.

There is an article that I think addresses the issue fairly well. I won't link to it due to one word of language that is not suitable on this board, but I will quote what I believe to be the pertinent passage related to the resistance position. If you want the full article go to http://talkingpointsmemo.com and search for Josh Marshall. He has the full article with more context. I don't agree with every position, particularly the name calling, as I feel it doesn't add to his point, however the historical context it provides I believe is no less valid. For all of our history, the citizenry's right to bear arms has never been a turning point in resolving any of the largest socioeconomic issues.

There are a lot of folks who believe we’re free in the US because of guns.

It’s worth stepping back for a moment and thinking about what that means.

It is a bizarre, weirdly narcissistic notion that is totally unhinged from any of our history. It is also comparatively new. Since the close of the 18th century, there is only one time that Americans rose up in any organized fashion against the government of the United States — during the Civil War. This is obviously a significant exception and one I’ll return to. But it is not one that speaks very well about the need for guns to protect our freedoms. And in any case, since it was done by treasonous state governments that appropriated US Army forts and Navy facilities, the whole issue of private arms wasn’t a driving factor.

But back to the point — the Jacksonian drive for universal manhood suffrage, the fight against the bank of the United States, abolitionism, the women’s rights movement, progressivism, the various religious awakenings, westward expansion, industrialization, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Era. Obviously you could come up with a very different list. But we’ve been a country now for well over two centuries and we have the longest period of unbroken republican, constitutional rule of any country in the world.

We’ve expanded our freedoms, sometimes let it recede. We’ve had major blots on in our history like the post-Reconstruction era in the South or the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II. It’s a rich and complex, sometimes tragic, but generally incredibly powerful and inspiring story. And yet in really not a single one of these cases has any government — state or federal — been pushed back in some moment of overreach by armed citizens or even affected in its decision-making by the knowledge of an armed citizenry.

 

[chanson78]

For starts, if what I am hearing is true, forty percent of gun acquisitions do not even include a background check.

If you purchase a firearm from a tax stamped retailer you must submit to the background check (except in special circumstances, such as curios or historical pieces). Your mention of gun acquisitions without a background check are likely the private sales. You might hear this associated with something known as the "gun show loophole" which is a media centric way of saying that sellers at gun shows are subject to the same laws as sales between private citizens.

 

[2003TIDE]

I already acknowledged that. The next one however may be very preventable.

Going by that logic everything is preventable if we just pass enough laws. If someone wants guns, they are going to get guns. Maybe we should focus on the mental health system (or lack of) in this country? Just a thought.