Study shows gun control would prevent mass shootings

[AnOminous]

Simply banning guns won't work because we have a severe problem with the Mentally Ill having no access to care. Also it is excessive and not really something the US population will tolerate.

For that matter, neither will the Supreme Court. Any gun control regime will have to be consistent with the standards laid out in D.C. v. Heller and its progeny. While it's not yet entirely clear what those standards are, it is clear that simply banning handguns or refusing ever to issue permits does not pass Constitutional muster. It is also clear that the Second Amendment does permit some degree of regulation of firearm ownership and operation by states and the federal government, though what degree that is remains to be determined.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

People who argue against gun control seem to be the ones who like to imagine fantastic scenarios that place them as a hero rather than collateral damage or someone who makes things worse..

I think there's something to what you're saying here.

 

[Karen Riley]

I honestly don't think that the solution to what happens in America is to ban guns completely. I remember reading a while ago that there are plenty of countries which are equally as relaxed on gun control that have nowhere near the amount of mass shootings that America has had.

It seems like there's something more deep rooted in American culture and if that was identified and addressed then registered weapons could still be legal. On the flip side however I fully understand that would be no comfort to those who have already lost their family members due to gun crime. But if somebody is willing to get a gun and actually kill people with it then that level of anger should in theory manifest itself in other ways anyway.

Those are just my two cents though, it's an opinion nowhere near as educated as some of the wonderful and fascinating ones I've read in this thread

 

[AP 297]

@Splendid Meat Sticks

I can appreciate that you might disagree with a few of my posts. I can even understand that you might think the content of them is dumb. I would like you to at least give us the courtesy of explaining why you think those posts are dumb rather than simply rating a few of us while not giving any rationale to your position.

The content of both of the posts I made had hard numbers and actual comparative death rates related to Semi-Automatic weapons and actual policy positions. Please join our discussion and explain why you think that is dumb.

 

[Duke Nukem]

Time to sit back and watch this thread devolve into logical fallacies and shitposting memes and doctored statistics.

As with all threads like this, it was inevitable.

But that being said, no one's minds are going to change on the thread topic, no matter how many charts, graphs, and biased studies/doctored statistics people spam here.

 

[AP 297]

Time to sit back and watch this thread devolve into logical fallacies and shitposting memes and doctored statistics.

As with all threads like this, it was inevitable.

But that being said, no one's minds are going to change on the thread topic, no matter how many charts, graphs, and biased studies/doctored statistics people spam here.

Agreed, still the basic facts on the issue are when certain weapons have been kept away from certain people - the mortality rate of Mass Shootings goes down.

A crazy mass shooter has a hard time killing that many people if they are stuck using a revolver with 6 bullets. Australia has proven this. We can say these events are rare, but America has too many incidents of shootings anyway. We now have another idiot riding I-10 shooting people as they are driving. This past labor day weekend we had a few incidents in Chicago, Charlotte, NYC and a number of other cities where completely innocent bystanders where seemingly randomly shot.

This is embarrassing as a country and especially as a member of a family of responsible gun owners. All of us have taken gun safety courses and almost all of us have conceal carry permits.(I am the only one who has not yet, but will as soon as I can muster the time) I want only responsible people to own guns, period.

Bad actors make it harder for responsible people to own guns. It is a fact. Real guns are a lot more dangerous than the ones in video games. They need to be taken seriously. People who do not take guns seriously have no business using them or owning them.

 

[Duke Nukem]

My take on it is, bridge the gap between the mental health industry and the NICS background check system. Simple enough, and doesn't prevent normal, well-adjusted people who want certain items from getting them, but does add a barrier for those who are not. Sure, they may get them elsewhere, but there's only so much that can legally be done.

Now I don't think requiring a psych eval for purchases is essential, necessarily, for many, it reeks too much of DUI checkpoints, where presumption of guilt is the thing. Presumption of innocence, or "innocent until proven guilty," is an important part of the American justice system, because it's supposed to help prevent people from getting unfairly punished. Either way, it's not politically possible to require such stringent measures, especially with America shying away from gun control in general.

The problem of mass shootings can be addressed without adding more items to the blacklist, and without preventing normal people from legally purchasing what they want for the most part. The vast majority of people are just too stupid to see it, and care more about their political agendas than they do about practical, workable ideas.

And that, exactly that, is the reason nothing has changed.

 

[AnOminous]

Now I don't think requiring a psych eval for purchases is essential, necessarily, for many, it reeks too much of DUI checkpoints, where presumption of guilt is the thing.

The situation should be the opposite. The burden should be on the state to show someone is unfit to exercise a fundamental right, not on the citizen to prove fitness.

However, there have been too many cases where someone has clearly and obviously been unfit to possess firearms (or even to be out in public without a wrangler) that it's clear dangerous, insane people are not being identified even when they would be. Seung-Hui Cho and Jared Loughner are two obvious cases. And Dylann Roof is an obvious case where someone was clearly ineligible to purchase firearms legally and did so anyway without a problem.

It seems that even the laws in states where gun ownership rights are highly valued (like Arizona for Loughner and Virginia for Cho) would have stopped a number of these incidents had laws already on the books been actually enforced.

 

[Duke Nukem]

The situation should be the opposite. The burden should be on the state to show someone is unfit to exercise a fundamental right, not on the citizen to prove fitness.

However, there have been too many cases where someone has clearly and obviously been unfit to possess firearms (or even to be out in public without a wrangler) that it's clear dangerous, insane people are not being identified even when they would be. Seung-Hui Cho and Jared Loughner are two obvious cases. And Dylann Roof is an obvious case where someone was clearly ineligible to purchase firearms legally and did so anyway without a problem.

It seems that even the laws in states where gun ownership rights are highly valued (like Arizona for Loughner and Virginia for Cho) would have stopped a number of these incidents had laws already on the books been actually enforced.

All that shit is just gaps in the system where there should not have been. That's not a failing of our current laws, that's just general incompetence. The idea that more and stricter laws would prevent anything is just laughable. Collective punishment is what it is, and it does nothing but rob the innocent of their rights, pushing us towards that tyranny that so many fear is around the corner.

If citizens were forced to prove fitness to exercise their rights, they would cease being citizens and be reduced to subjects. It may have been said before, but that does not make it any less true. But such a thing would still do no good, because obvious problem people seem to be getting ignored, and even if someone legally ineligible attempts to purchase a firearm and is rebuffed by NICS, no attempts to prosecute are usually made. This simply enables the individual to seek a different source.

And as for "the government is too powerful, they have militarized police and drones and stuff" arguments, any sort of engagement against a hypothetical corrupt, tyrannical government would not be a set piece battle like, say, the massive armored engagements between Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. It would be more like hit-and-run attacks, sabotage, espionage, capturing enemy equipment, and maybe uniforms for some real deep cover shit, and basically making a nuisance of one's self until the occupier decides it's not worth it. More like what people in countries occupied by the Nazis in WWII did, if they weren't scumbag collaborators. Sure, these attempts weren't always successful, but they were damn well better than nothing.

I'm not saying you'd be able to win a guerrilla war against a tyrannical government (which probably has access to modern equipment and comparatively infinite resources), with nothing but that AR-15 you bought at Wal-Mart, I'm just saying that things wouldn't be quite as futile as some would want you to believe.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

The situation should be the opposite. The burden should be on the state to show someone is unfit to exercise a fundamental right, not on the citizen to prove fitness.

Yes, but is the right to own firearms a fundamental right?

 

[Splendid]

@Splendid Meat Sticks

I can appreciate that you might disagree with a few of my posts. I can even understand that you might think the content of them is dumb. I would like you to at least give us the courtesy of explaining why you think those posts are dumb rather than simply rating a few of us while not giving any rationale to your position.

The content of both of the posts I made had hard numbers and actual comparative death rates related to Semi-Automatic weapons and actual policy positions. Please join our discussion and explain why you think that is dumb.

Happily, first off, there's the fact that you don't understand the difference between clips and magazines. Someone writing as much about gun policy as you should really know the difference. It's pretty important.

Next, there's the issue of you (and several other people) talking about how we need laws to restrict Scary Black Plastic Guns. In reality, murders with long arms are quite rare compared to ones committed with cheap illegally obtained handguns.

Now for me to argue some points in detail.

Is it too much to ask for people to have any standards or responsibility for gun ownership and sales activity? Rights have responsibilities attached to them.

Not only are there quite a lot of laws restricting gun ownership, but there are already quite a lot of laws about standards and responsibilities when using them. Google <your state> gun laws and see just how many restrictions there are. Then google the federal ones.

Also, "Rights have responsibilities" sounds an awful lot like the beginning of a sentence that ends with the speaker telling someone why their right to free speech ends where their feelings begin.

2. Required training and Certification for Semi-automatic and High-powered weapons: Another easy idea. These weapons are unique and their sale should be allowed, but restricted to people who have had enough training to use them properly. It is perfectly fine for you to own an AR-15. You should at least have enough training to know where the safety is and how to reload a weapon that is this potent.

This is a terrible idea, because what is a "high-powered" gun? Is it just one that shoots a powerful bullet? Because in that case, not only are very, very few murders committed with high-powered weapons, which are overwhelmingly rifles, but guns that fire powerful bullets aren't even particularly good at killing people. They're mostly only used to take down animals or for shooting appliances in the desert for fun. The only time you'll normally see them in military or police use is for shooting people at long ranges, and "sniper kills 50 schoolchildren" isn't exactly a common headline for a reason: people tend to get relatively close to do their murderin'. High-powered weapons are simply not a problem.

Also, semi-automatic weapons need special training? Really? The definition of semi-automatic is a gun that fires one round per pull of the trigger without requiring any other operation of the action. They're actually easier and safer to operate and reload than most other kinds of guns. Also, you might be interested to know that gun safeties are usually clearly indicated on large weapons like rifles, and all weapons come with manuals explaining where the safety is.

Also, the AR-15 and almost all similarly sized assault rifles are not high-powered rifles. They fire an intermediate cartridge that is less powerful than what's in a typical hunting gun.

Interesting. I am amazed you call those mass shootings. I will go along with it.
Is it wrong to want more people to survive these types of incidents? It might have been nice if fewer people died in both incidents because the shooter had to use revolvers and guns with smaller clips rather than walking in with a semi-automatic weapon that fires 5.56 NATO rounds designed to tumble with each shot.

You ever see pictures of old-timey cavalry? They often had several guns on them so that they wouldn't have to reload. If someone wanted to shoot up somewhere, they'd just pull off a similar tactic. Some mass shooters have already done it despite the widespread availability of high-capacity weapons just so that they wouldn't have to reload.

Also, don't put up that shit about "5.56 NATO rounds designed to tumble with each shot." It's a gun. Its purpose is to discharge a projectile at a lethal speed. Different guns do that different ways, and part of the way that AR-15 pattern weapons do that is by making their bullets tumble inside of their target. The fact that the gun is designed to be lethal doesn't make it special or anything like that, it makes it a fucking gun. The gun doesn't become magically safer if the bullets don't tumble either. The tumbling effect actually just creates a larger wound cavity, which in mass shooting situations isn't really relevant, since if you're unarmed, the shooter can just shoot you again and again at their leisure. By the way, lots of bullets tumble in their target. The ones that don't tend to just go straight through a human body. Those would be those high-powered rifles you were talking about earlier.

He was able to kill that many thanks to the pistols being semi-automatic with high capacity clips. They were able to stop the shooter when he had to reload. That is how they almost always stop them here in the US. I am not saying we should ban extended clips, but it would be nice not to have to worry about them.

Virginia Tech ended when Cho committed suicide. Nobody "stopped him". Also, the fact that the pistols were semi-automatic didn't mean a damn thing. Many revolvers can be fired just as quickly as a semi-automatic. They may have a theoretically lower rate of fire, but both can fire quickly enough that human reflexes are the limiting factor. And before you say that revolvers have a lower ammo capacity, see above.

And you're "not saying we should ban extended clips", but "it would be nice not to have to worry about them." TBH, that sounds exactly like the intro to an argument for banning extended MAGAZINES to me.

I think the vast majority of school shootings could be prevented if gun owners were required to submit to mandatory psychiatric evaluations prior to any and all purchases.

It's really dumb to claim that gun owners should be forced to go through a time-consuming psychiatric reevaluation every time they want to make a hobby-related purchase. Also, any psychiatric evaluation would also be a de facto waiting period, and forcing more of those on people is bad because sometimes, people have a sudden need for self defense and need a gun because they're suddenly dealing with a stalker, there's been an outbreak of gang problems in their neighborhood, their ex has started leaving threatening phone calls, etc. Also, yeah, let's burden a mental health system that's failing to prevent mass shootings already with more people demanding more services. That'll work well.

Not significantly high, no. Still a lot of people died senselessly. I am sorry, but I don't think that human life is cheap thing. Being frustrated by the deaths of innocent people is not just people "shitting themselves" over something.

Just because you may not be concerned, it does not mean that the world is not changing around you. If you want to bait post. Please make it less obvious.

The problem is that we're talking about a nation of over 300 million people. People will die. There's nothing that can be done to prevent it. You simply can't legislate away every bad thing that could ever happen to each one of these people, especially when you're talking about gun control, because then you've got people who would not have died if the legislation hadn't been passed.


tl;dr you got many of your dumb ratings just for knowing so little about guns that, in my opinion, you should not be debating gun policy. That's a little like me trying to debate insider trading laws. I'd get rated dumb by someone in the know.

And one last thing: let's be honest, the US's unique geographical positioning has also led to a drug problem, which has in turn led to a gang problem. Almost all of these murders are just a couple of gangbangers shooting at each other over territory, etc. While it's always bad when someone dies, and while I think that it's tragic that people choose to live their lives that way, society won't miss them, and I don't think most Americans give a fuck if some pusher offs some other pusher.

Edit: I now realize I was angry when I wrote this. Sorry about the tone. My arguments still stand though.

 

[Sanshain]

5.56 x 45 NATO is more powerfull than hunting guns, although less than others military ammunition.
Caliber is not everything.

No it isn't. 5.56x45 is an intermediate-power rifle round designed primarily for anti-personnel duties. The most common hunting round on earth is the .30-06 Springfield, more commonly used by the M1 Garand during World War 2. From comparison, the average muzzle energy of a 5.56x45 round is around 1,700 joules. The .30-06 Springfield's average muzzle energy is closer to 3,000 joules. Plus, the civillian variant of the 5.56x45 NATO is the .223 Remington, which has an average muzzle energy of less than 1,200 joules.

Edit: The Curious Incident of the Post in the Nighttime? Oh well, I'm leaving this here as it's valid info.

Edit 2: Edit Harder.

I'd just like to clarify that overall muzzle energy doesn't automatically translate to more damage inflicted upon a victim. A key bit of firearms terminology is the stopping power of a round. This refers to the ability of the round in question to incapacitate it's target by inducing shock and trauma on impact. Pistol rounds in the .357 Magnum and .45 ACP range are noted as having exceptional stopping power due to their large projectiles but comparatively low velocity, which means they dump more kinetic energy into their target on impact. Some high-caliber rounds may be more likely to inflict lethal injury on a target, but are less likely to cause the immediate trauma needed to overcome the effects of adrenaline, meaning that a screaming terrorist or other foe may just have time to pull off the burst needed to kill you before he bleeds out.

 

[DNJACK]

I deleted the post forever ago because I realized it was wrong.

 

[AP 297]

Happily, first off, there's the fact that you don't understand the difference between clips and magazines. Someone writing as much about gun policy as you should really know the difference. It's pretty important.

Awesome! I am glad someone finally mentioned that! Thanks man! I was just waiting on someone to bust me for that.

Next, there's the issue of you (and several other people) talking about how we need laws to restrict Scary Black Plastic Guns. In reality, murders with long arms are quite rare compared to ones committed with cheap illegally obtained handguns.

Most murders, yes, are committed by handguns. They are common and plentiful. A few years ago at a gun buyback the most common weapon turned in were unregistered 22LR pistols.

Not only are there quite a lot of laws restricting gun ownership, but there are already quite a lot of laws about standards and responsibilities when using them. Google <your state> gun laws and see just how many restrictions there are. Then google the federal ones.

Obviously not enough or they are not enforced when Dylan Roof, and a number of recent mass shooters and lunatics can purchase or acquire them. The biggest enemy of normal average safe people owning guns is lunatics like those guys getting them and abusing them.

Also, "Rights have responsibilities" sounds an awful lot like the beginning of a sentence that ends with the speaker telling someone why their right to free speech ends where their feelings begin.

Please do not confuse me with an SJW or a person from Tumblr. Freedom of Speech is one of our most sacred of rights and yet not everyone can own a permit to broadcast on public airwaves. Not Everyone can say what ever they want at any place. We kick street preachers out all the time. You cannot hold up a sign everywhere either. If your speech is commercial rather than simply political, than expect it to be even more regulated.

You tolerate speech being regulated and yet when it is guns that might be regulated for the same reasons, you draw a line? Are words more deadly than bullets?

This is a terrible idea, because what is a "high-powered" gun? Is it just one that shoots a powerful bullet? Because in that case, not only are very, very few murders committed with high-powered weapons, which are overwhelmingly rifles, but guns that fire powerful bullets aren't even particularly good at killing people. They're mostly only used to take down animals or for shooting appliances in the desert for fun. The only time you'll normally see them in military or police use is for shooting people at long ranges, and "sniper kills 50 schoolchildren" isn't exactly a common headline for a reason: people tend to get relatively close to do their murderin'. High-powered weapons are simply not a problem.

Also, semi-automatic weapons need special training? Really? The definition of semi-automatic is a gun that fires one round per pull of the trigger without requiring any other operation of the action. They're actually easier and safer to operate and reload than most other kinds of guns. Also, you might be interested to know that gun safeties are usually clearly indicated on large weapons like rifles, and all weapons come with manuals explaining where the safety is.

Also, the AR-15 and almost all similarly sized assault rifles are not high-powered rifles. They fire an intermediate cartridge that is less powerful than what's in a typical hunting gun.

Very true, but the bullet from an AR-15 is a whole lot more destructive than say the extremely common 22LR. Especially when that bullet is being fired at rapid succession in significant numbers like what happened in Aurora and Newtown. 3 features made those shootings so deadly and fueled the public outcry for tougher standards.

1. Very Destructive bullets
2. Fired in rapid succession via Semi-Automatic firing Mechanisms
3. Large Magazines that held lots of the bullets so the shooter did not have to reload as often(Maximizing killing efficiency)

I am more of person who wants to restrict guns with features rather than appearance or vague terms like "assualt" that can mean anything. Also Semi-Automatic weapons are extremely easy to shoot and that is their problem. You can google countless news stories of people accidentally shooting themselves or other people because of how easy these guns are to fire.

Hell an instructor was killed by a kid who was being taught to use an Uzi(which are even easier to shoot than a semi-automatic weapons):

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/us/arizona-girl-fatal-shooting-accident/

Shooting these guns is not the problem. Shooting them safely without accidents is.

You ever see pictures of old-timey cavalry? They often had several guns on them so that they wouldn't have to reload. If someone wanted to shoot up somewhere, they'd just pull off a similar tactic. Some mass shooters have already done it despite the widespread availability of high-capacity weapons just so that they wouldn't have to reload.

In one of the posts created by @Dynastia , the incidents he mentions have shooters in Australia doing exactly that because of the ban on those types of weapons. Both could not kill more than 3 people each. If Newtown only claimed the lives of the 2 teachers rather than the other 20 children, it would have been less of a tragedy.

Also, don't put up that shit about "5.56 NATO rounds designed to tumble with each shot." It's a gun. Its purpose is to discharge a projectile at a lethal speed. Different guns do that different ways, and part of the way that AR-15 pattern weapons do that is by making their bullets tumble inside of their target. The fact that the gun is designed to be lethal doesn't make it special or anything like that, it makes it a fucking gun. The gun doesn't become magically safer if the bullets don't tumble either. The tumbling effect actually just creates a larger wound cavity, which in mass shooting situations isn't really relevant, since if you're unarmed, the shooter can just shoot you again and again at their leisure. By the way, lots of bullets tumble in their target. The ones that don't tend to just go straight through a human body. Those would be those high-powered rifles you were talking about earlier.

Despite differing accounts, the military chose that round because it did that. It was a "force multiplier". You could put more rounds in the magazine and the round were just as destructive as the larger rounds of the M1 Garand. 5.56 is not a round to ever underestimate.

Virginia Tech ended when Cho committed suicide. Nobody "stopped him". Also, the fact that the pistols were semi-automatic didn't mean a damn thing. Many revolvers can be fired just as quickly as a semi-automatic. They may have a theoretically lower rate of fire, but both can fire quickly enough that human reflexes are the limiting factor. And before you say that revolvers have a lower ammo capacity, see above.

And you're "not saying we should ban extended clips", but "it would be nice not to have to worry about them." TBH, that sounds exactly like the intro to an argument for banning extended MAGAZINES to me.

Cho used a lot of pistols. His most destructive was his 9mm with hollow point ammunition. He did shoot himself as the police were closing in on him, but often the way these shooting stop is the shooter runs out of rounds and has to reload as was the case of Jared Loughner, Adam Lanza, and a number of other killers. People who want more aggressive restrictions on guns can cite this and often will:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/high-capacity-magazines-mass-shootings

It's really dumb to claim that gun owners should be forced to go through a time-consuming psychiatric reevaluation every time they want to make a hobby-related purchase. Also, any psychiatric evaluation would also be a de facto waiting period, and forcing more of those on people is bad because sometimes, people have a sudden need for self defense and need a gun because they're suddenly dealing with a stalker, there's been an outbreak of gang problems in their neighborhood, their ex has started leaving threatening phone calls, etc. Also, yeah, let's burden a mental health system that's failing to prevent mass shootings already with more people demanding more services. That'll work well.

This is something I can agree with you on. Having Ma and Pa at the gun store be the last best hope in screening potential mass murderers is rather silly to me. It is why I favor forcing people to have licenses for guns with certain features, bullet types, or magazine sizes.

Like I said man, we need to expand the mental health care system. Also, if you have a dangerous stalker or a gang outbreak, call the cops! Most people get in trouble when they take the law into their own hands, in a hasty move. Either train yourself to shoot properly and embrace that a gun is a long term commitment that requires skill, or don't purchase a gun at all.

The problem is that we're talking about a nation of over 300 million people. People will die. There's nothing that can be done to prevent it. You simply can't legislate away every bad thing that could ever happen to each one of these people, especially when you're talking about gun control, because then you've got people who would not have died if the legislation hadn't been passed.

That is not a sound basis for any public policy. For people to just nihilisticly say that people will die and we should simply do nothing when it is obvious that there are solutions and many of those solutions can be very simple. I won't accept it and neither will most of the general public at some point.

My fear is these types of events occur on a pendulum. Back in the 1970's we had a lot of bad legislation that made it so that people were in danger of being arrested for shooting someone in their own home. We had really naive people that believed if we got rid of all guns we would make neighborhoods safer. It failed and so the pendulum swung in the opposite direction and we have more open gun laws and 2nd amendment interpretations.

What swings once can swing again. Lets try to make the velocity slower so the swing is not more restrictive in the other direction...

tl;dr you got many of your dumb ratings just for knowing so little about guns that, in my opinion, you should not be debating gun policy. That's a little like me trying to debate insider trading laws. I'd get rated dumb by someone in the know.

I am much more glad you posted and commented. We really do not have much of a open debate about guns in the US. People get into their "position bunkers" and we just get lots of yelling. I prefer a post like this over a rating, simply because I wonder what the other person is thinking.

Edit: I now realize I was angry when I wrote this. Sorry about the tone. My arguments still stand though.

It is okay man, I provoked you a bit. If anything, you should not feel bad at all, I probably should .

Also passion is a good thing in an argument. Part of the reason I started posting in Deep thoughts was to help remove the tendency of people to "halal" each other for having strong opinions.

 

[Splendid]

You tolerate speech being regulated and yet when it is guns that might be regulated for the same reasons, you draw a line? Are words more deadly than bullets?

Who said I don't tolerate any gun legislation? I'm not saying it should be 1900 again where it was theoretically legal to buy a rocket launcher, but I do believe that anything that the military would consider a small arm should be freely available to all individuals who are not disqualified because of a conviction for a felony, mental health issues, disabilities, young age, or otherwise being a danger to themselves or others. And I believe that it's the government's job to prove that someone shouldn't be given a gun, rather than people proving that they should have the 'privilege' of owning one.

Very true, but the bullet from an AR-15 is a whole lot more destructive than say the extremely common 22LR. Especially when that bullet is being fired at rapid succession in significant numbers like what happened in Aurora and Newtown. 3 features made those shootings so deadly and fueled the public outcry for tougher standards.

1. Very Destructive bullets
2. Fired in rapid succession via Semi-Automatic firing Mechanisms
3. Large Magazines that held lots of the bullets so the shooter did not have to reload as often(Maximizing killing efficiency)

I am more of person who wants to restrict guns with features rather than appearance or vague terms like "assualt" that can mean anything. Also Semi-Automatic weapons are extremely easy to shoot and that is their problem. You can google countless news stories of people accidentally shooting themselves or other people because of how easy these guns are to fire.

Hell an instructor was killed by a kid who was being taught to use an Uzi(which are even easier to shoot than a semi-automatic weapons):

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/us/arizona-girl-fatal-shooting-accident/

Shooting these guns is not the problem. Shooting them safely without accidents is.

Under the range and circumstances where mass murders occur, there's just not that much of a difference between, say, .32 and .50 BMG. You're shooting unarmored targets at very close range. Even if the first shot doesn't kill them, it WILL put them down, you can just pump a few more into them.
The rate of fire doesn't really matter either. A lever action or straight pull bolt action gun, for example, still barely fires any slower than a semiautomatic one (assuming the shooter is aiming and not just shooting as fast as they can.) We long, long, long ago passed the point where human beings weren't the slowest part of aiming and shooting.
Also, once again, once you run out of ammo for one gun, you can just draw another. They did this at Columbine IIRC. Also, magazines are simply too easy to make, especially now that we have widespread 3D printing. Anybody who wants a high capacity magazine can get one and there's literally nothing any government in the world can do to stop it. Trying to control it is pointless.

As for accidentally shooting people, I don't see how the weapon being semiautomatic plays into that. If someone accidentally shoots themselves or someone else, they don't go, "Hmm, well, it's a semiauto, I'd better shoot them again." No, they just stop shooting. Remember, each and every single bullet requires the trigger to be pulled. It's just as easy to shoot yourself or someone else with any gun if the chamber is loaded. If you're so concerned about people accidentally shooting each other, why not advocate for all guns to have either a magazine loaded indicator or a magazine safety instead?

That is not a sound basis for any public policy. For people to just nihilisticly say that people will die and we should simply do nothing when it is obvious that there are solutions and many of those solutions can be very simple. I won't accept it and neither will most of the general public at some point.

This ties into your example about a kid dying while shooting an Uzi. Yes, there probably should have been a rule against young children firing such a short barrelled automatic weapon, and everyone there was irresponsible. This is a freak accident, and it's telling that nothing similar (the blowback of a firearm causing muzzle rise in fully automatic mode causing the person to kill themselves) has happened since. It's one death. Preventing one death does not justify a whole slew of new laws and regulations. There are fundamental upper limits to how complicated rules and regulations can be before they begin to become meaningless. If you don't believe me, look at the US tax code. Some defendents being sued by the IRS recently prevailed on a mistake of law defense. This means that their defense was literally that they didn't understand the law. Normally, no justice system in the world allows this defense, but the judge agreed that the tax code had reached such an absurd complexity that the defendents were essentially forced to break the law. If you made up regulations to cover stupid edge case shit like that child's death, you'd soon be making so many laws that you would effectively be banning people from owning guns at all, which is, of course, unconstitutional.

And by the way, we DO nihilistically accept people just dying. Every year people are crushed to death by vending machines, yet the most anyone does to stop it is slap a sticker on the front saying not to rock it if your food gets stuck inside. We accept that we can't have a complex code of vending machine regulations and standards to protect idiots from themselves, because at the end of the day, society's gotta go on, and people have to get their shit out of vending machines, and the retards are just a statistic. And obviously, this is only one of the more ridiculous examples.

 

[AP 297]

Who said I don't tolerate any gun legislation? I'm not saying it should be 1900 again where it was theoretically legal to buy a rocket launcher, but I do believe that anything that the military would consider a small arm should be freely available to all individuals who are not disqualified because of a conviction for a felony, mental health issues, disabilities, young age, or otherwise being a danger to themselves or others. And I believe that it's the government's job to prove that someone shouldn't be given a gun, rather than people proving that they should have the 'privilege' of owning one.

There are fundamental upper limits to how complicated rules and regulations can be before they begin to become meaningless. If you don't believe me, look at the US tax code. Some defendents being sued by the IRS recently prevailed on a mistake of law defense. This means that their defense was literally that they didn't understand the law. Normally, no justice system in the world allows this defense, but the judge agreed that the tax code had reached such an absurd complexity that the defendents were essentially forced to break the law.

Valid argument. To be honest restriction by requirement of licence seems easier to me than our current method of guy at the gun store having to be the person who all this is thrust upon. Guns store owners should be more worried about inventory and their business than worrying about filing so much paperwork. A system of permits makes it easier. People have to show ID to purchase alcohol, tobacco, as well as a number of other goods and services. We don't expect the liquor store to have to run a background check and do a 3 day screening to hunt for a person's birth certificate. Why do we make guns so much more cumbersome to purchase by legal buyers. If they are legal they should be able to easily get a license for the weapon they are purchasing.

If there is a better way, I am open to it. Lunatics with guns endangers not just the general public, but the rights of law abiding responsible people. If I sound elitist, it is because I am when it comes to this kind of thing. Not every idiot out there should own a gun. I view them as something that requires skill and training.

Under the range and circumstances where mass murders occur, there's just not that much of a difference between, say, .32 and .50 BMG. You're shooting unarmored targets at very close range. Even if the first shot doesn't kill them, it WILL put them down, you can just pump a few more into them.
The rate of fire doesn't really matter either. A lever action or straight pull bolt action gun, for example, still barely fires any slower than a semiautomatic one (assuming the shooter is aiming and not just shooting as fast as they can.) We long, long, long ago passed the point where human beings weren't the slowest part of aiming and shooting.

I am not sure on that, to be honest. I just know that the Aussies restricted these guns and it did work. I am not saying we should do the same or to the extent they did it, but it might not be a bad idea to find a way to make these guns just a bit harder for some people to reach.

Also, once again, once you run out of ammo for one gun, you can just draw another. They did this at Columbine IIRC. Also, magazines are simply too easy to make, especially now that we have widespread 3D printing. Anybody who wants a high capacity magazine can get one and there's literally nothing any government in the world can do to stop it. Trying to control it is pointless.

Now on this point you are very very correct. 3d printing is here and it is only getting more sophisticated. I have seen weapons printed on the extremely high end printers that are nearly as reliable as the traditionally manufactured ones. Every government that has gun control needs to likely rethink their current form. It will likely be obsolete in 5 years or potentially less.

As for accidentally shooting people, I don't see how the weapon being semiautomatic plays into that. If someone accidentally shoots themselves or someone else, they don't go, "Hmm, well, it's a semiauto, I'd better shoot them again." No, they just stop shooting. Remember, each and every single bullet requires the trigger to be pulled. It's just as easy to shoot yourself or someone else with any gun if the chamber is loaded. If you're so concerned about people accidentally shooting each other, why not advocate for all guns to have either a magazine loaded indicator or a magazine safety instead?

Smarter guns would be nice. Still people should be trained to hold the gun away from potential targets when not in use, make sure the safety is on, and that the gun is clear including no rounds in the chamber. To me Semi's make it too easy for people who don't know any better to hurt themselves.

This ties into your example about a kid dying while shooting an Uzi. Yes, there probably should have been a rule against young children firing such a short barrelled automatic weapon, and everyone there was irresponsible. This is a freak accident, and it's telling that nothing similar (the blowback of a firearm causing muzzle rise in fully automatic mode causing the person to kill themselves) has happened since. It's one death. Preventing one death does not justify a whole slew of new laws and regulations...

...If you made up regulations to cover stupid edge case shit like that child's death, you'd soon be making so many laws that you would effectively be banning people from owning guns at all, which is, of course, unconstitutional.

And by the way, we DO nihilistically accept people just dying. Every year people are crushed to death by vending machines, yet the most anyone does to stop it is slap a sticker on the front saying not to rock it if your food gets stuck inside. We accept that we can't have a complex code of vending machine regulations and standards to protect idiots from themselves, because at the end of the day, society's gotta go on, and people have to get their shit out of vending machines, and the retards are just a statistic. And obviously, this is only one of the more ridiculous examples.

These 2 paragraphs are awesome! You cannot protect society from the lowest dumbest common denominator and you are very correct about that. I can be guilty of trying to do this and you are right to call me out on it. Also your examples are funny as hell!

Personally if you are dumb enough to give your 9 year old kid an Uzi or get killed by tipping a vending machine on yourself, you have no business owning a gun. I think you should be given a safety helmet and a whistle.

 

[Sanshain]

I'd just like to note that I'm a UK citizen, so my attitudes are a lot different from the average US citizen. I apologize for having my first contribution to this thread be so vague; I'll up my game.

From my point of view, the USA isn't so much over-saturated with firearms as it is over-saturated by a casual attitude towards them.

To elaborate; I have a close friend who lives in one of the most gun-happy parts of the US. He is an expert marksman, and fired his first long-arm when he was just twelve years old. He's also fanatical about gun safety, and I've found his views most influential. The gist of his attitude is that owning a gun is the greatest responsibility a man can have; even more important than flying a commercial airliner or being a doctor. His reason for this is simple; guns are purely destructive. When you own a gun you absolutely must be fully aware of what it can do at all times, and always treat that power with the deepest respect possible.

He also considers roughly 90% of the general populace unfit to handle firearms in any context, and keeps his own disabled and inside reinforced storage lockers when they aren't in use.

I view this attitude as the one most Americans ought to adopt, and one that would likely prevent the overwhelming majority of fatal accidents that occur at shooting ranges or in any other context.

While my 'mandatory psychiatric evaluation' idea was admittedly dumb, I do believe that anybody who purchases a firearm for reasons of personal protection or non-'professional' use should first be able to demonstrate full competence with it before the transaction can be finalized. This is a practical step; people who aren't fully competent at using firearms are a bigger danger to themselves than an attacker.

In the context of school shootings, I think that the simple act of having more respect for the nature of firearms would make them harder to procure for the average unstable individual. The simple act of making the process of obtaining a gun slightly harder for the average person would give a potential murderer the chance to reconsider, be discovered by the authorities, or simply give up in despair and kill himself instead.

 

[AnOminous]

Yes, but is the right to own firearms a fundamental right?

In the Constitutional sense, yes. D.C. v. Heller makes it clear that the right is personal, but even before it, any right which has its own amendment in the Bill of Rights is pretty fundamental. That it was second only to the First Amendment indicates the Framers took it seriously to some degree.

The reasoning by which the Supreme Court reached this decision is questionable (never mind the 5-4 margin), but the conclusion is that under current Constitutional law, it is a right which is of Constitutional dimension and is protected as such.

I happen to agree with the decision, although I think it will ultimately be interpreted to allow a degree of regulation that those who signed on to the majority opinion might differ on.

 

[Splendid]

Smarter guns would be nice. Still people should be trained to hold the gun away from potential targets when not in use, make sure the safety is on, and that the gun is clear including no rounds in the chamber. To me Semi's make it too easy for people who don't know any better to hurt themselves.

I do agree that smartguns becoming the industry standard would be nice, unfortunately, the technology is still a little too expensive, and there are engineering problems with self defense smartguns (you usually have to be wearing a specific wristband, etc, and few people will remember to wear that to bed.) Smartguns that use biometrics have been designed, but the problem is that they have an unnaceptably high rate of false negatives under lab conditions, and an even higher rate under simulated field conditions, which means that the gun could refuse to fire when it should.

I do agree that all new design guns should have either a magazine lock or gun loaded indicator. For the most part, the gun industry seems to be including this on most new gun designs, except for revolvers, which of course inherently have an indicator of whether or not the gun can fire on the exterior. Older designs and recreations of historic guns do not, but these are much more likely to be owned by people who know what they're doing. Overall I think that the industry is headed in the right direction with this one.

As for your idea about education, I agree. In fact, so did the NRA! They made Eddie the Eagle as a gun safety mascot. He's supposed to be politically neutral (doesn't appear at NRA events, does not appear in places where guns are being sold, etc.) but unfortunately, there's a certain (understandable) stigma associated with his origins. A campaign designed by a neutral party that contains more in-depth information for older kids and adults, like what you were suggesting, would probably be ideal.

While my 'mandatory psychiatric evaluation' idea was admittedly dumb, I do believe that anybody who purchases a firearm for reasons of personal protection or non-'professional' use should first be able to demonstrate full competence with it before the transaction can be finalized. This is a practical step; people who aren't fully competent at using firearms are a bigger danger to themselves than an attacker.

You already have to do this with a single concealable weapon in order to get a concealed carry permit in most states.

He also considers roughly 90% of the general populace unfit to handle firearms in any context, and keeps his own disabled and inside reinforced storage lockers when they aren't in use.

How are people supposed to shoot intruders if their guns are locked up and disabled?
Just so you know:
Possession of guns for target shooting is completely uncontroversial in the US. Only the most extreme gun-grabbers argue against it. All of the high profile anti-gun organizations are ok with target shooting.
Some people aren't ok with guns for hunting, but that's because they're opposed to hunting in general.
The only guns that are really controversial in the USA are those designed for self defense.

 

[Holdek]

You already have to do this with a single concealable weapon in order to get a concealed carry permit in most states.

In Texas, perhaps the biggest concealed carry state, those tests are a joke.

The only guns that are really controversial in the USA are those designed for self defense.

No, the ones that controversial are assault weapons: those designed to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time.