I sincererly mean that, because at this point luck is all there's left when it comes to gun violence in America. Americans couldn't give any less of a fuck about it.

He will be bashed and told he is using his daughter in vain. Watch! Unfortunately it will happen.

threads. If you read the many responses in those threads, you would see just how many of us do "give a fuck" about it. Please put down the broadbrush. Enough already.

it will be there for the rest of his life. so many parents that have lost children have felt the same. over and over again, they have met resistance not get the simplest, easiest more reasonable legislation passed.

my husband is pro gun. he has lots. he target shoots and use to hunt. not anymore really. he has always stated certain laws can and should be passed. a reasonable gun owner that wants this addressed.

and aside from a couple staunch NRA followering friends, most of these people agree they support some laws. I've listened in on a few of these "discussions" and am surprised how cool they remain as the staunch NRA-ers get all worked up.

...and I support several additional gun control measures. It's not an uncommon POV among shooters, actually (and probably one reason only a very small percentage of the nation's millions of gun owners are NRA members).

One friend of my grandpa held out joining the NRA until there was the mandatory requirement. He's a republican, but my grandparents were staunch dems, they just have common sense there should be certain laws and saw through the NRA's bs.

Actually the only family member who really bleeds NRA (wears their shirts, etc.) doesn't sport shoot, he's just a right wing gun nut.

Just simply unarm all the innocent and see what happens.

Highest per capita and absolute ownership of firearms on the planet certainly doesn't seem to impede rape, murders and big bad killers from their deeds.

And we are seeing what happens.

what do you think? shall we get rid of some speed limits? they only impede honest drivers' efforts to reach their destination quickly

If you're trying to draw a gun control parallel, the equivalent, would be taking the cars from everyone NOT speeding, in an effort to reduce speeding.

Sad but true.

let's start closer to the beginning: gun possession advocates like to point out that additional gun control laws will be ignored by criminals. this is a spurious argument.
our society supports many other laws which do not inspire universal compliance.
lack of compliance by criminals is not by itself a valid evaluation criteria for a law. at the very least, violators are breaking a law and theoretically subject to its consequences.

suppose our society created and enforced stricter universal background check requirements on small arms purchases going forward, including private transfers. law-abiding citizens would be able to obtain firearms as we can now, although the process might take a while longer. of course, criminals would still get around the checks, but they'd be breaking laws to do so. their actions would be obstructed by law enforcement and subject to interdiction, since they're illegal.

No, its a factual argument.

It was factual a few days ago, when that fella shot the two newscasters, and ignored carry laws, and murder laws in doing so.

It was factual when holmes shot up the theater in CO.

It was factual when lanza ignored gun free school zones and shot a bunch of kids.

Show me one single incident where someone shot a bunch of people up in America and didn't ignore the law in spades in doing so.

I'll wait right here.

What gun criminals are and have been doing where gun violence is concerned, is already illegal in about a hundred ways, and It is already subject to interdiction and punishment. Making the definition of 'gun crime' more expansive, as some have suggested, doesn't deter what the gun criminals are doing, it simply includes more people who really aren't the problem in the first place, as subject to punishment.

See: assault weapon ban, perfect example - legislation that punishes people who are not the problem to begin with, in an effort to get at the criminals. 100 percent equivalent taking the cars of everyone not speeding.

>> gun possession advocates like to point out that additional gun control laws will be ignored by criminals. this is a spurious argument.
> No, its a factual argument.

insofar as it is a fact that criminals can and will ignore the law to obtain firearms, it is factually accurate.
however, factual accuracy alone is not an argument. there are many true facts, not all of which pertain to this debate, such as it is.

criminals ignore at least some laws. it's what they do, by definition. it is not a justification, in itself, for repealing a law or failing to produce more restrictive legislation as appropriate.

let me know when you've got your mind wrapped around this part of the explanation.

See, I haven't bought a gun in over ten years. I don't carry a gun. I don't own any so called 'assault weapons' nor do I have any inclination to. I'm not an nra member, though I was at one time in my youth, for a year. It came free with gun safety training.

For me its a matter of principle. And you'll find, as most do who know me in RL, that I'm hell on wheels when it comes to being principled.

Fuckin duh.



It most certainly IS a part of the argument. It speaks to the intentions of those proposing such things, and the effect of such things on all parties involved.

I can understand why you'd rather dismiss that.



It most certainly is a part of the discussion when the problem is contrived exaggerated and sold in an effort to get legislation, like the assault weapon ban. ALL rifles are responsible for 300ish deaths a year. So called assault weapons are a subset of all rifles.

An effort to ban assault weapons, is exactly parallel to taking away the cars that the majority of owners are not using for speeding, in an effort to get at speeders which we have both agreed will disregard the law.

Let me know when you you've got Your wrapped around that.

knowing that, we can probably have a rational discussion, and dispense with the immature behavior that sadly characterizes much of the emotion-driven discussion.

first a point of agreement: we are agreed that criminals will seek and in at least some cases acquire firearms, regardless of how legal they are.

your continuation seems to be that this is at least partial justification for ... something. feel free to elaborate on that.

typically i see this very true fact presented as a reason, in itself, to void some or all gun control laws. i happen to disagree.

my point is that degree of compliance with a given law is insufficient reason to relax or strengthen that law. this applies to any law, in principle.

those who propose enhancing laws of any kind thinking that will somehow increase the proportion of the population who intend to comply, at least initially, are imho mistaken. there may be a long term trend toward compliance, but especially for gun control, the immediate effects of even proposing such legislation is to increase short term demand for arms under the existing rules.

this doesn't mean something like expanded background checks can't help the situation. will criminals find ways around the checks? probably, but they'll be committing a crime when they do, which in turn can be handled appropriately given sufficient levels of enforcement.

> An effort to ban assault weapons, is exactly parallel to taking away the cars that the majority of owners are not using for speeding, in an effort to get at speeders which we have both agreed will disregard the law.

far be it from me to defend the AWB, which i believe was poorly conceived and specified (bayonette mounts and flash suppressors on rifles aren't really the problem here, i think you'd agree.) however, that doesn't mean all weapons bans are necessarily ineffective or unworkable. the full-auto registration and reporting requirements have been effective, for instance, and people are obviously still able to get the less-regulated firearms when they want to. i presume that there are criminals who are well-enough connected to obtain, through some means, fully automatic weapons. however, they remain quite rare, possibly because the effort required to obtain such an item illegitimately diminishes its overall utility, especially to someone who might rather remain unnoticed by the ATF.

and so it could be with other laws, if they're carefully designed to promote safe access. for instance, a law mandating that firearms owners secure their weapons in a locked case or safe of some kind when not in use could potentially have great benefits, but i wouldn't expect criminals to comply with it (although they might), and home enforcement would be problematic. a law requiring manufacturers to build in an external indicator for when a round is chambered would be helpful in reducing accidental deaths, and has no direct impact on one's ability to purchase a firearm.

to keep with the driving analogy, there's a lot of ground between regulating what constitutes legal traffic and demolishing traffic altogether. one doesn't have to take away all cars to enforce a speed limit. look at how the speed limit is typically enforced -- by catching and penalizing those who violate the limits.

to constructively proceed with firearms regulations is to propose and implement legislation that is "parallel to" altering a speed limit or requiring seatbelts and airbags in cars, rather than overblown publicity stunt laws which focus on banning a class of car based on cosmetic features.

naturally there are essential differences which can be respected, just as there are vehicles for which one needs special licenses and permits to operate, or ones which are not "street legal" for various reasons. right now, fully automatic weapons hold a similar space. i doubt you'd recommend relaxing the full-auto restrictions just because a sufficiently dedicated criminal could probably get one.

or would you?

Its justification for opposing many proposals which are intended to effect the people who are actually not the problem, in an effort - that can be reasonably presumed to fail - to effect the people that are the problem.

When it comes to laws and guns, I take issue when the usual suspects do not focus directly on the problem people, and want to burden me, even if in principle, who is not one of the problem people. I do not believe in 'collective responsibility' when it comes to the criminal actions of others. I'm no more responsible due to my strong belief in gun rights, when some random guy a thousand miles away shoots someone, than I am for being against alcohol prohibition when some assclown drives drunk.

I reject the notion that I should be treated like I am, both here on DU, AND in the eyes of the law or the lawmakers, with extreme prejudice.



That's all fine and good, but we are talking ownership, not public usage. As to whether I'd relax existing restrictions on full auto weapons? Per se, no. I would however do open the nfa registry, as I consider closing it a defacto attempt to partially ban without actually banning,- which is what it is.

That genie can never be put back in the lamp.

I do note that the fact that this murder spree was on video and the visceral nature of actually being able to see the slaughter seems to have caused a much stronger reaction even than the slaughter of little kids at an elementary school.

I doubt we can fix it outright, but maybe we can start to move the needle away from "insane".

But I'm not hopeful in the least. If a person can walk into an elementary school and slaughter little kids and nothing happens, nothing will ever happen.

It is in poor taste to keep playing this interview every half hour as they have done so far this morning.

It seems the Punk who used his cop-like camera is the latest thing in "Swat" videos. BBC did a whole hour on this phenomenon of staging incidents: Fake racist behavior, fake animal abuse, fake attacks with fake blood, or simply running up and slapping (swatting) people while recording the whole thing, then puking it out to Utub and stink sites so everyone can get a thrill. BBC's timing aside, the Punk in VA did the same thing. For real, for those who still bother to make the distinction. Curiously, as CelebroPunks™ up the ante (school shootings are so-o-o-o passe), his method will for a time be copy-catted, then will grow stale until some New sorta-outage is concocted. It is a measure of our touchscreen approach to reality which bred this stink, that it will, in a peculiar way, probably wear thin and drift into the droll realm of conspiracy theory (did he REALLY shoot them) and then die out, if only to make room for another attempt at celebrity and pop-up fame, maybe a little corner of history. For these folks, their own death is of little consequence: They know how celebrity and self-worth is measured in advance, and they don't need to see a re-play.

(Note: Had the punk used a knife, you might still see this, but it wouldn't last as long as it has. Narratives, and all.)

Giffords or Brady's organization (I assume it still exists). I hope he's successful in figuring out how to get it done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com

"Examiners are paid based on a black box system, which quantifies page views and other metrics, or the "Gawker-model" made famous by the blog Gawker.com. Examiner.com offered a variety of pay scale options to its writers. Examiner.com now bases compensation on variables such as subscriptions, page view traffic and session length."

So, please, make sure you click on the link in the OP.