In reply to Nick Comstock :
I'd agree.
What could more funding to police and local law enforcement do to limit school shootings or mass shootings in general? If nothing, then scratch that off one of the possible solutions. If something would help, how?
pheller said:In reply to Nick Comstock :
I'd agree.
What could more funding to police and local law enforcement do to limit school shootings or mass shootings in general? If nothing, then scratch that off one of the possible solutions. If something would help, how?
Certainly the vast majority of what LEOs deal with, even in the worst districts for violent crime, would get the vast majority of any additional funding. Mass shootings, as egregious as they are, represent a very tiny percentage of crime. So I don't think anything outside of addressing how accessible schools are is really going to impact the issue.
Ok,
So that leaves 3 other possible solution topics:
- Mental Health Funding (More counselors in school?)
- Better security staffing (armed guards?)
- Better physical security? (Something we've talked about in other threads on this topic).
A person with a home made short sword and tomahawk could kill a lot of people in a crowded area before most realized what was happening.
Without firearms big people would be in complete charge of smaller people again.
Ever notice that the NAZI's were really large Germans and the Jews were really small people who had no weapons? Ever read about the history of aristocracy in Europe? The elite had complete control of weapons. A peasant with a sword was executed on the spot. Same as feudal Japan. Karate means "empty hands" for a reason. Anything in a peasant's hand was a weapon which, again, meant instant execution.
If we as a society want to stop the craziness we need to recognize and treat the craziness.
We also need to stop confusing young people so much that it leads to an impossible cognitive dissonance that they experience and that drives them to murderous madness.
In reply to pheller :
That leaves out public venues such as Las Vegas and France.
But specifically for schools would it be appropriate for a school counselor to interview any kid that has some teenage angst? Lord knows I would have spent a ton of time in counselors offices and probably been on many lists as a teen.
How much liberty are you willing to give away for security?
I would happily pay a tax on ammo or gun transfers, and add a fee for mandatory background checks on P2P gun sales/purchases to better fund mental health and LEO but the extra money would most likely get wasted like the rest of it and cops would still sit in the median writing tickets to middle class working folks while gang bangers broke into their houses a mile away. All mass shootings (which is always what starts the gun control BS) happen in gun free zones because there's no one to shoot back.
How about this for you statistic minded folks, there are about 34,000 deaths a a year from guns and 89,000 deaths that are alcohol related.
We should be talking about banning beer, wine, and liquor. Or at least limiting how many you can buy at once, and how fast you can drink them before "reloading"
yupididit said:In reply to yupididit :
The only people who can exercise the right to Orem land ate the people who can afford to. Are you okay with that?
The price you put on that insurance policy is what you made up. Renters insurance policies are hardly even 10% of that number you just can't up with.
Anyway, I for one am willing to pay more money for better and safer policies. Even if it prevents only 1 more child from getting shot by someone who should've never had access to a gun in the first place.
Theres no pricing model for rights vs life. I just know there's a way. I'm two generations at the most removed from not having equal rights based on my skin color alone. Something that our constitution gave me the right to have long ago. We tried many things to make that happen. I don't see how this quest isn't worth it to today's Americans and gun owners.
I'm seriously not being a dick here just pointing out obstacles to the argument. I hear the insurance argument from time to time but there's a lot of stuff to consider before being able to implement it since private gun ownership is an enumerated right as things are now. Personally I wouldn't mind the insurance and more accountability for current owners but, while seemingly simple on the surface, it devolves into a fairly opaque morass of case law and previous rulings to make the idea work. That doesn't even touch on the pushback from removing, or actually amending, that right to make it work.
Ooooh, and at page four we've hit Nazis.
Just saying....
pheller said:Ok,
So that leaves 3 other possible solution topics:
- Mental Health Funding (More counselors in school?)
- Better security staffing (armed guards?)
- Better physical security? (Something we've talked about in other threads on this topic).
RE Mental Health- in the history of all mankind, we see all sorts of horrible, bad, and just nasty people peppered through history. Do you really think that mental health funding will end mass killings?
The other two solutions are only solutions because nobody is willing to disarm at all, so instead of bringing down what can be done, we put ourselves into an internal arms race. It doesn't actually end shootings, it just makes them more violent.
I'm still confused by limiting what kind of guns people can get is not a solution. Especially when people bring up mental health, and all of the liberty restrictions that brings along if it's to be marginally effective.
In reply to Justjim75 :
And of those 30k deaths, 15k are suicides. so that brings the actual homicides (~10k) and accidental deaths/police shootings (~5k) to 15k. An even smaller number. There are also studies by both the CDC and independent sources showing that firearms in the hands of law abiding stop close to 2.5 million crimes per year. Even Harvard published that they estimated 55-80k crimes stopped with firearms per year. Even with the Harvard numbers, that's 5 to 1 in good versus bad. Basically, to stop 1 person from dying, 5 others have to now suffer the consequences of another crime, be it robbery, rape or murder. Those aren't good odds IMO.
Justjim75 said:We should be talking about banning beer, wine, and liquor. Or at least limiting how many you can buy at once, and how fast you can drink them before "reloading"
Tried that once. Still dealing with the fall out to this day.
alfadriver said:pheller said:Ok,
So that leaves 3 other possible solution topics:
- Mental Health Funding (More counselors in school?)
- Better security staffing (armed guards?)
- Better physical security? (Something we've talked about in other threads on this topic).
RE Mental Health- in the history of all mankind, we see all sorts of horrible, bad, and just nasty people peppered through history. Do you really think that mental health funding will end mass killings?
The other two solutions are only solutions because nobody is willing to disarm at all, so instead of bringing down what can be done, we put ourselves into an internal arms race. It doesn't actually end shootings, it just makes them more violent.
I'm still confused by limiting what kind of guns people can get is not a solution. Especially when people bring up mental health, and all of the liberty restrictions that brings along if it's to be marginally effective.
the current E36 M3head used a shotgun and a .38 revolver. So.... how would limiting "assault rifles" have fixed that? He couldn't purchase them, instead stole them from his parents. Limiting magazine capacity doesn't affect a 6-shot revolver or 5-shot shotgun. But having a counselor talking to him and or his parents COULD have done something.
The0retical said:Justjim75 said:We should be talking about banning beer, wine, and liquor. Or at least limiting how many you can buy at once, and how fast you can drink them before "reloading"
Tried that once. Still dealing with the fall out to this day.
The0retical said:I'm seriously not being a dick here just pointing out obstacles to the argument. I hear the insurance argument from time to time but there's a lot of stuff to consider before being able to implement it since private gun ownership is an enumerated right as things are now. Personally I wouldn't mind the insurance and more accountability for current owners but, while seemingly simple on the surface, it devolves into a fairly opaque morass of case law and previous rulings to make the idea work. That doesn't even touch on the pushback from removing, or actually amending, that right to make it work.
The other obstacle is concerns that insurance or testing might be implemented in bad faith. I've gone through a hunter's safety course and know quite a few people who have taken the exams to obtain a concealed carry permit. These exams, as implemented, were not exactly an unreasonable burden. But such requirements could be used maliciously - a gun permit exam that is modeled after this poll literacy test, or requiring somebody to buy insurance where no such insurance is available to be bought (either because the state insurance commissioner refuses to approve any such policies, political pressure on insurance companies not to offer such coverage, etc).
lnlogauge said:I proposed in another internet area of discussion, to convince me that assault weapons should be legal. As you can imagine, it didn't go well. Since this is the most civilized area on the internet, I thought it might actually work.
My thoughts are of 3. For one, there are better target practice guns. 22's cost pennies compared to 223, and go bang just fine. 2nd, There are better home defense weapons IMO. shotgun requires less accuracy, pistols are more movable. 3rd, There are better hunting rifles. Deer hunters aren't using AR's for a reason.
I don't own a gun, I don't plan on owning a gun. Having a neighbor murdered by police for having a gun nearby is partly that reason, as well as my 3 kids.
I'm not set in my ways, and I am genuinely curious from knowledgeable people, why it should be legal.
I don't know the circumstances leading up to your neighbor's murder or how it affected your thought process, but if it makes you feel safer to not own a gun that is your decision and nobody should try and convince you to keep a gun in your house.
What is the desired outcome here? What problem would you like to find a solution for? School shootings? Unnecessary deaths of young Americans? all Americans?
If so, gun deaths, while no less tragic and senseless, are not very high on the list of leading causes of deaths in this country. If the effort is to have the most impact in reducing tragic and untimely deaths why aren't we addressing the leading causes first?
Is it because the number of deaths that occur at one time are higher in mass shootings? Does that make tragedies with smaller body counts less worthy of addressing? What happens when a bus, train or plane crash or a vehicle is crashed into a crowd? That can have high death tolls as well but where is the discussion about those high capacity vehicles?
I'm going to make a little leap and assume this discussion is spurred by the recent school shootings. What laws could have prevented the latest tragedy?
Why are some people so gung ho about restricting a right (the right to bear arms) vs privileges and habits? (driving a car, eating unhealthy foods, smoking, drinking, prescription drug use, illegal drug use, etc...)
What about all the mental health issues we have in our country? We want to respect the right of people to live how they want and we closed mental institutions because of how terrible they were so now we have unwell people in society that slip through the cracks because they don't have a support system. And then we have shootings where the perpetrator was reported to the authorities as a danger and not enough, if anything, was done.
What is an assault rifle and why?
In California, an AR-15 that was sold legally up until last year is now considered an assault rifle for having these things; an adjustable or foldable stock, a flash suppressor, pistol grip or stock that your hand and thumb can grip and a forward pistol grip. Also grenade or flare launchers. What is the thought process behind the determination these features are what make an AR-15 more assaulty than any other rifle?
What is the danger of allowing an adjustable or foldable stock? Fear of easy concealment? Even with a folding stock, the AR is not small. A heavy coat or baggy pants would not be immediate alarms and can hide a lot, folding stock or not. Also begs the question are these shooters even using adjustable or folding stocks to facilitate concealment?
What is the danger of a flash suppressor meant to protect the user's eyes in dark situations? Fear of not being able to find a shooter easily/quickly? Don't mass school shootings happen during the day? Is the muzzle flash one of the main things responders are using to locate the shooter?
What is dangerous about the pistol and fore grip that allow firm grasp of the rifle? Making a firearm harder to hold seems to make it more dangerous, no?
Grenade and flare launchers, I don't know about these, sure they're available but do we have any numbers on illegal use?
None of those things change the rate of fire, increase velocity or increase range. Well the grenade thing might cause damage but I don't think throwing live grenades at people is legal anyhow.
High capacity magazines is another term thrown around. In CA I cannot buy or have any magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. In most of the US the AR-15 comes shipped with 15 or 30 round magazines which would make those "standard capacity" and the aftermarket options above 30 would be "high capacity"
Not only that, there was a law enacted that required a tool to facilitate magazine changes, hence the "bullet button" was born. This was deemed to make the rifle safer and less assaulty with the reasoning that having those extra seconds between magazine changes would allow people to fight back or escape. Now if I make an AR-15 featureless, removing those assault enabling items listed above, I can remove the bullet button altogether and install a normal magazine release that doesn't require a tool. Did quick magazine changes all of a sudden become less assaulty due to these other parts?
For me the whole evil accessories and features sounds like someone saying that putting graphics and a wing on a car makes it a race car. These things the public have been legally allowed put on an AR-15 (or have come with standard) for many years do not make it equal to today's military weapons of war.
And to make a rifle harder to hold securely, well that to me is akin to "a sharp knife is a safe knife". I would want to be able to firmly grip the rifle as designed and be sure and steady when using it.
Some of the "approved" changes one can make in order to comply modify the rifle and components in a way they were not designed to be used. Opening the action and separating upper and lower to change a magazine? The front pin and hole of the lower receiver will wear out, if the hole wears out the lower is trash. That means the gun is trash as the lower receiver is considered the gun as it has the serial number. Which means you'll have to buy a new one, except you can't because they're banned now. Fixed magazines have issues clearing malfunctions, not being able to clear a malfunction easily as designed makes things dangerous. These compliance parts are not free and AR-15s are more expensive in this state vs the free ones. It sure feels like they are trying to make it so much of a hassle to stay on the legal side of things vs accidentally becoming a felon and making things so cost prohibitive that people just give up.
In addition, CA is now requiring ammo be purchased from FFL which means no more cheap ammo online, more fees to FFLs which will be passed onto the consumer and will soon require background checks to purchase ammo which is even more fees from both the state as well as stores. Hey you can legally own a car but you need a permission every time you refill your tank, and also you'll need to remove your steering wheel before you can start pumping.
Do any of these laws matter to criminals with illegally obtained firearms? Will they turn in non-compliant guns? Will they convert to featureless? Will they register their assault rifles?
AR-15s have been available to the public since the 1960s. Why are they a problem all of a sudden?
Bob the REAL oil guy. said:In reply to Nick Comstock :
In this one, the parents weren't aware of the behavior either. The councelor could have reached out to the parents to let them know of the behavior, giving the parents the option of seeking clinical help for the kid or at the least getting the weapons in the house locked down/out of the house. There were telling behaviors before the act and could have created an opportunity for the family to help the kid out.
Didn't see this.
I haven't followed the story closely but did the school counselors actually have conversations with this kid? If so were the parents notified? I know when I had to have a conversation with the counterco and principle due to a paper I wrote my parents certainly knew about it before I got home from school that day. That was before Columbine and I'm sure present day school is much different than what I experienced.
Maybe I'll just watch the news to catch up because it's a little out of the realm of the topic.
In reply to Nick Comstock :
The last report I read was the school was shocked at the student's behavior, but many kids knew of his odd behavior and fascination with columbine. Parents weren't aware of this either. Whether any of this is true, who knows. But parents being out of the loop of a quiet teenager is plausible and the school would have records if the counselor was involved so I can't see them hiding this. I haven't dug into it because I don't care anymore. We have tools in place to work with these situations but we don't use them.
In reply to Bob the REAL oil guy. :
Okay.
But let's use my cousin for a reference. She was infatuated with death as a teenager. She was a goth. She wore trench coats almost every day to school. She watch all those Faces of Death videos back when they were in the video rental stores. Everyone thought she was a little off. Now she's a happy middle aged married woman with three happy smart kids. Let's say that counselors got involved and her teenage curiosities became part of her permanent record. Do you think she would be the person she is today?
In reply to Nick Comstock :
who said it had to be on their permanent record? Having the counselor reach out to them and their parents isn't a bad thing.
In reply to Tom Suddard :
In reply to Bob the REAL oil guy. :
Have you met a rebellious teenager? They will look straight into your eye, tell you one thing then go about doing whatever it is they have in there head to do. Counselor or parents. Kids know what people want to hear. Especially if what they want to do is not allowed.
But let's say a counselor and the parents both agree something should be done. Who's going to do it? A professional most likely. And that will go on a permanent record and as the law is now should prevent that individual from purchasing firearms.
In reply to DuctTape&Bondo :
I understand what you mean asking what the goal here. In this particular thread, we're talking about guns/"assault" rifles.
There are far more E36 M3ty problems America has right now in my opinion. But, that's not what this thread is about.
Nick Comstock said:In reply to Bob the REAL oil guy. :
Have you met a rebellious teenager? They will look straight into your eye, tell you one thing then go about doing whatever it is they have in there head to do. Counselor or parents. Kids know what people want to hear. Especially if what they want to do is not allowed.
But let's say a counselor and the parents both agree something should be done. Who's going to do it? A professional most likely. And that will go on a permanent record and as the law is now should prevent that individual from purchasing firearms.
That's where using logic comes into play and not following the current no exceptions policy. One size does not fit all. But if the parents where not aware of this behavior do you think they would have taken steps to make sure their firearms were more secured? I know a lot of "parents" these days should really be called "donors" but I would like to think that if they thought their child might be homicidal they'd do things to stop it.
EDIT: Also, being goth and fantasizing/fixating on Columbine aren't exactly the same thing here.
In reply to The0retical :
Banning guns may be very much worse that prohibition
This gun control stuff always comes up whenever a bunch of people get shot. It leads to a lot of interesting discussions, most interesting to me is the lack of understanding that appears to be very prevalent with respect to the US Constitution and the why the 2nd Amendment in particular was included. Suggestions are always something that no reasonable person would have any expectation they could be successful, or it is something that is already the law, and is not enforced. Based on how it started, talking about assault weapons, I knew this one would come at it from the wrong direction again.
The discussion is not, or should not be, based on the whole "enumerated right" thing,
"Show me why we should not ban AR platform weapons."
rather it ought to be,
"Show me why we should ban AR platform weapons."
It seems pretty clear, with even a tiny amount of consideration, that guns are not the problem. If they were, the statistics would not be what they are.
Even if we assume that guns are the problem, how can restricting the rights of law abiding people be reasonably expected to help with this?
Ignoring this, even if we assume that it is a good idea to restrict the rights of the law abiding, we decide to eliminate the 2nd Amendment and restrict gun ownership severely, can anyone demonstrate how that would have prevented this last event?
Do any of you recall what event in 1989 started the "assault weapon ban" talk about 30 years ago?
Here is a hint: It is the genesis of a very strong argument that these bans are ineffective.
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