Wrong door shootings.

[Hercules56]

It's also been established that guns make it much easier to have a massacre and make the butcher's bill worse.



If you've got a sociopathic population, why the **** are you letting them have guns?

It is very difficult to amend the US Constitution and most Americans don't want to do it.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I've seen the argument used a couple of times and I find it somewhat odd. People say "the USA is different, our society is more violent" either to justify people being allowed to have guns to defend themselves or to explain away the high homicide rate.

I have sometimes wondered if what I see as a particularly American culture of self reliance is part of the equation. A flip side of its being admirable to be able to sort out your own problems rather than relying on anyone else to do it for you.

More people thinking you have to protect yourself creates a spiral of all the others who have the means to protect themselves, from whom you now need the means to protect yourself.

 

[Hercules56]

What point are you trying to make - that things other than guns can kill?

My point is we will not be a nation free of murder if we get rid of guns. Regardless of the fact that we simply cannot make this country gun-free.

 

[Thermal]

If you've got a sociopathic population, why the **** are you letting them have guns?

Cuz 'Murca. What should we do, give them all chainsaws and baseball bats?

 

[crescent]

My point is we will not be a nation free of murder if we get rid of guns. Regardless of the fact that we simply cannot make this country gun-free.

WTH?

Is anyone, even one single person, suggesting that getting rid of guns would end all murder???

Good god. I may be color blind, but I don't go on pretending that black and white are the only colors that exist.

 

[Darat]

My point is we will not be a nation free of murder if we get rid of guns. Regardless of the fact that we simply cannot make this country gun-free.

That is a point that I don't think anyone would disagree with, and who suggests making your country gun free? If you could impose UK gun laws on the USA and could magically make all the then illegal guns disappear you would still be left with millions and millions of legally owned guns.

 

[jeremyp]

Which is why we should make the distinction clear here. I think we should have actual licensing, including a demonstrated competency test. We should also have registration of both owners and individual firearms.

I would agree with you on that one but the regulations we have got already seem pretty effective.

Again, kind of a perspective thing. Can a Brit simply buy a gun? No. He has to demonstrate a legitimate need for ownership, which appears to be pretty restricted. The UK standard (to an American eye) is you cannot have a gun, but certain exceptions will be made.

The example I used earlier was a city dweller who was not in any sort of formal shooting club. Would he be generally granted a license (assuming he passes the background checks et al)? If generally no, then ownership is de facto generally denied.

If he has got a legitimate reason, then yes.

Again, the licensing provides for the exceptions. The ban provides the rule and the effective denial.

Licences are granted unless the police can find a reason why they shouldn't be. The default position is that anybody with a legitimate reason can have a gun.

What? No. There's nothing halfway about it. If you are caught in Jersey with a handgun, and you cannot present a valid NJ CCW on the spot (which no one can), you are doing 3 years in the State Pen without question, also assuming you are not killed on the spot by our famed trigger happy law enforcement community.

OK accepted. I assumed that your constitutional rights would effectively stop the LEO from determining if you have a concealed weapon.

No need for special forces to arrive. A regular beat cop will send you to meet your maker without blinking an eye.

The armed response unit is not special forces. It's a branch of the police that has firearms. Our normal policeman on the beat has to be careful about approaching people who are armed with guns.

 

[jeremyp]

My point is we will not be a nation free of murder if we get rid of guns. Regardless of the fact that we simply cannot make this country gun-free.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

You won't get no murders with better gun control, but you will get fewer murders. That's an improvement, right?

Similarly, you can't get rid of all the guns (even here in the UK there are still quite a lot of people who have guns) but if you can cut down the number of people who have them, you will have fewer murders. That's got to be good, right?

Right?

 

[autumn1971]

That's pretty similar to here.

This is what the US would have if getting a firearm required following existing state laws. Or at least something like it.
Why do us Merkins apply the laws about gun ownership only after one has possession of a firearm, and also make it functionally forbidden to check compliance or remove firearms once they are “legally” obtained?

I mean, history and a strong dash of racism, but the resistance to even taking guns away from those who have proven not qualified by law to have them is resisted heavily.

 

[Hercules56]

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

You won't get no murders with better gun control, but you will get fewer murders. That's an improvement, right?

Similarly, you can't get rid of all the guns (even here in the UK there are still quite a lot of people who have guns) but if you can cut down the number of people who have them, you will have fewer murders. That's got to be good, right?

Right?

I support more gun control. But much of what I support would likely be deemed unConstitutional.

 

[autumn1971]

What point are you trying to make - that things other than guns can kill?

I’ve got an inflatable pool, and I’m not scared to use it!

 

[JoeMorgue]

Israel. Lots of guns. Barely any mass shootings.

Same with Switzerland.

Without cheating a googling it tell me how much ammo a person in Switzerland has accessible in their house.

 

[Hercules56]

Without cheating a googling it tell me how much ammo a person in Switzerland has accessible in their house.

I see no limit.

 

[crescent]

Without cheating a googling it tell me how much ammo a person in Switzerland has accessible in their house.

And Switzerland, even on a per capita basis has far, far, FAR fewer guns than the U.S.

A quick check shows about 40 guns per 100 Swiss citizens. The U.S. has about 120 guns per 100 citizens.

It's not even close.

 

[Thermal]

I would agree with you on that one but the regulations we have got already seem pretty effective.



If he has got a legitimate reason, then yes.


Licences are granted unless the police can find a reason why they shouldn't be. The default position is that anybody with a legitimate reason can have a gun.

"Having a legitimate reason" is exactly what the general denial hinges on. You cannot have a gun, unless you fit into a fairly narrow set of exceptions.

Again, I'm asking about a garden variety city dude. No country club membership where he is winging pheasants or whatever you want to call it. Just some guy who wants to own a gun. Granted or denied? If denied, you have a general denial in place, carved in stone, for which an acceptable exception would have to be presented to override.

Nessie mentioned that a shotgun can be gotten with no reason given. That's interesting, because in my beloved NJ, everything from a BB gun to shotgun to AR-15 falls under the long gun umbrella and are treated the same.

{ETA: I recently found out that the children's toy of a plastic gun that shoots water/gel balls with full auto capabilities cannot be shipped to NJ because it violates our firearm regulations. It's a freaking water pistol}

OK accepted. I assumed that your constitutional rights would effectively stop the LEO from determining if you have a concealed weapon.

Well, with the recent NY ruling, things will be changing soon enough. It's already in the pipeline to change NJ CCW to "shall issue" permitting. Not looking forward to this.

The armed response unit is not special forces. It's a branch of the police that has firearms. Our normal policeman on the beat has to be careful about approaching people who are armed with guns.

I didn't mean like a capitalized military Special Forces. I simply meant a specialized response team, rather than any old patrolman who is already equipped to kill.

 

[Hercules56]

And Switzerland, even on a per capita basis has far, far, FAR fewer guns than the U.S.

A quick check shows about 40 guns per 100 Swiss citizens. The U.S. has about 120 guns per 100 citizens.

It's not even close.

There are 2 million privately owned guns in Switzerland, population 8.5 million.

 

[autumn1971]

The US needs to stop the absolute insanity of letting people sell guns to each other with just the wink and nudge of “i think he is legally allowed. Eh? Eh?”

 

[pgwenthold]

The fact has been established that massacres have been committed without guns and one does not need a gun to commit a massacre. .

There's a word I'm thinking of.....is it one or two? I'm going with one. That word is strawman.

I mean, who ever suggested in any way that it is not possible to commit a massacre without guns?

Seriously...

 

[Hercules56]

The US needs to stop the absolute insanity of letting people sell guns to each other with just the wink and nudge of “i think he is legally allowed. Eh? Eh?”

Agreed. Universal background checks should be on the books 20 years ago.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I see we've reached the point of every gun discussion where we have to pretend like every other civilized country (and yes every foreigner on the board "America isn't a civilized first world country hardy har" yeah I know) has solved.

Other countries have murders. Other countries have rare massacres. What no other comparable country has is a mass shooting daily on a long term, consistent scale.

"But once every 100 years someone in another country kills 8 people with a knife" as retort to a country that has more mass shootings a year than days in the year is to stupid to even bother the breath it would waste to call it stupid.