Cont: Today's Mass Shooting (part 3)

[Nessie]

When they get out of jail over a decade later, possibly. Should be a minimum of 10 years added to sentence if a gun is involved., or even present.

All true.

It is not just possibly they will get a gun on release, they will get one and very easily. Increasing the sentences for crimes committed with guns only delays the problem, as it mean they wait for 10 instead of 2 years to get a new gun.

In the UK, we know who has the vast majority of the guns, and what those guns are, due to our very successful licensing system. Illegal guns are incredibly rare. It is very difficult to get one. Even if the USA introduced a successful licensing system (which it cannot), there would be literally millions of guns and gun owners they do not know about.

 

[arthwollipot]

Gun manufacturers and retailers would relish the opportunity presented by confiscated guns being destroyed. Instead of guns being capital expenditures, they become consumables, like ball point pens and disposable razor blades!

That's why in addition to destroying surplus guns, the government must tightly regulate the production of new ones. If the production rate stays below the destruction rate, then the problem will eventually solve itself.

 

[Norman Alexander]

It is not just possibly they will get a gun on release, they will get one and very easily. Increasing the sentences for crimes committed with guns only delays the problem, as it mean they wait for 10 instead of 2 years to get a new gun.

Understood. But that's 10 years where THIS criminal is not shooting anyone. The more criminals and gangsters go to the slammer for extended periods for gun-related or even gun-adjacent crimes, the fewer people will be shot. Not zero, fewer. The numbers slow and should head downwards. But agreed, there's a heck of a long way to go to make this downward trend come back to the rest of the world. Hence Darat's comments about it taking many decades.

In the UK, we know who has the vast majority of the guns, and what those guns are, due to our very successful licensing system. Illegal guns are incredibly rare. It is very difficult to get one.

Pretty much the same here in Oz.

Even if the USA introduced a successful licensing system (which it cannot), there would be literally millions of guns and gun owners they do not know about.

Technically not true. More accurately to say they don't have the balls to choose to do so.

 

[Darat]

Gun manufacturers and retailers would relish the opportunity presented by confiscated guns being destroyed. Instead of guns being capital expenditures, they become consumables, like ball point pens and disposable razor blades!

Why? Those people who are no longer allowed to own firearms won't be able to buy a replacement. That would be part of the incremental changes required. The idea remember is for the USA to get to a similar point as the USA contemporaries by small changes over decades.

You still seem to be thinking that these ideas are meant to solve the issue in a short period of time and that any single change will have a significant affect on its own.

 

[Darat]

How do you eat an elephant, that does not want to be eaten and will fight back?



I say that the cure will be worse than the disease and the US should just live with its high rate of gun deaths.

Small bites over decades.

 

[Nessie]

Understood. But that's 10 years where THIS criminal is not shooting anyone. The more criminals and gangsters go to the slammer for extended periods for gun-related or even gun-adjacent crimes, the fewer people will be shot. Not zero, fewer. The numbers slow and should head downwards. But agreed, there's a heck of a long way to go to make this downward trend come back to the rest of the world. Hence Darat's comments about it taking many decades.

Pretty much the same here in Oz.

Technically not true. More accurately to say they don't have the balls to choose to do so.

The reasons why I think Darat is wrong and it will never happen are

1 - Sandy Hook. Anywhere else and Columbine would be a tipping point, but it and especially Sandy Hook were not. Indeed, Sandy Hook will be remembered more for the conspiracy theories and Americans buying even more guns, than the dead children. School shootings prove that there is nothing that can tip Americans into falling out of love with the guns.

2 - The huge number of guns and massive industry to make them.

3 - The US police, who would be tasked with getting the guns off the bad guys, are not going to war with the civilian population, a significant number of whom will fight back. Many of them are people we would not have thought of as violent, but they love their guns so much, they will not give them up.

4 - Lawyers. The money they will make fighting gun laws will keep the required gun legislation to do with registration and licensing at bay forever.

 

[Darat]

Most of the mass shootings in the USA are committed by criminals and gangsters. So you want to regulate a class of gun owners who are less likely to commit mass shootings, and exclude criminals and gangsters, because they are not good candidates for regulation? The words "double standard" spring to mind...

The idea is to reduce the number of guns overall over a few decades whilst making other changes for example who can legally buy guns.

 

[Nessie]

Small bites over decades.

There already have been small bites, in terms of existing and largely successful gun control, such as CCW permits. The elephant is still fit and healthy and ready to go, with no drop in performance, even with those small bites.

The small bites that are needed, in particular, to get guns off gangs and criminals are more like tiny mildly irritating insect bites.

 

[Nessie]

The idea is to reduce the number of guns overall over a few decades whilst making other changes for example who can legally buy guns.

The gun makers, gun rights campaigners and their lawyers will stop that. You may as well try to ban mobile phones.

 

[BrettM]

That's why in addition to destroying surplus guns, the government must tightly regulate the production of new ones. If the production rate stays below the destruction rate, then the problem will eventually solve itself.

It is the insane American obsession that drives the demand for guns.

Regulating the official arms producers will just shift production underground. If an incarcerated prisoner can make a working gun using little more than a nail file and a couple of empty sardine cans, imagine what a red-blooded American craftsman can produce in his fully-equipped home workshop!

And if the authorities start clamping down on that, production will just shift offshore, similar to what has happened to the supply of illegal drugs in the USA.

 

[Norman Alexander]

The gun makers, gun rights campaigners and their lawyers will stop that. You may as well try to ban mobile phones.

It is the insane American obsession that drives the demand for guns.

Regulating the official arms producers will just shift production underground. If an incarcerated prisoner can make a working gun using little more than a nail file and a couple of empty sardine cans, imagine what a red-blooded American craftsman can produce in his fully-equipped home workshop!

And if the authorities start clamping down on that, production will just shift offshore, similar to what has happened to the supply of illegal drugs in the USA.

Ok, AGAIN. This is NOT about banning gun ownership or doing a gun grab. It is about REGULATING WHO CAN OWN THEM AND UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS.

As an extreme example, every man, woman and child in the USA could each own ten legal guns (that would be over 3 billion guns), PROVIDED they were properly registered and used legally. If not, no guns for you. Commit a crime with a gun, or a gun present: no guns for you plus you lose any you have, plus your jankers time goes up significantly.

The opposite end would be North Korea: you may NOT have a gun, ever, no excuses, full stop, penalty of death. Unless you are in the military and a trusted cadre. That would be utterly unrealistic in the USA.

 

[BrettM]

Ok, AGAIN. This is NOT about banning gun ownership or doing a gun grab. It is about REGULATING WHO CAN OWN THEM AND UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS.

I hear what you say, but I think you are wrong. The criminals and gangsters who do most of the mass shootings will thumb their nose at these regulations.

Your proposed regulation, even if it is implemented, will only slow down the avalanche, not stop it. Americans are addicted to guns and will do almost anything to feed their addiction.

Time will tell.

 

[jt512]

I have yet to see an exception to the rule that what someone says to "simply" do a thing, the thing isn't simple.

Then you just have done.

On the contrary, there is nothing "simple," or even legal in the US about what you are suggesting.

After you are arrested, you will be taken into custody, the police take your property at that point, at least in the UK they do. If you have a gun on you it will be taken off you as part of that procedure.

Here's what is simple, if you are caught with illegal possession of a firearm, you will be arrested, and the gun you have on you taken from you. Additionally, if you are convicted of a felony, you cannot legally own a gun in the U.S. The percentage of felons that give a **** about that law is probably, however, pretty low. And felons know where to get guns illegally. Thus taking guns away from felons in the US has very little effect on the prevalence of guns, especially among the people we least want to have them.

Having covered the felony case, let's consider misdemeanors. What if you are arrested for a non-violent crime and you are legally in possession of gun? Are you suggesting that that gun should be confiscated? That would almost certainly be illegal in the US. For better or worse, we have a Second Amendment that our current Supreme Court has interpreted very permissively.

From what I have seen from footage in the USA it seems that like the UK police you will in fact be searched at the point of arrest so any dangerous items such as potential or actual weapons are taken from you even before you reach the custody desk at the police station.

The police would continue to do the same practice as already happens, the difference would be not being given the gun back when you are released. It is simple to not give property back.

Except that under US law, the police can't confiscate a gun you legally own (unless, I presume, you have just used it in the commission of a crime), and even if they could and did, you probably have more guns at home anyway; and even if you don't, you could easily obtain another one illegally.

There is your exception.

So, no, no exception. You "simply" don't understand the situation here.

 

[jt512]

Even if the USA introduced a successful licensing system (which it cannot), there would be literally millions of guns and gun owners they do not know about.

I don't see why we could not. Most states do have licensing requirements. But illegal guns are easy to come by.

 

[jt512]

As an extreme example, every man, woman and child in the USA could each own ten legal guns (that would be over 3 billion guns), PROVIDED they were properly registered and used legally. If not, no guns for you. Commit a crime with a gun, or a gun present: no guns for you plus you lose any you have, plus your jankers time goes up significantly.

That is all already the case.

 

[Nessie]

I don't see why we could not. Most states do have licensing requirements. But illegal guns are easy to come by.

The USA does not have a thorough, consistent, universal licences. It has lots of varied licensing, which appear to be very easy to circumvent.

 

[Norman Alexander]

I don't see why we could not. Most states do have licensing requirements. But illegal guns are easy to come by.

If they are illegal then they can be seized and destroyed. Should be able to remove lots of them if they are easy to come by. And you don't have a universal, consistent licensing and control system at all. Not even within one state.

 

[jt512]

Three mass shootings within two weeks in Las Vegas.

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2023/dec/11/police-four-dead-one-wounded-in-shooting-in-northw/

Man shoots woman, 3 kids in suspected murder-suicide. One child survived and was ‘clinging to life.’ The incident is the third mass shooting in the Las Vegas area in less than two weeks.

On Dec. 1, a gunman shot five people, one of them fatally, at an encampment of homeless people near Sandhill Road and Charleston Boulevard in the northeast valley. The suspect remains at large.

On Wednesday, a gunman killed three faculty members and critically wounded another on the UNLV campus. The gunman was killed in a shootout with UNLV Police detectives.

 

[jt512]

The USA does not have a thorough, consistent, universal licences. It has lots of varied licensing, which appear to be very easy to circumvent.

Licensing differs by state. In some states, there is no licensing requirement to own a gun. I don't know what you mean by circumventing license requirements. If you mean that a criminal can buy an illegals gun, then yeah. But it that is independent of licensing requirements.

 

[jt512]

If they are illegal then they can be seized and destroyed. Should be able to remove lots of them if they are easy to come by.

That actually makes no sense whatsoever. You are utterly clueless. Consider illegal drugs. By your own argument, they should be easily "seized," "destroyed," and "removed." If I didn't despise that annoying laughing tiger gif so much, I wold post it right here.