Some facts about guns in the US

[LoRaan]

?? What are you talking about? There are two entirely different sets of criteria. "Can someone safely drive a car" in no way equals "is someone likely to try to harm themselves or others."

And yet your the one who keeps using the idea that "We take away people's drivers licenses when doctors tell us to."

Agreed. A doctor should evaluate the person and decide whether or not they represent a threat to themselves or others.

Not "a" doctor a team of Doctors who are all certified CCW holders themselves and it should operate like a jury they all have to agree to pull the license or it's not pulled. But even then it should only be brought up when there is hard evidence.

If his fear makes him not want to go out after dark? No. If he wants to "shoot the darkness" to keep it from getting him? Then yes, absolutely.

But you just said insane people can't handle weapons. Are you now recognizing that there is several levels of insanity?

You've never seen an elderly driver lose his license because he was no longer able to safely drive a car? From the website Elder Law Answers:

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All state Departments of Motor Vehicles, Highway Safety, or Transportation have an office where a family member or doctor can make a referral about an unsafe driver. The state office will investigate the claim, and the driver may have to take a road test. Doctors are generally not required to report patients they feel are unsafe. In California, however, doctors must report demented patients and in California and a few other states doctors must report patients with epilepsy.
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I never said they didn't take the license I said they don't take the car. BIG difference.

 

[Repo Man]

That's all it took for you to snap? I was actually hit by a van in a crosswalk, the guy admitted he hit me on purpose. I broke 5 teeth, never even crossed my mind to shoot him or even punch him. So don't judge others based on your reactions.

My anecdote certainly has more provocation than your typical road rage incident that results in gunplay does (in that most people would be more provoked by being intentionally struck in the head than they would by someone cutting them off). Lots of people catch their significant others in bed with strangers, and it never occurs to them to pull out a gun and start shooting. But then again, for a significant portion of people who find themselves in that situation, that is exactly what they would (and do) do. As a matter of fact, it's a typical enough human reaction that it even has its own legal term: crime of passion.

"Any man, in the right situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is capable of being a good camper. So, murder and camping are not as similar as you might think." - Jack Handey

 

[heytogi]

the guns itself is no danger, its the person that manipulate the gun that is.

 

[quinnsong]

the guns itself is no danger, its the person that manipulate the gun that is.

So when you can assure me that every gun owner has been trained thoroughly on his/her personal weapon,is not mentally ill, has critical thinking skills and has not got a volatile temper .... Until this happens the gun is the problem because we put it in the hands of anyone that wants one.

 

[LoRaan]

So when you can assure me that every gun owner has been trained thoroughly on his/her personal weapon,is not mentally ill, has critical thinking skills and has not got a volatile temper .... Until this happens the gun is the problem because we put it in the hands of anyone that wants one.

Alright to paraphrase so you get the point: So when you can assure me that every blog/printing press/forum owner has been educated thoroughly in ALL TOPICS, is not mentally Ill, has critical thinking skills, and has not got a volatile temper...until then the Freedom of Speech is a problem because we allow anyone to express it.


The right to defend oneself in an inborn natural right. It is not a gift from the government. It is ours because we exist. Now nobody has the right to tell you how to defend yourself as long as you do not become the aggressor. The moment you are the aggressor you have crossed the line, not before. You cannot preemptively punish a person. And yes, stripping a person on an inborn right is a punishment. Would you appreciate having your right to vote stripped because some people in your area practiced voter fraud? Would you consent to your right to remain silent being stripped because others used it? Would you condone the loss of the free press because one News Sourced committed libel? No to all of these. Yet you seem awfully keen on making other people give up a right they hold just as dear.

You don't like guns, then don't buy one. It's that simple. You don't want them in your neighborhood, use polite peer pressure. You don't want concealed weapons on your property post a sign. It's that freaking simple people.

 

[LoRaan]

My anecdote certainly has more provocation than your typical road rage incident that results in gunplay does (in that most people would be more provoked by being intentionally struck in the head than they would by someone cutting them off). Lots of people catch their significant others in bed with strangers, and it never occurs to them to pull out a gun and start shooting. But then again, for a significant portion of people who find themselves in that situation, that is exactly what they would (and do) do. As a matter of fact, it's a typical enough human reaction that it even has its own legal term: crime of passion.

"Any man, in the right situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is capable of being a good camper. So, murder and camping are not as similar as you might think." - Jack Handey

Well, I agree your anecdote has at the surface more provocation. In some instances the local police would actually call a shooting self defense as being struck form a moving vehicle in such a way could be attempted murder and you have no clue if they would circle back.

As for the Crime of Passion thing, it's not just relegated to firearms. Some spurned spouses have used knives, axes, baseball bats, a semi-rig, arson, garrote wire, and countless other methods in just those circumstances. it's not the weapon that is the problem, it's the person. And it is one of those things that you can't ever know how a person will react until they do. Normally violent men have just broke down crying while normally well adjusted men have committed gruesome ax murders. It's not something you can predict one hundred percent.

 

[quinnsong]

Alright to paraphrase so you get the point: So when you can assure me that every blog/printing press/forum owner has been educated thoroughly in ALL TOPICS, is not mentally Ill, has critical thinking skills, and has not got a volatile temper...until then the Freedom of Speech is a problem because we allow anyone to express it.


The right to defend oneself in an inborn natural right. It is not a gift from the government. It is ours because we exist. Now nobody has the right to tell you how to defend yourself as long as you do not become the aggressor. The moment you are the aggressor you have crossed the line, not before. You cannot preemptively punish a person. And yes, stripping a person on an inborn right is a punishment. Would you appreciate having your right to vote stripped because some people in your area practiced voter fraud? Would you consent to your right to remain silent being stripped because others used it? Would you condone the loss of the free press because one News Sourced committed libel? No to all of these. Yet you seem awfully keen on making other people give up a right they hold just as dear.

You don't like guns, then don't buy one. It's that simple. You don't want them in your neighborhood, use polite peer pressure. You don't want concealed weapons on your property post a sign. It's that freaking simple people.

We do regulate our precious right to free speech so.... The right to protect yourself is an inborn right but owning a gun is not! In my world you would have safety classes, be given psyche exams, have your name on a gun registry, trained extensively on your personal weapon and if you have children you would have to be inspected to make sure you are being a responsible gun owner and keeping them safely locked away. You wanna kiss me now or later!

 

[LoRaan]

We do regulate our precious right to free speech so.... The right to protect yourself is an inborn right but owning a gun is not! In my world you would have safety classes, be given psyche exams, have your name on a gun registry, trained extensively on your personal weapon and if you have children you would have to be inspected to make sure you are being a responsible gun owner and keeping them safely locked away. You wanna kiss me now or later!

Actually the only regulation on free speech is basically using it to harm others. That's it. Nobody says you can't say any particular words or phrases. Just that you don't incite riots or commit fraud.

And yes owning a weapon is an inborn right. How somebody chooses to defend themselves is up to them. If they are not attacking you or bringing harm to innocent you have NO SAY!. Don't like that little fact? Tough. You're not in charge of anybody aside from yourself and your minor children.

 

[quinnsong]

Actually the only regulation on free speech is basically using it to harm others. That's it. Nobody says you can't say any particular words or phrases. Just that you don't incite riots or commit fraud.

And yes owning a weapon is an inborn right. How somebody chooses to defend themselves is up to them. If they are not attacking you or bringing harm to innocent you have NO SAY!. Don't like that little fact? Tough. You're not in charge of anybody aside from yourself and your minor children.

Looks like no kiss then!

Seriously, just asking for some common sense from gun nuts is a fruitless endeavor. All I am asking for is regulation on guns too because GUNS ARE SPECIFICALLY USED TO HARM OTHERS!

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

All I am asking for is regulation on guns too because GUNS ARE SPECIFICALLY USED TO HARM OTHERS!

And also to harm oneself. Roughly half of gun deaths in the USA are suicide. If you have to figure out how to slit your wrists in a tub of hot water, fill your garage with exhaust, determine a lethal dose of your medication, etc., it will take a while and you'll have plenty of time to reconsider. With a gun in your drawer it takes less than a minute.

One of our members (sorry I don't remember which) insists that impulsive suicides are more likely to be the more complex type, but that seems like an oxymoron to me because the procedure itself requires patience.

 

[billvon]

And yet your the one who keeps using the idea that "We take away people's drivers licenses when doctors tell us to."

Right. That is an example of someone losing a right because there is a public risk in them exercising it.

Not "a" doctor a team of Doctors . . .

First call is by a doctor. Show up at any hospital and say "I feel like I am a danger to myself or others" and you go into a psychiatric hold and your weapons (that you have on you) are confiscated. You are effectively imprisoned. That decision is made by one doctor.

If you will be a continuing danger to others, then there is a court review process where your rights can be permanently removed. We already have the system in place to do this; we just have to extend and streamline it.

I never said they didn't take the license I said they don't take the car. BIG difference.

They take his license. If he tries to then drive his car they arrest him and take his car. This gives him the opportunity to sell the car that he can no longer drive, which helps him out. If he takes advantage of this benefit then he loses his car.

 

[iceaura]

Yet we do it all the time in the interest of public health and safety. For example, the vast majority of users of "dangerous" drugs never have a health, welfare or behavior problem. In fact about twice as many people are killed by prescription opiods than those acquired by other means. Yet the government, in its infinite wisdom, has decreed that only opioids acquired by prescription are legal.

That example argues against, not for, a government forbidding firearm possession by ordinary citizens.

So do the various car license examples above - the fact that car driving has been classified as a privilege, rather than a right, has opened the door to a fair number of abusive government impositions (mandatory seat belt employment, loss of driver's license for non-payment of debts, inconsistent and racially discriminatory enforcement of driving regulations (stop and frisk is routine treatment of car drivers), leading to serious strictures on ordinary life.

So do the arguments of preventing self-harm, improving public health, etc. The principle that the US government is not supposed to be in the business of protecting people from themselves according to what some official thinks best for them, or restricting people's lives in the interests of statistical improvements in "public health", is not to be flouted on the basis of fantasies about whimsical and spur-of the-moment suicide or the kinds of poorly compiled and misleading statistical arguments we see in this arena of public discourse.

These kinds of authoritarian arguments strike people with daily experience of actual governmental agent behavior in those arenas (drugs, driver's licenses) as threats - threatening people with arbitrary and unaccountable abuses if they give an inch to the gun regulators has been a major factor in the creation of a rigid and uncompromising resistance to even the most sensible of gun regulations in the US.

 

[Write4U]

Can someone explain why there is an entire procedure to register a "short barrel" shot gun, while we can walk into a gun shop and buy a thirty round bullet clip for a semiautomatic weapon.
At waht point is the sawed off shotgun more dangerous than a high capacity assault weapon. Neither are suitable for hunting.

 

[quinnsong]

Can someone explain why there is an entire procedure to register a "short barrel" shot gun, while we can walk into a gun shop and buy a thirty round bullet clip for a semiautomatic weapon.
At waht point is the sawed off shotgun more dangerous than a high capacity assault weapon. Neither are suitable for hunting.

Makes no sense at all, does it? Well done, NRA!

 

[iceaura]

At waht point is the sawed off shotgun more dangerous than a high capacity assault weapon

At the point where you realize that it was sawed off to enable concealing it in preparation for committing crimes - the only benefit.

For the same reason, silencers are illegal - not because they make the weapon "more dangerous" in your sense of more powerful or lethal (as with sawing off the barrel, they degrade performance somewhat) but because they make it possible to conceal one's employment of it.

 

[Write4U]

At the point where you realize that it was sawed off to enable concealing it in preparation for committing crimes - the only benefit.

For the same reason, silencers are illegal - not because they make the weapon "more dangerous" in your sense of more powerful or lethal (as with sawing off the barrel, they degrade performance somewhat) but because they make it possible to conceal one's employment of it.

That argument does not hold. Show me a sawed off shotgun that is smaller and better suited for crime than an automatic pistol with 15round clip. A hand grenade is even smaller and does much greater damage.

For an average citizen/sportsman/hunter there is absolutely no need to own military weapons. We have a well regulatred militia to protect us, remember?

You are not advocating fewer rules when purchasing a military firearms are you?

 

[iceaura]

That argument does not hold. Show me a sawed off shotgun that is smaller and better suited for crime than an automatic pistol with 15round clip

They don't saw the barrel off to make it better for crime than an automatic pistol, but to make it better for crime than a long barrel shotgun (although it is scarier and much more lethal at ordinary crime range, which is a benefit for some crimes, and has other advantages in practice).

Again, same reason silencers are forbidden - not because they make the weapon more powerful or dangerous in itself (the opposite is the case) but because they abet crime and are good for little else. Again, it is human behavior and circumstances at the center, not the mechanical properties of some weapon.

And they can be forbidden without abrogating someone's Constitutional rights. That is an issue for some of us, you know, as much as it may seem a bureaucratic triviality to those who see no dangers in using the power of government to make people think and behave better.

. We have a well regulatred militia to protect us, remember?

No, we don't. We are the militia, and our "regulation" (which includes our ability to bring appropriate and well-kept arms when summoned) is up to us.

 

[Write4U]

They don't saw the barrel off to make it better for crime than an automatic pistol, but to make it better for crime than a long barrel shotgun (although it is scarier and much more lethal at ordinary crime range, which is a benefit for some crimes, and has other advantages in practice).

Again, same reason silencers are forbidden - not because they make the weapon more powerful or dangerous in itself (the opposite is the case) but because they abet crime and are good for little else. Again, it is human behavior and circumstances at the center, not the mechanical properties of some weapon.

And they can be forbidden without abrogating someone's Constitutional rights. That is an issue for some of us, you know, as much as it may seem a bureaucratic triviality to those who see no dangers in using the power of government to make people think and behave better.

You answered your own question regarding the need for regulation. WHO ELSE would provide thse services? Remember the Mafia "protection schemes"? Same thing as for-profit penitentiaries, for profit medical care, you want for-profit protection gangs? Freedom from government, instead of freedom from criminals, yes that's the ticket!

 

[Write4U]

iceaura;
They don't saw the barrel off to make it better for crime than an automatic pistol, but to make it better for crime than a long barrel shotgun (although it is scarier and much more lethal at ordinary crime range, which is a benefit for some crimes, and has other advantages in practice).

Should we control sawed off shotguns or not?

Again, same reason silencers are forbidden - not because they make the weapon more powerful or dangerous in itself (the opposite is the case) but because they abet crime and are good for little else. Again, it is human behavior and circumstances at the center, not the mechanical properties of some weapon.

Should we control silencers or not?

And they can be forbidden without abrogating someone's Constitutional rights. That is an issue for some of us, you know, as much as it may seem a bureaucratic triviality to those who see no dangers in using the power of government to make people think and behave better.

No, we don't. You have not a clue how complicated and dangerous life has become. A "WELL REGULATED" professional police force, installed by Democratic means is the ONLY way to maintain order.

We are the militia, and our "regulation" (which includes our ability to bring appropriate and well-kept arms when summoned) is up to us.

No you are not "the militia" you are a civilian. By your standards the KKK is a well regulated militia, AND THEY WERE, you wanna go back to that?.

There are no rules or command structure for civilians how to enforce law. Why do we have to call in the Military in case of crisis, like a flood or hurricane. The civilian community does not have the resources or the skills of the "military", that is why we call the National Guard, they are the well regulated militia.

 

[iceaura]

Should we control sawed off shotguns or not? - - - - Should we control silencers or not?

We should and we do. Your point?

No, we don't. You have not a clue how complicated and dangerous life has become. A "WELL REGULATED" professional police force, installed by Democratic means is the ONLY way to maintain order.

Most governments, now and throughout the history of nation states, use thug police forces and auxiliary paramilitary organizations installed by the rich and powerful to maintain order by beating up a disarmed citizenry. That works just fine, if "maintaining order" is your priority.

Granted that is simple and - as long as you are no threat to the rich and powerful - safe. I'll take "complicated and dangerous" for 70, Alex, thanks.

No you are not "the militia" you are a civilian.

See, this is a problem here. Too many Americans managed to get through school without learning any history, and no longer know what the word "militia" means.

A militia is a bunch of civilians, bringing their own weapons and gear or whatever their neighborhood group or local rich guy supplies, self-commanded or under self-chosen leadership, temporarily organized to handle a sudden threat. Like a posse, only not to enforce the law but to fight battles. At the time the Constitution was written, various militias had served more or less honorably as auxiliaries to the Continental Army fighting the British Army and German mercenaries in the Revolutionary War (George Washington disliked them because they were civilian rabble, capriciously commanded and hard to coordinate). Their primary role before (and after) that was handling raids and other military threats from the neighboring Five Nation and Cherokee and what came to be Seminole communities.

Some of their rifles, locally engineered and designed over a generation of Red conflicts as well as hunting, were the best strike force military small arms in the world.

The National Guard in the US is not a militia - it is a State run and State commanded, State equipped, professional and formal military organization. It is not temporary or locally organized. If you have joined, you can't quit whenever you want to, you don't bring your own weapons or other gear, you don't choose your own officers, you get paid for your services, you are under the command of the State and you are answerable to that State. It's not a militia any more than the State Highway Patrol is a posse.