When high ranking lawmakers talk about repealing the 2nd Amendment, this is EXACTLY where they are going.

Repealing an amendment is possibly the hardest political action in America.


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Agree. It’s just not happening. But the fear mongering of what the left is up to is preventing positive change. Although I have to admit some on the left so not do well when they use big rhetoric. This is an across the aisles opportunity for a step forward.

As a Californian, I see every legislative season that they absolutely are in fact trying to ban guns and/or take my property/turn me into an overnight felon. There is no subtlety in it at all and they are very direct about this. It is even a criminal act for me to stop for lunch on my way to the range now because I have a scary looking rifle. A surprising conservative stay order by the 2nd circuit is the only reason hundreds of thousands or millions of Californians are not yet overnight felons for their legally possessed magazines.

There's not really much of an across the aisles compromise here in this framework - one side is demanding the other cede constitutionally protected liberties in exchange for nothing. A compromise involves both sides getting something. I haven't heard of a proposal, for example, to raise the age of ownership to 21, abolish PPT's, force training before a purchase and a mandatory waiting period but to abolish the NFA restrictions after one has gone through all this. The 'give up X this time but get nothing' that has been the way this has gone since 1934 is not a compromise. An actual across-the-aisle compromise would be interesting to hear and consider, but I doubt will ever happen.

To the bold part. That is crazy. Here in rural South Dakota we went the other way recently. Now you can carry a concealed gun without a permit. Not sure I am a fan of that. It is nice that if you don't have a permit you now don't have to drive to/from the range/hunting without displaying your guns at all times. On the flip side it is damn scary anyone can carry a gun concealed.

Educational:

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I agree that’s a touch scary. Between a state with a load of well meaning and some bad meaning individuals walking around with guns and a state with only some bad meaning individuals walking around with guns, I’d feel safer in the latter. That might just be me.

Can you stop hijacking this thread?

The thread for random pictures is here: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=271560

For me the bold part is the big thing most that want more gun laws just don't understand. Bad people do not obey laws and they are the problem.

About the only new law I would be for is making everyone take gun safety courses to be a gun owner. That is just to help keep the honest people from accidently shooting each other.

Understood. I hope and think most thoughtful people on the left understand this. Sort of a don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good situation though.

You keep bringing up the constitution, how essentially any law against guns is against the constitution. Can you please show me where in the constitution it says you can buy any type of gun, any type of ammo, at any age, with no restrictions?

Have you quoted the wrong post? The Constitution is not really the subject directly or indirectly in this post at all. The first paragraph is about state bills and laws.

The second paragraph is about what a compromise is and why it's not an 'across the aisle' situation - because it is a demand by one side to cede rights and/or criminalize the other side without giving anything to the other side in return for this session. An interest in an actual compromise takes for granted that the federal state does regulate firearms, which is moving past a true constitutional framework.

Nonetheless, this is a very easy question to answer.

Alabama school resource officer kills man trying to enter school
Man tried to break into elementary school, police said.

https://torontosun.com/news/world/al...o-enter-school

After continuing to periodically check in on this thread, the consensus would seem to be that nothing whatsoever can be done to stop or even decrease the number of mass shootings in this country because of the 2nd Amendment. These events are just something that cannot be eliminated.

Lessons in Addiction & Adaptability:

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Copycat crimes are a well known thing. The more attention these types of tragedies are given, the more they are likely to happen again.

I know a few that work for CN & CP rail up here in Canada, and I have been told more than once that when they report derailments, many a time they are intentional but they don't make that tidbit public knowledge because they know the next time the perp(s) will try and outdo the previous one.

Can we please enforce the rule against hijacking? He’s done it twice now after mod post 294 warning specifically against it.

There is much disagreement but it has been mostly civil (the posts about firearms, the actual subject, have been entirely civil) . I don’t think hijacking any thread anyone doesn’t like is appropriate. Nothing would stay on topic.

It is a mental health issue that many try to make a gun issue.

It is NOT the gun it is the moron behind the gun that is the problem. We had a Russian exchange student go crazy here with a sword and killed several people. Not a single person wanted to ban swords afterwards.

Dayton 2019
 

In that mass shooting in Dayton, the shooter opened fire in a very popular area of town that had a large police presence. The police shot and killed the shooter within 30 seconds of opening fire. In that 30 seconds, he had already killed 9 people.
Good guys with guns can only do so much.

Dayton 2019
 

The police said he fired 42 shots in 30 seconds, killing 9 and injuring 27.

Good guys with guns is how these things always, finally, end. Solution: Let's have more good guys with guns. Let's have the bad guys out-armed 1000 to one.

This.

These shootings are incredibly rare, but if one happened around you (the colloquial you, not any specific person) wouldn’t you want the other innocents nearby to be armed and able to effectively fight back? The quicker a good guy with a gun takes down the psycho, the less bloodshed there is. You’re more likely to live if others are armed too, than if only the criminals have them. There’s a reason these things tend to happen, in the very rare cases that they do, in crowds of unarmed people and in places where people are less likely to be armed. Nobody stages a massacre at a sportsman’s club.

In that scenario, how many of the 1000 good guys will accidentally shoot another good guy ? There'd be bullets flying all over the place. Doesn't sound too good to me.
Cops already worry about dealing with armed good guys at a live shooter scene. You've got a gun, how do the cops know you're a good guy ?
Anyway, the cops shot and killed the shooter in Dayton in 30 seconds. 9 people were already dead.
In Buffalo, at the grocery store, there was a good guy with a gun on the scene. He was a retired ex-cop. He was out gunned and killed.

Too funny
 

[QUOTE=clydepepper;2232979]Lessons in Addiction & Adaptability:



That cat picture is absolutely hilarious.

Agreed. More guns is not the solution that makes sense to me. I realize it does for others.

No one ever makes the point that guns do the killing so I don’t know why the argument is always repeated that it’s the person behind the gun that is the real problem. I think everyone understands that and wishes we could cure all deranged individuals. Since we probably can’t, it’s just that if it were harder to get a gun that could do so much rapid shooting or harder to get a gun at all, maybe we’d have a few more stabbings on our hands as opposed to mass shootings.

On the second amendment, similar to the first amendment, the freedom is always subject to reasonable restrictions. We have freedom of speech, but we can’t shout fire in a crowded theater. We have the right to bear arms, but we can’t walk around with bazookas.

This loops back to an earlier main point. If we know it is the person, not the tool, what legislation on the tool are we proposing that is not taking peoples guns or banning guns that will reduce homicides and shootings?

Is there a compromise proposition that could be reached?

Obviously a tough call because what’s already out there is out there and what’s restricted tomorrow can still be obtained. It seems like trying to restrict access, especially younger person access, to rapid fire, large count magazines would do some good. Not even positive that would be a net benefit. I think both sides want less mass shootings. Wish there was a technological solution.

Does this mean a ban on magazine possession of magazines holding over X number of rounds, and a ban on semi-automatic firearms for under Y age(21?)?

Amen.

Agree with the amen. As for the former, I have no clue. I think it’s responsible gun owners that will actually come up with some good ideas.

Responsible gun owners are against these ideas though; beyond the discussions of what might be effective in controlling a small number of psycho’s or the Constitution, criminalizing ourselves or subsegments of ourselves is not very popular in the gun community, as a ban on semi-auto’s and/or magazines will do, for the obvious reasons of common sense self-interest. Their propositions are more in the mental health realm, and the view that while these events are horrible, there is no reason to think any legislation is going to get rid of homicide. Most gun owners do not see why those who have not misused it should be criminalized, particularly when other tools are used in more murders (you are more likely to be bludgeoned than to be shot with a rifle, semi-auto and scary or single shot and not scary). It is exceptionally difficult to endorse a proposition that makes some of us sudden felons for having legally purchased and owning what we have.

There’s been no such thing as a mass bludgeoning as far as I know. I wouldn’t be scared if my fellow citizens walked around with baseball bats. Allow them to freely walk around with guns, not good as far as I’m concerned. Too many arguments result in people making poor decisions. Would rather have them make those poor decisions without a gun in hand.

Rhode Island's House of Representatives today passed a ban on the possession of any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, with no grandfather clause, turning thousands of citizens into felons, many of whom will probably not even be aware that legally owned items they bought years or decades ago (magazines holding more than 10 have been common items for about a century) make them a criminal once it is in effect.

This is exactly why gun owners think the gun control agenda is to ban their guns and parts and turn them into felons - because they keep writing these bills, voting for them, and sometimes get them passed which do exactly that, turning law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong into overnight felons for owning common items that they legally acquired.

I'm sure murderers, gang members, and massacre-planing psycho's will dispose of their magazines and many lives will be saved.

Right. If passing another law will stop the bad guys, let's simplify and just make murder, regardless of method, illegal.

Oh, wait.....

What if responsible gun owners told you the solution is more firearms in the hands of good guys to stop inevitable bad guys with guns? Qualified military personnel/veterans, for example, staitioned at our schools. What if they said these proposed laws only restrict law abiding citizens, considering murder is illegal already yet bad guys still commit murder with a plethora of "tools"?

That I said before seems like a non-starter. Too many good guys make dumb decisions. If there isn’t a desire to try to restrict high capacity guns from bad guys maybe there is no way to agree on something.

The problem is there is NO WAY to restrict high capacity guns or anything else from the bad guys. All these beyond silly new laws do is restrict things from the good people.

I can't think of even one single thing that a law has kept a bad person from getting or doing.

We are not the only country to have a mass shooting. It has happened in many countries. We are the only country to just stick with things as they are, and basically change nothing, when we have a mass shooting.
Other countries that have had mass shootings have been proactive, and changed things, and they have been successful in greatly lowering these mass shootings.
There's no cure all, there's nothing that works in every situation, but if you can save one life, wouldn't that be worth it ? In the world, we are the outlier. I believe we are 8 times more likely to die by gun than the next highest country. Plus it is estimated that there are 400 million guns in this country. Talk about the elephant in the room ! People continue to say guns are not the problem.
Also, today's responsible gun owner may be tomorrow's gun owner who goes off the deep end. The shooter in Law Vegas was a very successful person. He didn't seem like a risk at all, until he murdered 60 people and wounded many others.
My response to this situation is what the people of Uvalde said : "Do something".

touche!

How are you proposing to do this? It is already illegal for known 'bad guys' to possess arms. You said earlier that gun-owners need to get over their idea that the other side is trying to take our guns away. How are you going to remove these guns from bad people without a record, without removing them from the tens of millions of good guys who own them too?

What country has "greatly lowered" mass shootings by banning arms? Can you link the data? Does this country have 400,000,000 guns in it already? Do you truly believe that a psycho plotting a massacre will simply dispose of his weapon and magazines if they are made illegal for anyone to have?


Frankly, no. A life might be saved if protesting and free speech were illegal. Should we eradicate them? We would have less traffic deaths if cars were illegal. Should we eradicate them? Everybody is disgusted by these incidents, but, even assuming criminals will magically follow this law for the first time in the history of the world, living in a totalitarian nightmare where everything that has ever caused a single death is illegal is worse. We would be able to use and do almost nothing.

Furthermore, I don't see how making my rifle here next to my desk illegal saves a single life. Who is in endangered by it?

Criminalizing the other half of the population is attractive to many on both sides of the culture conflict these days. I think it unfortunate that this is so, and short sighted.

To be clear, not looking to take away your guns in that you get to keep a ton of them. But just like you’re not allowed to own surface to air missiles and such, maybe you’d agree you don’t need to own automatic assault rifles. Or agree that future purchases of them should be limited.

If you have a gun next to your desk, there are many people endangered by it. Good and bad people. And it’s just not a good way to design a society in my view. Once we feel the need to arm ourselves at our desks I think we’ve truly lost.

Switzerland and Australia are two countries we could learn a lot from in terms of reducing gun violence.

Switzerland has over 2 million guns (about .25 guns for every citizen) and guns are very important to them culturally (they have a large shooting contest for 13-18 year olds each year, and see gun ownership as a patriotic way to guard against potential invasions) but hasn't had a mass shooting since 2001 and often have less than 50 gun related homicides per year in a country with over 8 million people.

Specific laws that reduce gun violence in Switzerland include:

1) Gun sellers follow strict licesning procedures : Gun permits are doled out locally and they keep a log of everyone who owns a gun in their region in what they call a "canton." Cantonal police don't take their duty doling out gun licenses lightly. They might consult a psychiatrist or talk with authorities in other cantons where a prospective gun buyer has lived to vet the person.

2) Violent people or those with substance abuse issues can't have guns: People who've been convicted of a crime or have an alcohol or drug addiction aren't allowed to buy guns in Switzerland.

Those who "expresses a violent or dangerous attitude" also can't own a gun.

Gun owners who want to carry their weapon for "defensive purposes" also have to prove they can properly load, unload, and shoot their weapon and must pass a test to get a license.

3) The Swiss banned the use of automatic weapons, silencers, laser sights, and heavy machine guns.

https://www.businessinsider.com/swit...-deaths-2018-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjlT4BME2aE



Australia had a mass shooting in Tasmania in 1996 in which 35 people died.
The Australian Government, then led be a Conservative named John Howard pushed through strict gun laws 12 days later.

The laws: 1) Banned semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession.

2) Forced people to provide a legitimate reason to own a gun, and to wait 28 days to buy a firearm.

3) Had a massive mandatory buyback of guns, resulting in the confiscation and destruction of about 700,000 guns reducing gun-owning households by half.

Australia has had only 1 mass shooting since 1996, and gun violence has been reduced by over half.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Arc3c8Pc8

I want to separate my personal opinions from facts. Just to be clear, automatic assault rifles are already heavily restricted and de facto banned. To own an automatic assault rifle, that gun had to be federally registered before 1986, a fee paid for every transaction, and approval from the BATFE secured to buy one that was registered. They cost tens of thousands of dollars as a result and these small number of legally-owned by civilian guns are never used for self-defense or in crimes (well I suppose they are occasionally used in a paperwork crime where someone fills out a form wrong). People are not going to the store and purchasing an automatic assault rifle, it is a serious federal felony to do so and has been since 1986. These firearms are already basically illegal for all but the elites in certain states.

That is so sad what happened in Australia.:(

I feel so sorry for those good people that had their guns ripped from their hands by some horrible horrible people who took advantage of a horrible situation.

Ok that’s a good start. There seems to be a gun of choice for these whackos - the AR. Can we get rid of that or restrict purchases? If it already is restricted let me know.

The problem here is that these figures given do not address what the rates and trends were before the bans - only looking at after the bans. That can't tell us much.

Switzerland
I looked up such incidents in these nations, by using a common search. I'm not claiming a masters thesis here. Switzerland has had 5 massacres since 1900 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...in_Switzerland). One in 1912, 1932 (a police shooting on protestors incident, not really the same thing as we are discussing here as the State is exempted from gun regulations across the world and in every serious proposal I have ever seen), 1976, 2001, and 2015.

So we have had 1 in the 21 years since their 2001 ban you discussed. They had last had one 25 years before the ban. Before that one in 1976, it had really been since 1912 that this happened. We have 4 real incidents, 2 before, the 1 precipitating the ban, and one after the ban. This is a truly tiny sample size, but nothing here suggests that gun control laws have reduced massacres (technically they are up after the ban, but with a sample of 1 that is just as garbage data)

The homicide rate appears to have declined after the ban. It was also declining before the ban though, as it was in most places in the first world during this period. https://www.macrotrends.net/countrie...-homicide-rate. It does not looks like this reduced the murder rate.

The laser sight provision seems odd to me as a shooter - it is about the least efficient method of target acquisition that exists. Old school iron sights are faster to get on target than a laser in most use cases.


Australia

There's too many in Australia to list every one as I did in Switzerland. 1996 was 26 years ago, so splitting into blocks that size and counting off the list by hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...in_Australia):

1969-1995: 20
1996: 2
1997-2022: 37

It does not seem to me that this ban has reduced massacres whatsoever. Massacres have almost doubled since the ban. I doubt that has anything whatsoever to do with the ban, but the data pretty clearly tells us it has not reduced massacres (or if it has, something else has happened that more than offsets its effect and made things worse).

The overall homicide rate follows the first world global trend, it goes up some years, down some years, but the overall is a downward glide (a very good thing). This glide did not begin with the ban. It's about flat on the whole from 1995-2000 (1998 was a good year, 1999 a bad year). Again, the data does not suggest that this ban saved lives. https://www.macrotrends.net/countrie...-homicide-rate

Your wikipedia link doesn't work when I click on it. Where are you seeing 37 "massacres" from 1997 - 2022?

Switzerland has ALWAYS had stronger gun laws than the U.S. so there isn't an exact before-and-after time to compare to.

Some states heavily restrict or ban AR-15's and others do not. It is not federally prohibited because it is not really any different from any other semi-automatic rifle. The AR-15 that is sold to civilians have 16-20 inch barrels, and are magazine fed semi-automatic rifles like all other semi-automatic rifles. The standard chambering is for 5.56x45mm, a light cartridge with a shorter range and less penetration than most rounds fired from rifles. The AR-15 has been the standard American rifle since the late 1970's (for the military since the early 1960's, their version is an actual assault rifle though and is a little different from the civilian legal versions).

The AR-15 constitutes the majority of rifles sold in the United States. Because it has been a standard for so long, the design has been made by tons of manufacturers and perfected mechanically over the decades (there are designs I like better, but they work well), and parts and supplies for it are everywhere making it the general go-to for new buyers. It's like the Honda Civic of rifles.

Rifles though, of any type, are rarely used in murders. The vast majority of gun murders are committed with a pistol. Until recently and probably-still-today-but-I-have-not-seen-fresh-data-in-a-few-years, .22lr is used more than any other cartridge, because it is the cheapest and everywhere even though it is, ballistically, less lethal than pretty much every other commonly used round. According to the FBI, bludgeoning murders outpace rifle murders (and stabbing murders are far and away more common). Considering that there's an AR-15 in a huge percentage of households in the US, it is one of the least used murder tools relative to its abundance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_in_Australia

Looks like the earlier link is picking up an extra paren.