Gun ownership poll

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Carter08

How is that possible? Some of the more recent shootings were folks that purchased weapons a day or two before their mass shooting. So restrictions may have done not just the smallest thing but the greatest thing in those situations.

When someone purchases a gun, there isn't a question like "Do you plan to use this to murder a bunch of people?" And if there was such a question, it wouldn't be answered truthfully.

Here's an example of gun restrictions using the latest example. The mall had a "No guns on these premises" policy. The murderer of course broke that policy. Most law abiding folks obeyed it. Fortunately, there was one guy who ignored it (probably realizing how da** stupid those signs are) and saved countless lives.

Can you ever understand that murderers aren't going to obey laws, while law abiding people, by definition, generally do?

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by Mark17

When someone purchases a gun, there isn't a question like "Do you plan to use this to murder a bunch of people?" And if there was such a question, it wouldn't be answered truthfully.

Here's an example of gun restrictions using the latest example. The mall had a "No guns on these premises" policy. The murderer of course broke that policy. Most law abiding folks obeyed it. Fortunately, there was one guy who ignored it (probably realizing how da** stupid those signs are) and saved countless lives.

Can you ever understand that murderers aren't going to obey laws, while law abiding people, by definition, generally do?

Can you understand that easy access to guns generally promotes both good and bad people from getting them? The Vegas shooter had how many guns? What does anyone in this country need so many. Let’s add a dose of reasonableness to our vehement desire to be good guys with guns.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Carter08

Can you understand that easy access to guns generally promotes both good and bad people from getting them? The Vegas shooter had how many guns? What does anyone in this country need so many. Let’s add a dose of reasonableness to our vehement desire to be good guys with guns.

Do you think your average gang member buys his guns legally, following the rules and restrictions?

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Do you think your average gang member buys his guns legally, following the rules and restrictions?

They most certainly do not.

[Carter08]

Your average gang member does not impose a threat on someone living in rural Iowa though. That’s just a fact of geography.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Carter08

Your average gang member does not impose a threat on someone living in rural Iowa though. That’s just a fact of geography.

I know I shouldn’t engage, but it’s too funny sometimes. Why would the life of a person in rural Idaho be worth more than a persons life in Chicago?

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by G1911

I know I shouldn’t engage, but it’s too funny sometimes. Why would the life of a person in rural Idaho be worth more than a persons life in Chicago?

Not sure where Idaho comes into this mix but the point - lost on some apparently - is that urban gang violence primarily involving handguns doesn’t affect 99 percent of the population and seems a poor justification for everyone to be able to buy AR-15s. Let the point sink in, miss it, and the. Write something over the top crazy, mean, and trolly. I will wait.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Carter08

They most certainly do not.

Finally, you admit the additional gun restrictions you advocate won't affect the criminals.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Finally, you admit the additional gun restrictions you advocate won't affect the criminals.

We act like there are two kinds of people: criminals and "good guys."
But isn't life a little more complicated than that?

For example, a depressed, troubled, but generally law abiding 18 year old can buy an assault rifle. Why not raise the age limit to decrease the chances of an 18 year old bringing an assault rifle to school?

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

We act like there are two kinds of people: criminals and "good guys."
But isn't life a little more complicated than that?

For example, a depressed, troubled, but generally law abiding 18 year old can buy an assault rifle and bring it to school. Why not raise the age limit to decrease the chances of an 18 year old bringing an assault rifle to school?

The hero in the mall was just 22 years old. Just curious, how do you correlate depressed and troubled with age?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

We act like there are two kinds of people: criminals and "good guys."
But isn't life a little more complicated than that?

It is incredibly obvious that the 'bad guy' in these discussions and scenarios is the person murdering innocent people . It's very, very, very simple. The good guy is the person taking action to stop the massacre of innocent people.

If one cannot identify who at the mall was the 'good guy' and who was the 'bad guy', well...

EDIT: For the 5,000th time they cannot legally purchase an assault rifle. "Assault rifle" is an actual object with an actual meaning.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

We act like there are two kinds of people: criminals and "good guys."
But isn't life a little more complicated than that?

For example, a depressed, troubled, but generally law abiding 18 year old can buy an assault rifle. Why not raise the age limit to decrease the chances of an 18 year old bringing an assault rifle to school?

Will it have any effect besides making it depressed, troubled but otherwise law abiding 21 year olds doing the same thing?

Most of the recent mass shooters have had a history of problematic behavior. Which because of either rules designed to protect people or police not wanting to do the paperwork, never get into the system that does background checks. Strengthen the data available, and you make the backround checks work better.

[G1911]

Aggregate is good.

The CDC (hardly a conservative, pro-gun group! Very much the opposite, in fact) concluded there are are between 500,000-3,000,000 defensive gun uses per year in an anti-gun study that was part of the Obama administrations attacks on the 2nd as part of an executive order.

Using a firearm for lawful defense (which very rarely results in an actual discharge; most criminals are looking for easy pickings and not a fight, unlike exceptionally rare mass shooters that rarely seem to plan on survival; criminals tend to stop as soon as they realize they are facing an armed victim or bystander) is fairly common.

Obviously the very specific circumstances of this very unusual incident under most recent discussion are rare (so are the incidents brought up by the other stand; exceptional incidents that receive coverage are, well, exceptional); but using a firearm, in lawful self-defense is common. For every such case, there are many many more where a law-abiding person is possessing or carrying a firearm for defense and never has to use it at all. For every one of these, there are other recreational, sport and other legal shooters. Legal uses of a firearm vastly outweigh illegal uses of a firearm (many, many of the illegal uses of a firearm are paperwork crimes, not what people think of at first). And yet, millions of us are to be criminalized and the Constitution ignored if the regulators and banners ever get their way, with no real impact on homicides just like the last X number of regulations and bans.

[G1911]

While I understand why many want to regulate, ban, or reverse time into the 18th century, I have never understood many of the things that seem to rankle them most. Like quantity of guns owned. A person has two hands, and dual wielding is some video game absurdity. A long gun and a pistol are about all a person could use effectively in a single incident; having a collection doesn't up the lethality. If anything it reduces it, carrying tons of extra weight and swapping guns takes far more time than just using what they have in hand. One can't really carry more than a few hundred rounds effectively. An active shooter doesn't need and can't use a large number of guns (I am aware of 0 incidents - the Vegas shooter used very little from his stash) or a hoard of ammunition (I am aware of only 1 such incident in US history, the Vegas shooter). Many of the existing laws are rooted in this belief from post 855 that makes no sense whatsoever, even if one adopts the belief that guns are inherently evil and those who have them must be suppressed by the State as gospel.