... what's to keep the next disturbed 20 year old with Asperger syndrome from taking his truck, SUV, or car down to the schoolyard when kids are huddled around before the bell rings or at recess or at a soccer field and mowing them down like so many stalks of corn? Will we then have an outcry to ban the automobile and every related job that goes with it? Where was the outcry to outlaw the jumbo jet after 911? It's not about hardware. We have to keep guns away from the crazies and criminals only.
And speaking of criminals, for gun control to work on them they have to obey the law. What's the definition of a criminal? Someone who does not obey the law.
It's really kind of comical that when you ask about reasonable restraint on gun dealings you have extremists talking about "taking all our guns away" and going into 10,000 ways to die alternative scenarios to end people's lives.
I'm generally not a fan of organizations that resort to hyperbole and emotion to get their way, and frankly, advocates on both sides of the gun control debate do this. However, I generally come down on the side of the NRA's gun agenda. First, relying upon gun control as a mean of crime prevention disregards basic logic regarding causation. Generally, gun laws are tougher than they used to be, especially around schools, so we should have fewer gun attacks than we had in days when gun laws were more lax. Why hasn't that happened? Furthermore, the state that has the most liberal (meaning lax, not politically) gun laws in the US (Vermont) has some of the lowest crime, while states and municipalities that have the toughest gun restrictions tend to have the highest crime. If gun control was really a serious answer, the opposite would be true. Second, while gun control advocates like to talk about passing more laws, they rarely like to go into specifics of enforcement. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the United States and mass ownership of guns. If we were to ban guns (or certain types of guns), you wouldn't actually be "getting rid of" guns. All you'd have is a huge black market for the hundreds of millions of used guns already present in the US as well as illegally imported guns. Therefore, if you really wanted to make a serious impact on gun crime by making it truly difficult or impossible for a commited criminal to get a gun, banning the manufacture or sale of guns wouldn't be anywhere near enough. You would have to ban the private ownership of guns and vigorously enforce those laws. You would need law enforcement officers obtaining warrants and entering homes of people who legally bought their guns, taking the guns from them, and charging them with a crime. Anybody really want to do that? If we can't practically deport 12 million illegal aliens or ban drugs (which we clearly can't), how are we going to ban and seize hundreds of millions of guns that are much easier to hide than a human being is? Third, while not all nations that outlaw or severely restrict gun ownership are tyrannical, most nations that are tyrannical outlaw or severely restrict gun ownership. I don't think gun control advocates want a tyrannical government, but what they advocate makes tyranny much easier to impose. Finally, I think gun control is a diversion from dealing with root causes of crime. Does anyone really think the culture hasn't coarsened and become more depraved in the last 60 years? I'm not talking about the existence of violent media, pornography, etc. That sort of thing has been around in some form forever and isn't new. However, the public's tolerance and desensitivity to it is relatively new. Furthermore, the prevalence of broken homes and checked-out parents is also new. As a society, we need to deal with issues like these.
How exactly would they go about confiscating guns? Pretty much impossible. I've got more than 5 and I would just hide them somewhere.
I have owned and enjoyed shotguns that would shoot three shells before reloading and .22 rifle. I have family access to deer rifles and if I had time and money for the sport I may own one myself. I'm an outdoors enthusiast, but not necessarily a weapons enthusiast so I imagine if I ever own and use a pistol it will be because I'm killing hogs and want an effective weapon if I ever come to close quarters with the dangerous beast. If I have circumstances where dangerous humans around make meI feel safer with a pistol -- a weapon which because of it's size present more opportunites for misuse and accident -- I'll just find another circumstance. I understand people sometime have business and live in places where they need pistols and I wouldn't want to threaten rights of licensed folks who can intelligently use the weapons. I hoestly don't know or truly understand why the gun show loophole has to remain open and why there a is need for large clips of potent rounds.
There are very few issues I side with the right wing. Gun control is one. The reason the gunshow loophole exists is because of the McClure-Volkmer Act of 1986. It's basically a tradeoff that gave the gunshow carnies features at the expense of class 3 rights; a piss-poor tradeoff in my opinion as it limits the 2nd amendment to 1986 technology which is patently unconstitutional. Only one crime was ever committed with a legally transferable fully automatic weapon since NFA and that was by a law enforcement officer.
Mich, I agree with your article in the sense that the problem is bigger than mental health. Most people who commit violent crimes have not been found to be mentally ill, and most mentally ill people would never commit a violent act. However, many of the problems with focusing on mental health are also present in promoting gun control. Most people who own guns would never commit a violent act, so you're talking about wholesale denial of a civil liberty (the right to bear arms) to prevent a violent act by a random person. However, even if you're willing to make that trade-off, how do you get rid of the guns already out there, and how do you actually enforce a gun ban? I've never heard anybody get into that.
These arguments about, "you could kill with a spoon, ... an SUV, ... a tomato, etc." are about the weakest arguments I can imagine against gun control. Trucks, SUVs, jumbo jets -- those things clearly have another purpose. Even other guns (like hunting rifles or most handguns used for self-defense) are designed with other purposes in mind. Assault rifles are weapons of war. They are designed to kill a lot of people in a very short time. We don't let civilians go down to the corner store and buy bazookas, machine guns, flame-throwers, nuclear warheads, or black hawk helicopters, right? So we're already making decisions about what instruments don't need to fall into civilian hands. Let's not pretend that an assault weapons ban is some wild, radical, infringement on your constitutional rights. I don't hear ANYONE advocating confiscating "every gun in America," so your whole premise pure fiction. Finally, "We have to keep guns away from the crazies" -- that's not really working so well, is it? Does anyone have an idea they'd like to share with us where all Americans except unstable mentally ill people can have a couple of AR-15's at home, so that all the normal people are armed for WW3, but somehow crazy people never get a hold of one? BTW, I own a handgun and have my CHL.
It could be done easily right now. Brady check,crazy ******, no gun for you. Brady check, lives with a crazy ******, no gun for you.
Every single one of these mass shooters since Columbine has been MENTALL ILL. All of them. Theyve been on drugs. They havent been sane. That is why the mental health issue is being talked about so strongly. Its not the guns people. Its the people pulling the trigger. Is a knife a weapon? No. Well, actually yes, it is. A knife is a weapon. It also happens to be really good at cutting steak, but yes, it is a weapon. People murder people with knives ALL THE TIME. ALL THE TIME. Get it? It doesnt matter if alcohol isnt intended to be used as a weapon. The fact is, that 7.5 times more deaths occur every year as a result of alcohol. But not a peep as to doing something about it. People are such hypocrites. It makes me sick.
There was an interesting letter in the Dallas Morning News suggesting that teachers who want firearms training and weapons should be given them. Not a mandatory requirement -- just a voluteer thing. Also suggested were having the school personnel letting people in the school building -- practically a full time job in a big middle school anyway -- be a licensed officer packing heat. Of course the latter response is grossly out of proportion to the true danger but -- but the emotion and fear out there is real and from a political and PR standpoint that has to be honored and respected. As another pointed out the dangers from auto wrecks, alcohol, drownings, choking ... all will take a lot more lives than gunmen walking into schools with 30-round weapons. But if you think politics is ever going to be completely rational ....
Curious what a soft target is and why al qaida states that it wants to attack soft targets in the US. It seems that by advertising gun free zones, you are basically telling killers that they can kill a great number of people who can do nothing but run or hide.
...there would be 30,000 less gun deaths per year in the United States. Sure some of the 17,000 annual suicides via gun would still commit suicide, maybe a lot of them. Sure, there would still be murders, but would there be 34 each and every day of the year? Doubtful. One thing would be certain, the 600 accidental gun deaths per year would be eliminated. But don't worry, no one is going to take any guns away. And 30,000 will die by them next year. It's the American way. There will be a few more school shootings, but that's what our society has deemed acceptable rather than take any guns away. The depressed, the bipolar, the undiagnosed mentally ill, the crazy mfer's, they will legally acquire guns, or take them from a responsible relative, a parent, a sibling, a friend, buy them at gun shows, whatever, and the carnage will continue. Nothing's gonna change. You don't have to worry about a thing.
Why not fix the sick, amoral society that produces nut jobs like these mass shooters instead of trying to get rid of certain kinds of guns? Even if new laws would keep guns out of the hands of law-breakers (which any intelligent person knows it wouldn't), they will just go from killing 20 people with so-called assault rifles to killing 150 people with bombs (ie Timothy McVeigh). Killing is against the law, so common sense dictates that law breakers will continue to break anti-killing laws and anti-gun laws if they are determined to inflict carnage on innocent people. The only solution is to achieve a society (like the one we had before our moral culture went to hell in the late 60's) in which there are fewer twisted, directionless lunatics who have no respect or understanding of the value of human life. The more crazies we allow to be produced, the more mass killings there will be- guns or no guns.
Remember when alcohol was prohibited? That sure stopped a lot of crime, didn't it? What made Capone and all the bootlegging go away, the FBI? Wrong, the repeal of prohibition. So if you want the Mexican cartels to just get even stronger, give them a whole new class of contraband to smuggle. And stupidly expect that to stop crime.
