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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1

Sorry Desi, I agree with Focus on this one.
The one thing that is commonplace in these arguments is that every pro-gun person that has tried to answer the question has always side-stepped the issue completely.
You'll counter each and every argument with something else as long as it doesn't interfere with your 2nd or your "right" to have a gun.
You'll invent anything at all as long as those two out-moded laws and attitudes remain in place.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: Focus50

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
You are assuming that this is commonplace.

With your gun culture? I'm not in the mood to Google but I'll put my balls on the line and venture that of your 30,000 annual gun deaths, at least 3,000 or 10% are domestic related, including if Police do the shooting.
Cos you're assuming domestic violence by gun isn't commonplace?

That's not what you had said, though.

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A domestic dispute - a family home where guns are kept readily at hand like in a drawer or closet etc.

This is what you are assuming is commonplace. You are assuming that domestic gun violence happens in homes "where guns are kept readily at hand like in a drawer or closet etc." You really think that's commonplace?

I actually think along the same lines and that comment has been backed up by several of my US friends who live out there.
It is quite common for a domestic dispute to involve a firearm of some sort.
And apparently, many of the burglaries involve a firearm too.
If the burglar/intruder didn't have a gun, you wouldn't need one for defense - a decent baseball bat would do nicely.
Does that make any sense to a pro-gun person??

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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Means and opportunity, huh? If some nutjob has decided to kill, he/she is going to kill. Guns may be the most common mode of killing, but it isn't the only mode. How is one to reduce the opportunity to kill, regardless of weapon? That isn't to suggest we do nothing, but I believe we have to be more general in approach to reduce the actual crime rates, rather than reduce "gun crime" rates.

Ok, this was discussed in the other and main gun control thread of a month or so ago and for me, is going around in circles. But since I don't think you participated there, I'll ask the same thing I did there. Excluding Africa and their love of machetes etc, when's the last time you heard of a spree killing using knives or blunt objects. You seriously think the death tolls at Newtown/Port Arthur/Columbine etc would've been anywhere near the same with any other non explosive type weapon?

China 12/20/12. No deaths, but plenty of trauma for those school kids, no? And, China even requires registration when you buy large knives. Awesome!

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We can all understand Jo Citizen not wanting to confront a perp with heavy firepower but someone going nuts with a knife or club etc? Someone would act and the death vs injury ratio would be much less, regardless.

Depends on the level of mastery the person has with the object.

I don't think it does at all.
The one major difference between any gun crime and any other non-gun crime is the fact that guns are deadly weapons at a distance.

You can hardly kill someone at 20 paces with a knife or a baseball bat (unless you were really well-practiced and good at it) but you can with just about any gun.
You only need to aim vaguely at the target and you are likely to cause death or a very serious injury.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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Crime rates are dropping. And, if you've read carefully, I have already stated that I don't believe a solution is armed guards at schools.

US gun deaths aren't...! And this being a discussion board, understand that there are times when I say "you", the context isn't always you personally but can be you, an American, or even you, a rabid gun nut.... ;) IE, it isn't as personal as you sometimes infer.

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You are surprised that a pro-gun American doesn't take you up on your offer when you limit their choices? Huh. Go figure. Apparently, the 2nd Amendment is part of the whole American Exceptionalism thing (which is not that we are exceptional, but that we are the exceptions).

Shaming them to look at the elephant in the room is to "limit their choices"? Now THAT'S a memorable analogy...! lol

Shaming us to look at the elephant in the room?!? That's what you did? Sorry, but, no. No you didn't. You essentially said, "I don't accept as valid the solutions you are currently discussing, that you think are valid, so you can't use those. But you still have to present solutions that I will accept as valid." You are essentially giving a limited area for people to find a solution where none of your questionees believes there is a solution.

I think this is where the problem lies.
The pro-gun people cannot conceive any notion of abolishing the 2nd or removing their guns as a solution.
And with that stuck firmly in their minds there isn't anything they can come up with that is a workable solution. In their minds, things have been tried and they have failed so why bother with anything? The one and only thing that has never been tried (country-wide, not just 1 town or district) is complete gun removal from Joe public. And they always quote where a district or a town is a gun-free zone and it didn't work - and that's their evidence.
Tiny little gun-free zones will never work - both the UK and Oz discovered that. That is why the government enacted a country-wide ban.

The two mindsets are diametrically opposed to each other and there will never be any compromise.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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Perhaps we won't admit there's a problem with an ancient, out-of-touch 2nd amendment because there isn't a problem with the 2nd amendment.

I don't agree at all.
Just about anyone who is a non-US resident appears to believe that the 2nd is well past its sell-by date and is just not relevant in a modern western society. Those days of malitia and Joe public defending the country against the government or some indescriminate invader from overseas isn't likely to happen these days as it might have happened 200+ years ago.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
We have had gun buy-back programs (and I disagree with the NRA's stance that voluntary yielding of weapons doesn't give law enforcement the right to destroy those weapons). Not surprisingly, there are still guns on the streets. If we banned gun manufacturing in America, know what would happen? Gun manufacturers would move out of the country (and then the Left would be screaming, wailing, and gnashing their teeth over Corporations "outsourcing") and there would be an increase in arms trafficking. Making it harder for criminals to get guns won't stop them from getting guns, if that is their intention.

Yep, seen this before - divert, distract, change the subject - anything but fix what's broken. That some jobs and industries need to die, or at least decline for a greater good.
You left out the affect fewer gun deaths would likely have on doctor/nurse/ambulance/mortician employment rates - their welfare and lifestyle doesn't count?

But, those jobs didn't die. Those industries didn't die. They just moved.

And that's one of the points being made here.
The US can still manufacture guns but only be allowed to sell overseas or to the US military.
Some jobs might go but the majority would still be employed and the factories wouldn't need to go anywhere at all.
There wouldn't be any greater demand for gun trafficing either if everyone had their guns removed because there wouldn't be the demand for them.

And for the hospital staff, it is easier (and often much quicker) to stitch up a patient from a knife wound than it is to scrape up a near-dead victim suffering from a hail of bullets. That would give them more time to see to other people and save even more lives.

Nobody is saying that criminals won't get guns if they really wanted to get them - I don't think that is in dispute. But if they were that scarce around the country, it would be even harder for them to 'acquire' the guns. As it stands in the US, guns are sooo prolific and readily available everywhere that criminals can get them very easily from any number of sources - legal or otherwise.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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Part of my point in posting the list was that there were only 15 mass murders listed in 150 years (not all involved a firearm, and that last one is iffy, at best). In 1970, someone could have stated that (whatever the response was to the 1928 mass murder) was effective since they haven't had any mass murders in 42 years. And the following year, another one happens. How you think the Australian response that has, thus far, effectively limited a problem from a once-a-decade average occurrence, would work for the US where the population is almost 15 times the size, I don't know. Do you have the prevalence of gangs that we have? Do you have the drug trafficking problem we have? If not, your solution probably won't fit here.

Up until Port Arthur, gun laws here were the responsibility of individual states. As you can imagine, there were differences, often significant. From your own link, you can see for a decade around the 1990's, there were 3 major spree killings - in 3 different states. It was the last and worst (Port Arthur - in Tasmania) that prompted the Federal government to intervene. That enough is enough both because of the carnage and, for example, the Chinese military style weapon used in Port Arthur were illegal in my state (NSW or New South Wales).
Yes we have gangs here. Primarly the "traditional" variety of bikie gangs. The Milperra shooting of your link was primarily 2 bikie gangs shooting it out very publically.
Your more commonplace street gangs or drug gangs etc have something not available here. Gangs need muscle to survive and thrive - firepower. We don't have the 2nd amendment....
Focus.

And, where do you think gangs get their guns? Tazzy quotes ½-million guns are stolen every year (which I believe I've seen on an FBI link, so I'm not questioning it). Do you think that this is the only way they get their guns? Do you think if there weren't guns to steal that they'd kick the dirt, say, "Aw, shucks!" and not source them another way? Please.

But can't you see that if Joe public didn't have guns, they wouldn't be there for them to steal in the first place?
Yes, they can get them if they are really pushed - even in a gun-banned country, it does happen.

But if the number of guns were dramatically reduced amongst the population, the ability to come by them is also dramatically reduced.
And that is why gun-related crimes, per capita, is much less in the UK and Oz when compared to the US by a whole order of magnitude and then some.

Using the all-or-nothing argument isn't really a valid one.
The gun (and knife) bans are there to drastically reduce the number of killings - and it works.
Nobody is saying it will completely eradicate those crimes and to say that anything that doesn't do that is useless and shouldn't be implemented is living in cloud-cuckoo land. If any restrictions achieve even a 10% reduction in those crimes then it will have been quite effective.

I don't know about Oz, but over here the police regularly raid known gangs and confiscate any firearms and knives (and drugs) they find and the guilty gang members are often jailed. I daresay they do something similar down under.

Unless and until the pro-gun supporters have a change of mindset, there will never be any workable solution because there will always be a stalemate the the status quo will continue as it is now. We will continue to see regular gun killings all over the US and it will be peppered with mass murders by some nutter that has a beef with society.
And we will always see those wonderful exclamations of "OMG, those poor children!" and they will wonder when it will ever stop.
IMHO, it won't ever stop all the while there are so many guns in the hands of US Joe public.

Just my

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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1

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ORIGINAL: Yachtie

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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1
If the burglar/intruder didn't have a gun, you wouldn't need one for defense - a decent baseball bat would do nicely.
Does that make any sense to a pro-gun person??

A baseball bat. Does that make sense to a 90 pound woman when up against a 200 pound man? Does that make sense to rabbits?


(to rabbits it does)

Have you tried to disarm a crazy woman weilding a baseball bat in a frenzy??

We have actually had that happen in Peterborough and the burglars got bashed badly and kicked out in the street. The woman calmly called the police and said there were two beaten burglars in a heap in her front garden.
When the case came to court, the burglars tried to claim for damages and compensation for their injuries. But instead they got 6 months each and were told to compensate the woman for the unauthorised intrusion. The judge was reported as having said that it's about time that common sense prevailed in our justice system.

Unless you get lucky and time it right, a baseball bat, or even a garden rake, swung around in ernest is no easy thing to overcome no matter how big you are!
And at least, by not being a gun-crazy country, they got to live instead of being shot to pieces - which no doubt she would have done if she had a gun handy.

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ORIGINAL: BamaD

I am 62 and diabetic in a baseball bat fight or knife fight with a 20 year old I'm dead, no if ands or buts.
I have been shooting since I was 8. If we both have guns he is dead, period.

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ORIGINAL: BamaD

I will only stoopto answering one of you absurd presumtions.
I am 62 and diabetic in a baseball bat fight or knife fight with a 20 year old I'm dead, no if ands or buts.
I have been shooting since I was 8. If we both have guns he is dead, period.
The rest of your diatribe can be summed up as if pro gun people would just become anti gun people we could find some middle ground.

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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1

That is the problem withh all you pro-gun people.
You just cannot envisage your environment without your precious guns.

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ORIGINAL: Yachtie

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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1

That is the problem withh all you pro-gun people.
You just cannot envisage your environment without your precious guns.

But we do envisage our environment quite well with one, thank you very much.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

You know, with the popularity of gun violence in movies, and these statements that most Americans want to get rid of guns, how the fuck can these movies be making so much money?

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ORIGINAL: Kirata
From what I can determine, most drivers are decent law-abiding citizens. But unfortunately, there are far too many throughout the U.S. that get boozed up and climb behind the wheel. Would you suggest we outlaw vehicles with engines over 100hp? Lower the speed limit to 30mph on our Interstates?

There's the problem: the "solutions" being touted are bullshit.

K.

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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1

And if you were up against a very alert 20-year-old burglar, they are almost certainly going to get you first because their reactions are that much faster and probably more accurate too.

Guns kill... regularly, indescriminately, and at a distance.
And in the hands of someone not law-abiding or deranged in some way, nobody is safe.

Without those guns, the world is a much safer place - the figures prove that.

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ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1
Guns kill... regularly, indescriminately, and at a distance.
And in the hands of someone not law-abiding or deranged in some way, nobody is safe.
Without those guns, the world is a much safer place - the figures prove that.

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Virtually every gun starts out as a legally manufactured product, but the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) points to three common ways guns move from legal distribution channels to the criminal market:

Corrupt federally licensed gun dealers: Federally licensed gun dealers send more guns to the criminal market than any other single source. Nearly 60% of the guns used in crime are traced back to a small number—just 1.2%—of crooked gun dealers. Corrupt dealers frequently have high numbers of missing guns, in many cases because they’re selling guns “off the books” to private sellers and criminals. In 2005, the ATF examined 3,083 gun dealers and found 12,274 “missing” firearms.
Straw purchasing: Straw purchasing is the most common way criminals get guns, accounting for almost 50% of trafficking investigations. A straw purchaser is someone with a clean record who buys guns on behalf of someone legally prohibited from possessing guns. Straw purchasers are often the friends, relatives, spouses or girlfriends of prohibited purchasers. The two Columbine High School shooters recruited friends to buy guns for them at Colorado gun shows. One of the buyers admitted she would not have bought the guns if she had been required to submit to a background check.
Gun Shows and private gun sales: Gun shows have been called “Tupperware parties for criminals” because they attract large numbers of prohibited buyers. A loophole in federal law allows unlicensed or “private” sellers, many of whom work out of gun shows, to lawfully sell or transfer guns without conducting a criminal background check. Gun show dealers have been known to advertise to criminals with signs that read “no background checks required here.”


Congress has passed a series of laws in recent years that allow easy access to guns and restrict law enforcement’s ability to go after traffickers. Three policies in particular impede law enforcement’s ability to prosecute traffickers:

Keeping crime gun trace information secret: Until 2002, the ATF released aggregate crime gun trace reports to local police departments, researchers, policymakers and public safety advocates. The reports revealed for the first time that 1.2% of federally licensed gun dealers supply 57% of the guns used in crime. But, bowing to pressure from the gun lobby, Congress voted to restrict police access to crime gun trace data and cut off public access altogether. These restrictions, known as the Tiahrt Amendments (named for the Kansas Congressman who sponsored the bill), have passed in every Department of Justice budget since 2003, despite the fact that prominent law enforcement associations oppose them as a serious threat to public safety.
Handcuffing the ATF: The ATF, the sole government agency charged with enforcing federal gun laws, has operated without a permanent director since the Bush Administration, and operates with just 1,800 agents to monitor approximately 77,000 gun dealers. Given these constraints, it would take ATF 22 years to inspect all federally licensed gun dealers. Even if the ATF had the manpower to inspect most gun dealers, federal law limits the agency to a single unannounced inspection of a dealer in any 12-month period. Congress has made it increasingly difficult for the ATF to revoke licenses of crooked gun dealers.
An absence of records: It is impossible for law enforcement to know the whereabouts of millions of firearms in circulation today because Federal law explicitly bars the ATF from establishing a database of retail firearms sales, and private gun sellers are not required to keep a paper trail of transactions. Prior to 2001, federal authorities maintained criminal background check records for up to six months. Under President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft reversed this policy and ordered the destruction of all criminal background check records within 24 hours. Even though the General Accounting Office found that destroying these records endangers public safety, the policy remains in effect.
Source

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

Okay, answer me this, when you take away all the legal guns in the states, HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DEAL WITH THE ILLEGALLY OWNED GUNS?

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

Okay, answer me this, when you take away all the legal guns in the states, HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DEAL WITH THE ILLEGALLY OWNED GUNS?

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ORIGINAL: Baroana

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

Okay, answer me this, when you take away all the legal guns in the states, HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DEAL WITH THE ILLEGALLY OWNED GUNS?

You're right. Let's just not have any safety measures at all, and make it as easy as possible for the criminals.