50 Dead, Dozens Wounded in Orlando Club Shooting

[Seli]

6 hours ago, Commodore said:

what's with the sudden interest in the AR-15?

and these "everything you need to know about guns" articles from metro journalists posing as experts are quite amusing

It is a nice short-hand for a general class of high rate of fire, easy-to-control, semi-automatic rifles that are based on or inspired by the grand-daddy design that gave us the M16.

It is an easy target since it is a design clearly intended to kill and maim easily, and has been used as such in high-profile mass murders in the USA. And a politically more attainable target than the semi-automatic pistols that cause so much of the actual damage.

eta: but you likely knew that

1 hour ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

Y'all will have to put away all the AR-15 pictures. and replace them with this.

Sig Sauer MCX

Which based on that article has an actual AR-15 (compatible) lower, so perhaps.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Well, I have said for a long time that if a mentally deranged teenager can kill scores of people by simply taking a gun into a school or a cinema, then it is only a matter of time before terrorists do the same, only with far greater effect. This was one terrorist. Imagine three or four of them acting in unison, either in the same venue or in different parts of a city to overwhelm the police force's ability to respond quickly.

You are never going to prevent this in the US by simply making it more difficult to get guns. Drug dealers have guns, gang members have guns, common criminals have guns. If a terrorist wants a gun in America, he is going to get one pretty easily, whatever the background check requirements or magazine capacity limits may be.

 

 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

You are never going to prevent this in the US by simply making it more difficult to get guns. Drug dealers have guns, gang members have guns, common criminals have guns. If a terrorist wants a gun in America, he is going to get one pretty easily, whatever the background check requirements or magazine capacity limits may be.

Evidence indicates otherwise.

[James Arryn]

7 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Agree. Unfortunately it seems to be an issue that a lot of people take very personally. I have no idea what gives anyone the right to own a gun, never mind an automatic rifle .

The crap ideology is often best demonstrated when you see guns referred to as 'tools'. The NRA started this way back, and it's a bankrupt argument. Yes, it is a tool, like a hammer or blowtorch or axe. And like a hammer or blowtorch or axe, it can be used to kill.

The difference is that, hunting rifles aside, it's a tool designed to kill people. That's the entire function. It is deemed better or worse as a tool based on how effectively it can kill people and/or how many people it can kill. Ammunition that's more effective at killing people is an another upgrade. So it's a tool in the way a bomb is a tool, or a rocket-launcher is a tool. It's a people-killing tool. Why a modern industrialized nation feels that people killing tools...sorry, some people killing tools are things that ought to be available to everyone is just baffling. And if you raise the question of bombs or tanks or rocket-launchers, you're regarded as being obviously ridiculous...why? Because those weren't specifically covered by a group of men writing about muskets for militia 2 and a half centuries ago? Insane, and inadequate.

If the argument as an argument weren't ingrained, it wouldn't even really happen IMO. It needs it's own momentum to make sense to anyone, at which point it becomes a cultural divide and isn't even being argued on it's own merits.

[aceluby]

14 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, I have said for a long time that if a mentally deranged teenager can kill scores of people by simply taking a gun into a school or a cinema, then it is only a matter of time before terrorists do the same, only with far greater effect. This was one terrorist. Imagine three or four of them acting in unison, either in the same venue or in different parts of a city to overwhelm the police force's ability to respond quickly.

You are never going to prevent this in the US by simply making it more difficult to get guns. Drug dealers have guns, gang members have guns, common criminals have guns. If a terrorist wants a gun in America, he is going to get one pretty easily, whatever the background check requirements or magazine capacity limits may be.

 

 

If this guy's a terrorist, so were all the others.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

If the only way to stop anti-LGBTQ violence is for everyone to be queer, then please sign me up for queerness because this sort of madness has to stop.  

[Maithanet]

19 minutes ago, Leap said:

It's not hard to imagine. It literally happened last November in Paris.

And before that, in Mumbai in 2008.

[Free Northman Reborn]

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

And before that, in Mumbai in 2008.

It also happens in Kenia, Syria, Iraq, Mexico etc. I'm talking about the United States.

[Free Northman Reborn]

23 minutes ago, Leap said:

It's not hard to imagine. It literally happened last November in Paris. 

With background checks, the FBI would presumably be able to know whether or not someone on their watchlist had tried to buy a gun legally. If they legally bought a gun, then they have time to prepare unless the suspect begins shooting immediately. If they were rejected, well, doesn't it take a lot longer to buy a gun illegally than it does legally? Particularly since the suspect definitely wouldn't have any criminal contacts - or the FBI would be aware of this, thereby making it much harder to immediately go buy a gun illegally. 

All of which gives the FBI more time to step in, as well as alert local police. 

I'm interested in the bolded statement. Why would the black market discriminate between a drug dealer buying a gun and a would be terrorist buying a gun? If he has cash, they will sell him one.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

I'm interested in that statement. Why would the black market discriminate between a drug dealer buying a gun and a would be terrorist buying a gun? If he has cash, they will sell him one.

The black market probably wouldn't. The FBI, however, would. And the FBI has a lot of informants who get paid a lot of money to tell people about terrorist actions. 

Plus a lot of criminals? Not big fans of people blowing up the US, as it turns out.

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The black market probably wouldn't. The FBI, however, would. And the FBI has a lot of informants who get paid a lot of money to tell people about terrorist actions. 

Plus a lot of criminals? Not big fans of people blowing up the US, as it turns out.

Even assuming your statement about the conscience of criminal gun dealers is true, it's not like the guy is going to be wearing a turban and a jihadi flag when he makes the purchase. How the hell will the illegal gun dealer know for what purpose the weapon is being purchased?

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yeah, cause the guy is going to be wearing a turban and a jihadi flag when he makes the purchase. How the hell will the illegal gun dealer know for what purpose the weapon is being purchased?

Turbans aren't typically worn by Muslims. The more you know. 

Gun dealer sees a guy who looks middle eastern. Asks him his name. Maybe hears an accent. Doesn't have to ask why, but probably does because he wants to know about heat they might get. 

You realize that this has already happened, right? Like, there have been people who got busted because they attempted to buy illegal weapons and got turned in by the dealers of said weapons? 

And that's not precluding that law enforcement has a wire or is otherwise not monitoring those people to begin with. Law enforcement cannot legally monitor who purchases weapons - but they do have a lot of monitoring around people buying illegal stuff. 

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

Just now, Kalbear said:

Turbans aren't typically worn by Muslims. The more you know. 

Gun dealer sees a guy who looks middle eastern. Asks him his name. Maybe hears an accent. Doesn't have to ask why, but probably does because he wants to know about heat they might get. 

You realize that this has already happened, right? Like, there have been people who got busted because they attempted to buy illegal weapons and got turned in by the dealers of said weapons? 

And that's not precluding that law enforcement has a wire or is otherwise not monitoring those people to begin with. Law enforcement cannot legally monitor who purchases weapons - but they do have a lot of monitoring around people buying illegal stuff. 

 

Well replace turban with "kaffiyeh" and deem me properly chastised for not knowing the difference. Back to the topic at hand.

In a country with 300 million guns, a would be terrorist is going to find a gun if he is halfway committed to his cause.

[Kalbear]

Quote

In a country with 300 million guns, a would be terrorist is going to find a gun if he is halfway committed to his cause.

Possibly. But it's going to be a lot harder. And of the terrorist attacks, how many would not happen at all if the guns were made illegal?

The answer appears to be Quite A Lot, because it doesn't happen that often in other countries. And when it does happen - like it did in Paris - it requires significantly more outside resources, help, coordination and the like. 

You don't need  to stop everything. You likely can't. A very determined, resourceful person is going to win. What you can do, however, is stop MORE things. This is common sense. This isn't hard. We have restrictions on explosives, on tanks, on rockets, on swords even. We have restrictions on who can operate motor vehicles or airplanes. This doesn't mean that bad things don't happen - but they happen less frequently. Seat belts do not save all lives, but that they don't save all lives doesn't mean we shouldn't have seat belts at all. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Possibly. But it's going to be a lot harder. And of the terrorist attacks, how many would not happen at all if the guns were made illegal?

The answer appears to be Quite A Lot, because it doesn't happen that often in other countries. And when it does happen - like it did in Paris - it requires significantly more outside resources, help, coordination and the like. 

You don't need  to stop everything. You likely can't. A very determined, resourceful person is going to win. What you can do, however, is stop MORE things. This is common sense. This isn't hard. We have restrictions on explosives, on tanks, on rockets, on swords even. We have restrictions on who can operate motor vehicles or airplanes. This doesn't mean that bad things don't happen - but they happen less frequently. Seat belts do not save all lives, but that they don't save all lives doesn't mean we shouldn't have seat belts at all. 

Well you have to take a gun ban as a non-starter, as a large part of the country doesn't want it. So, working with the situation of 300 million guns already in circulation, and more coming into circulation every year, it creates a very different equation to one where you have a society that is largely devoid of guns as a starting point.

In the US, the reality is: There are and will always be a lot of guns. In that context, limited restrictions on new sales will have a minimal impact in restricting terrorists access to guns.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well you have to take a gun ban as a non-starter, as a large part of the country doesn't want it. So, working with the situation of 300 million guns already in circulation, and more coming into circulation every year, it creates a very different equation to one where you have a society that is largely devoid of guns as a starting point.

But most other societies aren't devoid of guns. They just have a lot of restrictions on them, but there are a ton. But of course you know this.

And most guns are in the hands of people who wouldn't, ya know, want to give up their guns to terrorists. Maybe you would like to sell yours to terrorists, but I suspect most people aren't like you. 

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

In the US, the reality is: There are and will always be a lot of guns. In that context, limited restrictions on new sales will have a minimal impact in restricting terrorists access to guns.

And yet all the data indicates that you're wrong. When you restrict guns, gun deaths go down. When you restrict kinds of guns gun deaths from those kind of guns go down. 

You're also assuming a kind of terrorist that so far has not made attacks in the US - the Dedicated, Heavily Indoctrinated one. The US has done a great job of stopping these kinds of terrorists so far. What the US has failed to do is stop the terrorists who are working entirely alone, are simply going to go do a bunch of damage however they can, and are going to do it in the easiest way possible. When said terrorists have tried to do things that are illegal, such as purchase regulated explosives or black market items, they've actually been caught ahead of time. When they've tried to join up with organizations they've been caught ahead of time. 

When they are doing nothing illegal up until they kill a bunch of people though? Then they're fine. 

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

You are never going to prevent this in the US by simply making it more difficult to get guns. Drug dealers have guns, gang members have guns, common criminals have guns. If a terrorist wants a gun in America, he is going to get one pretty easily, whatever the background check requirements or magazine capacity limits may be.

 

 

They have them because they are cheap and easy to access. 

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

31 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I'm interested in the bolded statement. Why would the black market discriminate between a drug dealer buying a gun and a would be terrorist buying a gun? If he has cash, they will sell him one.

In addition to what Kal said, the wannabe terrorist probably isn't even going to know where to find a gun dealer. Drug dealers, mob legbreakers, etc. the run in the same circles as the gun dealers. They have regular contact with these people just as a course of doing business. They may even be the same people. How is a Jihadist wannabe, who's probably held only legit jobs and has never done any work for organized crime even going to know where to look or who to ask?

If it's a large operation organized by Isis or Al Qaeda, then yeah, they'll find guns eventually. But those are hard to pull off and leave a bit of a footprint.

But for cases like the Orlando shootings, where it's just some random asshole who decided to latch on three different Islamic terrorist groups (who all hate each other) simultaneously at the last minute, it's much, much harder.

[Free Northman Reborn]

8 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

In addition to what Kal said, the wannabe terrorist probably isn't even going to know where to find a gun dealer. Drug dealers, mob legbreakers, etc. the run in the same circles as the gun dealers. They have regular contact with these people just as a course of doing business. They may even be the same people. How is a Jihadist wannabe, who's probably held only legit jobs and has never done any work for organized crime even going to know where to look or who to ask?

Well I don't know, since I don't move in those circles. And neither do you, I would guess, so trying to presume how easy or difficult it is to buy illegal guns is maybe a bit beyond our areas of expertise.

But I agree with Kalbear in that I am referring to dedicated terrorist cells who would be willing to spend a year or so in getting their plans prepared. If that would require them setting themselves up in order to get access to the weaponry they might want - similar to the lengths the 9-11 pilots went to to learn how to fly - well, then I don't think that would be difficult for them to do.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well I don't know, since I don't move in those circles. And neither do you, I would guess, so trying to presume how easy or difficult it is to buy illegal guns is maybe a bit beyond our areas of expertise. 

So why talk as if you're an expert in how easy it is?

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

But I agree with Kalbear in that I am referring to dedicated terrorist cells who would be willing to spend a year or so in getting their plans prepared. If that would require them setting themselves up in order to get access to the weaponry they might want - similar to the lengths the 9-11 pilots went to to learn how to fly - well, then I don't think that would be difficult for them to do.

 

That might be. Those kinds of dedicated terrorist cells have so far not existed or operated in the US for the last 15 years with any success, and in fact  have been crushed before being able to do anything of note. 

What hasn't been stopped is people who aren't dedicated, aren't spending multiple months planning, and aren't resourced. And the easiest way to stop them? Probably not letting them easily get  guns and ammo.