More Guns in the United States

[Jon Sprunk]

Jon, that's an unfair comparison. Do you really think myself and others here haven't listened to you? Of course we've listened -- our comments have addressed the issues you've raised very directly. We just disagree. That is different from those who are factually misinformed, and don't even bother listening enough to get the underlying facts straight.

Sorry. That didn't come out as I intended. I'll edit.

[Jon Sprunk]

We just disagree. That is different from those who are factually misinformed, and don't even bother listening enough to get the underlying facts straight.

Oh, and just to return to my point per Biden. His role atm is not to educate, but to keep public pressure on congress. I agree that it's horrible, but that's what American politics has become (for both sides). It doesn't matter if you're telling the truth; it only matters if you can fire up the people enough to score a victory.

And meanwhile, the circle of vitriol keeps spinning faster.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I haven't seen this here (sorry if it was in the last thread), but Maryland has pased some of the strictest gun control laws.

The new law bans magizines with more than 10 rounds and also bans 45 assault-type weapons, sets up licensing and fingerprinting of gun buyers, and ban sales to anyone who has been committed to a mental hospital.

It is being challenged 2 ways, once by the NRA and secondly by trying to send it to a referendum.

I personally don't have a problem with the most of this, but I am not going to lose my job when Baretta moves it's shop to Va.

I am trying to find what the 45 weapons are. Not sure how I will feel about that part.

found it:

List of firearms prohibited by name

Rifles: All AK types, including the following: AK, AK47, AK47S, AK–74, AKM, AKS, ARM, MAK90, MISR, NHM90, NHM91, Rock River Arms LAR–47, SA85, SA93, Vector Arms AK–47, VEPR, WASR–10, and WUM, IZHMASH Saiga AK, MAADI AK47 and ARM, Norinco 56S, 56S2, 84S, and 86S, Poly Technologies AK47 and AKS; All AR types, including the following: AR–10, AR–15, Armalite M15 22LR Carbine, Armalite M15–T, Barrett REC7, Beretta AR–70, Bushmaster ACR, Bushmaster Carbon 15, Bushmaster MOE series, Bushmaster XM15, Colt Match Target Rifles, DoubleStar AR rifles, DPMS Tactical Rifles, Heckler & Koch MR556, Olympic Arms, Remington R–15 rifles, Rock River Arms LAR–15, Sig Sauer SIG516 rifles, Smith & Wesson M&P15 Rifles, Stag Arms AR rifles, Sturm, Ruger & Co. SR556 rifles; Barrett M107A1; Barrett M82A1; Beretta CX4 Storm; Calico Liberty Series; CETME Sporter; Daewoo K–1, K–2, Max 1, Max 2, AR 100, and AR 110C; Fabrique Nationale/FN Herstal FAL, LAR, 22 FNC, 308 Match, L1A1 Sporter, PS90, SCAR, and FS2000; Feather Industries AT–9; Galil Model AR and Model ARM; Hi-Point Carbine; HK–91, HK–93, HK–94, HK–PSG–1 and HK USC; Kel-Tec Sub–2000, SU–16, and RFB; SIG AMT, SIG PE–57, Sig Sauer SG 550, and Sig Sauer SG 551; Springfield Armory SAR–48; Steyr AUG; Sturm, Ruger Mini-14 Tactical Rife M–14/20CF; All Thompson rifles, including the following: Thompson M1SB, Thompson T1100D, Thompson T150D, Thompson T1B, Thompson T1B100D, Thompson T1B50D, Thompson T1BSB, Thompson T1–C, Thompson T1D, Thompson T1SB, Thompson T5, Thompson T5100D, Thompson TM1, Thompson TM1C; UMAREX UZI Rifle; UZI Mini Carbine, UZI Model A Carbine, and UZI Model B Carbine; Valmet M62S, M71S, and M78; Vector Arms UZI Type; Weaver Arms Nighthawk; Wilkinson Arms Linda Carbine.

Pistols: All AK–47 types, including the following: Centurion 39 AK pistol, Draco AK–47 pistol, HCR AK–47 pistol, IO Inc. Hellpup AK–47 pistol, Krinkov pistol, Mini Draco AK–47 pistol, Yugo Krebs Krink pistol; All AR–15 types, including the following: American Spirit AR–15 pistol, Bushmaster Carbon 15 pistol, DoubleStar Corporation AR pistol, DPMS AR–15 pistol, Olympic Arms AR–15 pistol, Rock River Arms LAR 15 pistol; Calico Liberty pistols; DSA SA58 PKP FAL pistol; Encom MP–9 and MP–45; Heckler & Koch model SP-89 pistol; Intratec AB–10, TEC–22 Scorpion, TEC–9, and TEC–DC9; Kel-Tec PLR 16 pistol; The following MAC types: MAC–10, MAC–11; Masterpiece Arms MPA A930 Mini Pistol, MPA460 Pistol, MPA Tactical Pistol, and MPA Mini Tactical Pistol; Military Armament Corp. Ingram M–11, Velocity Arms VMAC; Sig Sauer P556 pistol; Sites Spectre; All Thompson types, including the following: Thompson TA510D, Thompson TA5; All UZI types, including: Micro-UZI.

Shotguns: Franchi LAW–12 and SPAS 12; All IZHMASH Saiga 12 types, including the following: IZHMASH Saiga 12, IZHMASH Saiga 12S, IZHMASH Saiga 12S EXP–01, IZHMASH Saiga 12K, IZHMASH Saiga 12K–030, IZHMASH Saiga 12K–040 Taktika; Streetsweeper; Striker 12.

Belt-fed semiautomatic firearms: All belt-fed semiautomatic firearms including TNW M2HB.

[Phaing]

List of firearms prohibited by name

So, are future sales of such things prohibited, or (like New York) is everyone who purchased them legally yesterday now a criminal today?

Confiscations of Pistol Owner ID Cards, as well as firearms and accessories has commenced in New York under the provisions of the horribly flawed, draconian and blatantly unconstitutional NY SAFE Act, says Dan Roberts in this article, NY Gun Confiscation Underway – Citizens Told to Turn in Pistol Owner ID & Firearms, at Ammo Land Shooting Sports News. (H/t PW)

In the latest example of anti-gun hysteria, police in New York State confiscated a man's firearms and revoked his pistol license after his son threatened to use a water pistol against bullies who had taunted his friends at school.

Paul Watson at Infowars via Mac Slavo at shtfplan.com

Reassurance from Vice Pres. Biden -

Kinda scary man, the black helicopter crowd is really upset. No way that Uncle Sam can go find out whether you own a gun because we’re about to really take away all your rights and you’re not going to be able to defend yourself and we’re going to swoop down with Special Forces folks and gather up every gun in America. It’s bizarre. But that's what’s being sold out there.

Vice President Biden via Charlie Spiering at washingtonexaminer.com

Hey Joe, thank you. You have changed the debate in America. The two guys who deserve an award, if anything gets done around here, is you and Michael Bloomberg.

Vice President Biden to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe at msnbc.com

We appreciate your support, too, this is very, very important.

Sen. Joe Manchin to CNN's John Berman and Christine Roman via Breitbart.com

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

It's a good thing Maryland banned the Mini-14, but not the Mini-30 which is the same rifle in a larger caliber. They also seem to have missed Sprinfield's M1A1. Again with the obsession with the Franchi SPAS-12. What is it about that shotgun that gives lawmakers such a boner? They don't even make them anymore.

[Phaing]

It's a good thing Maryland banned the Mini-14, but not the Mini-30 which is the same rifle in a larger caliber. They also seem to have missed Sprinfield's M1A1. Again with the obsession with the Franchi SPAS-12. What is it about that shotgun that gives lawmakers such a boner? They don't even make them anymore.

Well, maybe they saw Jurassic Park?

[Guest Raidne]

Someone PM me when we're done pulling data from USA today.

[Seli]

It's a good thing Maryland banned the Mini-14, but not the Mini-30 which is the same rifle in a larger caliber. They also seem to have missed Sprinfield's M1A1. Again with the obsession with the Franchi SPAS-12. What is it about that shotgun that gives lawmakers such a boner? They don't even make them anymore.

Isn't it just a list of examples? Going by the broad category descriptions for most categories they are banning a whole lot more than simply the list mentioned here.

This seems to be the drawback of a 'everything is allowed unless' system. Once they start disallowing stuff you get things like this.

[lupis42]

First, almost invariably, despite the issue being presented as one concerning safety and protection against harm, the discussion is always centered of safety and protection against harm using guns. In other words, the focus is guns, not safety and protection.

Some of that is selection bias - it's usually being presented in the context of a discussion about the costs and benefits of guns, by groups that advocate for gun ownership rights.

There's also very little argument about the relative effectiveness and ease of use, either in this thread or in the larger media, and a fairly strong consensus among various types of experts.

But gun advocates like to play the no true Scotsman game and say that gun owners who let their guns end up in accidents are no true gun owners and you know, they're doing it wrong and we shouldn't make laws based on how dumb some people are in handling firearms. Right.

I don't mean to make it into a 'no-true-scotsman' approach, but I would say that when negligence is the problem, education and liability for negligence are the most effective solutions.

What I think is missing is the admission from the gun advocates that there is a cost to gun ownership, and that cost includes these accidental deaths. I think if they can acknowledge that, and then present a cogent argument on why this cost is worthwhile to pay, the conversation might go somewhere. But for the most part, gun advocates seem to loath to admit to these costs.

I definitely agree that there are costs to gun ownership. We've seen various discussions of how to identify them, as most of the costs have at least one other component - just as drunk driving could be called a cost of alcohol, automobiles, or both.

More generally, though, I'm not sure where else you expect the conversation to go. I think there's been a fair bit of information gained by many, most of us have increased our understanding those positions that we didn't already have at the begining, and a few of us have even reconsidered, either generally or on one or more specific details. What more do you want out of a discussion?

I dont like the idea anyway of shooting at night in some unspecified direction where the distance the bullet will travel is at least an order of magnitude greater than how far your vision can see.

You shouldn't - it's a terrible idea, and anyone who's taken a gun safety class (or a hunter's safety class) should be able to tell you that. Which suggests that Biden knows, but doesn't care.

Oh, and just to return to my point per Biden. His role atm is not to educate, but to keep public pressure on congress. I agree that it's horrible, but that's what American politics has become (for both sides). It doesn't matter if you're telling the truth; it only matters if you can fire up the people enough to score a victory.

And meanwhile, the circle of vitriol keeps spinning faster.

I take a charitable version of Biden, and therefore think of him as roughly akin to a Richard Mourdock. That doesn't make it any less insulting or inappropriate.

Isn't it just a list of examples? Going by the broad category descriptions for most categories they are banning a whole lot more than simply the list mentioned here.

There is typically an accompanying "feature test" of some sort, but this is the basic nature of the conceptual problem that underlies the whole concept: the goal is to ban something that is unclear in spirit, and therefore extremely technical and arbitrary in nature.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

While I welcome a critical reading of the article I linked to, I cannot help but feel that the bigger point is missed - which is that I do not dispute the life-saving capacity of firearms in cases of self defense, but I raise the issue of the cost of this access. One can justify it and say the cost is acceptable (I do), but one should not dismiss by omission this cost. It'd be no more honest than to focus only on the social benefits of alcohol consumption and not talk about the personal and social cost of alcohol dependence in an argument to oppose banning alcohol.

Just to circle back around on the accidental harm issue....

There are lots of leisure activities that carry a certain degree of risk to participants -- various sporting activities, water sports, climbing, etc. etc. A quick search places guns somewhere out of the top 10 -- in "other", apparently after drowning.

http://www.cdc.gov/n...ats/acc-inj.htm

So the number of accidental injuries compared to the number of guns is very, very low. It gets headlines, but I don't know personally a single gun owner (and I know a lot) or member of their family who has been accidentally injured. So telling gun owners "you can't have guns because other people hurt themselves by acting irresponsibly" is not very persuasive to me.

I've stated before that PSA's -- my scenario was a joint Obama/LaPierre PSA -- focusing on the importance of gun safety, gun locks, etc.. would be a very good idea. But beyond that, there's really not much you can do, and if we're going to start banning leisure activities based on the possibility of harm to participants, than guns are going to be way down on that list.

And that's not even mentioning all the dietary aspects that likely has an even more harmful effect on health than any of those accidents. I suppose if you buy into the Michael Bloomberg theory of government, then that approach is fine. But for all the people who don't, accidental injury/harm to participants is generally not something that justifies banning an entire activity.

[lupis42]

I've stated before that PSA's -- my scenario was a joint Obama/LaPierre PSA -- focusing on the importance of gun safety, gun locks, etc.. would be a very good idea. But beyond that, there's really not much you can do, and if we're going to start banning leisure activities based on the possibility of harm to participants, than guns are going to be way down on that list.

There is one other thing you could do, which I think Kalbear mentioned, and which I like a lot. Make firearms safety part of typical physical education in America - in much the same way that driver's ed, and various other sports are.

Of course, it involves guns in a school zone, so there may be some flipping out.

[Jon Sprunk]

There is one other thing you could do, which I think Kalbear mentioned, and which I like a lot. Make firearms safety part of typical physical education in America - in much the same way that driver's ed, and various other sports are.

Of course, it involves guns in a school zone, so there may be some flipping out.

I don't think you'd like the outcome of that. A "gun safety" course in most schools would probably resemble the "drinking and driving" educational programs, with films showing the bloody aftermath of shootings and warning children not to mess with guns. If you're picturing an actual introduction to firearms and how to use them, you aren't in tune with the times. Most urban and suburban parents don't want their children handling guns, even in a "safe" enviroment, anymore than they want them "safely" using narcotics.

[Commodore]

I don't think you'd like the outcome of that. A "gun safety" course in most schools would probably resemble the "drinking and driving" educational programs, with films showing the bloody aftermath of shootings and warning children not to mess with guns. If you're picturing an actual introduction to firearms and how to use them, you aren't in tune with the times. Most urban and suburban parents don't want their children handling guns, even in a "safe" enviroment, anymore than they want them "safely" using narcotics.

typical crazy gun abstinence advocate, we know that doesn't work

:cool4:

[Commodore]

And that's not even mentioning all the dietary aspects that likely has an even more harmful effect on health than any of those accidents. I suppose if you buy into the Michael Bloomberg theory of government, then that approach is fine. But for all the people who don't, accidental injury/harm to participants is generally not something that justifies banning an entire activity.

Bloomberg theory is if a majority doesn't like it, a minority should be denied it.

[lupis42]

I don't think you'd like the outcome of that. A "gun safety" course in most schools would probably resemble the "drinking and driving" educational programs, with films showing the bloody aftermath of shootings and warning children not to mess with guns. If you're picturing an actual introduction to firearms and how to use them, you aren't in tune with the times. Most urban and suburban parents don't want their children handling guns, even in a "safe" enviroment, anymore than they want them "safely" using narcotics.

I have generally the same attitude towards those parents that I do towards parents who object to their children getting sex ed, and I think the same solution would work (opt-out permission slips).

As for grisly "don't screw with this" warnings, I try to include those in my classes. Look, my high school included about 10 hours of drivers ed, of which about 2 was dedicated to "and this is why you don't drink and drive". I'd expect to see a similar ratio. The class doesn't even need to give the kids actual guns, there are non-firearm trainers out there on which one can demonstrate most of the operating principles, and if live fire is valued, air rifles exist which are cheap and can be run safely in any gym.

Of course many-to-most urban parents would object, as would school administrators. Plenty of parents objected to sex-ed too. They probably object to driver's ed, and hopefully some of them object to football. But that doesn't mean that their fears are reasonable, or that we should ignore the idea.

[Jon Sprunk]

typical crazy gun abstinence advocate, we know that doesn't work

:cool4:

On the off-chance you're serious...

This makes absolutely no sense. If you're trying to tie gun usage to sexual activity, you need to go back to the drawing board.

[Jon Sprunk]

I have generally the same attitude towards those parents that I do towards parents who object to their children getting sex ed, and I think the same solution would work (opt-out permission slips).

[...]

Of course many-to-most urban parents would object, as would school administrators. Plenty of parents objected to sex-ed too. They probably object to driver's ed, and hopefully some of them object to football. But that doesn't mean that their fears are reasonable, or that we should ignore the idea.

Most humans engage in sexual activity of some type. In fact, I'd say it was necessary to maintain a well-rounded lifestyle.

The same cannot be said of firearm usage.

You're comparing apples to pre-Euclidian goemetry.

This is akin to someone suggesting a school course on abortion safety, wherein the children could be "safely" shown how to perform the abortion of a living fetus. (Well, we'd provide "simulated" fetuses for those leftist schools that can't handle the "live fire" part of the course.)

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

On the off-chance you're serious...

This makes absolutely no sense. If you're trying to tie gun usage to sexual activity, you need to go back to the drawing board.

guess you've never heard of a shotgun wedding?;)

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I have generally the same attitude towards those parents that I do towards parents who object to their children getting sex ed, and I think the same solution would work (opt-out permission slips).

My kids' schools have always had a safety day where a police officer comes in for a half hour or so and talks about safety issues. That seems a perfectly appropriate time to have gun safety mentioned. Not in the sense of "here's how to use a gun safety" but in the "here's what to do if you see a gun in or around school" sense. That's really only a few minutes, and should be non-controversial.

I do think it is interesting that we have heard absolutely zero from the Administration on gun safety, though. Nothing about how gun owners should secure their weapons in the home, etc.. Why? That's something that should be noncontroversial. Yet, not a peep.

[TrackerNeil]

Personally, I'm disappointed that the discussion has not included mandating reporting of lost/stolen guns, which would do much to shut down "straw purchasers." Pennsylvania considered such a bill for the seven seconds it took the NRA to take up and pull on the legislature's leash, so it died. I can't see how any reasonable person opposes that kind of requirement.