Let’s take a quick trip around the web and see what’s cooking in terms of gun control advocates and their renewed push for the incremental disarmament of the United States population. . .
First up, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino:
“Today’s tragedy reminds us that now is the time for action. Innocent children will now never attend a prom, never play in a big game, never step foot on a college campus,” Menino said in a statement. “Now is the time for a national policy on guns that takes the loopholes out of the laws, the automatic weapons out of our neighborhoods and the tragedies like today out of our future.”
Menino is the chairman of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York:
“We as a society must unify and once and for all crack down on the guns that have cost the lives of far too many innocent Americans,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Let this terrible tragedy finally be the wake-up call for aggressive action and I pledge my full support in that effort.”
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, Democratic Representative for New York:
“I said, ‘Jack, I know the president is going through an election and I’m telling you after the election I’m coming out full force,’” McCarthy told POLITICO Friday. “I was just giving the White House a heads up that the gloves are off on my side and I was going to do everything I possibly could. … If that meant embarrassing everybody, that’s what I would do.”
Embarrassing the White House, McCarthy said, meant building a large-scale public campaign to ban assault weapons. She pledged to continue to work with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others to build support for her cause.
Mia Farrow, someone who is apparently famous for some reason:
Gun control is no longer debatable- it’s not a ‘conversation’- It’s a moral mandate. ‘
Michael Moore, who apparently doesn’t understand freedom:
The NRA hates freedom. They don’t want you to have the freedom to send your children to school & expect them to come home alive
Michael Bloomberg, mayor of the cesspool I escaped from as fast as I could when I turned 18:
“President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem,” Bloomberg said. “Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership—not from the White House and not from Congress.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago:
“I will never stop fighting to remove illegal guns and gun violence from our neighborhoods, so our families can pursue their goals and dreams without fear for their safety or the safety of their children,” said Mayor Emanuel.
“I convened this group of leaders today to discuss this matter and other strategies that can be employed to combat gun crime, and we came up with a number of innovative ideas that we will be pursuing in the coming weeks and months. We stand committed in our resolve and we will not waver in this commitment.”
Senator Leland Yee of California:
“My thoughts and prayers go out to the children and families of Newtown,” Yee said in a statement. “While we do not have all the details behind this senseless and unconscionable massacre, it is a sad and horrific reminder of what is possible when guns get into the wrong hands. We must limit access to weapons that can result in such catastrophe and mass murder.”
The list goes on…
The opportunism of the gun control crowd is sickening enough that I don’t even want to watch the video.
The video is full of nice sound bites, like “let’s keep ILLEGAL guns off the streets.” That’s great and all, but that’s not what these mayors end up doing. They pretend to disarm the bad guys but they’re really disarming us, those who obey the law. They’re pushing for more gun control where it ends up affecting law abiding citizens the most. The criminals don’t care. In fact, with each new gun control legislation it becomes easier for a criminal to obtain a gun, and harder for a law abiding citizen to own one. So thanks, Monopoly Money Mike and other wacko mayors, but no thanks.
So let’s say someone proposes a law to crack down on corrupt gun dealers. How exactly does that disarm legal gun owners? How exactly does that make it easier for criminals to obtain guns?
Well, how many corrupt gun dealers are there? Are you talking about people who own gun stores? Are you saying these people will jeopardize their source of income by selling relatively few guns illegally? I seriously doubt that even happens. Most of the guns used by criminals are most likely stolen. Then perhaps resold at a very low price to another criminal (it’s all profit after all), so right there you have all current laws broken anyway. What additional legislation will stop this? None. You will only make it more expensive and more difficult for honest people to run their businesses. Sorry, I know you gun-grabbers don’t like to hear this and you will never accept this, but that’s how it is. Your good intentions end up backfiring and they destroy businesses. NJ, for example, has such stupid gun laws that there are very few gun stores per capita, as compared to other states. And yet, places like Camden, Newark or Paterson are very dangerous cities. Yes, that means law abiding citizens jump through dozens and dozens of hoops to get a gun, and criminals don’t have to. You’re advocating even more obstacles. That won’t work.
Please tell me what EXACTLY would you propose and how would that be implemented in real life.
You are wrong. The corrupt gun dealers are a huge problem, and the NRA is spending millions of dollars to protect them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-helmke/nra-campaigns-to-protect_b_710496.html
Let’s face facts here. Police keep finding out in city after city that criminals know which gun dealers are corrupt. Everybody on this board keeps telling me: “Criminals will always find a way to get guns.”
That is simply not true. The reason criminals get guns so easily is that there are no good laws to prevent gun trafficking. The NRA and gun nuts have worked pretty hard to insure that criminals can get guns easily: That way, they can claim it is another reason why they need more guns.
I have another phrase to describe the NRA protecting corrupt gun dealers: Blood on their hands.
Thanks, Dave. You make a lot of sense.
And this is how liberty dies… Not today. Not ever.
They can have my guns when they zip up my body bag.
Not mine….when they zip me up, my guns are going to my wife and kids.
MotoJB: Good theory, but I think what pwrserge meant was that they’d have to take them from him by force, not just “they can have them when I die.”
+1 Doh… [Note to self: Update will.]
So, can we get a compilation of the comments our fearless NRA tripple A approved Republican defenders of the second amendmend have made today? Because so far all I heard from them in opposition to gun control is a whole lot of silence.
The RepubliCONs are still trying to come up with the right lies. You know, like calling rich people “job creators”, and killing and gutting Medicare as “strengthening Medicare”.
Now is a good time to be silent. When the laws are actually introduced, then you vote against the ones that don’t make sense. There is no need to grandstand over gun issues, particularly this one.
Even Boehner, who is under pressure to disagree with everything Obama says, has admitted that now is not the time to make a public statement in favor of lax gun laws.
Maybe they should wait until this round of victims has been buried.
I would like to stand in front of each one of these people, and repeat this question until they stop dodging it:
“What proposal do you have that would have stopped what happened today?”
There are zero gun-control proposals I have ever heard, short of outright banning and confiscation (which could never legitimately and completely happen in this country), that would be certain (or even mostly certain) to stop what happened today. Anybody else got one?
Even a successful ban and confiscation of all guns will not stop determined criminals from successfully committing heinous acts. Even if guns didn’t exist, this lunatic could have simply driven a car over the kids (at high speed no less) across the sidewalk as they were piling out of the school toward buses. Similar outcomes were easily achievable with a few gallons of gasoline and a match as well.
It’s about control to these people, Matt. They’re the ones using the useful idiots. They know guns are great for protection and self-defense, they just don’t want us proles having them so we’re easier to manage while they **** us six ways from Sunday. All their guards have ’em.
O’Bomber and his TOP MEN can kiss my ass. How does he get away with his DOJ and ATF letting cartels have guns while the government profits at all levels from the drug war? Or letting guns go to Al-Qaeda affiliated rebels, as revealed recently in the NYT?
This hypocritical government that has engaged in state terrorism and ruining the lives of people possessing verboten plants cannot have a monopoly on the use of force. It cannot be allowed.
I won’t comply.
Matt, that’s a trick question and you know it. You can’t work backwards from a particular incident and say what would have stopped it any more than you can predict the future, Minority Report style.
My proposals would stop many of these incidents. The fact that you keep using trick questions and other bullshit tactics to deny the obvious is part of the reason I blame you. That’s what I wrote about last night if anyone’s interested. I blame the gun rights movement and its adherents.
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.it/2012/12/the-2nd-worst-mass-shooting-in-us.html
Mike, after having reviewed the restrictions you listed on your blog, I fail to see how this would have stopped the shooting we are discussing.
1. Your licensing proposal– I have no doubt that the shooter’s mother would have been able to pass this.
2. Registration– again, even had the weapon been registered nothing about this situation would have changed.
3. Background check requirement– see number one.
4. Waiting period– I highly doubt the mother bought all of her guns in the past three days, so I fail to see what this would have done either.
5. A federal “May-Issue” policy for concealed carry– this one doesn’t seem to have much relevance either.
6. A California-style assault weapons ban– how would such a ban have helped prevent this shooting? There was one adult teacher in the classroom (unarmed), and then two dozen or so children; it’s hard to argue that the killer would have been subdued had he needed to reload– or that he would not have just brought three pistols instead of two.
No one knows what WOULD have happened IF things had been different. But my proposals would prevent lots of similar incidents.
How about a requirement that households containing incompetents keep their guns locked?
I’m gonna amend my list to include a safe storage requirement. Guns in the home must be either on your person or locked in a safe.
Poor Mikeb, your fantasies have never proven to be true, yet you repeat them as if doing so will make them true.
You really should see a mental health expert for your persistent mythomania.
As to Dave, get a clue someday!
“But my proposals would prevent lots of similar incidents.”
And I keep asking, and you keep dodging: Which ones, and how?
“You can’t work backwards from a particular incident and say what would have stopped it any more than you can predict the future, Minority Report style.”
It’s not a trick question. Any gun control idea, whether it’s yours, Bloomberg’s, Low Budget Dave’s, or from some random member of Congress, is put forth with the stated ideal of preventing occurrences like this. So it’s a simple question: How would it prevent them? The answer is not “because I say so” or “because it makes me feel better.” Gun control laws will be championed in the coming weeks. They will have various features. What I want to know is “How will [xxx] feature prevent this from happening again?” If you can’t give me a path to prevention, why are you doing it?
Let me give you an example: In a couple places today, Low Budget Dave proposed some ideas, one of which was a “one gun a month” law. Look at the last couple or three incidents, and tell me which of them would have been prevented or even impacted by that proposed law. It would have had no effect whatsoever on Connecticut or Clackamas Mall.
I suppose you could make a case for Aurora, as his first two (of four) guns purchases were six days apart, with the third ten days later, and the fourth 29 days after that. However, he started buying ammunition for guns he didn’t even own yet some four months prior to the shooting, so with that level of prior planning, I have to assume that if there was a OGAM law in Colorado, he could have easily factored that into his plans.
The only shooting that I’ve been able to identify that a OGAM law would possibly have affected was Columbine, because one rifle and two shotguns were straw purchased (already illegal) on the same day by the same person. That said, those weapons were purchased some five months before the attack, and again, with the level of prior planning they put into their attack, there’s no reason that they couldn’t have just as easily spaced the purchases out, and still had time to spare to meet their timetable.
So, I ask again… If you want to pass a law that’s going to affect the Constitutionally protected rights of American citizens, I ask you to show that it will have some measure of efficacy. You can’t predict the future, so the past is all you have to go on. Which attacks would [your chosen regulation] have prevented?
“You can’t work backwards from a particular incident and say what would have stopped it any more than you can predict the future, Minority Report style.”
It’s not a trick question. Any gun control idea, whether it’s yours, Bloomberg’s, Low Budget Dave’s, or from some random member of Congress, is put forth with the stated ideal of preventing occurrences like this. So it’s a simple question: How would it prevent them? The answer is not “because I say so” or “because it makes me feel better.” Gun control regulations will be championed in the coming weeks. They will have various features. What I want to know is “How will [insert regulation here] prevent this from happening again?” If you can’t give me a path to prevention, why are you doing it?
Let me give you an example: In a couple places today, Low Budget Dave proposed some ideas, one of which was a “one gun a month” law. Look at the last couple or three incidents, and tell me which of them would have been prevented or even impacted by that proposed law. It would have had no effect whatsoever on Connecticut or Clackamas Mall.
I suppose you could make a case for Aurora, as his first two (of four) guns purchases were six days apart, with the third ten days later, and the fourth 29 days after that. However, he started buying ammunition for guns he didn’t even own yet some four months prior to the shooting, so with that level of prior planning, I have to assume that if there was a OGAM law in Colorado, he could have easily factored that into his plans.
The only shooting that I’ve been able to identify that a OGAM law would possibly have affected was Columbine, because one rifle and two shotguns were straw purchased (already illegal) on the same day by the same person. That said, those weapons were purchased some five months before the attack, and again, with the level of prior planning they put in, there’s no reason that they couldn’t have just as easily spaced the purchases out, and still had time to spare to meet their timetable.
So, I ask again… If you want to pass a law that’s going to affect the Constitutionally protected rights of American citizens, I ask you to show that it will have some measure of efficacy. You can’t predict the future, so the past is all you have to go on. Which attacks would [your chosen regulation] have prevented?
Matt, the comprehensive plan that I keep pushing, which includes licensing and registration, closing the private sale loophole, and all the rest, would stop many of these incidents. You know this but you think the cure is worse than the disease. That’s where we disagree. You could at least be honest about that much and stop pretending that my ideas would have no beneficial effect.
The whole idea behind common sense laws is to make illegal activities harder, not to prevent them completely. Speed limits, for example, hinder your right to drive 100 mph, but society has judged that the infringement is within reason.
Restricting gun purchases to one a month is a way to make gun trafficking harder. It doesn’t prevent the activity, but it does not need to. All it needs to do is work more often than it fails.
LOL, poor MikeB plan doesnt include repeal of Haynes vs US 390, 85, 1968 and repeal of the 5th amendment.
Which without such a repeal, 85% of the existing 22,417 gun control laws still will not apply to ANY
of the 10 categories of people who are identified in the 1968 Federal Gun Control Act of having lost their 2A rights to due process. You know, the felons and crazies especially.
You know, registrations, like the Canadian registration with 52% compliance, $2 bil in tax payers moneys and climbing, all for 47 firearm traced as stolen, not one single violent crime prevented or solved. My, how pathetic!
You know, like CoBIS, a gun registration by recording fired shells used in MD, NJ, NY since 1997 at $4 mil cost to tax payers per year, and has proven that yes indeed, those two firearms were indeed stolen, solving nor preventing one single violent crime. It to like the long gun portion of the Canadian registration scheme has been defunded from the tax roles as of summer of 2012. How pathetic.
Dont forget the BATF refusal to allow civilians access to use the NICS background check, better get right on that Mikeb, uh oh wait, you dont live in the US anymore, hence not one thing you can do except flap your gums.
But reality is, you cant fix stupid, so there exists Mikeb and his forlorn and pathetic fantasies that would do not one single thing to address or reduce violence.
What you seem to be saying is that all we need to do is enforce existing gun laws.
First of all, that would be great. Second, that means you agree that there are certain laws that might work, as long as they were enforced properly.
LBD: “Restricting gun purchases to one a month is a way to make gun trafficking harder. It doesn’t prevent the activity, but it does not need to. All it needs to do is work more often than it fails.”
And as Virginia found, it makes no difference, which is why they repealed the law.
Next.
You are just making stuff up now. There are easy ways to cut down on gun trafficking, and you know it.
1. Crack down on 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.
2. Make straw purchasing as hard as possible: 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.
3. Eliminate the Gun Shows and private gun sales loopholes: Gun shows have been called “Tupperware parties for criminals” because they attract large numbers of prohibited buyers. Gun show dealers have been known to advertise with signs that read “no background checks required here.” the sign may as well say: “Attention criminals and terrorists, we will help you get that gun you need.”
“The whole idea behind common sense laws is to make illegal activities harder, not to prevent them completely. ”
and there is no conclusive evidence that they work to mitigate or drive down the statistics of illegal activity.
“Speed limits, for example, hinder your right to drive 100 mph, but society has judged that the infringement is within reason.”
oh boy! i just love the speed limit comparison! lets play ball!
http://faculty.winthrop.edu/stonebrakerr/book/does_speed_kill.htm
http://www.motorists.org/speed-limits/safety-setting-limits#CONCLUSION
http://blog.motorists.org/national-speed-limit-effect-on-traffic-safety-fuel-prices/
speed limits do nothing to reduce highway fatalities.
“Restricting gun purchases to one a month is a way to make gun trafficking harder. It doesn’t prevent the activity, but it does not need to. All it needs to do is work more often than it fails.”
really and please provide evidence that it does “work more often that it fails”.
in fact, the 2nd amendment “works more often that it fails” in that there are more defensive gun uses (lives saved by firearms) than there are needless murders and suicides.
The numbers you are referring to have been proven incorrect many times.
http://www.stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/103.myth0.pdf
dave,
oh noes! since those statistics are incorrect, then please provide a alternative.
i have one. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9591354
and another https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf
That is the original publication of the exact same study. They asked a bunch of gun owners how many times they protected themselves, and then extrapolated it to the entire population. There are a half dozen things wrong with this, but I will start with one:
According to the numbers, 6% of all gun owners reported defending themselves from a burglary in the past 12 months. When you extrapolate this to the whole population, the number exceeds the number of burglaries by a wide margin.
The obvious conclusion is that these people are wrong. Either there was no burglary, or it happened many years ago, and they remember it just like it was yesterday.
Anyway, there are about 3 million attempted burglaries in the United States each year. Of these, 1.8 million people pull their gun to investigate, and find nothing. An additional 700,000 pull their gun and see an intruder, and an additional 500,000 pull their gun and scare off the intruder.
So if you buy these statistics, there are no burglaries in the United States.
Were you aware of this study? It’s not done by a pro-gun think-tank , it’s the anti gun CDC.
Estimating intruder-related firearm retrievals in U.S. households, 1994.”
The CDC estimated that “497,646 incidents occurred in which the intruder was seen and reportedly scared away by the firearm… ” And that is an annual number.
Almost 500k defensive uses of a gun in one year, only in homes. But you can prove no self defenses occur outside the home right?
Many defenses uses of guns are never reported because the defender simply shows the gun and the criminal ceases.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9591354
That study is just a bunch of hacks pretending to be liberal. “Self-reported” defensive gun use? What a laugh. Name one guy on this board who wouldn’t claim to have defended his home within the last 12 months.
Everybody lies about how often they need their guns. That isn’t a “study”, it is a “survey.”
But, Dave, there’s another angle on it. The thousands of daily readers over here have provided almost NO first hand stories of DGUs. If their bizarre numbers of how many DGUs there are each year were anywhere near correct, TTAG would not have to scour the country’s local press outlets for gun-saves-the-day stories, they’d have them in-house. But they don’t.
First of all the CDCis not anti-gun. Secondly,
“the authors analyzed data from a 1994 national random digit dialing telephone survey (n = 5,238 interviews).”
you think that’s a valid way to produce stats? I don’t. Did they count the homes contacted who said they don’t own guns? That should be about half, right? How exactly did they phrase the question? That makes a big difference, doesn’t it. And finally, does that mean that every one of those cases was a legitimate threat or did they scare away some Jehova’s Witnesses and girl scouts selling cookies?
Oh you want data, hey lets review the following.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm FBI UCR Database
You know, the government database showing in 2008 that 1.38 mil violent crimes were reported and that of those 381,000 involved a firearm and that 15% of times a firearm is used are shots fired.
Firearm Use by Offenders, Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2001 http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pb….
http://www.data.gov/details/1526 USDOJ National Victimization Report 2008
You know, the government agency sub annual report showing in 2008 alone that 70% of all violent crimes were not reported.
Oh wait, what’s this, annual firearm discharge reports that show the police only hit their targets 15% of the time, such a common trend.
http://www.virginiacops.org/Articles/Sho…
http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Aveni…
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/p…
http://www.nyclu.org/files/nypd_firearms…
Uh just an fyi there were approximately 12,252 murders and 70,000 injuries by firearms in 2008.
So using the standard shooting percentages, and hit percentages provided by all that government data , lets calculate using jmany lawfully defend themselves each year, and we will only concentrate on the law abiding to start with.
Even though the anti’s wont admit that even felons, who are citizens, have the right to defend themselves.
Self Defense saves lives
FBI UCR 2010
278 documented justifiable homicides and since there are oh 2.5 people per household per US Census, almost 6 injuries per death we will calculate from that point.
278 incidents + (6 x 278 = injured) = 15% of shots hit target /15 = 1% x 100 = # of shots fired = 12,973 incidents shots fired by law abiding citizens.
12,973/15 = 1% x 100 = total number of self defense incidents just of people not involved in a criminal activity.
=86,488 incidents x 2.5 people per household = 216,222 people defending themselves.
Now we know that of 381,000 violent crimes in 2008, there were 12,252 murders, and 70,000 injuries, but to be fair since suicide is 90% fatal, will remove the 1,854 injuries caused by suicides, and assuming the same rate of injuries due to accidental firearms discharges of 3,660 just to be fair 64,486 injuries total.
So 80,396 deaths and injuries in 2008 out of
381,000 incidents = 1.5% deaths 17.9% injuries.
216,222 x .015 = # of deaths saved 3,243
216,222 x .179 = # of injuries prevented 38,704
Wait, I understand that people can save their life through self defense, but didn’t you just prove the opposite. The way I read those numbers, you are more likely to commit a deadly crime with a gun than prevent one.
Your so-called “solutions” are nothing but BS. The CT shooter used firearms belonging to his mother. Exactly how would closing the loophole-that-doesn’t-exist have stopped that? Answer: it wouldn’t have.
I place the blame for this massacre squarely on the shoulders of people like YOU for creating gun-free zones and outlawing the means for people to fight back against a monster like this. You disgust me.
Trigger locks would have made a difference. More guns would not. I think it is time the NRA admitted that they have been fighting against basic gun safety for quite a while. As far as you being disgusted by gun free zones, the U.S. has about the most lenient gun laws in the world. So I guess all those safe countries in Europe and Japan really tick you off?
Yeah, fantastic how no one with a hammer and punch, or a cordless drill and drill bit could remove a trigger lock.
Thankgod trigger locks are theft and removal proof such that if anyone loses their key to it the gun is rendered inoperable for all of enternity!
In order for a solution to work, it does not need to be 100% foolproof for all of eternity, it only has to work more often than it fails. As people keep reminding me on this board, even before guns were invented, people killed with knives, rocks, and clubs.
The difference is that knives require an attack from close range. It is hard to stand in one place and kill ten people with a knife. It can be done, of course, it is just harder. Clubs and rocks operate in a similar manner. We don’t need to pass laws to make them harder, because they are pretty hard to use to start with.
The idea behind legislation is not to make legal guns harder to obtain and use, it is to make illegal guns harder to use. Any law that works more than it fails will be judged a success.
Theoretically, my son could pick the lock on my gun safe, or he could go buy a couple of good drill bits and drill the lock open. But it does not mean I am going to be getting rid of the safe.
Poor Dave, Lanza stole the firearms and not one single piece of useless as teets on a boar hog legislation stopped him from doing so, so please refrain from performing the circle jerk of illogic that it would have.
Trigger locks only stop the stupid or ignorant from accidents, they do not stop the criminal bent on committing a crime and no matter how you spin it, you cant prove otherwise.
So quit insulting everyones intelligence with such moronic spew!
You are just repeating the same argument over and over. If the guns had been in a safe, we might not even be having this conversation. How many similar attacks were prevented by having a decent lock on the gun safe? More than one?
If it is more than zero, then let’s all get together and agree that people’s lives are more important than criminal’s convenience.
Mike your proposals are, as Bruce Krafft so eloquently points out, mala prohibitum instead of mala en se laws. These laws have been proven ineffective throughout history at deterring criminals from committing crimes.
Also, Connecticut has gun owner liscensing for handguns, 14 day waiting periods on long guns without a permit, and a California style AWB. None of those things stopped this criminal.
Two points I want to make, and I know that I am wasting my keystrokes, but hear me out. The best way to stop a criminally insane person from using lethal force is by using lethal force yourself. In other words, the best medicine for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Demonizing and punishing law abiding gun owners for the crimes of a select few insane gun owners (or gun thieves) doesn’t solve anything. The only common sense gun control I can see is repealing all laws regarding possession or ownership (read: keeping and bearing) of firearms so that law abiding people can defend themselves from maniacs like this without jumping through a million legal hoops. To deter people from using guns for criminal purpose we need to make any gun crime a federal offense with an extremely stiff penalty, ie anyone who commits a crime with a gun gets life in prison. That way we let the law abiding gun owners alone and actually punish the criminals who are using guns for evil. /Rant
Your mistake is to consider what I propose as “Demonizing and punishing law abiding gun owners.” It’s nothing of the kind. In fact my idea of gun control would not affect you all that much assuming you’re mentally well and responsible.
With proper controls in place, many criminals would be stopped before they act.
Mike, You failed to address the point that CT already has laws in place much like you describe on your blog, which I did read. They failed to stop this act. As far as the demonize comment, I appreciate how you pulled that out of my whole comment and didn’t acknowledge or attempt to defend the real issue. CT is a prime example of why gun licensing and AWB’s do not work. They are easily circumvented by smart criminals with evil intent. What say you to increased punishment for gun criminals while decriminalizing gun ownership by those who commit no crimes and punish those who do? I look forward to your response to my direct question (not just a random part of the post you decide to pull out.)
“What say you to increased punishment for gun criminals while decriminalizing gun ownership by those who commit no crimes and punish those who do? ”
I’ve never said anything which is not in alignment with that. I’m all for keeping violent people in jail longer. And I’m all for allowing qualified and responsible people to own guns and even carry concealed. I believe we need to raise the bar a bit on who qualifies, but “decriminalizing gun ownership,” whatever that means, is fine.
Just because people can get around gun licensing laws does not mean that guns should not be licensed. It just means the enforcement needs to be better.
I don’t know. I just don’t see a CCP as “jumping through a million legal hoops.” I had to fill out one form.
Wait weren’t you talking about gun registration? Waiting periods? Mandatory training? Permits? What about the NFA? What about states that don’t allow non-residents to possess guns that they legally bought in another state? What about carrying across state lines? My point to mike earlier was that Connecticut has all of the gun laws that are most often proposed by gun-control advocates. It did not stop this from happening. I mentioned “decriminalizing gun ownership” earlier. My point is that there is not one shred of proof that these laws help stop anything. In Ohio we have to spend nearly $200 (training is mandatory plus CHL) to be allowed to exercise our constitutionally protected right to carry a gun. ALL of the laws that criminalize owning and carrying a gun should be repealed and we should severely increase penalties for gun criminals, as I stated earlier. That way the GOOD people can protect themselves without having to constantly wonder if they are breaking the law and WHEN criminals strike they could be more quickly subdued and severely punished for their actions.
Mike, you seem to be trying to argue points that we cannot and will not agree to. Why not push something that we can agree to, like increased penalties for criminal gun uses? If such measures were imposed, and they worked, then we could discuss repealing some of the useless restrictions to legal gun owners that are currently on the books. Unlike some people I believe in gun control, I just think that it should be enacted to punish the criminal use of guns rather than the possession or ownership of guns, neither of which hurt anyone in and of themselves (and are protected by the constitution). If the two sides can come together on anything it is that people who use guns for nefarious purposes should be severely punished. Why not get behind that, since it stands a chance of gaining the support of the gun rights groups? I sincerely believe that would affect criminal gun use in a positive way.
You want legislation to fix these mass shootings? Its called end gun free zones. Deterrence works. If criminals and psychopaths know that they can’t go and target the meek, they often won’t. This country has gone to hell because of idealism that ignores reality. The truth is Mike, people like you helped lead to these killings with your ignorant ideas of gun control. Your idealism ensured that teachers were disarmed, incapable of protecting the children. Gun control increases the body count, not vice versa.
You and many of the other guys are using a very transparent tactic. You’re so guilty and embarrassed that another one of YOU acted so badly, that you go on the offense and pretend to be outraged at me and other gun control folks. You know better than that. The frequency of these events has been so high that it’s become undeniable, even by the masters of denial that you guys are.
Ah, the classic guilt by association.
Yes, it’s to our eternal shame that Nancy Lanza lost it and went on a killing spree. Oh, wait, that’s not what happened at all, is it?
No, what happened here is that her unstable son murdered her, then used her legally owned weapons to go on a killing spree at a place where everyone had been rendered completely defenseless by naive policies which people like you advocate.
Ultimately, there’s only one person responsible for all of this, and he killed himself when he was done.
the guilt by association mechanism.
mikey the likes of you are the most damned by the guilt by association mechanism. the leading cause of unnatural death in the 20th century was governments killing their own people.
but reasonable people dont give into the guilt by association mechanism…
I call BS, it is time to have the ” Gun control debate” as the left would say, so let’s have it, Mike. #1 I’m just going to have to agree to disagree with you. etc, etc, etc., with each and every point. Ok, now that the debate is over…
The chatter on facebook is the usual ‘sporting purpose/we don’t want to restrict your rights/why does anyone need an assault weapon’ bullshit. When the Bill of Rights becomes a bill of needs, we’re in trouble.
Lots of feel goods thrown around in the gun control circles, but so far nothing consistent is being placed on the table. I’m up for rational statements, not shallow rhetorics.
It may be time to seperate the country. Peacefully I hope. 2 seperate Americas. 1 that believes in a european style of socialism and 1 that adheres to the constitution. Let’s be rational and non violent about it. Barry can stay in charge of the left America and those of us that go to the right America can pick our own leaders. The military can assist in the peaceful seperation and the military personnel can opt for which country they would like to continue to serve.
A lot of details would have to be worked out, but if we keep our emotions in check this can be made to work. Maybe the core of the new country could be Texas?
Texas is the only one of the red states that pays in more taxes (barely) than it gets back in federal spending. All the rest of the bright red states are welfare states. So yeah, I think it would be a great idea. Good luck balancing your budget in your new utopia. Maybe you can raise some revenue by selling off some of those guns.
Welcome to politics ie, pandering to the LCD…
I’m glad I found this site not too long ago. Good to hear that common sense has not completely died. My Facebook feed is filled with knee-jerk, sensational comments from “friends” who don’t know the first thing about firearms, except for “their bad”. Makes me sick. Anyway… carry on and I’m glad I found this resource.
“…except for ‘their bad’.”
I laughed. The Facebook generation… it’s not tied to age, per se… but yeah. Trying to have (and having) a solid, meaningful discussion (debate) with someone who disagrees with me, and some random yahoo (whom I don’t know) feels it appropriate to jump in with his deep thought comment: “Meh, I hate guns.” Nothing else, nothing on point. Just that.
I don’t even know what to do with that.
I’m glad that I am not the only one. Unfortunately the arguments, at least in my experience anyway, usually, quickly dissolve into ad hominem attacks and chaos. And sometimes from shocking sources; folks who usually have their heads on straight. And I generally like to debate, it just seems like some online places (e.g. Facebook) can’t leave out the personal vitriol and attacks.
Looks like the vast majority of folks here will debate the issue and not personally attack people. I like that….
Yeah, I’m avoiding most discussion of this except with people I know will get it. I just don’t need the aggravation of dealing with people’s ignorance. People talk about needing to do “something” and then you hear what those “somethings” are and it’s the same crap over and over again…
Self defense works. Deterrence works. These sprees will become a lot less attractive when it’s not “going out in a blaze of glory, taking revenge on authority figures and the kids who tormented you”, but instead “getting dropped by Bob the Janitor”.
“It’s time to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and automatic weapons off our streets!”. Newsflash…neither of those efforts would have stopped today’s massacre.
They were semi auto pistols that we’re owned by an apparently law abiding citizen.
The fact is, these anti-gun morons will stop at nothing until they raid our houses and take our weapons, limit us to single shot rifles and ration us to 100 bullets per year (unless we can substantiate, according to their rules, why we need more).
Another news flash, the mass murders will just resort to other means.
So the NRA is supposedly an evil conspiracy on the part of gun manufacturers to maximize profits, yet according to Mr. Moore they “don’t want you to have the freedom to send your children to school & expect them to come home alive.” How exactly would that turn into positive financial gain? Am I missing something here? Or does Mr. Moore think the NRA is a group of cartoonish supervillians a la Captain Planet who just want to spread misery and destruction out of sheer contempt for human happiness?
Oh crap. They found us out… Looks like it’s time to use that laser we set up on the moon! Someone, fire up the “Death Star”.
Im sick by these scum bags.
The war against drugs certainly hasn’t curtailed drug usage. We had alcohol prohibition and that didn’t stop people from drinking; and prohibition laws resulted in vicious gang wars. Good luck trying to solve gun crimes by banning guns. Stopping gun crimes isn’t the goal anyway. It’s all about using any excuse to take the means of power away from ordinary citizens and transferring it into the hands of our morally superior betters.
It’s like every time the US government declares war on something, we get more of them than ever before. Hey Barry! Can you please declare war on hot blonde chicks with daddy issues?
pwrserge, I’m not sure where you live but if you ever get to the Midwest, I will humbly provide a tour.
PS. No extra charge for the odd brunette or redhead…
Interesting. Why are you offering the odd ones to pwserge?
I find it particularly…bemusing that the key things they are mentioning as advancing their gun control agenda are a New Assault Weapon Ban and ending the “Gun Show Loophole.
Let us examine both. On the Assault Weapon Ban :
A) Assault Weapons already banned in Connecticut
B)The perpatrator left his “assault weapon” in his car. Felt he only needed his handguns. Which sadly proved to be true in a gun free zone.
C)Even had “extended” magazines greater than 10 rounds been banned, and the perpetrator been prevented from possessing them, it is highly doubtful it would have made a difference because he chose a “gun free zone” consisting primarily of Elementary aged children. In a defenseless zone, he chose those victims more defenseless than almost all others.
For the Gun Show Loophole
A) The Perpetrator stole the firearms from a family member. Banning private sales would have had NO impact in this case whatsoever.
Nothing said in those quotes would have stopped the Newtown, Connecticut shooter from taking those guns from his Mother, who owned them legally under that State’s stringent laws. Even if the deceased Mother had them secured, he apparently had access to them, since he used one to murder her before going to the Elementary School.
You know, we the Armed Intelligencia have so much fact and reason on our side that it can actually confuse people or turn them away. It is time for us to determine two or three key points to push back at the antis who seek to take away our rights and liberties. And then we have to push back hard, consistently, with those points.
My first point would be that people who are determined to commit heinous acts will commit them with or without guns. I am not sure what my second or third point would be.
RF, please consider starting a new post where we can debate what those two or three key points should be.
this article made me sick. the worst line was “the NRA hates freedom.” the NRA is are some of the few people who truly know what freedom and value freedom.
Price for safety is always freedom. Michael Moore doesn’t want freedom, he wants safety – a state that will take care of him cradle to grave, a state that will round all the corners and blunt all edges.
MAIG often defines an illegal gun to include legal guns. Those mayors are much like one junk yard dog telling another junk yard dog that it needs to take a bath.
If you care about stopping violence, then you need to be honest enough to evaluate your policies and see what works and what doesn’t.
Connecticut has most of the gun control policies the Antis want to make national, including a assault weapons ban.
In other words, where gun control has its way, no one can stop a crazy person form killing children. The only defense left to them was to hide in a closest.
This tragedy has nothing to do with gun owners. If we had our way the teachers and faculty would have been able to return fire… but we didn’t have our way.
The blood is at the feet of those who disarmed the people who might have stopped the killer if they had been given the option. They made sure that a mad dog killer would meet no resistance and hundreds of children were left without defenders.
To those who claim this is just speculation, I have one word. Israel.
If you really care about saving lives and sopping violence, have he courage to challenge your beliefs and look at solutions that actually work.
This. This this this this this. And this again. Do what WORKS, not what is easy to sell to your constituents. Its the same with the debt ceiling: taxing the 2% but don’t cut spending. IT DOESNT WORK! And the proof is MATH! (Hardly up for debate, but I could be wrong.) I’ll be the first in line to back new gun legislation if its PROVEN to work, and actually addresses the root causes of violence. Otherwise its just political pandering that postpones actual constructive progress.
Big assumption that any of the teachers or staff would be carrying even if they were allowed to in the first place.
Big assumption that they wouldn’t have been. We know at least one teacher was a gun owner…
But at least that option would be available to them. That’s a world of difference.
I think it is a fair argument to say that teachers should be allowed to carry. Since accidental shootings are more common than school shootings, I think it would also be fair to require teachers (who choose to carry) to have a higher level of training than the average concealed permit holder.
That might actually make people safer. But just increasing the number of guns at school is likely to have just as bad outcomes as good ones.
Well Dave, then you need to show everyone how many accidental shootings and accidents have occurred in Israeli schools since the 1970’s when they implemented armed teachers/guards who since then have thwarted several attacks.
Come on Dave, lets see you walk the talk. There are almost 4 decades of evidence to prove you right, time for you to put up or shut up!
Quite sure the Israelis will willingly tell you that information.
When I bring up how much safer other countries are than the U.S., everyone tells me I am comparing apples to oranges. Then you bring up Israel. OK, I’ll play. Let’s adopt the same gun laws as Israel, and then I am in 100% agreement with you.
Israel has very intensive and extensive gun control. To own any kind of firearm, a
special permit from the Interior Ministry is required. No one may obtain a permit without showing a legitimate reason for owning a firearm. The permit has to have the approval of the police, and is specific as to the owner, and the specific firearm whose serial number has to appear on the permit. In addition, it is current policy that permitees qualify on the range with the firearm and they must re-qualify every other year.
Is this the policy you want? Because if so, welcome to my team.
oh my gosh! if you read on “nytimes” the comments about this shooting, it is scary. a bunch of idiots completely ignoring the fact that he was a psycho with stolen guns (the guns were not his, they were his moms).
I couldn’t help myself and had to peek. You’re right and some of the comments are nerve racking disturbing.
Gun free zones = free fire zones. The wingnuts would like to turn the whole country into a free fire zone — kinda like Mexico but with sh!tt!er food.
+1
gun free= anything a bad person wants it to be, usually a free for all
So a creep kills a legal gun owner and takes her guns, the goes on a killing spree of the worst kind imaginable. What policy of theirs could have possibly stopped this?
Nothing I have ever hear from them could have prevented this.
And from Rep. Nadler, D-NY:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/14/dem-lawmaker-get-gun-control-obama-must-exploit-sh/
What, Schumer was not available?
Oh, he will be in three…two…one…
If we banned guns we could be as safe as……………………Mexico?
The liberal mind is fractured. It desperately wants to believe in the goodness of mankind and cannot reconcile that faith in man with the fact that PEOPLE commit crimes. To solve this dilema, they claim that it is the object used by the person that is “evil” and the criminal is merely a “victim” of it’s powers, unable to resist it’s siren call to destruction. They say, “Rid the world of guns and the hatred in men’s hearts will disappear.” I say the evil of a man resides, not in the object in his hand, but in his heart. Just ask Cain.
Yeah you heathens, you better turn in your machine guns, lol. I think reason will prevail here, Randy
James Fallows of “The Atlantic”
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/a-constructive-suggestion-and-a-test-for-the-nra/266316/
Why would the NRA comment? Are they supposed to apologize? Is this their fault? The NRA has never defended the criminal use of guns.
Other than express condolences, which I have heard the NRA say in the past, I can’t think of anything the NRA should really be expected to contribute here. Gun safety? Yeah, they do that. Condemning criminal misuse of guns? Yeah, they do that. In fact, I think if you did polls of the NRA membership and polls of the Brady Campaign membership, the NRA side would come up much more hard line on crime than the Brady side.
I love my guns but man is it way to easy to get them. I wouldn’t mind for everyone around the country to have the same laws such waiting periods extended, psychiatric testing done on everyone etc….
Then some unstable kid steals them anyway, and millions of people have had their rights infringed for no reason.
Next…
Your rights have been infringed since 1934 none of which has reduced crime!
and now you cry out for more laws to oppress the lawful?
where is the evidence that waiting periods work?
psychiatric evaluation? it is already illegal to own a firearm if you are deemed mentally unfit. the burden of designating someone mentally unfit is not on lawful gun owners.
Jon, It’s way too easy, not in CT, MA, NY, NJ, IL, RI, CA… Really Jon, tell us all about it.
“Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste” :
Timmy Gietner
LW-15 Complete Lower/M-4 stock
$130
Buy em cheap…….
Two words: false flag. The easiest short term solution for a long term problem. Gun control has been less and less popular recently. This is just the thing to bring it back to the fore. The agenda is back on schedule.
Please adjust your tin foil hat, I think its not on straight.
No, the people calling for common sense gun laws are right. It is you and the NRA that are in the wrong here. Every gun purchase in the United States should require a background check. The various gun show loopholes should be a thing of the past.
High capacity magazines should be illegal, and so should purchases of more than one gun per month.
Households with children, alcoholics, and mentally ill should not be allowed to keep unlocked guns.
These rules are so basic that they should be accepted in the same way as “always point your gun in a safe direction.”
I’ll try to respond to your points in order:
1. “The various gun show loopholes should be a thing of the past.”
-Making a private transfer/sale of firearms to a criminal is already illegal. But if every gun purchase got run through the NICS, you say, then that many more criminals will be prevented from buying firearms. But does it seem logical to you that criminals will continue to purchase guns off-the-record anyways, and that unscrupulous sellers will continue to provide an outlet for them? Doubtless they will, just as illegal drugs are produced, distributed, and sold currently. I would posit that the gun show/private sale “loophole” is, in fact, an excellent tool for catching illegal firearms purchases. If you have people illegally buying and selling at a show, is it not much easier for undercover law enforcement to catch them there, as opposed to at some meeting place known only to the buyer and seller? For sting operations, too, gun shows (typically very crowded) make it easy for law enforcement to discreetly tail suspects and record plate numbers to get addresses, etc. None of this would be possible if gun shows did’t exist, and guns would STILL be illegally bought and sold off the record.
2. “High-capacity magazines should be illegal,”
-You don’t give any reasons for this, so I can’t attempt to counter your rationale. But I *can* ask this– if banning magazines that hold more than a certain arbitrary number of rounds is such a good thing, can you point to any states that have implemented such bans and the good that it has brought? Reductions in violent crime, murders, etc? Enough states have done this that you should be able to present some conclusive evidence here. Ditto for the now-dead national ban. And regarding the topic this is posted under, how would such a ban have helped prevent this shooting? There was one adult teacher in the classroom (unarmed), and then two dozen or so children; it’s hard to argue that the killer would have been subdued had he needed to reload– or that he would not have just brought three pistols instead of two.
3. “and so should purchases of more than one gun per month.”
-Again, why? Enough states have implemented this sort of thing that you should be able to present some evidence that this type of legislation does indeed work, but the available data indicates no positive gains associated with such legislation. There doesn’t seem to be a rational reason to deny somebody the ability to purchase a shotgun for duck hunting because they bought a .22 rifle three weeks prior. Besides, how does this one have any bearing on mass shootings, the topic at hand?
4. “Households with children, alcoholics, and mentally ill should not be allowed to keep unlocked guns.”
-If there were concrete gains to be had in such legislation, you should be able to point them out. After all, lots of states have enacted this type of law, yet fail to see any deviation in firearms death trends, whether accidental or otherwise. All it really seems to do is prevent firearms from being readily accessible in case of emergency. And this has absolutely no bearing on the shooting being discussed, considering that the firearms the shooter used were, in fact, locked away.
5. “These rules are so basic that they should be accepted in the same way as ‘always point your gun in a safe direction.'”
-None of your proposed legislative solutions are as sensible or empirically-validated as this tried and trusted rule. And if these laws were indeed so sensible and basic, don’t you think that most “people of the gun” (who are almost always total sticklers for safe firearms handling) would agree with you?
Your proposals are not supported by evidence and would not have helped prevent this tragedy.
Low Budget Dave: I came here to respond to your comment, but I find that GunNut pretty well summed it up.
You’re being quite dishonest to state that certain proposals would not have stopped this tragedy. You don’t know that.
“You’re being quite dishonest to state that certain proposals would not have stopped this tragedy. You don’t know that.”
You’re being quite dishonest to state that certain proposals would have stopped this tragedy. You don’t know that.
See what I did there?
You’re right; I can’t know for certain. But that’s what the “would have, could have, should have” game is all about– probabilities; there are always outliers (for example, the criminals who stay armed regardless of how strict gun laws are). And is this not just a touch hypocritical? Virtually every post I have seen you make is in the vein of “X gun control would have prevented Y incident”; this is also something else that cannot be known “for sure,” but rather one you believe is justified logically and statistically. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. The choice is either to discard the paradigm of probabilities and likelihoods altogether– and therefore your own statistics- and reasoning-based policy proposals– or to defend your own ideas against the same methods you use to justify them.
Your choice.
Here’s your mistake: “for example, the criminals who stay armed regardless of how strict gun laws are,” or at least it’s a mistake if I understood you correctly that “criminals will always get guns.”
That’s one of the big gun-rights lies. When you consider where the guns come from which are used in crime, lawful gun owners, it’s easy to see how that can be diminished through proper controls.
And please don’t tell me criminals get guns from other criminals. That’s a dodge. I explained it here: http://mikeb302000.blogspot.it/2012/10/criminals-will-always-get-guns-is-poor.html
These are the classic arguments that the NRA always brings up. They want me to prove that my proposal will work before they consider it. Silly. The statistics are against you on this one.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/
With all due respect, throwing in a link to a newspaper article filled with colorful graphs that are only nominally related to our current subject of discussion hardly wins you the day.
In fact, the only statistic of those twelve facts that is remotely relevant– number eight– is pulled from a study that 1) differs from the majority of the literature on the subject, and 2) is so heavily “controlled” for various factors that it’s bound to over- or under-control for one thing or another (even unintentionally). A look at the raw, real-world data and violent crime trends over the past few years casts some serious doubts on this study.
If you can cite relevant and untainted statistics that discredit my views or support your own, please post them. I’d be happy to respond.
Well, I actually liked the first graph in the article. It showed that almost all the mass shooters were lawful-gun owners, in other words, they were one of you. And you wonder why proper gun control laws need to be directed at the law-abiding.
Your right mikeb, there does need to be a discussion about violence and its root causes.
That being said, is a debate where one side has no facts, only emotions, and a position based on the lie that gun control of the law abiding reduces violence, when all govt. evidence proves it does not?
No, any debate that has all that stacked on one side, the anti’s side, is not a sane, rational discussion that will ever produce a decrease in violence no matter how eloquently it is spun.
Your right, we should hold people and government accountable though.
Lets identify who exactly is responsible for the majority of that violence first.
The government acknowledges in USDOJ National Gang Threat Assessment 2011, see pg 14, chart #8 for that massive number of violent crimes committed in the US each year committed by gang members.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/2011-national-gang-threat-assessment
For several decades, studies have been conducted on crime and causalities by various bodies including major universities, criminologists and even the U.S. Department of Justice.
These studies have found that approximately 80% of all crime is committed by 20% of all criminals. Some of the studies have provided slightly different numbers but all of them have found that a small group of criminals commit a vastly disproportionate number of crimes than their peers.(Wolfgang et al ., 1972; Petersilia et al ., 1978; Williams, 1979; Chaiken and Chaiken, 1982; Greenwood with Abrahamse, 1982, and Martin and Sherman,1986).
Hence add in the career criminals.
CDC -Suicidal people speak for them-selves as suicide is a felony.
Shall we review police studies in Chicago and NYC where between 76-80% of those involved in shootings, both shooter and injured were both involved in criminal activity at the time of the incident.
http://www.popcenter.org/problems/drive_by_shooting/PDFs/Block_and_Block_1993.pdf, http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/2007_firearms_discharge_report.pdf,
http://www.nyclu.org/files/nypd_firearms_report_102207.pdf
Yeah, review of all the govt. data above shows over 92% of all killings by illegal use of a firearm are committed by career criminals, gang members, and suiciders. A sane person would normally address the largest problem first don’t you agree?
Lets continue this review by acknowledging how many of the existing gun control laws actually apply to the bad guys.
http://supreme.justia.com/us/390/85/
Haynes vs. U.S. 390 U.S. 85 1968 where the US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of Haynes that any law requiring a felon to self incriminate themselves and violate their 5th amendment rights was not enforceable as a charge for prosecution.
Hence criminals don’t have to follow 85% of the existing 22,417 gun control laws that do so, e.g. your stolen weapons, registrations, etc….
Would you care to suggest that the 5th amendment be repealed, no, don’t think you would!
Then we should review how well those laws are enforced anyway.
Like the BATF for refusing to prosecute more than 1% of the 1.83 mil felons, others, and crazies rejected by the background check since 1994.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/html/bcft/2008/bcft08st.pdf
USDOJ Background Check & Firearm Transfer report 2008
Like the BATF for refusing to catch ANY of those lying on their 4473 forms (Cho, Loughner & Holmes were crazy, they lied) or using fake identifications.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/03/21/national/main280557.shtml General Accounting Office study
Like the BATF for refusing to do anything about the 95% of felons who don’t even attempt to buy from a licensed source to begin with.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=940 DOJ Firearms use by Offenders Nov 2001
Like the BATF for refusing to allow civilians access to use the NICS background check for private sales as only licensed dealers are allowed.
Lets not forget that our politicians play a significant role in enabling the crazies to go free. As a result of VA Tech, Pub. L. 110-180 NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 was enacted.
http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/PUBLAW/HTML/PUBLAW/0-0-0-38245.html
The real question and failure, is what have the states actually funded or resourced to do so?
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/nics
Going to the actual website, we see as of July 2012, there are only 1.7 mil records of people who by due process have lost their 2A rights for being severely mentally ill. Yet mental health experts agree that on avg. over 23.15 mil US adults (50% of current 2.7 mil prisoners) are severely mentally ill.
So is that the 80 mil law abiding gun owners fault, BATF fault or the politicians, sucker question I know!
Then all those failures of people in position of authority, who repeatedly fail to do something about it.
Like the psychiatrist for Cho (VA Tech killer) who failed to notify authorities about Cho before his shooting rampage. You should hold VA Tech responsible for failing to implement appropriate safety measures after they disarmed their students. Review the timeline of the VA Tech shooting and explain again why more laws should be implemented when so many failures occurred that were NOT the law abiding gun owners responsibility!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre_timeline
You should hold the sheriff in AZ responsible for failing to press charges against Loughner 4 to 5 times prior to the Gifford’s shooting as we see death threats are not a felony in AZ when your parents are politically connected like Loughners. Gifford’s actually ignored death threats and had no security, how foolish.
The military at least did a little of what antis refuse to do, hold those responsible for failure accountable. They convened a military tribunal and found those 9 Army officers guilty of dereliction of duty for failing to follow military procedures and protocols in handling and processing obvious mentally ill people in their ranks. The guilty finding has ended any hope of advancement essentially ending those 9 Officers careers.
http://www.wane.com/dpps/military/Army-reprimands-9-officers-in-Fort-Hood-shooting_3745084
Lets not forget the heroes in Aurora CO. You know, the psychiatrist and the Risk Review Board at Colorado University. They had Holmes under review and when he dropped out of school, they just like irresponsible children, dropped the issue and notified no one, even when they had acknowledged that he was a risk.
Thereby enabling Holmes to continue and engage in his killing spree. Lest we not acknowledge the Cinemark theatres who disarm their patrons and do nothing to protect those they disarm should be held accountable as well.
Boy you better get right on holding those actually responsible for failing to enforce the existing laws.
Yet your pseudo and unsubstantiated fantasies that it would is credible based on the rants of uncredible people like yourself mikeb, ROTLFMAO, ROTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO.
Man your cuckoo for cocoa puffs routine is indeed entertaining at times.
Dave, the fanaticism on this blog has increased over the last year or so. Imagine that not a one of these so-called Armed Intelligentsia characters have the sense to agree with you.
right. valuing a constitutional amendment is “fanaticism”.
LOL.
We must ALL be wrong Mike.
Well, yes. That’s why the more enthusiastic among you are continually trying to achieve the perfect echo-chamber. You guys have spammed my posts so overwhelmingly with personal attacks and off-topic nonsense that Robert has acquiesced to the demands to eliminate them (my posts, not the personal attacks). Some want my commenting privileges revoked.
Yes, you’re wrong, dead wrong.
Like the students and teachers are dead because the lie that gun free zones will prevent violence and the people like you who enabled the creation of those gun free victim disarmament zones do indeed have the blood of those innocents on your hands.
Dang you should be proud of your accomplishments man!
Mike, provide me solid evidence that your proposals will in fact fix the problems you intend them to solve, and I’ll be on the gun-control side faster than you can say “gun show loophole.”
“Solid evidence,” is that what you want? That would be in place of using your head and dropping the biased and defensive gun-rights position for a moment.
Well, I suppose you realize that “solid evidence” about what WOULD happen IF certain rules were followed is not that easy to come by. In fact, I’d say such “solid evidence” does not exist except in the Minority Report.
I guess, if you want to maintain any honesty and integrity, you’ll just have to use your head after all.
You never use your head, oh thats right, we should just do what you say, nots you do, LOL!
Says Dave, thank you Dave for you keen review of the issues. Yeah, well Dave tell me how selling farts in a bottle would have prevented these crimes. # 1 the owner of the guns in question did have a background check done, for each gun. #2 should they also not be able to own a hammer, metal saws, bolt cutters, murder their Mother, cutting torches, or any other tool able to remove a gun lock? You tell me Dave. I have a real solution, The Feds should buy every gun owner a big beautiful safe, and an alarm system with monitoring. And I’ll agree to put them in it and set my alarm when I leave for work.
So it sounds like you are agreeing with me that gun controls are a good idea, you just want to make sure they work?
Sorry to be so silly, but everyone keeps repeating those same tired arguments. “If you can’t prevent every single gun crime, then there is no point in preventing any of them.” That is like saying: “If anyone in America parks in a handicap spot without a license, then we should do away with all handicap spots.”
Still waiting for either of you einstein wannabes to prove how implementation of gun control has reduced violence anywhere.
Come on Dave, we havent got all millenium!
There are plenty of govt websites with crime data to prove your position.
I am not your Google. Look it up yourself. As far as I know every study of background checks has determined that they reduce crime. Are you reading different stories?
I understand that gun confiscation does not reduce crime, at least not in the first 60 years or so, but I don’t understand what the argument is against background checks.
http://www.center4research.org/2010/08/do-background-checks-on-firearms-really-work/
Are you really repeating that nonsensical request? How can you prove a negative? How can one prove why something did not happen?
Rahm came up with “innovative ideas”??! Haaahahaahaha!
Politicians, most of them being the psychological deviants that they are have a different thought process than the rest of us and will of course not properly punish their psychological-low-IQ brethren that are the criminals.
They show leniency to those who do not deserve it – criminals and
they are too hard with those who again, do not deserve it – law abiding citizens.
Just wanted to share a little bit of news with everyone that I think you’ll find interesting and worth spreading. It seems Jacob Tyler (the Clackamas Mall killer) was confronted face to face with a concealed carrier as his weapon jammed. Read more and please share – this information is going to be needed with the gun control nuts gearing up:
http://easybakegunclub.com/news/1943/Clackamas-Mall-Shooter-Was-Confonted-By-Concealed-.html
First you guys told us the problem there was that the mall was a gun-free zone, not you come up with this wild story. Pleeeease.
Seriously Mike, this is not even about guns.
Cognitive dissonance, look it up.
People sometimes break the law, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The word is, I believe, “criminals.” The mall was a gun-free zone in the legal (not literal) sense. One man violated the law by bringing a gun in to shoot up the place. Another man violated the law by bringing in a gun to protect himself and others.
Just as you can argue that “assault weapons” bans and other legislative proposals will stop most (but not all) criminal use of the same, it can also be argued that concealed carry bans will stop most, not all, legal concealed carry in a given area. There are always outliers, but these are the exception that prove the rule. This man just happened to be an incredibly fortuitous outlier.
Also, “wild story” though this may be, we humble TTAG folk didn’t come up with it. We merely found it and posted it up for all the world to see; it’s hard to come to the conclusion that we “came up with it.”
Then it should have contained the disclaimer: possible fabricated story which never really happened.
Well mikeb is indeed the expert on fabricating things, then again, one who continuously lies to promote their agenda after awhile, has so much difficulty telling the truth from his lies, he cant tell the difference.
We understand mikeb, you cant help it!
I wanted to confirm this story before addressing it. Having since found a second source which included an video interview I’m calling this valid information.
MikeB’s cognitive dissonance aside, rational people will see this as a proof of what we, and the Israelis have known for decades.
When crazy people try to use public venues to murder lots of people, you stop them by returning fire, not with laws, signs, or wishful thinking.
Why did our legislators and people like MikeB force the children of Connecticut to be left defenseless against one armed punk?
Why did they actively prevent the defense of these innocent people, and why are they disinterested in objectively evaluating the results of their policies?
Children are dead because of the failed policy of packing them into free fire zones.
I’m tired of hearing about unarmed teachers defending their students with closet doors.
It’s time rational people had a national discussion about allowing legally armed citizens to carry in public schools.
maybe you should have to undergo a psych eval when you get a permit to purchase, but thats about it, maybe All records should be looked at… who knows. I love my gun
and would never think to hurt an innocent person with it. My gun only kills targets, Zombies, and those out to hurt me, my family or anyone on the street, if i see danger i will not think twice about saving a family or a member of a family. Maybe rather then taking the guns and ammo away we should find out Why people are going crazy and FIX THE PROBLEM.
Metal detectors everywhere….
Oh god, the crazies are all over c-span this morning.
Everyone who owns an ar-15 is a crazy person getting ready to rebel against the government. EVERYONE. Or so says Ladd Everitt of crazy people trying to take all your guns away.com
As of today I get to decide how to protect myself and family. Until the state is willing to provide me the same 24 hour a day protection the people in government leadership get I’ll continue to take a self service approach to security.
Is the Obama who wept over the children who were killed in CT the same Obama who voted 3 times against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act?
Is the Mayor Bloomberg who wants to ban guns willing to give up his personal weapons, if any, and the guns of his security detail?
Do the Americans who mourn the deaths of these children killed in CT also mourn the deaths of the 50,000,000 children killed in abortion clinics?
Seriously?! These people have not opened a history book in quite some time. Guns do not kill people. People are sinful and wicked and will remain so until Jesus comes back. The indians killed people (and huge buffalos) without the help of guns! Should we ban tomahawks and bow and arrows too? We could go all the way back to the very beginning and see that Cain killed Abel without the help of a gun. There’s the example of the King who used lions to do the dirty work (Daniel in the Lions Den). History makes it obvious that if someone really wants to kill they’ll do so with or without a gun. Or what about the mad man in China who stabbed 23 children yesterday? He had no gun. The problem isn’t the 2nd ammendmant. The problem is wicked people. So anit-gun folks let me tell ya how to fix this problem: Pick up your Bible, read it, get convicted, repent, follow Christ, and preach Him to a lost world. Laws do not fix wicked peoples hearts. Jesus does. A changed heart equals changed behavior. So there it’s that easy. And let me add this: If someone takes my guns away and leaves me and my children out in the boonies with no protection and something happens they BETTER pray like crazy that Jesus comes back because the mama bear in me will come out! *You don’t have to agree with my on my religious beliefs but I’m sure you can agree with me on the fact that wicked people need changed hearts.
Okay, I think I’ve gotten fed up. It’s time for someone to compile the facts and start disseminating the information that proves that gun control doesn’t protect people. I don’t want a communistic country that allows criminals to thrive and kills the rights and freedoms of the people. The constitution was set up from people to prevent this from happening and yet they are still trying. Take back our country by voting for freedom and contacting your legislators. Let them know that you will not vote for people who want to control the people and will thrown this country down the drain.
I can tell you all, the Left has no moral compass, no God, love the freedom to abort a child, and they claim the enlightened high ground. I see another Civil War on the horizon, it saddens me. The Left is trying to disarm the Right before the war starts and the Right is just lazy enough to allow it to happen.
Yeah, that’s what is happening. Right wing cops, firemen and retired military are giving up their guns in droves just to keep liberals happy. Ha.
Parks207, good for you, you are correct in your assessment. Big Gov is quite dangerous, aint it.
Let’s support/create a mandatory tax on all gun sales that goes directly to Mental Health services. I’d pay $5 more per gun if I thought it’d help prevent a single incident like what just happened in Connecticut.
Respectfully,
Scott Caplan
So since over 92% of the killings by illegal use of a firearm are committed each year by career criminals, gang members and suciders, explain again how these people responsible for the massive majority of the carnage will be taxed?
All while ignoring the fact that in Haynes vs US 390, 85, 1968 a US Supreme Court ruling stating quite clearly that no person was legally liable to obey any law requiring them to violate their 5th amendment right of no self incrimination, making 85% of the existing 22,417 gun control laws not applicable to the bad guys.
Come on Scott, show everyone how such a tax on the less than 7% and not taxed upon the career criminals, gang members, suiciders, carzies and non gun owners is constitutional?
Rights are for EVERYONE so tax everyone or drop it as such a proposal is rather naeive!
This is about responsible gun owners making a conscious choice that transcends left/right 2nd amendment debates. I own guns. I would pay $5 more per gun to fund mental health services in this nation to prevent another massacre. Wouldn’t you?
Liberalism is a mental disorder. “Bring back Patriotism and God to the classroom”.
Yeah, all that stuff about “respecting other people’s rights.” We need to stamp that out and force them to worship.
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