gun control rant thread

just a reminder. write/call your congress critter if you care about these issues
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

More more point on the core of this thread:

The observation that people can break laws to get guns presupposes the ready availability of guns.

We have a lot of guns.

If guns were much more scarce and expensive, it would be much harder for people who shouldn't have them to acquire them.

I don't think this would stop criminals with money (drug cartels, etc), but it would make it less likely that you'd end up dealing with a meth-head or random nut job who had the willingness to break laws but not the means to buy one through illegal channels.

Yes, they could still steal, but fewer guns = harder to find one to steal, and if common sense isn't enough to get guns in safes, maybe a large price tag is.

In the spirit of this thread, that's just my observation about the counter to that frequently raised argument that criminals don't care about anti-gun laws. The reality is that it would take a long time to meaningfully reduce the number of guns here. Another reality is that at least for the time being, I don't think a majority of people want this. I'm waiting for them to change their minds.

Things get better and worse. Humanity does seem to slowly be improving in many ways. I don't think humans will cease violence completely, but I do suspect that the notion of people carrying guns around all the time will some day seem as remote and anachronistic as carrying broadswords seems today. That time may be a long way off.

ransom wrote: More more point on the core of this thread: The observation that people can break laws to get guns presupposes the ready availability of guns. We have a lot of guns. If guns were much more scarce and expensive, it would be much harder for people who shouldn't have them to acquire them. I don't think this would stop criminals with money (drug cartels, etc), but it would make it less likely that you'd end up dealing with a meth-head or random nut job who had the willingness to break laws but not the means to buy one through illegal channels. Yes, they could still steal, but fewer guns = harder to find one to steal, and if common sense isn't enough to get guns in safes, maybe a large price tag is. In the spirit of this thread, that's just my observation about the counter to that frequently raised argument that criminals don't care about anti-gun laws. The reality is that it would take a long time to meaningfully reduce the number of guns here. Another reality is that at least for the time being, I don't think a majority of people want this. I'm waiting for them to change their minds. Things get better and worse. Humanity does seem to slowly be improving in many ways. I don't think humans will cease violence completely, but I do suspect that the notion of people carrying guns around all the time will some day seem as remote and anachronistic as carrying broadswords seems today. That time may be a long way off.

simply wrong, ask me how I know

ransom wrote: remote and anachronistic as carrying broadswords seems today. That time may be a long way off.

I want to carry a broadsword around all the time.

ransom wrote: The reality is that it would take a long time to meaningfully reduce the number of guns here. Another reality is that at least for the time being, I don't think a majority of people want this.

Agreed.

ransom wrote: I'm waiting for them to change their minds.

It is possible (see the UK) but unlikely

ransom wrote: I do suspect that the notion of people carrying guns around all the time will some day seem as remote and anachronistic as carrying broadswords seems today. That time may be a long way off.

We don't carry swords because there are more effective options Unless, of course, you're Jack Churchill

93EXCivic wrote:

ransom wrote: remote and anachronistic as carrying broadswords seems today. That time may be a long way off.

I want to carry a broadsword around all the time.

I am going with 2 ice axes and a shoulder mounted boom box so I can play awesome metal while hacking thru a crowd of (insert menace here)

In reply to aussiesmg:

If there are still enough guns that they're available and affordable, then we haven't tested my theory yet. Reduce by another order of magnitude and test again.

Or, maybe you're right.

Some things change. Some things stay the same. I have a hard time believing that firearms are on the short list of unwavering constants of the human condition for as long as we exist as a species.

well i'm certainly not going to live forever.

so maybe after i'm gone...

i will not, however, give up my firearms. ever. laws or no laws.

and i'm not even the criminal element anyone's worried about. best of luck with actual badguys.

Guns were basically but not completely, banned downunder in 96, it has had no effect on the average homicide or suicide rate by firearm at all yet.

http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

JoeyM wrote:

ransom wrote: I do suspect that the notion of people carrying guns around all the time will some day seem as remote and anachronistic as carrying broadswords seems today. That time may be a long way off.

We don't carry swords because there are more effective options Unless, of course, you're Jack Churchill

Fair point. I was half-shooting for humor, half serious. I think it will seem just as anachronistic, even if the reason is different. I would point out that someone carrying a sword seems not just silly, but also as a clear sign of aggression (unless it's an SCA crowd; then it's just a sign of wanting to drink beer out of tankards and sleep in tents).

Back to people's idea of guns, since that's so much of what this debate is about, that raises a point. If I know someone is carrying a gun, that makes me very uneasy, and I don't want to be around them. That includes police and military, though that's certainly a little less nervous-making. I don't think that most gun owners feel that way, and that's something I'm very curious about: What is the key difference to the way different parts of society think about what it means to carry a gun? What is the connotation?

Why is it that knowing the person next to you at the diner is armed is somewhere between a non-issue and possibly even a feeling of security, depending perhaps one what you think you know about that person?

Here's another semi-related question that just popped into my head: The NRA, though clearly not universally beloved of gun owners, is a huge and powerful entity, with large resources for media outreach. Why have they done so little to tell us about success stories? The media uses their own dime to report whatever sells, but there's plenty of ad space available. "From my cold, dead hands" isn't a message that's likely to turn someone on the fence toward the idea that gun ownership is a good and healthy thing for individuals and society.

In reply to ransom:

I feel fairly comfortable being around people that are concealed carrying because 99% of people concealed carrying are law abiding citizens who I feel I can trust not to go off and cap someone randomly.

Ransom,

The comfort level is simply familiarity, the more you are around firearms, the less of an issue it is, my bud and I both carry, we know and trust each other, we know each other's mentality when I comes to firearms.

We are both ridiculously over cautious when shooting, we take a lot of first timers out and drill them on safety.

Both of us were trained in firearms and safety throughout our careers.

It is second nature to us.

BTW you wouldn't know I was carrying.

belteshazzar wrote: well i'm certainly not going to live forever. so maybe after i'm gone...

Yep, that's the sort of timeframe I bet we're dealing with. You, and I, and probably several more generations will all be gone. Maybe many generations. Maybe we'll all be wiped out before we ever find out whether that would have happened.

I am not talking about next year.

I think one thing that makes me uneasy, is that some people seem uneasy with the idea that humanity could get by without guns. It's as though they want there to be a reason to have them. I could be misinterpreting; that goes back to my previous post about attempting to understand how the different segments of the populace see guns.

We live in berkeleying Candyland compared to the dark ages. We've added guns and become less violent. I think we'll slowly trend toward less violent, and eventually they just won't make sense.

I almost changed "think" to "hope", 'cause there's clearly some optimism on my part here. But that looks like the overarching trend, even though we have continued to be really good at brutality thus far.

aussiesmg wrote: Guns were basically but not completely, banned downunder in 96, it has had no effect on the average homicide or suicide rate by firearm at all yet. http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

yesterday I tried - in my own mathmatically inept way - to do my own analysis of that data. I look at the media deaths/100,000 before and after the ban, then took the difference between the means, squared the difference, and plugged it into a Chi Squared calculator with one degree of freedom (i.e. only comparing two catagories).

Net result: no statistical difference between the death rates before and after the ban

Now, I'm fairly mathmatically deficient. Maybe one of our clever GRMers can tell me if those were the right tests and done in the right way

Ransom, I suspect this might fit you

Not meant to be an insult BTW

In reply to ransom:

Honestly I don't feel the need to own guns or conceal carry or anything but I really enjoy shooting. Nothing it is quite as relaxing to me (except working on project cars) as popping off a few rounds and some coke cans or paper.

aussiesmg wrote: Guns were basically but not completely, banned downunder in 96, it has had no effect on the average homicide or suicide rate by firearm at all yet. http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

So the national homicide by firearm rate stayed at two?

A gun in a holster is not an issue to me. A gun in your hand,pointed at me IS an issue, but it's more an issue of my SA being a little low (ok, a LOT low, read: nonexistant) than the gun itself.

In reply to aussiesmg and 93EXCivic:

Thanks for the insight.

I had yet another round of questions, but I'll spare you. It's not like I have enough unique insight to rationalize taking over this thread...

Go ahead, this is a very rational too and fro, refreshingly so, as you are not taking offense at my comments.

Not saying my opinion is right, but it is mine.

aussiesmg wrote: Guns were basically but not completely, banned downunder in 96, it has had no effect on the average homicide or suicide rate by firearm at all yet. http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html

Don't forget that the violent crime rate went up. Same with robbery IIRC.

aussiesmg wrote: Go ahead, this is a very rational too and fro, refreshingly so, as you are not taking offense at my comments. Not saying my opinion is right, but it is mine.

No, it's right.

aussiesmg wrote: Ransom, I suspect this might fit you Not meant to be an insult BTW

No offense taken, seeing as none was intended.

As noted, there's certainly an amount of educated-guess-based optimism on my part. I guess rose-tinted glasses aren't exactly blindness, as such

The dark ages lasted something on the order of a thousand years, IIRC, with remarkably little change in day to day life. Then suddenly over a relatively short time, science, art, medicine, and ceasing to eat lettuce which had to be boiled because it had been fertilized with human feces all saw huge gains.

Assuming that a particular aspect of the way we do things was ever thus, and thus shall always be may also be regarded as possibly... What's the opposite of rose-tinting?

So, I don't think that a certain amount of guarded optimism about humanity eventually making further strides in reducing generally destructive behavior is either blind or crazy. But I'm sure not expecting to wake up and see it tomorrow.

In any case, I suspect based on your earlier, somewhat terse "ask me how I know", you fought back some frustration with me or my views to give an overview of your comfort with firearms. Thank you; I appreciate it.

That was more due to experience, having attended the scene of several multiple murders, as posted earlier, I know as a cop and as a civilian, one armed responsible person could have stopped these rampaging nutbags before it became what it did.

In both cases the weapons were obtained illegally.

I also have personally pulled my service .38 on a naked loon who ran at a marked cop car and jumped onto the hood wielding an axe. The sight of my firearm had a miraculous effect upon the nutbag, he laid the axe down and quietly climbed off the hood and laid on the ground with his hands behind his back.

This is one case only, but the effect of a brandished firearm on this guy was profound and instantaneous.

MAnkind is cruel, evil and demented. Humans CAN BE kind, loving and giving. the problem is in each individual person, rectifying the two sides of the coin. It's in out nature to be aggressive, kill or be killed. It's only become our nature to be loving, nurturing and kind in hte last 2-3k years. Even then, we still had our "moments".

As long as there are weak, there will be someone willing to take advantage. As long as there are strong, there will be someone willing to be stronger. As long as someone has something of value, someone else will want it. These are the laws of our nature. I don't see that changing in the next 2-3k years.