Gun Control vs. Trust in Police

[Sea of red]

In general, you only really hear about the plots that succeed. We have no idea how many rampages were actually attempted but foiled.

They are a are event to begin with, so I don't see what that matters.

Anyways, I don't think guns should be banned or anything like that, but the idea that we need them so we can fight oppressive governments, is just out of the context of any reality we know.

[fm93]

They are a are event to begin with, so I don't see what that matters.

It's a good point, IMO. Whenever there's a shooting in California, I see conservatives go "Oh look, California has strict gun laws and it didn't stop this shooter. Gun control doesn't work." But an oft-ignored possibility is that many more people would've attempted a mass shooting in California, but they weren't able to precisely because of California's strict gun laws. Similar to the story of the dictator who, after seeing that the village with the most doctors also had the most sick people, decided that doctors caused people to be sick and thereby got rid of all the doctors, the objection conflates correlation with causation.

Anyways, I don't think guns should be banned or anything like that, but the idea that we need them so we can fight oppressive governments, is just out of the context of any reality we know.

Yeah, that's a point I've been contemplating. Saying that you have the right to do something implies that you can actually do that thing. After all, saying "you have the right to keep unicorns as pets" is incoherent as a right, since unicorns don't exist. The Second Amendment was written at a time when a hypothetically tyrannical government's strongest weapons would've been muskets and a cannon that needed to be cleaned with a wet sponge after each shot; citizens could plausibly defend themselves with muskets of their own. But now? Citizens would have no chance defending themselves against a government that's armed with supersonic fighter jets, armored tanks, long-range missiles, and nuclear bombs.

[lilpixieofterror]

It worked really well in Australia 20 years ago.



Their conservative government's buyback of assault weapons, and sweeping gun control laws, were 100% successful in stopping mass shootings. Few government policies in history ever have turned out as successful as that one turned out to be. Sure, you could argue that the psychology of the American populace is different, and Australians lacked the insane belief that they needed guns to defend themselves from their own government, and so Americans wouldn't obey such a directive because you don't think law-abiding gun owners would actually be law-abiding when it came down to it etc. But the idea of removing existing guns from circulation has been absolutely proven to work well in Australia.

How common where mass shootings, in Australia, before the gun ban? Let's look at the data:

Gun ban date: 1996

Amount of mass shootings, in those 20 years: 9 with 65 deaths (I might add, the last violent crime, in Australia was a stabbing attack).

Let's take 20 years before so 1976 to 1996 and we end up with 114 deaths with 15 events.

I know gun activist like to claim victory here, but the whole problem is that gun crimes, across most of the west, have also been dropping too. The US has been experiencing drops too at around the same rates as high's in the late 1980's. Likewise, the population of Australia is 23.13 million while the population of the US is 318.9 million. The US will obviously have more shooting events since the US has a larger population. What needs to be shown (and hasn't) is that this ban has prevented mass shootings. It hasn't and despite your claims that guns 'rarely are smuggled' this article seems to say it does happen.

Eh? A lot of countries are wiping out tobacco use through incremental regulation. Here in New Zealand the government has been gradually dialing up the smoking regulations for decades and it's been proving very effective, and everything appears on course to have fully eliminated it by 2025.

Tobacco use is down across the US too.

[lilpixieofterror]

It's a good point, IMO. Whenever there's a shooting in California, I see conservatives go "Oh look, California has strict gun laws and it didn't stop this shooter. Gun control doesn't work." But an oft-ignored possibility is that many more people would've attempted a mass shooting in California, but they weren't able to precisely because of California's strict gun laws. Similar to the story of the dictator who, after seeing that the village with the most doctors also had the most sick people, decided that doctors caused people to be sick and thereby got rid of all the doctors, the objection conflates correlation with causation.

In other words, you have a possibility and not actual hard evidence to support your claims with. The other possibility is that it isn't detouring them at all.

Yeah, that's a point I've been contemplating. Saying that you have the right to do something implies that you can actually do that thing. After all, saying "you have the right to keep unicorns as pets" is incoherent as a right, since unicorns don't exist. The Second Amendment was written at a time when a hypothetically tyrannical government's strongest weapons would've been muskets and a cannon that needed to be cleaned with a wet sponge after each shot; citizens could plausibly defend themselves with muskets of their own. But now? Citizens would have no chance defending themselves against a government that's armed with supersonic fighter jets, armored tanks, long-range missiles, and nuclear bombs.

Of course, this assumes military personnel would be willing to kill their own citizens and that the US government would be willing to nuke it's own land. You are aware that during the US civil war, many units and people, of the US military, revolted and joined the rebels, right? Robert E Lee, before being a confederate general, was a famous US military general that was even considered, by Lincoln, as being given command of the US Military before he defected and joined the confederate cause. In conclusions you have to assume:

1. The government would actually use everything it has to take down rebels, including nuking them.
2. The soldiers would necessarily follow orders to fire on their own countrymen.
3. That defecting soldiers wouldn't bring these weapons to the rebel cause.
4. That you can't defeat a modern military, using modern weapons, without modern weapons. How many American's died in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many Russians were killed in Afghanistan? How many American's died in Vietnam? You don't need tanks, aircraft, ships, or bombs to kill lots of people on the opposing side FM. Those who don't have tons of heavy weapons have advantages of concealment and has the advantage of choosing when and where to fight while those with those nice, shiny, weapons do not have that luxury. Rebels, with guns, are very dangerous. Just ask Americans who fought in Vietnam or Russians who fought in Afghanistan just how dangerous they can be.

[Carrikature]

It worked really well in Australia 20 years ago.

Their conservative government's buyback of assault weapons, and sweeping gun control laws, were 100% successful in stopping mass shootings. Few government policies in history ever have turned out as successful as that one turned out to be. Sure, you could argue that the psychology of the American populace is different, and Australians lacked the insane belief that they needed guns to defend themselves from their own government, and so Americans wouldn't obey such a directive because you don't think law-abiding gun owners would actually be law-abiding when it came down to it etc. But the idea of removing existing guns from circulation has been absolutely proven to work well in Australia.

Buybacks have been tried. They didn't work. Legislators were surprised. They were alone in that.

[Starlight]

Hell is freezing over... Fox News is coming out swinging in favor of stricter gun controls and an assault weapons ban.

Bill O'Reilly takes stunning stance on guns after Orlando massacre:

the Second Amendment clearly states the government has a right to regulate militias, made up of individuals. They have that right in the name of public safety. Therefore, Congress should debate what kind of weapons should be available for public sale.

Meanwhile, GOP nominee, Donald Trump has likewise

[NorrinRadd]

Two particular non-ideologues at FNC, not FNC as a whole.

I doubt we'll see any of the genuine conservatives or libertarians taking that stance.

[Sparko]

A sensible-sounding solution that I've seen people now talking about is to put a limit on magazine capacity. If a gun only holds 5 bullets (or 10, or whatever), before needing reloading, it's pretty hard to kill more than 5 people at once with it.

Again disabling the ability of a weapon to work normally is still interfering with the constitutional right to bear arms in America.

besides, if you have ever shot a gun with a magazine, it takes about 1 second to swap out a magazine.

Why not make bullets illegal altogether? That would solve everything, right?

[Carrikature]

Again disabling the ability of a weapon to work normally is still interfering with the constitutional right to bear arms in America.

How? Bearing arms doesn't specify what those arms look like.

[Sparko]

How? Bearing arms doesn't specify what those arms look like.

only allowing useless firearms would defeat the intent of the constitution, thus it would be illegal. It is like saying sure, you have free speech, but only in your own bathroom where nobody can hear you.*



*which by the way is why I think "free speech zones" are unconstitutional at political rallies. They say "sure you can have free speech, but only over there, where nobody can hear you or care what you say"

[Carrikature]

only allowing useless firearms would defeat the intent of the constitution, thus it would be illegal. It is like saying sure, you have free speech, but only in your own bathroom where nobody can hear you.*


*which by the way is why I think "free speech zones" are unconstitutional at political rallies. They say "sure you can have free speech, but only over there, where nobody can hear you or care what you say"

Limiting capacity doesn't render the weapon useless by any stretch of the imagination.

[Sparko]

Limiting capacity doesn't render the weapon useless by any stretch of the imagination.

depends how much you limit it and the type of gun. An automatic pistol that could only fire one bullet before needing to be reloaded would be pretty useless - especially if you eliminated the use of magazines.


But I was talking about making bullets illegal, I guess we were talking past each other.

[Jaecp]

depends how much you limit it and the type of gun. An automatic pistol that could only fire one bullet before needing to be reloaded would be pretty useless - especially if you eliminated the use of magazines.


But I was talking about making bullets illegal, I guess we were talking past each other.

You just defeated you own argument. We already ban automatic weapons in this country (not to mention many many thing that aren't "small arms")

[Carrikature]

depends how much you limit it and the type of gun. An automatic pistol that could only fire one bullet before needing to be reloaded would be pretty useless - especially if you eliminated the use of magazines.

You could eliminate whole types of guns and still be in compliance. Automatics and semi-autos could be prohibited, for example. Revolvers for everyone would still be in compliance. Even a break-action side-by-side shotgun would get you there.

But I was talking about making bullets illegal, I guess we were talking past each other.

The context of your post was in response to Starlight mentioning a capacity limit. That's what I quoted and was responding to. I don't think anyone's actually suggesting making bullets illegal. You did, but that looked to be hyperbole (which is fine).

[rogue06]

depends how much you limit it and the type of gun. An automatic pistol that could only fire one bullet before needing to be reloaded would be pretty useless - especially if you eliminated the use of magazines.


But I was talking about making bullets illegal, I guess we were talking past each other.

Keep in mind that Clinton's Assault weapon ban did just that. It banned a pistol that could only hold a single round that after discharging you needed to break open the firearm from which you had to manually extract the casing (although a few models included an ejector), reload it and close the firearm before firing again. Yeah, a real "assault weapon" there

That goes to show that the Assault Weapon ban had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the function of the firearm but was based upon cosmetics. If it looked deadly it got included. This of course led to manufactures making some cosmetic changes (like changing the color of the stock from black to brown!) allowing them to continue selling them. This of course led to screams of outrage from the laws supporters but what did they expect when the criteria was based on appearance?

000000000000tc1.jpg
Scary-looking illegal version of the
single-shot Thompson Contender


400px-Thompson_Center_Scout_Pistol.jpg
Completely legal version with absolutely
no functional difference whatsoever