On Mon, 04 Feb 2013 08:37:38 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:
On Mon, 04 Feb 2013 09:32:56 +0700, John B.
wrote:
On Sun, 03 Feb 2013 16:20:26 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:
This thread was getting so long that it wouldn't download so I've cut
out much of it.
Who needs a zip gun, when criminals steal $122 million worth of
firearms each year? (FBI statistics).
You rather defeat the argument of gun records don't you. $122 million
dollars worth of stolen guns in the market place, outside the
registration system.
They're "outside" the registration system because there IS NO
registration system.
If there was, and if the original owners were legally responsbible to
control their guns (as in Switzerland, to repeat our example), you'd
have a lot fewer stolen guns.
As I remember your description the Swiss had to report the loss of a
gun immediately. So to follow their path, my gun is ripped off, I call
the cops immediately I get home from the store and discover it, give
them the serial number and description and everything. The gun has
still dissappeared into the depths of the criminal system.
But maybe we are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. when
I was a young lad you could be pretty sure that there were guns/gun in
every farm house in the state and in a large percentage of the houses
in town too, yet (My uncle was a Deputy Sheriff) gun theft was an
almost infinitesimal part of any criminal activity that went on in the
state.
Hell, there's plenty of good stuff on the black market, thanks to a
vitually complete lack of accountability for gun owners to secrure
their guns.
Yes, rather.
Certainly you can record the sale of
every legally sold firearm but I would argue that there will be, as
long as it is financially viable, an underground gun market catering
to those who are engaged in an activity where they do not wish to have
an identifiable weapon.
It would be a hell of a lot smaller, over time, in all likelihood. If
you want to put a punch into those 200,000+ guns stolen each year,
make the owners responsible. It seems to work in some other countries.
Rather a strange attitude. Prosecute the victim.
It was only a matter of time before that came up. I expected it from
Gunner first. g
Well, that "victim" is the source of at least 20 guns in criminal
hands. What do you think about that, John? Is it hopeless? Are we
doomed to see 230,000 guns per year transferred from us lawful gun
owners to criminals, because no one holds us responsible for
controlling our guns?
If so, if you want to live in denial-land, where we're always
blameless and nothing can be done, the anti-gun crowd will push for
the only course we leave open to them, which is to ban guns.
We've brought it on ourselves. We aren't "victims." We're slobs who
feed the criminal market for guns. You and I may have 1/2" steel
safes, but you excuse people who have guns hanging on their walls, or
displayed in flimsy gun cases, or standing in the hall closet or
laying in a nightstand drawer. Because that's where guns used in
crimes come from. That, and private sales with no background checks,
and straw purchases that are low-risk for the straw buyers because we
have no registration or mandatory reporting of gun thefts, like the
24-hour limit they have in Switzerland.
We're strong on rights, and feeble on responsbility.
You may be perfectly responsible. But the next guy is not.
That is my point exactly. I'm responsible so you make me fill out all
kinds of forms and papers. The guy down the street takes his baseball
bat out for a walk and comes back with an unregistered pistol and two
loaded magazines.
Unfortunately, we can't write laws just for you -- unless you move to
a desert island, by yourself. d8-)
Certainly not. But how about writing laws to punish the evil doers.
Uh, John, we have thousands of those.
"Use of a firearm in a crime results in a mandatory death sentence",
that ought to cut down gun crime a bit.
Oh, yeah. We're one of the few developed countries in the world with a
death sentence for murder, but we still have one of the highest murder
rates of any country where they bother to keep a count of them.
That's worked out really well, hasn't it? We already have heavy
sentences, John. Criminals don't care. They don't plan on getting
caught. Listen to the interviews with them. You can hear them late at
night on MSNBC.
How do you feel about having to take a driver's test, to pay for a
driver's license, and to fill out all that paperwork to buy and
license a car? Then they keep the registration records. I'll bet that
gets you steaming, eh?
And it doesn't seem to curtail auto deaths, does it?
Yeah, it probably does. Our rate (8.5 deaths/billion vehicle- km) is
in the same range as other developed countries with good licensing,
traffic laws, and enforcement.
We're right in there with western Europe on highway deaths and a small
fraction of those, say, in eastern Europe. We're a large multiple of
Europe's figure on gun-related crime. You figure it out.
Which is my
point, will that fu fur about guns actually do any good? Or is it just
another political football that will result in more complexity for the
honest man?
It would do good. Your automobile comparisons are the arguments used
by people who are grasping at straws, without thinking. A billion
vehicle-kilometers is one hell of a lot of miles spent hurtling around
in a two-ton piece of sheet metal at high speeds. I don't know how
you'd make a sensible comparison with guns, but anything you'd come up
with would have to compare gun deaths with cars that spend about 99.9%
of the time parked in a garage. The death rates with parked cars, like
the death rates with guns residing in a holster or in your gun case,
are awfully small. d8-)
The point isn't guns and cars. The point is deaths. Approximately
43,000 deaths are caused by automobiles every year while guns
(disregarding suicides) cause some 12,000 but there is this fevered
reaction to the 12,000 and a rather jaundiced reaction to another New
Jersey Turnpike crash with 50 dead and 100 injured.
Everyone points the finger and argues when I say that guns don't kill
people, people kill people, but cars don't kill people either. You
just never hear about a rogue auto roaring out of the garage on a
killing rampage, all on it lonesome.
No Ed, it is almost a religious sort of thing - guns kill (Believe!)
eliminating Guns will make this a perfect world (Believe!)
Just like we outlawed alcohol, prostitution, dope, gambling, pistols
(in N.Y.). and we also outlawed murder, thieving and rape, too.
Just one or two more laws and we will reach Nirvana.
Oh....that's about what's being proposed for guns, isn't it? d8-)
I get the head ache and he gets the gun.
To my personal knowledge my family has owned firearms since
the 1890's and very likely far longer...
Mine fought in Queen Anne's War, 1702. d8-)
...and not a one of us has ever
committed a crime (well other then shooting deer out of season :-)
with a firearm.
See above.
But worse, in my opinion, gun control or lack thereof appears to have
become nearly a religious issue. I hear people say that they are
afraid of guns, wouldn't have them in the house, and on and on, but it
really is a truism that guns don't kill people, people kill people.
People with guns are so much more effective, though. g That's what
the evidence and statistics tell us.
Of course they are more effective, after all they have been under
development for several hundred years, they ought to be pretty
effective.
Furthermore, they were invented for the purpose of killing people. All
of that development has only made them better.
It is very comforting to have a weapon upon which innumerable people
have spent so many years perfecting :-)
Witness the latest incarnations. Damned efficient, they are. You can
shoot up a whole classroom full of kids with one in a minute or two.
That's productivity!
Then you shoot yourself :-(
That's your option. It does seem to be a pattern, but the kids get it
in the head, first. And that's the problem.
But lets be honest, it wasn't the gun that did it, the gun was laying
on some pawn shop shelf for a year or more, never shot a soul.
Ah, if we're talking about Adam Lanza, it was in his mother's gun
cabinet.
It was
a twisted individual that did it and until you can somehow eradicate
these people there will probably always school killings.
A twisted individual with a gun.
The last
Japanese school killing was done with a kitchen knife.
How many did he kill? How many school kitchen-knife murders have
resulted in something like, say Columbine plus Virginia Tech plus
Newtown numbers of deaths?
Ed, you argue without merit. You seem to be saying that a limited
number of murders is rather meaningless. so where do we draw the line?
I'm saying fewer murders is better than more murders. Is that without
merit?
Kill one and "what the hell", Two and it is "My goodness". Three and
"what a shame".....
Twenty-six, and all hell breaks loose. We're reaping what we've sown.
I do agree that having an assault rifle makes it a little easier but
the lack there of is not going to stop them. After all Timmy McVeigh
didn't have a gun.
Adam Lanza et al. sure did.
But for sheer volume, nothing to date has equaled the good old
automobile. I just did a search on "Deaths due to Automobile
Accidents" and "killed by firearms every year". The numbers were
42,836 for Autos and 8,306 by firearms. That is some 500% going for
the Cars..... and they are registered and the drivers are all
certified competent.
Let me ask you some questions at a comparable level of mature
sensibility:
If you want to kill somebody in his third-floor apartment, which would
you choose, a gun or a car?
You are asking very slanted questions. In fairness I might well answer
that I'd wait until the guy starts off for work and sneak up behind
him with a ball bat.
I am asking STUPID questions, not slanted ones. They're equally stupid
as equating automobile accidents with intentional murders committed
with a gun.
If you want to go to church on Sunday, and it's five miles away, which
would you do: hop in your car and drive there, or grab your Glock and
start shooting?
Hardly a logical question. Effectively you seem to be justifying some
40,000 deaths a year because you are too lazy to walk to church. Given
the overwhelming propensity for blubber that seems to have permeated
the American public I would have to say that the walk, whether at
glock point or not, would be of great benefit to the worshipers.
One mo Why does "going postal" not refer to mowing people down with
a mail truck?
You'll have to either stop using that modern slang or provide an
explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal
The reference refers to a date several years after I departed the U.S.
Where are you now? Is it gunners' nirvana?
These are not intended to merit serious responses, anymore than your
car/gun equivalency merits a serious response. You know the answer.
Rhetorical questions and statements conducted at something below the
maturity level of a high school freshman are not very effective.
As for kids (the latest firearm furor) there were, in the United
States, an average of 6 children 0-14 years old were killed and 694
injured every day in motor vehicle crashes during 2003. Given that
there have been something like 200 killed in school shootings in the
past 15 years it begins to look like a pretty small number when you
compare it to car "accidents".
See above. You know the answer. If not, talk to the parents and
friends of some of the kids killed in those school shootings.
You are evading the question of why there is little or no outcry about
kids getting killed in auto "accidents" and there is this great
demonstration of grief about school shootings.
That's right. I'm not evading it, I'm just expressing disbelief that
any mature adult would ask it.
Understanding the difference is essential to understanding what's
going on here.
Start with the fact that accidents are accidents. Then consider that
How many "automobile accidents" are actually accidents and not caused
by unsafe driving acts?
So you'd prefer to hold drivers responsible? I don't disagree. The
anguish of a parent whose kid was killed by a drunk driver (I know two
of them personally) is similar to that of a parent of a kid who was
killed by someone with a gun who shot indiscriminately. I suspect that
it's worse if they were shot *intentionally*. That must be utterly
devastating. I've been listening to the parents of those kids in
Newtown and they sound worse than shattered.
I also hold gun owners responsible for keeping their guns out of the
hands of criminals -- like they do in the countries whose gun laws so
many gun-rightists seem to admire.
As I have mentioned, years ago I was friends with a Maine State
Policemen. He told me that the police had gotten an act passed in the
legislature that allowed them to impound every car involved in a
death. they took the car to the police garage and stripped it down to
determine whether the "accident" was caused by mechanical failure.
they found that in nearly no cases was there a mechanical reason for
the "accident". Which leaves ?
Several things. For example, the time I hit two little girls, ages 8
and 10, near Montreal. They didn't die, but one suffered a broken leg.
They were riding a snowmobile (the 10-year-old was driving) and they
came out of a side street, hidden behind a snow bank, right into my
path. I had no time to react; they were riding fast and they didn't
look. That was an accident. Any negligence was on the part of their
parents.
I've been involved in three other accidents. Two of them were people
who turned left in front of me. They both claimed they didn't see me.
I have no reason not to believe them. Was that negligence on their
part? I don't think so. I think it was a brain fart on their part.
The third of those was a head-on that occurred when I hit a patch of
black ice and the limited-slip differentials on my 4WD Bronco locked
off, then on, throwing my car across the road out of my control. Was
that a mechanical failure? I don't think so. It was a primitive
limited-slip (1967) that reacted fiercely and uncontrollably -- bad
design, maybe. Was it negligence on my part? The court didn't think
so. They recognized that I was driving reasonably and responsibly.
So my own experience is that accidents are accidents. How many are
cases of negligence? Some, but none that I've been involved in --
except, again, for the parents of those little girls.
mass killings in schools are intentional -- and they're being done
lately with high-capacity semiautomatic firearms, which have become
the weapon of choice for getting your "Man Card Renewed."
Do you know what that phrase refers to? Did you see the Bushmaster
ads? If so, you should have some insight into the psychology of what's
been going on. You already know the mechanics of it. Then consider
that we're doing just about nothing about it. Finally, put yourself in
the place of a parent who's kid was killed intentionally, with a
weapon intended to spray bullets and that appeals mostly to people
with manhood insecurities, and you'll begin to get it.
I can't objectively answer as none of my children have died but I
doubt very much that my feelings would be very different whether
someone had gone into a classroom and killed the kid or whether they
had run them down with a car.
I think you're being unrealistic about that.
I really cannot believe that people would rationalize the death of a
child by saying, "Oh, I feel so much better about Johnny's death as he
was run down by a drunken driver and not shot in the schoolroom".
It's not rationalization. One is a case of an accident and seems to be
reconciled by most such parents with the risks of living --
eventually, although that does little to ease their grief. At least
they recognize what it is.
The other is an intentional murder performed with a gun designed for
killing lots of people. You'll ask why that nut had such a gun in his
hands. You may ask why anyone would have it except to live out his
fantasies about killing. In fact, several of the parents at Newtown
have been asking exactly that. I have no answer for them. I don't
think there is an answer. The person or persons who yelled "the second
Amendment" as an answer in that hearing only made the frustration and
anguish worse. It's not an answer. It's an excuse.
In short, I believe the argument is without substance.
And I believe you've gone all around the barn trying to avoid the
obvious.
Do you really think that the parents of a kid killed in a car crash
are any less sorrowful then the parents of a kid killed at school?
They're less anguished than if those kids were killed intentioanlly.
An accidental tragedy IS less difficult to accept than an intentional
killing of a first-grade kid.
Yes, Guy driving 10 - 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, jumping
lights and making a rolling stop at the corner stop sign and it is
referred to as an "accident" so that is o.k. Really, really, different
from a school shooting.
Me thinks that you've been brainwashed.
I don't think so. You, on the other hand, sound like you got your
ideas from the editorial columns of The American Rifleman. Your
argument is for maintaining the status quo, which produces a crazy and
irresponsible result.
No, I haven't read the American Rifleman since the early 1970's In
those days they had articles about ballistics, long range target
shooting, etc.
In another post there is a bit about manufacturing lower receiver
halves. I can't even begin to imagine why anyone would want a M-16 -
AR-whatever, with a 30 round magazine (painted black :-). Back when I
was gunsmithing I used to turn mauser actions into single shot rifles
:-)
"Brought up in a gun family"? I started hunting at age 11, with my
dad's 12-ga. Stevens double and my own .22 rimfire rifle. My mother
was a very good rifle shot, too.
And how many time has a gun in your household up and shot someone
across the room?
Changing the subject now, John? I thought the issue was that I wasn't
brought up in a gun family.
No, you added the bit about things flying across the room and killing
people. I merely commented on it.
I'll tell you something about my gun family: Every gun was assumed to
be loaded, all the time. Many of the kinds of gun accidents that occur
to "law abiding" gun owners would never have happened in our house.
I'm going to be leaving soon, so I'll try to get to the bottom line.
You support the status quo. Or maybe the status quo with more guns,
which will make even more guns available for theft by criminals. This
is what it all looks like:
1) You're supporting a system that puts 230,000 guns in the hands of
criminals each year, because:
Gee, you got it wrong right at the start. I don't support anything. I
cast doubt on whether a gun registration, data base, call it what you
want, is going to have any effect on gun crime.
You on the other hand appear to believe that passing another law
banning XXXX will cause a decrease in crime. I mention the Sullivan
law in New York and the Volstead Act and you immediately start to
rationalize reasons why THESE LAWS didn't work at the same time
assuming, or course, that your laws will be effective.
I go on to mention the anti-prostitution, anti-drug laws,
anti-gambling, even anti child spanking, laws all of which just don't
seem to work
But YOUR laws WILL work.......
You are correct it is time to leave. You with your (Mormon) Sanctified
underwear arguing that you are protected from sin and me saying "if
you pee in your paints do they still protect you?".
2) You consider people who fail to secure their guns to be "victims,"
rather than what they a irresponsible (usually) sources of guns
that enter the criminal black market through theft -- often blindingly
dumb and easy burglary.
3) Your resistance to background checks for private sales makes it
easy for even a convicted felon to buy a gun. All he has to do is lie.
4) You make the criminal activity of strawman purchasing relatively
easy and low-risk, because we have no universal gun background checks,
registration, and databases that would make it much more practical for
law officers to track down the strawman and nail him. Without
requirements for reporting thefts and background checks for private
sales (we have this in NJ; despite having crime-ridden cities like
Newark, Patterson and Camden, our murder rates are below the national
average and FAR lower than many states with lax gun laws), all a
strawman has to do is claim the gun was stolen.
5) Rather than adopt some of the simple, clear-headed laws that allow
countries like Switzerland and Israel to have widespread gun ownership
and low rates of gun crime, you wrap yourself in your "rights" and
ignore the fact that we impose very few responsibilities. Rather than
face them, you dodge and weave, comparing guns with cars and knives,
disregarding the fact that it is guns that are the basis of much of
our crime problem.
6) You argue that the death penalty for all gun crimes would help,
ignoring the fact that we have the death penalty in many states but we
also have the highest firearms-related rates of murder among the
developed, wealthy countries.
I didn't argue, I suggested more severe penalties for crimes using a
firearm. There is a difference.
Your entire argument is a denial-based case for maintaining the status
quo.
Your arguments are the root of the problem, John. You won't stop
criminality; we've always had it, even when we had death penalties for
a variety of crimes. There is no deterrent that has ever stopped
crime.
But the law-abiding are much more responsive to the deterrent of
penalties. It IS possible to go a long way toward keeping guns out of
criminals' hands, if we had a few sensible laws, like the ones I've
described, instead of the crazy quilt of over 10,000 mostly
ineffectual gun-control laws. Our gun laws are a fabric of
cheesecloth, enacted because politics won't allow us to write and
enforce laws that actually matter. We're all about rights, and to hell
with responsibilities. So we have what we deserve: outrageous crime
rates and a never-ending political battle over peripheral issues.
--
Cheers,
John B.