Kleck’s study is demonstrably flawed (aka nonsense). You can’t really take it seriously? It is not a CDC endorsed study.
Those deaf ears that you mention are deaf to the truth, maybe because they have absorbed some silly anecdote from their relatives.
Actually, no.
The Australian experience shows that drastically restricting access to firearms does mean they’re still available on the black market, but their cost on the black market absolutely skyrockets. So yes, they’re not unavailable, but they’re certainly less attainable.
For awhile, yes, but a law making assault rifles illegal to own eventually would make it much harder than it is now to get that weapon of choice.
If enough people open their eyes to how stupid we’re being making these guns cheap and legal to the miscreants who want to slaughter us, Congress will act. Make owning an assault rifle illegal. If you own one, here’s the grace period to turn it in. After that period, having one in your possession is a felony. Perhaps, if you’re a good citizen American, a judge will be lenient at sentencing, but you still will get your keester hauled into court. And if you’ve got something dodgy in your background, the court can send you away. And lock the gun up.
Sure, illegal guns will still be floating around since not all will get turned in. But making them illegal will give people something to report if they’re being fired at a practice range. It will give police grounds for a search and for an arrest if the guns are found in a car or piled up in someone’s garage.
Obviously, there must have been some instances where a civilian with a gun prevented a crime or intervened in a useful way. But without good numbers, how can this potential benefit be balanced against the risk that a gun would be responsible for a homicide, suicide, or accidental death?
And why should it even be a factor in the discussion of outlawing assault rifles? People are not using these weapons for protection.
The old age adage - where there is a will; there is a way. Not to mention that criminal institutions exist to make a profit off the illegal. Therefore, there is really nothing that cannot be attained by the criminally willing.
No one has said or even implied the above, so it is just plain wrong to say it and gives the impression that people are not wiling to act. People are willing to act; they just may not act like you want them to.
This is ideological thinking at its worst - that is, if people do not want to do what I think, then I am going to say they do not want to do anything. What is really happening here is the poster is upset that many are not rushing to implement said poster’s ideas.
In the larger picture, what is happening with a plurality of Americans is they are seeing the absolute disconnect between 1) their personal safety, 2) extreme measures favored by gun control advocates, and 3) the fact that bad guys will get their weapons regardless.
Given these three data points coupled with the fact the government seems rather incompetent in stopping such people, a plurality, who cares not to be victims and cares not to be dependent on government for their immediate personal safety, have deduced that the charge led by the NYT is illogical:
The last sentence says it all - people have reached the conclusion that efforts to them more defenseless is plainly illogical, which, of course, it is, given the fact the criminals will always get their killing tools. Therefore, people are deciding to be able to defend themselves, which is the most personal, proactive act a person can take - that is a far cry from not “doing anything” that the poster implies above.
These rifles were legal under California law which bans assault rifles.
I’m filled with admiration at the shamelessness of this debating technique. In yes/no questions, there is no plurality, only a majority opinion and a minority opinion. A “plurality”? What can this possibly mean in the case of gun control? Is that what we call it when we’re in the minority now? Are we splitting up the groups in the majority somehow, so we can pretend that we win when we’re losing?
Should we arm first graders?
15% Yep, Second Amendment all the way!
10% Nope.
10% No.
10% No way.
10% No &%^$ing way.
10% Are you out of your mind?
10% Seriously, are you insane?
10% That is the dumbest idea I have heard this year.
10% Get out of my house before I call the cops.
5% Don’t understand the question.
Look! A plurality approve of arming first graders.
We haven’t been able to keep out illegal drugs or people, so I’m not sure how we will keep out guns.
What “extreme measures” are you referring to?
The NYT editorial called for making assault weapons, not all guns, illegal. There is no “extreme” gun control effort to “take our guns” away and render citizens “defenseless.” But thanks for the link to a screed of partisan poppycock.
Is the gun rights advocates idea now that not only should every American walk around with a handgun strapped to his or her hip, they should carry their own personal assault rifle as well? Take it everywhere. So as not to be blamed for their own murder by being “defenseless?”
As with illegal drugs, illegal guns when found can be confiscated and the possessors arrested. Does it make sense that we expend untold resources to arrest and jail people for possessing marijuana, even though it still keeps getting into the country, but we allow military weapons designed for rapid murder to be legal to anyone who wants one?
It’s gone beyond appalling.
“The old age adage - where there is a will; there is a way. Not to mention that criminal institutions exist to make a profit off the illegal. Therefore, there is really nothing that cannot be attained by the criminally willing.” There is a problem with this logic, and it is evident if you look at crime and guns today. Fully automatic weapons are severely restricted by federal law, to own one requires a lot more effort than other weapons, and because of that few people own fully automatic weapons. Given that a fully automatic weapon can outshoot a semi automatic, cause a lot more havoc, you would figure that would be popular among ‘bad guys’, but as far as I know, few crimes are committed by criminals with fully automatic weapons. Yes, a very determined criminal could probably get their hands on fully automatic weapons, but at what cost in money and time? And in reality, it isn’t worth the time and the cost to get them, what they can get their hands on satisfices. The reality is that all kinds of guns are available on the black market, and a lot of those come in from the legal market, and that ready availability makes the price cheaper than if the guns had to be smuggled in or otherwise gotten illegally by the suppliers. There is a steady flow of guns from the legal market, that is fed by things like private sale rules with no background check or control, gun shows, and more commonly, states where once you buy guns, you basically can do what you want with them and no one can say boo, basically little accountability. If we tightened the flow of guns from the legal market,if private gun sales had to go through a vetting process, if gun owners were held accountable for their collections, the black market would still have guns, but the amount would be diminished, if the cops figures on guns taken off the street are true, that well over 50% of the guns they pull off the streets were bought legally, then you would see black market guns becoming rarer, which in turn would raise the price. If guns were less easily gotten in the black market, a lot of the more ‘casual’ criminals might not even bother to get a gun, a lot of criminals IMO get guns because they are easy, but if they weren’t they likely would not have them.
There is an interesting analogy to this. The two perps in the San Bernandino shootings had made pipe bombs. These bombs, like many such home fashioned weapons, depended on black powder, which can be bought legally in many places, it is very easy to get. They don’t use either tnt or plastic explosives, though, because although you can get those on the black market, they are very difficult to get, you have to have contacts, and they are pretty expensive. Even though these people planned this thing for a long time, they went with the easy to get option and I think it will be the same with guns.
When I talk about the flow of guns from the legal market, I am not talking about banning gun sales or denying people the right to defend themselves, what I am talking about is stopping supposedly legal gun buyers from feeding the black market, which is common. No more selling weapons on Craigslist, no more selling a trunkful of guns you just bought at a gun store or show into the black market, no more “gee, I must have lost it” when a gun you sold into the black market gets traced back; if you have guns, if you lose a gun, or have it stolen, you have to report it to the police as stolen, and if you don’t, you are assumed to be responsible if it gets tracked back from a crime (which is exactly what would happen if a car you had was used in a crime, and you hadn’t reported it stolen, you would be assumed to be an accomplice).
As far as so called “assault weapons” go, if some nerdy dentist type (the same guys who seem to have bought the military hummers when they were still sold) wants a gun that makes him look like Rambo, be my guest, but for legal sale those weapons should have limited refire rates and magazines. It won’t prevent them from being used in a crime, but it certainly would cut down the carnage, you wouldn’t have 26 people in Newtown dead,you wouldn’t have the 20 some odd dead in San Bernandino and a lot more wounded, and so forth, the numbers would have been a lot smaller.
I think people have the right to defend themselves and I think (fortunately or unfortunately) the second amendment gives people that right, but I also think that with anything dangerous, comes responsibility. You can’t drive a car without at least in some way proving you can drive, you can’t drive a car legally without it being registered, you need insurance and so forth. Cars can be traced, and if you sold a car and it is used in committing a crime, and for example you didn’t turn in the plates under your registration, you can be held liable for what happened. The right to defend oneself and the right to own guns does not extend to the right to do anything you want with them, they are not a bicycle or a table lamp or a leather jacket, and that is the problem, the pro gun side of things has turned the right to own guns into the right to own guns with no responsibility, the right to buy them like you buy nails at a hardware store, and the right to sell them to anyone you want with no reporting or accoutntability.
I don’t know how being able to fill the trunk of your car with guns and being able to defend yourself come together, if someone wants to defend themselves, I don’t see why they would need the right to fill up their trunk at a gun store like stocking up with beer, or have it totally on the QT, the way it is in many states. Put it this way, if we tightened up the loopholes, if we had federal minimum standards for gun buying, that all purchases need background checks, that if you sell guns you own it has to go through some sort of broker where a check is made, and the sale noted, you would see gun crime stats drop, I am certain of that.I think part of the problem is that the 'freedom to own guns" people, the extreme cases, want the ability to easily liquidate their guns if the rent comes due, or they want spending money, and often that means selling it into the black market.
“I have to believe that the mother will be arrested also. She HAD to have seen the pipe bombs and likely overheard conversations between the two killers.”
That’s certainly possible and may be probable, but was Tsarnaev’s sister implicated and arrested in the Boston plot, or the Tsarnaev widow?
I can absolutely envision the feds nailing Enrique to the wall for the marriage/visa fraud. That’s a relatively easy case to make, isn’t it?
Some say that prohibiting certain firearms to some or all people won’t change the number of gun crimes (including suicide,which, recall, is a crime and one we’d like to prevent). People who say this are either being disingenuous, or haven’t examined the situation carefully. If we make an item illegal, we make it harder for people to obtain. Not in general impossible to obtain, but harder to obtain. And if something is harder to obtain, fewer people will obtain it.
Some assert that criminals will still get guns, because they don’t care about the law. Where will they get the guns? Now, they can get guns easily. A criminal can legally buy a gun from a law-abiding citizen, or steal a gun left unsecured by a careless gun owner, or buy a gun from a criminal middleman who obtains guns either legally in lax states or from other criminals, and resells them. If we cut off the spigot of legal guns, then criminals will have less access to guns that were once legally obtained. Ask yourself, do criminals arm themselves with old guns, or do they sometimes get new ones? If the latter, then wouldn’t it be better if those legal guns never existed so they never could end up in criminal hands?
We know perfectly well that making something illegal makes its use lessened. For all that Prohibition was bad policy, it did, in fact, result in a substantial reduction in the amount of drinking. And whether you believe marijuana legalization is a good thing or a bad thing, researchers have no doubt it will increase the use of marijuana; the only question is whether that will be accompanied by a reduction in the use of other drugs (especially alcohol) or an increase. Fewer guns overall will result in fewer guns in the hands of criminals.
Prohibition may have reduced drinking somewhat but it also led to increased crime including the rise of the Mafia.
If guns were outlawed, criminal syndicates would soon rise to supply them. There would be more violence rather than less.
The guns used in this act were legal but one or both may have been illegally modified. Criminals will get what they want. If you want to shoot up a banquet room, you don’t worry that you might have violated some technical aspect of the gun laws like illegal modification to permit more rapid fire of rounds.
Do we know whether the imposition of stricter gun laws in Australia led to this sort of thing?
Problems with using the no-fly list as a no-gun list.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article49066450.html
Apparently it only takes a same or similar name to a questionable person to get your name on the no-fly list. As an example, (Heard on the radio) the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens wife was known as “Cat”, yes Cat Stevens, and ended up on the no-fly list as a result.
And there are constitutional problems. While there is no constitutional right to fly, there is a Second Amendment right and those rights cannot be taken away without some due process.
I read this today and found it rather terrifying…the weapons and ammo is one thing, the location ( close to several theme parks ) as well as the cash paid for 53 days of a hotel room stay …I don’t think this made national headlines
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/man-found-hotel-room-ammunition-was-supposed-leave/npggG/
Yay for Gov. Daniel Malloy ! http://www.reuters.com/article/us-connecticut-guns-idUSKBN0TT2EM20151210
He is planning to make an executive order banning the sale of guns in CT to anyone on the no-fly list.
If someone’s name is erroneously on the watch list, get it fixed. We did.