The Topic of Gun Control and How it Relates to Recent Mass Shootings

Many forms of legislation have stopped many millions or billions of potential crimes from occurring by making it more difficult to carry them out.

This excuse is a logical fallacy - nobody has ever said that more restrictive gun laws will stop all crime ever; yet that is what is being argued.

The evidence is overwhelming that when you make even incrmental djustments towards making firearms harder to obtain, you can get dramatic drops in firearm-related acts of violence.

If you don't think it's worht it, because only some and not all acts of violence won't be eliminated, you're not arguing in good faith.

 

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Whis is quite ignorant. I own multiple guns because I enjoy shooting, and a gun is a tool and there are different tools for different jobs. I carry either one of my .40 caliber hand guns daily, but I have a .380 and a .22 because they are more fun, and cheaper to shoot. Shooting 500 rounds of my .40 will cost me nearly $200 in ammo. Shooting 500 rounds of my .22 will cost me $8.50 at Walmart.

I also buy multiple guns as an investment. I also buy silver and plan on buying land and real-estate more in the future due to the volatile market. Most guns maintain their resell value far more than any other consumer product. Plainly put, like it or not but guns are a wise investment. Being a gun enthusiast is no different than any other hobby or collector.

Educate yourself. I am around far more gun enthusiasts than you are, and none of them are the paranoid mess you make them out to be. The vast majority are hard working people who simply enjoy letting off some steam by putting lead through cardboard and paper targets.

I didn't say anything about shooting at police or being armed to deter police. My response was to the fact the previous commenter said that the police need MORE power than they have today.

 

I am no listening, or you are not? The irrelevant stuff doesn't really help your argument.

I think any one of these will serve you better.
A legal one - it is a dangerous principle to restrict one's constitutional right based on potential danger of that right. It is like forbidding a type of speech categorically regardless of whether there will be substantial and real danger before the speech is made.

An social economic one - less guns overall will bring more harm to the society, at least in a period immediately following stricter gun control because of the 200 million guns already out there.

 

Time to get a new hobby then.

I suggest Yoga or some other form of physical activity for stress relief. (yes, guns are heavy, and recoil, blah blah, but it's not that effective in exercise).

 

Time to stop thinking you know what is best for me. I suggest getting a dog. Guns aren't going anywhere buddy.

 

They're not going anywhere - they'll just become more expensive and harder to obtain, and fewer of them will be made. And that's good for the rest of us.

 

Yeah, but this is not what the Framers had in their minds. Putting in a 2nd amendment to a constitution for a hobby. When an argument directing at aggregate danger of gun ownership, it is disingenuous, to say the least, to respond that most of individual gun owners are responsible.

 

A man set out to kill 20 children will not be stopped by the inability to purchase a rifle at Academy Sports. The Columbine shooters committed numerous felony violations of state and federal law, including the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act of 1968 by constructing numerous explosive devices and sawing off their shotguns barrels.

As far as Assault Weapons the DOJ did a study of the 10 year assault weapons ban and their conclusion was that it did very little to prevent violence:

"In contrast, guns equipped with Large Capacity Magazines (LCMs) – of which AWs are a subset – are used in roughly 14% to 26% of gun crimes. Accordingly, the LCM ban has greater potential for affecting gun crime. However, it is not clear how often the ability to fire more than 10 shots without reloading (the current magazine capacity limit) affects the outcomes of gun attacks (see Chapter 9). All of this suggests that the ban’s impact on gun violence is likely to be small."

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/204431.pdf

 

Then why do you have more mass shootings like this, relative to the size of the population, than any other country?

SamFisher said it correctly, this happens elsewhere, too, and making guns harder to obtain will not stop ALL shootings, but it will reduce them.

 

Except that restrictions around the rest of the world have shown that their impact on gun violence is dramatic and pronounced.

 

We need a police state. People don't have a right to anything. They only have privilages provided by the state.

 

Strawman. No one is suggesting that. We have restrictions in place on the use of automobiles, heavy equipment, etc. We already have some restrictions in place for firearms.

 

You dont know that. Thats wishful. Not letting people suffering an extreme mental episode get their hands on assault weapons easily during the episode seems to me a common sense.

 

Bring on the military!!!!

 

Glad you have a crystal ball. We can't even decide on how to solve the budget and you think we're going to make way on a topic this controversial? That's funny.

Hey everybody, this forum poster is a constitutional scholar! He's clearly equipped to make the decision about what our founding fathers had in mind! WHEW! Crisis adverted.

What? Just how r****ded are you? There are more than 300 million guns in circulation, and more that 80 million legal gun owners. The vast majority of gun violence takes place with illegal firearms (read stolen).

But let's for a moment pretend that homicides with guns all occurred by legal gun owners... in 2010 there were 9,369 gun related homicides. Let's say 8,500 legal gun owners were responsible for those murders, you know some extra room for multiple homicides by the same gun owner. That would mean that .0117% of all of the 80+ million legal gun owners committed murder. Meaning 99.9883% of gun owners didn't commit murder.

Yeah, we should totally take rights away from 99.9% of people because .01% are criminals.

 

This happens all the effing time. There are super few rights that are absolute...even free speech is not an absolute right.

 

Playing Devils Advocate here

This guy says shooting guns is his hobby
Another person does recreational drugs as a hobby.

In both cases I can say when used responsibly . . .neither is a danger

I notice a strong push to make recreational drugs legal
What makes one ok and the other not?
If I were to run the numbers. . . would both reach a threshold of deaths
that we would call unacceptable?

Rocket River

 

Except that thousands of mentally ill folks and criminals HAVE been stopped from purchasing firearms due to background checks, and only a small proportion of those have gone on to commit a firearm related crime anyway.

The first assault weaposn ban was watered down with ridiculous loopholes to the point of it being a joke...due to the scourge of the Gun Lobby and its obsession with the promotion and propagation of the weapons designed to kill the maximum amount of people with minimum fuss, becuase it's a fun hobby for "man card" holding bushmaster lovers! .

 

I will restrain ..Its not fair for you because i am a little more equipped than you are

20 little kid's lives could have been saved and that is what laws are for. So far you have been harping on the same point again and again. I hear you. Peace now.

 

Listening to the NRA press conference right now. Just disgusting and self-serving the NRA president is blaming everyone and everything than taking any responsibility.

In other words, it's the media's fault, it's video games, it's violent movies, but we aren't going to change a thing.