It takes only 5 people to end gun violence in America.
 

It takes only 5 people to end gun violence in America.

Banning gun sales to those with mental illness is not effective enough
Background checks on criminals are not effective enough
Banning the sale of assault guns is not effective enough
Limiting the number of shells in gun magazines is not effective enough
Fences and locked doors on every public facility are not effective enough
Armed guards/teachers/doctors/salespersons/clergy in every public place is not effective enough

We rationalize limits on the 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech in the greater good.
- children's exposure to pornography
- adults shouting "Fire" in a crowd

We can rationalize limits on the 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms.

The US Supreme Court has made mistakes, and their decisions have been re-evaluated, and even reversed.

Our Forefathers envisioned domination by a foreign government's military.
Our Forefathers envisioned a "well regulated militia" for the common good.
Our Forefathers envisioned guns as flintlocks and muskets, not our modern guns.

Limiting gun possession to flintlocks and muskets is a "conservative" view.
Limiting gun possession to the maintaining of a militia is a "conservative" view

It only takes 5 Supreme Court Justices to end gun violence in America.

Y'know, I totally get that people wouldn't want a total ban on guns. Too many cultural associations, too much a part of growing up in some communities, and too necessary as a survival tool in some parts of the country.

But assault weapons? If you need a battlefield weapon that pumps out mega quantities of bullets to hunt a deer or a bear than ur doin it rong.

If all that lad had been abe to acquire was a simple shotgun or hunting rifle the death toll would have been significantly lower.

It is not, in my opinion, acceptable or desirable for people to be allowed to drive tanks down the public highway willynilly. They weren't made for use in that setting. Doesn't mean i want to ban all motor vehicles.

I like your analogy, Dana, and I agree with your balanced view on the subject.

It seems to me that if you are making the argument that guns are only protected under the Constitution for militias, then you need to allow machine guns. After all, they are military weapons for a military organization. So if we want to restrict guns that look like machine guns, what we need to do is to change the interpretation of the Constitution so that the Constitutional purpose of guns is not to arm militias. Ironically, the Supreme Court did just that when they overturned the DC handgun ban and held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.

Just like it ended drinking in America? Just because something is made illegal doesn't mean it will automatically go away.

Is there actually any unbiased evidence that banning guns has an effect on lowering gun deaths? From the data I've seen, banning handguns in D.C, Chicago, etc. didn't really do anything when comparing against the national average. I could see it having an effect on suicides but that is preventable through other measures as well.

A few other points:

Most gun deaths in the US are a result from handguns, not "assault" rifles and every polls suggests that the majority of Americans are against banning handguns (myself included). I would be supportive of regulation measures, but not outright banning.

Second, while the argument has been mutilated by extremist in the NRA and too many people abuse their powerful weapons, a right to self defense is still a powerful argument. While guns result in many deaths, they do actually prevent robberies, property damage, attacks, etc as well. Those benefits cannot be quantified so it makes it difficult to make comparisons.


I would personally like to see more regulation with guns in general and restrictions on certain aspects of guns. For example, I'm don't see how low capacity high velocity bullets hold and weight in a self-defense or hunting argument. Instead of blanketing every gun death as "gun problem", we should look at specific aspects and how those specific aspects can be improved.

Think about that for a second. Were people free to leave DC and cross the bridge into Virginia where gun laws are lax? If there is a nation wide ban, would there be such an easy path around the law?

This post and the article it links to/draws from is fantastic, and talks about a side of this issue that's almost never discussed.

I don't see much difference between a hypothetical gun ban in the US with prohibition on alcohol, weed, cocaine, etc. Would there maybe be some initial instability? Probably. However, if there is a demand for guns, I'm sure the black market would be more than happy to supply. It already does in many urban areas.

We have over 300 million guns in this country and only a very very small proportion of those are used to kill people. I would imagine that a ban on guns would greatly reduce the number of guns that are being used responsibility but have little impact on the number of guns being used irresponsibly. Any gun regulation needs to address this IMO.

Here is all the surprising, inconvenient, confusing, complicated, and non-soundbite-worthy evidence.

It's not simple.

http://justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Might as well not make anything illegal.

Less than 24 hours after the killings, a local Convention Center had it quarterly gun show. Only hours after routine killing of children (this time in the same location), the gun show clearly had its largest crowd. Only a national dog show had a crowd as large.

Gun shows are where one buys the most deadly weapons and ammunition without even a background check. Dead kids promote more gun sales. Because those who most need guns are the same emotional type who make decisions based in fear and ego.

What to do with a kid who (according to his mother) had mental problems? Take him to gun ranges to practice with weapons once restricted only to trained soldiers. Keep him out of school because his emotional problems must be traceable to the school system. Does that make sense? Of course not. Decisions based in emotions explain why the mother purchased a large stockpile of assault weapons. And hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Some people think like adults. They use reason rather than feelings. Others who need to entertain the emotion of a bigger gun to prove their adulthood. She was not a victim. If alive, she should be prosecuted as an accessory to the crime. But we still do not hold gun owners responsible for their actions. It would be a threat to their feelings. After all, the least adult among us need more guns. And hundreds of rounds of ammuntion only useful for killing people.

And so the gun show had its largeest turnout only hours after children were massacred. The mentality is strongly associated with those who most need bigger guns.

Oh lord, here we go again.

So the head researcher for justfacts is a 'creation scientist'? While this might give him a different viewpoint, sort of like inviting Jeffrey Dahmer to research a book on food safety, it argues against unbiased collection and interpretation of facts.

"end gun violence" ???

Ummmm.... there are two issues here.

What was the wording of the original "2nd Amendment ratified by the States ?
To wit:

The laws passed by Congress after the States ratified
the Constitution and Bill of Rights are worded differently.

A great deal is made of the Federalist Papers regarding the intentions of our Forefathers.
John Jay's writings there on the 2nd Amendment (before ratification)
specifically discuss the need to give up some "rights"
in order to gain other benefits gained from the new federal government.


The "militia" of our Forefathers is not one of individuals with guns,
but of independent (non-federal) communities formally calling up individuals,
even to the point of a draft to meet quotas, to defend against foreign forces.
---

Second, our Forefathers could not have envisioned the machine gun,
or much of any gun we now call an "automatic firearm",
which came 50 to 100 years after ratification...

from Wikipedia:
The History of the Firearm
Thus, it only takes 5 USSC Justices to re-interpret "well regulated" to end gun violence.

Yeah, that's all interesting, but the Supreme Court already removed the whole militia part of the 2nd amendment. So a new Supreme Court would have to change that ruling to bring militias back into it, and then go on to do what you suggest.

The Wikipedia summary of the Supreme Court's holding in D.C. v. Heller:

Exactly.

Great. Apart from your highly effective Ad Hominem attack what facts did you find, pertaining to gun laws, that were erroneous?

Despite their wacky creationist viewpoints, they seem more open minded than you.

An example of a "fact" that didn't meet their standards of credibility:
Yeah, that really smacks of wacky creationist agenda.

For the record, I am adamantly opposed to semi-automatic firearms, and I think gun ownership requirements in this country are looser than lax. A bolt action rifle with a four round clip is all one needs for hunting.

Australia's rules sound good to me.

AND we need to address mental health care in this country.

There are some interesting points there, but I don't like two active threads about gun control. So I'm going to post all my replies in the original thread. Guns Don't Kill People.

I was thinking that they should be merged.

Please don't merge them. That is unnecessary. You wouldn't herd two circles of people at a party....wait. You wouldn't push together the tables in the pub where two groups of people were talking about the same headline story would you?

Would you then merge upsetting today/irritating today/scorching groove today/apprehensive today threads and other similar pseudo-groups?

I'm not going to merge them.

But tw is the only person to post in this thread and not the other. So it's mostly the same people having the same conversation but moving from table to table to do it.

Please define "assault weapon" and explain the substantial differences with non-"assault weapon"s.

How so?
I snipped the portion of your post designed to elicit an emotional response but left one of your "facts". What types of weapons are we talking about here? Were you at this gun show to see them? How often do you attend gun shows?

What exactly is a semi-automatic firearm? Why 4 and not 6? Is 10 too many? Why?

I'll take a stab at answering some of these.

I think by "assault weapon", Dana means an A-10 Warthog. I confirmed this with the inch who said, "The A-10 can shoot, like 300 million 700 caliber rounds a second." He is only nine and prone to exaggeration but he does have "the Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft" Though we can't really be sure he is actually reading it and not just looking at the pictures.

Merriam Webster defines Assault:
1
a : a violent physical or verbal attack
b : a military attack usually involving direct combat with enemy forces
c : a concerted effort (as to reach a goal or defeat an adversary)
2
a : a threat or attempt to inflict offensive physical contact or bodily harm on a person (as by lifting a fist in a threatening manner) that puts the person in immediate danger of or in apprehension of such harm or contact — compare battery 1b

My suspicion is that non-assault weapons would be soft cushions, stern looks, and an angry letter to the New York Times.


Re: reduced death toll, How so?

Simple shotguns, (like the Benelli that Tom Knapp used to shoot) are only used for hunting geese and shooting clay pigeons, hunting rifles are used for small, medium, and large game and none of those things were present at the shooting therefore the shooter wouldn't have had occasion to use either type of firearm.


Gun Shows with most deadly weapons and ammo. Again, a quick glance in Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft shows that once again, Lockheed Martin has pulled another winner out of the bag with its F-22 Raptor. As for the deadly ammo, I would discount the missiles as being "ammo" and would vote for 20mm DU rounds as being the deadliest ammo.

I was not at a gunshow to see thse things, I lack any sort of security clearance. I have never been to a gun show.


A semi-automatic firearm is a firearm that extracts the spent shell, chambers a new round and cocks the firing mechanism every time the trigger is pulled and a round is fired. A fully automatic firearm does this with a single trigger pull (or squeeze or press) until the magazine is emptied or the trigger is let off. Selective fire firearms can switch from fully auto to semi auto.

My Marlin 60 is a semi auto .22 tube magazine. The government can have it when they pry it from my warm living fingers with a generous buy-back check that would cover the purchase of a sweet bolt action .22 like a volquartsen.That would apply sufficient leverage upon my fingers to release my grip on my semi-auto Marlin.

Why 4 and not 6 or 10? I just pulled that number out of my ass since 4 is the max # of rounds you can have in your gun during hunting season here in NY. Actually, I think it's 5. One in the chamber in 4 in the mag. So yeah, 10 is too many as far as the DEC is concerned. Big fines, loss of hunting privileges, peepee smacking. So 4 is the number.

Bailiff!

Demand a Plan

http://www.demandaplan.org/

I demanded reform of your face, but I was reminded of the Right to Scare Worms.

;)

sez u

"It takes only 5 people to end gun violence in America."
 

Hey Lady where in the goat roping hell ya been//????????????????

Hi buster! I've been here...I turned into a monkey. An infinite one. I kept wondering why you never responded to my responses to you: you didn't know who I was!

But I changed my email address on my infinite monkey log-in because I was going to try to send gravdigr an email through the cellar and the email that he would get from me would be incorrect...just waiting on Tony to approve it before I can post from IM again. :)

You are so freaking funny. :lol:

in the right wing paranoid fantasy of needing guns to defend against tyranny - as nobody is carrying AR-15s for self-defense or hunting, right? - who is it you think you'll be using those guns to defend against...?
Invading armies? widespread anarchy? zombies? post-apocalyptic biker gangs? the FBI? ATF? The national guard? the military? your neighbors? your local cops?
Who are you going to be shooting up with your arsenal, and why should the rest of us not be terrified of people like you?
What makes you different than the "sovereign citizen" movement, with their murder of law enforcement, plain old traffic cops even, who "deprive them of their rights"? Talk about a slippery slope.

Those of you who speak in support of looser gun laws. if they DO outlaw semi-automatic "assault weapons" and demand that those who own them turn them in, will you go quietly? What if ATF comes knocking - do you still go quietly?

:lol:

You are awesome, foot3.

What we need are more gun control laws in this country, because clearly, we know the criminals never get their hands on guns, once those laws are passed:

A perfect example from the killer/arsonist last week.
Spengler killed two firemen who responded to the home fire he started. He wounded two others,

AND WOULD HAVE KILLED SEVERAL MORE, EXCEPT a policeman shielded the wounded firemen on the ground with his car, AND SHOT SPENGLER WITH A RIFLE.

What have we learned today?

* Criminals don't CARE about gun laws - they will get guns or other weapons they can use against YOU.

* It behooves you to have a gun to shoot them when they try to kill you.

Apologies for boring the liberals who seem completely unable to understand this basic premise.

Here's a little lesson from nature:

Without a firearm, we are the warthog - careful, but still vulnerable, and still a victim. (not for the squemish):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-UX0w2yA2A

I'm a little slow, but based on my reading of the 3 ongoing gun threads I'm starting to think Lamplighter might not like guns. Who knew?

TW and Ibby didn't respond to my earlier questions so I guess expecting a rational consideration of an alternate view on gunrights wasn't what they were looking for.

Foot - you at least made an attempt. If I understand correctly, you are perfectly fine with gun ownership and use so long is it of a type you like, has a magazine capacity you feel is sufficient for your uses, and it is used in the manner you choose to use yours?

My point in asking about your statements about the firing mechanism and magazine capacity was really aimed at pointing out that your limit of 4 shots is perfectly arbitrary. By focusing on those issues you are doing what they did with the ridiculous "assault weapon" ban, fixating on the inconsequential.

If a lawabiding citizen likes to carry with 13 in the magazine and 1 in the chamber why does that matter to you? If a lawabiding citizen likes to target shoot with his AR-15 at his local range why does that matter to you?

Guns aren't the problem. Lawabiding citizens aren't the problem. The evilminded and the insane are the problem. Tightening restrictions on those who follow the law will have no effect on those who care nothing about the law or the consequences.

a friend of mine (hard right wing Christian) said, "If guns kill people, why aren't there any gun deaths at gun shows?"

and I said, "because that's the Planning Phase."

most of these nutters give clues. everyone always says, "I thought they were kidding," -----not with that adrenalin-high look in their eyes they're not.

which questions? I think you might be thinking i'm more anti-gun than I am. I live in vermont and i'm pretty satisfied with vt's lax gun laws.

But even Vermont has limits. You can't have a round in the chamber in a long gun in a vehicle, for instance. So cops can treat any long gun in the passenger cabin as a threat until proven otherwise.

Keeping a long gun in your home for self defense is reasonable. Keeping it unloaded in your trunk en route to hunting is reasonable. Having it in public is not. Long guns in public are not for self defense. They are for murder.

By far, black men are the victims of gun violence, at the hands of both blacks and whites. But you didn't see the NRA arguing that Trayvon Martin should have had a gun to defend himself from his murderer, do you?

Typical partisan bullshit, Trayvon was still a minor at the time.

The mayor of Chicago, is well known as Obama's former chief of staff, at the White House. Dyed in the wool liberal, that's Rahm Emanuel.

Chicago has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the country - but their murder rate with guns, has increased, not decreased.

Those clever criminals are NOT paying attention to the gun laws - can you IMAGINE THAT??

Of course, Rahm is dead set against the NRA proposal to have armed policemen at the schools, to help protect the kids therein. No no no, you can't turn our schools into "armed camps", etc.

Here's the good part - the REALLY RICH PART. Rahm Emanual has a child, attending a Chicago private school.

Guess what the private school has?

Armed security at the school, every single day, protecting the kids therein.

I just LOVE the liberal hypocrites! No one shows their liberal denouement, quite as well, as their own hypocrisy.

When I first saw the pictures of Martin's killer, and heard the 911 call, I said "he doesn't look like he's been in a fight". Maybe he did pick the fight with Martin.

Then I learned that:

1) The 911 call had been edited by NBC news media, to make it sound like Zimmerman was a racist.

2) The pictures of Zimmerman, taken at the time, had been altered to make him appear less injured than he was.

(In fact Zimmerman is now suing the pants off NBC for this).

So here's my take on this - mind you, I only know what the media has reported, and little else, so there is speculation written all over this:

* Martin was bigger than Zimmerman, and a football player. He also had a temper - several fights in high school, in his background.

* His gf stated Martin saw Zimmerman following him, and didn't like it. Told her to go on, he was going to "handle this" problem.

* He got into a fight with Zimmerman, because he didn't like being followed, and Zimmerman wouldn't cooperate and leave.

* Martin was winning the fight, being bigger and stronger than Zimmerman, and frankly, more experienced as a fighter and physical (heavy contact), athlete.

* Martin broke Zimmerman's nose - and had him on his back, at least once, according to both an eye witness, and Zimmerman's jacket with grass stains on the back. Police verified the broken nose of Zimmerman, not the eye witness.

Also, Zimmerman's face was swollen. Clearly he'd been punched in the face, several times.

So I believe that Martin was clearly winning the fight, until Zimmerman shot him, and although Zimmerman's following of Martin was somewhat bothersome to me, it did not break any laws.

The court will rule it was self-defense, when all the facts come out.

Adak, please do not quote me and then go off on some tangent completely unrelated to what I posted. thank you in advance for your cooperation.

That made me laugh.

Minors regularly own shotguns and plinking rifles in Vermont. I don't believe Adak's version of events in the slightest; it was straight up murder by every reading of the facts I can muster, and I'm as certain that his conviction is upcoming as Adak is sure it isn't. Anyway, I was being facetious; either way, you never hear the NRA arguing that more PoC, that more people in poverty, that more people in high-risk gun-violence areas or groups should just pack more heat.
On top of that, our white-supremacist, patriarchal criminal justice system is very good at punishing anyone who isn't a cishetwhitemale for the very self-defense so much of the cellar takes for granted - see Marissa "20-years-for-warning-shots" Alexander, CeCe "defending-yourself-from-a-nazi-is-murder" McDonald, et al.

The problem is that many gun carriers are law abiding citizens right up until they go on a shooting spree. How do you stop shooting sprees before they happen? I suggest that one of the easiest ways would be to limit the "spree" part of it.

With no intention of derailing this thread, I slap you with my white leather glove and tell you, sternly, madam, Vermont HAS NO LIMITS.


and you know it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...47f_story.html

David Gregory shows the effectiveness of DC's gun laws.

And therein lies part of the problem. Too many laws which are not enforced.

Additionally, he is a friggin hypocrite who sends his own children to a school protected by armed personnel.

"Gregory’s kids attend Sidwell Friends School that has about a dozen security officers on staff, some of whom are police officers and some who are armed.

The notable parents who send their children to that school also includes Obama. Interesting how they apparently think its OK to protect their own children but not yours.

There's a huge difference between "the solution isn't to put armed guards in every school in the country" and "there is no school at-risk enough to warrant armed guarding". Strawman. The difference is that schools in, say, DC, are at risk from the high level of violence in DC, whereas it is nearly impossible to identify regions or schools at risk for mass murder.

Blah blah blah... their kids are protected, the rest of us schleps? Not so much.

Had to laugh at another far-left liberal who's always speaking out for the "common man", blah, blah, blah.

They were discussing Michael Moore's armed bodyguard being arrested in New York awhile back, for having a concealed sidearm, without a valid New York CCW permit (which are of course, difficult to get).

Sure Michael - you lecture us on the need for gun control - while you keep your armed bodyguard close at hand.

Damn hypocrite! :mad:

Perhaps not so easy. There's an age old saying in law enforcement that the fastest reload is a second gun.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Michael Moore has probably received considerably more death threats in a single year than the average American is ever going to receive in their entire life.

Perhaps if your country was not awash with firearms, public figures with controversial views would not need to take such extreme precautions to defend themselves.

"Perhaps if your country was not awash with firearms..."
 

HA!

But America *'is' awash in firearms, Dana.

The only solution that might come close to ending that flood is confiscation of every weapon (and corresponding ammo), from every person.

Simply banning guns and ammo will not work.

Imagine: tomorrow, all guns in America are banned by way of law directing every one to deliver all weapons and ammo to local law enforcers.

No criminal will abide.

Many law abiders will not abide (converting them into criminals in a single stroke).

No, total confiscation is the only answer and that will be a long, bloody, expensive process with no guarantee of success.

Reality: Pandora's Armory opened for business ages ago and all the debbil guns flew out...you'll never be rid of 'em (or the folks who'd use 'em to do nasty things).









*a wonderful word, 'is'...(what) 'is' always trumps wishes and fishes...sure, (what) 'should' (be) is a grand starting place for reformations, but too grand a vision inevitably leads to failure...again: Pandora's Armory opened for business ages ago...it is what it 'is'.

First thing that popped into my head was Whatever Happened to Baby Jane:

Blanche: You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I weren't still in this chair.
Jane: But you *are*, Blanche! You *are* in that chair

(It sounds more like "but y'are in that chair Blanch.')

This is not commentary, except on the way my brain works.