Author Topic: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days  (Read 244148 times)

Jrr85

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #850 on: March 27, 2018, 09:14:19 AM »
Right.  So why were we talking about Chicago then?  That damned federal government must not be doing it's job.  It's still liberal right?  All three branches?

 . . . and I'm still trying to understand where the idea that liberals don't want straw gun purchases prosecuted came from.  I mean, the places you're bitching about not caring about straw purchasers (Illiniois and Maryland) have enacted state laws to punish them . . . while a stalwart bastion of gun freedom and the NRA like Texas hasn't bothered to make it illegal.  I guess because they care so much.

Because Chicago not only has one-party rule and has had it for a long time, it would be one of the best places to do something if you wanted to make a dent in gun crime in the U.S.  If Chicago won't prosecute straw purchasers and seek meaningful punishment, then you can be pretty sure it's not gun rights activists stopping it from being treated seriously.

So we have a case where Chicago has a system to catch straw purchasers.  It is effective in doing so, and is used to prevent these people from buying guns again.  It typically results in no jail time.

In comparison, (in Texas for example) there is effectively no way to catch straw purchases.  Since they're not caught, they don't get jail time.  Since there's no registry/background checks done they're not prevented from doing this again.

You argument appears to be that the former is not treating gun crime seriously, and therefore 'liberals' are not interested in stopping straw purchasers.  You are completely silent on the latter for some reason.

The former is not treating gun crime seriously.  If you don't think procuring guns for people who are banned from buying guns is worthy of jail time, then you obviously don't consider background checks that important. 

And I'm still not buying that Texas doesn't make it illegal to act as a straw purchaser, at least for somebody banned from having a gun.   

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #851 on: March 27, 2018, 10:06:51 AM »
Right.  So why were we talking about Chicago then?  That damned federal government must not be doing it's job.  It's still liberal right?  All three branches?

 . . . and I'm still trying to understand where the idea that liberals don't want straw gun purchases prosecuted came from.  I mean, the places you're bitching about not caring about straw purchasers (Illiniois and Maryland) have enacted state laws to punish them . . . while a stalwart bastion of gun freedom and the NRA like Texas hasn't bothered to make it illegal.  I guess because they care so much.

Because Chicago not only has one-party rule and has had it for a long time, it would be one of the best places to do something if you wanted to make a dent in gun crime in the U.S.  If Chicago won't prosecute straw purchasers and seek meaningful punishment, then you can be pretty sure it's not gun rights activists stopping it from being treated seriously.

So we have a case where Chicago has a system to catch straw purchasers.  It is effective in doing so, and is used to prevent these people from buying guns again.  It typically results in no jail time.

In comparison, (in Texas for example) there is effectively no way to catch straw purchases.  Since they're not caught, they don't get jail time.  Since there's no registry/background checks done they're not prevented from doing this again.

You argument appears to be that the former is not treating gun crime seriously, and therefore 'liberals' are not interested in stopping straw purchasers.  You are completely silent on the latter for some reason.

The former is not treating gun crime seriously.  If you don't think procuring guns for people who are banned from buying guns is worthy of jail time, then you obviously don't consider background checks that important. 

Sigh.

If you don't support a gun registry, you obviously don't believe that catching straw purchasers is all that important, because the costs of prosecution will deter cases from ever making it to court.  See?  I can play the same game that you're doing.  But it's not really productive.

I'd personally like harsher penalties for straw purchasers than Maryland is handing out.  I'm happy that they've got a framework in place that actually allows small time straw purchasers to be caught and prosecuted though (unlike most places with lax gun laws).



And I'm still not buying that Texas doesn't make it illegal to act as a straw purchaser, at least for somebody banned from having a gun.

As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

TrudgingAlong

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #852 on: March 27, 2018, 01:19:49 PM »
About the fear comment form Wolfpack: why are gun owners so afraid all the time? Why do they need weapons all over the house "just in case"? Why do they need to strap on a gun just to go for a walk in the neighborhood or to the local store? Is life so terrifyingly dangerous where they live that this is necessary? I'd probably move if that was true.

I've never strapped on a gun, even when I lived in a high crime area, and I don't feel a lack in my life because of this. We don't own a gun because we believe having one with kids is much more irresponsible than the opposite.

See, I don't care if you're afraid all the time and think a gun will solve that just like you don't care about my fears. I don't care if you carry a gun as long as you do so responsibly. As long as lax gun laws don't mean your fear spills into my life. That is what I mean by wanting these shooter drills to stop being necessary. They never were when I was growing up, so I can only conclude our laws have become lax enough that something needs to change. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert and know how best to do that. I can only support those who think they have the answers.

If gun owners only ridicule and try to shut down the conversation, they will ultimately have no say in how this goes.  I don't think the NRA is going to win this forever, thankfully.

ncornilsen

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #853 on: March 27, 2018, 03:42:20 PM »
I suspect not.   With the lack of data, all we're left with is  speculation. So here is mine:

Given that there ARE figures for non-fatal firearms related crime, that put it in the 414,000 incidents/year range, and that most incidents where a gun is firearm related ARE reported to police.. The 414K figure factors in that they estimate 39% of non fatal firearm related crimes are unreported.

Who is 'they', and what study are you referencing where 'they' estimate that 39% of non-fatal firearm related crimes are unreported?  I can find several studies with different figures.

This study (for example) lists 478,000 reported crimes involving firearms in 2011:  https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf


That means that we're likely talking about roughly 659,000 violent crimes involving guns.  That doesn't even include non-violent stuff though . . . which would likely drive the numbers higher.


The BJS you linked, thought I'd included that.
You are misquoting the data, by the way.  There were 414,000 incidents. The 478k figure you use is the number of people victimized... some of the 414K figures involved multiple people. The same article indicates that 61% of nonfatal firearm violence is reported (page 12.) I accounted for this later in my estimation thing.

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Given that ~75% of robberies, 70% of aggravated assault, and 91+% of other non-fatal violence was perpetrated by someone who was NOT armed, an absence of firearms would simply result in conversion of most "armed" crimes to "unarmed." IE, the crime would happen anyway. This follows - the goal of armed robbery isn't to be armed while robbing a house - the goal is to rob the house. The goal is to assault the person, to rape, to.. whatever. The gun in most cases, is secondary, and is there only to make sure if they're met by a homeowner with a bat, that they have the upper hand. Or they just carry it because Thug Life.  It is therefore not the gun that is the primary motive, facilitator, or creator of the crime. It is therefore not legitimate to add to the "detrimental" aspect of firearms... at least not a 1:1 ratio.

Agreed.

However, the example you're citing adds all of the same types of suspect measures to the 'beneficial' aspect of firearms.  Likely many of the reported cases would have been resolved by holding a baseball bat or shovel (in some cases, even shouting/disturbing the person performing the crime could get them to flee).  If you're going to insist that we compare those illegitimate statistics on the pro gun side, we need to compare like to like.  There's also the issue of the unreliability of the self-reported data from the study.

What solution do you propose for this?

Likely, some cases where a person was coerced or non-fatally wounded with a gun, would have been hurt/coereced just the same, had there not been a gun available. I think you assume that somehow, a robbery at gunpoint is different than robbery at the tip of a crowbar. You're still robbed.
Additionally, An individual has no idea what weapon a assailant might bring. It is therefore a "positive" aspect of gun ownership that one little item can level the playing field no matter what is brought against them, so any defensive use should be accreditive to the positive impact of guns on society. With anything less than a gun... who knows if it'll be enough? It's not incumbent on the victim to scale down their response to match - they just need to protect themselves.  I don't think I'm articulating this very well, but there it is. I may come back and edit this if I can think of a better way to word it.

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Well, how much detriment should be attributed to firearms? It appears that of the 414k non-fatal violence incidents, 7% of them resulted in a serious injury, which may or may not have been a gunshot wound. Everything else involved no unjury, or minor things like bruises. Lets say, of those non-fatal incidents involving a firearm, 14% can be directly attributed to the availability of firearms... that 14% of  these crimes were possible mainly because of firearms, that firearms played a serious role in 14% of the incidents. That is ~57,000 incidents/yr.  Add in homicides... that's about 68000 per year.


On what basis are you discounting 86% of incidents?  What is the reasoning that led to this number?

The BJS article indicates that 7% of the incidents involved the perpetrator firing the weapon. I figure that if the gun was fired, then the crime was definitely defined by the presence of the firearm. I then multipled by 2.

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With a defensive gun use, the goal of the gun is to make sure the home owner has the upper hand, if the criminal comes to the house armed with anything from a knife, up to and including a gun. When a gun is brandished against a criminal armed in any way, regardless of whether it's fired, it's done its job, and is accredited to defensive uses.

With offensive gun use, the goal of the gun is to make sure that the aggressor has the upper hand.  If the victim comes to the crime scene armed with anything from a knife up to and including a gun.  When a gun is brandished against a victim in any way, regardless of whether it's fired, it's done its job, and should be accredited to crimnal use.

In your logic, you leave out that the aggressor is choosing to commit a crime. That's on the aggressor, not the inanimate object they're carrying. Unless the gun is used, I don't think it had a whole lot of impact on the occurrence or severity of the crime. Ergo, my 14% figure.

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That will radically inflate the number of criminal gun uses we're discussing . . . in the same way you're inflating the number of defensive gun uses.

ncornilsen

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #854 on: March 27, 2018, 04:09:43 PM »
About the fear comment form Wolfpack: why are gun owners so afraid all the time? Why do they need weapons all over the house "just in case"? Why do they need to strap on a gun just to go for a walk in the neighborhood or to the local store? Is life so terrifyingly dangerous where they live that this is necessary? I'd probably move if that was true.

Nice straw man. Try again.

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I've never strapped on a gun, even when I lived in a high crime area, and I don't feel a lack in my life because of this. We don't own a gun because we believe having one with kids is much more irresponsible than the opposite.
I respect your self awareness and decision to make that choice in your life. I make a different one and hold a different opinion about what is and isn't responsible.
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See, I don't care if you're afraid all the time and think a gun will solve that just like you don't care about my fears. I don't care if you carry a gun as long as you do so responsibly. As long as lax gun laws don't mean your fear spills into my life. That is what I mean by wanting these shooter drills to stop being necessary. They never were when I was growing up, so I can only conclude our laws have become lax enough that something needs to change. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert and know how best to do that. I can only support those who think they have the answers.

Shooter drills are currently unnecessary, if you want to look a the the numbers. There are on average, 8 children killed each year in a school shooting. Those are 8 horrendous tragedies, to be sure... each with untold lost potential.  We are acutely aware of them due to our media... Which I believe, is responsible for some of the increases in thier occurance we've seen.   I don't know when you grew up, but if you went to school any time is since around 1992, or even back to 1980, they've been about as necessary as they are now. Maybe more if you adjust for population.
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If gun owners only ridicule and try to shut down the conversation, they will ultimately have no say in how this goes.  I don't think the NRA is going to win this forever, thankfully.

I agree than firearms owners should participate in the discussion, or the ignorant masses in a media driven frenzy of fear will overshoot the mark.


Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #855 on: March 27, 2018, 04:30:29 PM »
Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:

1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).

...


From a purely Australian perspective I would say an assault weapon is any weapon that can fire without reloading - i.e. semi-automatic or faster.  This would apply to all guns.

No, that’s not true.

It’s a common trope on the right that “the left” doesn’t know anything about guns and therefore you can’t have a conversation with them about gun control.

But plenty of military veterans are on the side of gun control, and they know that “assault rifle” was a term that came from them.

http://www.capecodtimes.com/opinion/20180226/assault-weapons-have-no-place-with-civilians

Thanks for your comment, Kris. I was not trying to go down the path that no liberals know anything about guns and therefore can't have a discussion. My comment was intended to be very focused on specifically what I was not seeing, which is virtually any details on this proposed ban on this thread or in any commentary on major news outlets about what exactly this ban on assault weapons, rifles, or whatever the term used is.

In regards to your comment about "plenty of military veterans" who know that "assault rifle" was a term that came from them, I would respectfully say that your article which, as much as I could tell references only one person, does not convey that. To me, it seemed anecdotal commentary by someone who did, of course serve in the military, of their opinion on gun control. Not to be snarky, but I have plenty of anecdotes myself of people with different positions. If you have any links that show that any of these terms were originated by the military and tie into specific, tangible things about a rifle, I would certainly be interested in it.

Kris

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #856 on: March 27, 2018, 04:46:50 PM »
Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:

1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).

...


From a purely Australian perspective I would say an assault weapon is any weapon that can fire without reloading - i.e. semi-automatic or faster.  This would apply to all guns.

No, that’s not true.

It’s a common trope on the right that “the left” doesn’t know anything about guns and therefore you can’t have a conversation with them about gun control.

But plenty of military veterans are on the side of gun control, and they know that “assault rifle” was a term that came from them.

http://www.capecodtimes.com/opinion/20180226/assault-weapons-have-no-place-with-civilians

Thanks for your comment, Kris. I was not trying to go down the path that no liberals know anything about guns and therefore can't have a discussion. My comment was intended to be very focused on specifically what I was not seeing, which is virtually any details on this proposed ban on this thread or in any commentary on major news outlets about what exactly this ban on assault weapons, rifles, or whatever the term used is.

In regards to your comment about "plenty of military veterans" who know that "assault rifle" was a term that came from them, I would respectfully say that your article which, as much as I could tell references only one person, does not convey that. To me, it seemed anecdotal commentary by someone who did, of course serve in the military, of their opinion on gun control. Not to be snarky, but I have plenty of anecdotes myself of people with different positions. If you have any links that show that any of these terms were originated by the military and tie into specific, tangible things about a rifle, I would certainly be interested in it.

Yes, it was anecdotal. And anecdotally, I see many, many military and ex-military use the term "assault rifle" and they seem to have no trouble with it -- and they are clearly quite familiar with weapons. Interestingly, I have read that the term came from Hitler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

As to what an assault rifle actually is, it doesn't seem particularly in doubt.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/a-brief-history-of-the-assault-rifle/489428/



Midwest

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #857 on: March 27, 2018, 05:16:45 PM »
Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:

1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).

...


From a purely Australian perspective I would say an assault weapon is any weapon that can fire without reloading - i.e. semi-automatic or faster.  This would apply to all guns.

No, that’s not true.

It’s a common trope on the right that “the left” doesn’t know anything about guns and therefore you can’t have a conversation with them about gun control.

But plenty of military veterans are on the side of gun control, and they know that “assault rifle” was a term that came from them.

http://www.capecodtimes.com/opinion/20180226/assault-weapons-have-no-place-with-civilians

Thanks for your comment, Kris. I was not trying to go down the path that no liberals know anything about guns and therefore can't have a discussion. My comment was intended to be very focused on specifically what I was not seeing, which is virtually any details on this proposed ban on this thread or in any commentary on major news outlets about what exactly this ban on assault weapons, rifles, or whatever the term used is.

In regards to your comment about "plenty of military veterans" who know that "assault rifle" was a term that came from them, I would respectfully say that your article which, as much as I could tell references only one person, does not convey that. To me, it seemed anecdotal commentary by someone who did, of course serve in the military, of their opinion on gun control. Not to be snarky, but I have plenty of anecdotes myself of people with different positions. If you have any links that show that any of these terms were originated by the military and tie into specific, tangible things about a rifle, I would certainly be interested in it.

Yes, it was anecdotal. And anecdotally, I see many, many military and ex-military use the term "assault rifle" and they seem to have no trouble with it -- and they are clearly quite familiar with weapons. Interestingly, I have read that the term came from Hitler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

As to what an assault rifle actually is, it doesn't seem particularly in doubt.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/a-brief-history-of-the-assault-rifle/489428/

The wikipedia link you gave specifically states that it is referring to automatic rifles (it refers to another wikipedia article - see below) and the atlantic article refers military rifles which are automatic as well.

Here's a link to wikipedia regarding "assault weapons which has a wide variety of definitions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon

Other than pissing off lawful gun owners, why is the gun control side so focused on rifles which are used in a minority of homicides and difficult to define?

Some sort of universal background check without a registry would be a lot better use of time and might actually have a chance if structured correctly.  In addition, it would address pistols which comprise the vast majority of crimes (including many mass shootings).

John Paul Stevens came out today advocating for the repeal of the 2nd amendment.  That's the ultimate goal of many in the movement (not you necessarily).
« Last Edit: March 27, 2018, 05:20:17 PM by Midwest »

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #858 on: March 27, 2018, 07:03:35 PM »
Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:

1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).

Acting like "assault rifle" doesn't have a specific meaning is intellectually dishonest at best. If you want me to say "assault weapon" instead, fine, but you're just being pedantic. We can quibble about details like what rounds a particular weapon uses, but that's basically misdirection.

-Pistol grip or bullpup design
-Modular
-Usually derived from selective-fire rifles initially designed for the military
-Detachable box magazine

 The vast majority of the weapons we're addressing here are in the M16/M4/AK47 realm. The overarching problem with this class of weapon is that they're designed to put a lot of bullets into targets in a short period of time, while moving. Honestly, I don't really have a problem with people wanting something like an M1 Garand. Yes, it's more destructive from a ballistics point of view, but overall rate of fire is basically limited by reloading speed and design.

I'm not delusional enough to think that gun control will stop violent people from doing violence. The kinds of changes we're talking about are harm reduction measures. The best data we have shows that, if you can't escape or effectively barricade, attacking a shooter is how you reduce casualties. When is the best time for an unarmed person to attack someone with a gun? When they're reloading.

2. I can't pin this down to any one post in particular, but there seems to be a general feeling on here from people opposing gun rights and from others I see in media. This feeling is that I have a right to not be afraid. Sometimes it's a little more tangible than that of I have a right to not get hurt. I dunno, I guess this is just foreign to me. I hear things like you can have your gun rights until they conflict with my rights to this or that which, again, tend to go back to not being afraid or not getting hurt. To me, again, this is just a very foreign thing. The fear thing especially seems odd and to be honest a little silly. Having a right to not be afraid...even writing it seems weird. I get it on one level. I don't want my kids to be afraid or live in fear. I wouldn't be too excited about my kids getting nervous because of active shooter drills. However, I wouldn't say that a "right" is being violated. People live in fear over the craziest things. I am no exception. I am afraid of ridiculous things that are very unlikely to happen many times. I don't really blame someone for my fear, though. I can choose to live in fear, or I can choose to not. If I'm living in the middle of a war zone, some healthy caution would be merited. However, at least the way I see it, these fears are not merited statistically compared to other risks, and I think it's silly to live in fear of these other even riskier things (auto accidents even if I drive a lot or whatever). If we live in that fear, it seems it's kind of on us, and I don't understand how the right to own a gun competes with the "right" to not be afraid. That doesn't seem to be a right. The other right mentioned of a right to not get hurt also seems a bit nebulous. I guess I've always just lived with the understanding that rights prevent limitations - they mean you are able to do something or you cannot be restricted from doing something. In some cases it's super clear - I can say the government stinks and they can't throw me in jail. In other cases, it's more, I guess, philosophical like, let's say discrimination. However, that can still be linked to ensuring someone is able to do something - find a job, find housing, etc. It makes sense as a right. This right to not have bad things happen to me as a theoretical or philosophical right...it just seems so, I don't know, all encompassing that I don't know how you would ever stop if you really believed that as a founding principle. I get it, I believe that there can be certain restrictions on things - we all drive on one side of the road to prevent accidents, so on and so forth. This is not to say there can't be gun control if you view things as I do. I can see the benefits of certain restrictions, compromise, and the like. However, I guess I just can't make that leap that I have this unalienable right to not have something bad happen to me. I don't have a right to not ever be punched in the face. Now, if someone does it, I would like for them to get punished for it, but to say that I truly have the right to not be punched in the face would mean that I would have to support some insane restrictions that would prevent anyone from being able to punch me in the face. It just doesn't seem like a right to me. Not that locking someone up for assault to keep them from assaulting someone else is a bad thing (the analogy breaks down here, but hopefully you get my drift). It's not a bad thing to have restrictions on things necessarily. I just don't understand how it's some right in the same line as a right to have free speech or to have the ability to defend yourself - and yes, defend yourself with a weapon. I realize this whole part is a little theoretical, but it seems at least somewhat important to me. Not sure if this part will/even should get any responses, but if someone believes these things are rights and has thoughts on it, please respond.

A. Right to life supersedes pretty much everything else
B. "Opposing gun rights" is a not-so-subtle dig at anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of gun rights
C. Just because something is foreign to you doesn't mean it's invalid or silly
D. Some of the most fearful people I know are gun owners, they've bought into the amped up rhetoric about how violent the world is, and they can't see things any other way
E. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't be able to own a gun. I just don't think any random slob off the street should be able to be any weapon imaginable.  But sure, act like I'm a hysterical know-nothing.


Wow, ok, so let's address these one at a time. Your accusation that "acting like "assault rifle" doesn't have a specific meaning is intellectually dishonest at best" honestly made me laugh out loud. Intellectually dishonest....seriously? We're talking on a range of things from higher level philosophy to nuts and bolts of proposed changes on this board and yet I'm being intellectually dishonest for commenting that in 18 pages of this thread, I've seen virtually no one provide a definition of a word that has been called out for its vagueness many times....? Seriously? I have no qualms with it being assault rifle, assault weapon, or whatever the heck you want to call it, and I am certainly not being pedantic. Almost every person on this thread who supports gun control comes in with the line of reasoning, but "We're not trying to take your guns! Stop being ridiculous!" Well, you're talking about banning something. Banning. Full stop. And when I ask for a definition of what you're wanting to ban, you accuse me of obfuscating the point.... In any other debate on policy decisions if I said I want to ban something and can't be called on to give the details of what I'm wanting to ban, I'd be laughed out of the room, and rightly so. What does assault rifle/weapon mean? No one seems to be able to come to a consensus. The last time we banned them, even gun control advocates on here admit at least one or two of the items on the list were superfluous, so yes, defining what it means is kind of important. So, aside from your silly (used the word again on purpose, admittedly :-) ) questioning of my intents, let's look at your comments.

Pistol grip - ok, a detail we can discuss. Does it make a weapon easier to kill people than without it or than a handgun or whatnot? Again, something we can discuss now that you've spelled out something specific.

Modular - now this opens up a whole new can of worms, which is excellent. We need to figure out what people actually want and what makes sense. What's wrong with being modular? We need to know this to know what degree of modularity would actually be banned from a very modular AR-15 down to adding a scope on a bolt action single shot rifle. We can't have rational discourse without this stuff, IMO.

Usually derived from selective-fire rifles initially designed for the military - I won't belabor the point, but this is a great reason why this stuff needs to be detailed. Other than illegal modifications, anything that fires more than one shot per trigger pull is pretty much outlawed and yet, I would imagine when many people think about assault rifles or weapons, this is what they think of, and when they think of banning them, that's probably at least the thought that comes to mind.

Detachable box magazine - OK, so again, important details. I'm no gun expert, but I believe this would eliminate a significant portion of all semi-automatic rifles on the market. Is it worth it? Worth debating, but it's important to know the implications.

The comments after your initial statements show that you're clearly familiar with guns. I don't mean to condescend, but again, I don't see what the problem is with trying to figure out what we're actually wanting to ban before we make legislation.

As for your response to the second part, I believe you took it in a way that I was not intending. First of all, opposing gun rights, point conceded, not the best phrase.

For the "just because something is foreign to me doesn't mean it's invalid or silly," I never said it did. I said it seemed silly...just trying to convey how I saw it. If I wasn't clear, I was asking for input on people that saw it differently, not saying they were morons.

For the comment about fearful gun owners...sure, there are plenty of fearful gun owners. I'm just saying not being afraid is not a right in and of itself.

For the "right to life supersedes pretty much everything else," that's great! Please expound. That's the argument that I find completely alien, but it seems to be what people feel. If the right to life supersedes pretty much everything else, then we need to regulate everything intensely hard and do it yesterday. We apply right to life to guns because it's easy fodder so to speak, but if one really think right to life supersedes everything else, I don't see how it ends (and this is not a slippery slope argument, this is at the very base of the belief) in anything but, again, very intense restrictions. To allow any kind of standard social interactions with anything dangerous at all (cars, guns, knives, golf clubs, martial arts knowledge, what have you) would be to allow the risk of an end to this "right to life." Of course the risk is much less for tons of things compared to guns, no argument there. However, I feel like guns are an easy focal point (low hanging fruit gun control people would probably say), but this perspective isn't extended to it's logical conclusion if it's truly the most basic most important personal right....at least the way I see it.

To your final point, there's a huge gulf between someone not being able to own any gun whatsoever and "any random slob off the street" owning "any weapon imaginable." I'm trying to refine what people actually want and have intellectual conversations on fair level ground where we both know what we're debating. But sure, act like I'm asking the world and deriding you when I ask for a few details....

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #859 on: March 27, 2018, 07:08:56 PM »
Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:

1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).

Here's one definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban#Criteria_of_an_assault_weapon

I think the federal ban was incomplete and had too many exemptions. I also think we should drop the "Assault Weapon" term, but only because there is not a 100% agreed upon definition and some gun rights advocates like to use that fact to end the discussion. Most definitions overlap but if someone is for an assault weapons ban what that really means is that they are in favor of banning more weapons than we currently do. If someone uses the term "assault weapon" what they're really saying is, "weapon that I think should be banned".

ETA: I assumed you meant "assault weapons" rather than "assault rifles"

I guess, I don't really think it's worth a big debate over "assault weapons" and "assault rifles." The terms are charged and many gun control advocates mean different things when they say them (as I believe you talked about, basically they mean it's a "weapon I think should be banned." It's not hard to see how people that are leery of things being banned are very leery of I want this something banned in my mind that I know what I'm meaning but I can't assume anyone else does. As I droned on for some time in the response above :), I'd like people to say what they want to ban. I.e. I want to ban all semi-automatic rifles. I want to ban all semi-automatic handguns. I want to ban all magazines with greater than 10 rounds capacity.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #860 on: March 27, 2018, 07:45:36 PM »
About the fear comment form Wolfpack: why are gun owners so afraid all the time? Why do they need weapons all over the house "just in case"? Why do they need to strap on a gun just to go for a walk in the neighborhood or to the local store? Is life so terrifyingly dangerous where they live that this is necessary? I'd probably move if that was true.

I've never strapped on a gun, even when I lived in a high crime area, and I don't feel a lack in my life because of this. We don't own a gun because we believe having one with kids is much more irresponsible than the opposite.

See, I don't care if you're afraid all the time and think a gun will solve that just like you don't care about my fears. I don't care if you carry a gun as long as you do so responsibly. As long as lax gun laws don't mean your fear spills into my life. That is what I mean by wanting these shooter drills to stop being necessary. They never were when I was growing up, so I can only conclude our laws have become lax enough that something needs to change. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert and know how best to do that. I can only support those who think they have the answers.

If gun owners only ridicule and try to shut down the conversation, they will ultimately have no say in how this goes.  I don't think the NRA is going to win this forever, thankfully.

To your fear comment, I completely agree and even mentioned a while back in this thread that both sides are very emotional on the subject. I’m just saying that I think people viewing it as if they have a right to not be afraid is just really out there to me. Where does it end? I’m afraid at times of financial issues although I’m not in a terrible financial position. It’s not a rational fear. Should I have a right to not be afraid, if it meant I would get 10 million dollars or whatever it is. I know this is a silly analogy, but I don’t see how to not go down the silly route when we’re saying or implying that we truly have a right to not be afraid...

If the only argument to own a gun was the right to not be afraid, then sure, I would say there’s no right to own a gun. However, the right to own a gun ties to the right to defend yourself. That’s not a nebulous thing. That’s a basic right that says the government can’t take away your right to have a tool that could be instrumental in defending yourself or your family. If you take away the right to own a gun, the government is literally restricting me from being able to physically (not in my mind but physically) do something that I feel is pretty important – defense of your family. I’m not saying the government is doing this or you want to do this or anything. My whole point with the fear argument is that I feel these things are on totally different planes. One is a tangible right to me, the other is so vast and could go down so many rabbit holes, I have a hard time taking it seriously.

My response to your comment about active shooter drills is they’re not necessary. This is a tremendous statistically unlikely possibility. People are doing it because of an irrational fear perpetuated by a media that loves to report bad things.  These are tragedies, but as the point that has been beaten like a dead horse, your kids and mine are safer today than they were 3 decades ago, and there’s multiple other things more likely to endanger their lives, especially over the course of their lives, than guns. That’s why I target on the fear thing. The way I see it, it’s not lax gun laws spilling over into your life. It’s an irrational fear of lack of safety perpetuated by a media that thrives on it making us feel less and less safe. Having a gun to me is not a function of being afraid or of the likelihood of needing it. It’s the desire to be able to do something in the event it is actually needed. I’m sure it’s not totally logical either :).

I hope the comment about gun owners ridiculing and shutting down conversation wasn’t directed at me. I feel like I’ve tried to be pretty inviting to discussion and not derogatory, but I’m fallible too. Not to be too blunt, but it’s also not just the gun owners that are shutting down the conversations. I’ve had enough conversations/seen posts etc. from people adamant about gun control to believe that it’s really on both sides.

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Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #862 on: March 27, 2018, 08:01:16 PM »
Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:

1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).

...


From a purely Australian perspective I would say an assault weapon is any weapon that can fire without reloading - i.e. semi-automatic or faster.  This would apply to all guns.

No, that’s not true.

It’s a common trope on the right that “the left” doesn’t know anything about guns and therefore you can’t have a conversation with them about gun control.

But plenty of military veterans are on the side of gun control, and they know that “assault rifle” was a term that came from them.

http://www.capecodtimes.com/opinion/20180226/assault-weapons-have-no-place-with-civilians

Thanks for your comment, Kris. I was not trying to go down the path that no liberals know anything about guns and therefore can't have a discussion. My comment was intended to be very focused on specifically what I was not seeing, which is virtually any details on this proposed ban on this thread or in any commentary on major news outlets about what exactly this ban on assault weapons, rifles, or whatever the term used is.

In regards to your comment about "plenty of military veterans" who know that "assault rifle" was a term that came from them, I would respectfully say that your article which, as much as I could tell references only one person, does not convey that. To me, it seemed anecdotal commentary by someone who did, of course serve in the military, of their opinion on gun control. Not to be snarky, but I have plenty of anecdotes myself of people with different positions. If you have any links that show that any of these terms were originated by the military and tie into specific, tangible things about a rifle, I would certainly be interested in it.

Yes, it was anecdotal. And anecdotally, I see many, many military and ex-military use the term "assault rifle" and they seem to have no trouble with it -- and they are clearly quite familiar with weapons. Interestingly, I have read that the term came from Hitler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

As to what an assault rifle actually is, it doesn't seem particularly in doubt.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/a-brief-history-of-the-assault-rifle/489428/

As Midwest said, even the article you just mentioned talks about fully automatic and semi-automatic rifles both as assault rifles, at least as I read it, and that's the most important point of potential devastation of a weapon. If this article that's being held up as an example of how we should all know what assault rifles are talks about the single most important distinction, IMO, of any weapon - full auto vs. semi auto as if both could apply, I submit that we don't have a handle on what this term means.

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #863 on: March 27, 2018, 08:01:19 PM »
Interesting continued discussion. I have two follow up questions:

1. If you are supporting banning "assault rifles," I think it's only fair that you define what you are meaning. This is especially to NoStacheOhio who said "because assault rifles aren't just "cosmetic," no matter how many times you say it," but it's also to anyone who would like to answer. I am pretty sure I disagree with your statement, but it's hard to disagree when you haven't put forth anything defining what you mean by it. Note, if you have and I have missed it, my apologies, but I have been keeping up with this thread and can't recall seeing anything other than ban at least AR-15's...maybe....? This is part of the frustration with gun control people because if you can't even define the restrictions you want to implement how can they be taken seriously (and even if they can be defined, they don't ever seem to be in conversation).

Here's one definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban#Criteria_of_an_assault_weapon

I think the federal ban was incomplete and had too many exemptions. I also think we should drop the "Assault Weapon" term, but only because there is not a 100% agreed upon definition and some gun rights advocates like to use that fact to end the discussion. Most definitions overlap but if someone is for an assault weapons ban what that really means is that they are in favor of banning more weapons than we currently do. If someone uses the term "assault weapon" what they're really saying is, "weapon that I think should be banned".

ETA: I assumed you meant "assault weapons" rather than "assault rifles"

I guess, I don't really think it's worth a big debate over "assault weapons" and "assault rifles." The terms are charged and many gun control advocates mean different things when they say them (as I believe you talked about, basically they mean it's a "weapon I think should be banned." It's not hard to see how people that are leery of things being banned are very leery of I want this something banned in my mind that I know what I'm meaning but I can't assume anyone else does. As I droned on for some time in the response above :), I'd like people to say what they want to ban. I.e. I want to ban all semi-automatic rifles. I want to ban all semi-automatic handguns. I want to ban all magazines with greater than 10 rounds capacity.

Neither do I. I pointed it out to let another commenter know that I read what you said differently than they did which is why I spoke as if you had said "assault weapons". I made the assumption that you weren't differentiating between the two, which you were not.


You've taken a small part of what I said and made it the whole point. My point was that there was a very specific definition of "assault weapons" under the federal ban. Many people who use the term are referring to that definition. Admittedly most probably don't know every detail of that ban. But when I said that there is disagreement among proponents of an assault weapon ban I meant some of the lesser details, not as in some people think single shot shotguns should be considered assault weapons (you can probably find a few of those people and you can promptly ignore their opinions, I wouldn't blame you.)

I absolutely agree that the real conversations should be about specifics, but you can't expect everyone to understand all of the aspects of how guns work, ammunition types, accessories and to also to voice those opinions in the sound bites you see on TV. So instead, you get people marching and waving signs. Among that crowd marching is a whole spectrum of knowledge on weapons. Some may be ignorant of what they're really asking for, but what if they're just asking politicians to have the conversations you say you want.

The ideal situation would be to have some experts who understand the statistics (if we actually tracked them) and others who understand the weapons and how they work sit down and hash these things out AND on top of that get politics out of the way enough for us to actually take the advice of these experts. But clearly we're a long way from the ideal situation.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #864 on: March 27, 2018, 08:28:25 PM »


Neither do I. I pointed it out to let another commenter know that I read what you said differently than they did which is why I spoke as if you had said "assault weapons". I made the assumption that you weren't differentiating between the two, which you were not.


You've taken a small part of what I said and made it the whole point. My point was that there was a very specific definition of "assault weapons" under the federal ban. Many people who use the term are referring to that definition. Admittedly most probably don't know every detail of that ban. But when I said that there is disagreement among proponents of an assault weapon ban I meant some of the lesser details, not as in some people think single shot shotguns should be considered assault weapons (you can probably find a few of those people and you can promptly ignore their opinions, I wouldn't blame you.)

I absolutely agree that the real conversations should be about specifics, but you can't expect everyone to understand all of the aspects of how guns work, ammunition types, accessories and to also to voice those opinions in the sound bites you see on TV. So instead, you get people marching and waving signs. Among that crowd marching is a whole spectrum of knowledge on weapons. Some may be ignorant of what they're really asking for, but what if they're just asking politicians to have the conversations you say you want.

The ideal situation would be to have some experts who understand the statistics (if we actually tracked them) and others who understand the weapons and how they work sit down and hash these things out AND on top of that get politics out of the way enough for us to actually take the advice of these experts. But clearly we're a long way from the ideal situation.

Ah, OK, so this was actually a situation where I didn't understand your main point, my bad. Now that I do, let me respond to that. It would make sense that at least some if not many people may think about reenacting that ban when the term comes up. I wish they would say, let's reenact the previous federal ban. Then I would know what they're talking about. I can agree that there are certain things that I wouldn't expect everyone to know. We're not all gun experts. Many gun control people even on this forum probably know more about guns than I do. I don't expect everyone waving a sign to know it all. However, I'll use an analogy. If you're passionate enough about tax law to go out and protest, great. I don't expect you to be an expert on tax law and know all the potential loop holes and this and that. However, I do expect you to know, let's just say, basic tax rate at different income levels - maybe 5 or 6 different percentages. If you don't have the fortitude to be knowledgeable enough to at least do that, I'm not really going to take you seriously. Sure, people out there marching may not know the benefits/risks of flash suppressors or pistol grips. I just wish they wouldn't get the "tax percentage" basics all wrong - conflating fully automatic with semi automatic. Wanting to ban semi-automatic rifles but then not seeing an issue with handguns because they think they're not semi-automatic or a million different variations that I see in the news and hear in every day conversation (like a teenage girl I overheard eating at a restaurant on Sunday because she was being so loud, and it was clear that she didn't even know the difference between a fully automatic gun and a semi-automatic one). That's a big frustration for me and most gun proponents. I don't think it's wrong for us to get frustrated with that. Auto vs. semi auto, the fact that all guns can fire a certain number of rounds without reloading or just 1 shot before reloading, and so on... It seems that people just don't get these things, and you're passionate enough to demand legislation, please know a little about what you're talking about and be willing to give a few of the big picture details.

Davnasty

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #865 on: March 27, 2018, 08:50:02 PM »
About the fear comment form Wolfpack: why are gun owners so afraid all the time? Why do they need weapons all over the house "just in case"? Why do they need to strap on a gun just to go for a walk in the neighborhood or to the local store? Is life so terrifyingly dangerous where they live that this is necessary? I'd probably move if that was true.

I've never strapped on a gun, even when I lived in a high crime area, and I don't feel a lack in my life because of this. We don't own a gun because we believe having one with kids is much more irresponsible than the opposite.

See, I don't care if you're afraid all the time and think a gun will solve that just like you don't care about my fears. I don't care if you carry a gun as long as you do so responsibly. As long as lax gun laws don't mean your fear spills into my life. That is what I mean by wanting these shooter drills to stop being necessary. They never were when I was growing up, so I can only conclude our laws have become lax enough that something needs to change. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert and know how best to do that. I can only support those who think they have the answers.

If gun owners only ridicule and try to shut down the conversation, they will ultimately have no say in how this goes.  I don't think the NRA is going to win this forever, thankfully.

To your fear comment, I completely agree and even mentioned a while back in this thread that both sides are very emotional on the subject. I’m just saying that I think people viewing it as if they have a right to not be afraid is just really out there to me. Where does it end? I’m afraid at times of financial issues although I’m not in a terrible financial position. It’s not a rational fear. Should I have a right to not be afraid, if it meant I would get 10 million dollars or whatever it is. I know this is a silly analogy, but I don’t see how to not go down the silly route when we’re saying or implying that we truly have a right to not be afraid...

If the only argument to own a gun was the right to not be afraid, then sure, I would say there’s no right to own a gun. However, the right to own a gun ties to the right to defend yourself. That’s not a nebulous thing. That’s a basic right that says the government can’t take away your right to have a tool that could be instrumental in defending yourself or your family. If you take away the right to own a gun, the government is literally restricting me from being able to physically (not in my mind but physically) do something that I feel is pretty important – defense of your family. I’m not saying the government is doing this or you want to do this or anything. My whole point with the fear argument is that I feel these things are on totally different planes. One is a tangible right to me, the other is so vast and could go down so many rabbit holes, I have a hard time taking it seriously.

My response to your comment about active shooter drills is they’re not necessary. This is a tremendous statistically unlikely possibility. People are doing it because of an irrational fear perpetuated by a media that loves to report bad things.  These are tragedies, but as the point that has been beaten like a dead horse, your kids and mine are safer today than they were 3 decades ago, and there’s multiple other things more likely to endanger their lives, especially over the course of their lives, than guns. That’s why I target on the fear thing. The way I see it, it’s not lax gun laws spilling over into your life. It’s an irrational fear of lack of safety perpetuated by a media that thrives on it making us feel less and less safe. Having a gun to me is not a function of being afraid or of the likelihood of needing it. It’s the desire to be able to do something in the event it is actually needed. I’m sure it’s not totally logical either :).

I hope the comment about gun owners ridiculing and shutting down conversation wasn’t directed at me. I feel like I’ve tried to be pretty inviting to discussion and not derogatory, but I’m fallible too. Not to be too blunt, but it’s also not just the gun owners that are shutting down the conversations. I’ve had enough conversations/seen posts etc. from people adamant about gun control to believe that it’s really on both sides.

I think they were using some hyperbole to show the flip side of what you were saying. Demonstrated again in bold.

On the other hand, I agree that the wording "right to not be afraid" is weird and that the drills probably are excessive.

One other thing, if you were arguing with someone who wanted to ban basic home defense weapons, your statements would make sense. Restricting ownership of specific guns that are deemed too dangerous for the public (not defined by commenter) is not the same as

Quote
the government is literally restricting me from being able to physically (not in my mind but physically) do something that I feel is pretty important – defense of your family

Polling shows only 10% of the country supports a ban on all firearms.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/guns-parkland-polling-quiz/

And 28% support banning private handgun ownership. More than I expected but a full 71% disagree, only 1% undecided.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx

Davnasty

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #866 on: March 27, 2018, 09:08:16 PM »


Neither do I. I pointed it out to let another commenter know that I read what you said differently than they did which is why I spoke as if you had said "assault weapons". I made the assumption that you weren't differentiating between the two, which you were not.


You've taken a small part of what I said and made it the whole point. My point was that there was a very specific definition of "assault weapons" under the federal ban. Many people who use the term are referring to that definition. Admittedly most probably don't know every detail of that ban. But when I said that there is disagreement among proponents of an assault weapon ban I meant some of the lesser details, not as in some people think single shot shotguns should be considered assault weapons (you can probably find a few of those people and you can promptly ignore their opinions, I wouldn't blame you.)

I absolutely agree that the real conversations should be about specifics, but you can't expect everyone to understand all of the aspects of how guns work, ammunition types, accessories and to also to voice those opinions in the sound bites you see on TV. So instead, you get people marching and waving signs. Among that crowd marching is a whole spectrum of knowledge on weapons. Some may be ignorant of what they're really asking for, but what if they're just asking politicians to have the conversations you say you want.

The ideal situation would be to have some experts who understand the statistics (if we actually tracked them) and others who understand the weapons and how they work sit down and hash these things out AND on top of that get politics out of the way enough for us to actually take the advice of these experts. But clearly we're a long way from the ideal situation.

Ah, OK, so this was actually a situation where I didn't understand your main point, my bad. Now that I do, let me respond to that. It would make sense that at least some if not many people may think about reenacting that ban when the term comes up. I wish they would say, let's reenact the previous federal ban. Then I would know what they're talking about. I can agree that there are certain things that I wouldn't expect everyone to know. We're not all gun experts. Many gun control people even on this forum probably know more about guns than I do. I don't expect everyone waving a sign to know it all. However, I'll use an analogy. If you're passionate enough about tax law to go out and protest, great. I don't expect you to be an expert on tax law and know all the potential loop holes and this and that. However, I do expect you to know, let's just say, basic tax rate at different income levels - maybe 5 or 6 different percentages. If you don't have the fortitude to be knowledgeable enough to at least do that, I'm not really going to take you seriously. Sure, people out there marching may not know the benefits/risks of flash suppressors or pistol grips. I just wish they wouldn't get the "tax percentage" basics all wrong - conflating fully automatic with semi automatic. Wanting to ban semi-automatic rifles but then not seeing an issue with handguns because they think they're not semi-automatic or a million different variations that I see in the news and hear in every day conversation (like a teenage girl I overheard eating at a restaurant on Sunday because she was being so loud, and it was clear that she didn't even know the difference between a fully automatic gun and a semi-automatic one). That's a big frustration for me and most gun proponents. I don't think it's wrong for us to get frustrated with that. Auto vs. semi auto, the fact that all guns can fire a certain number of rounds without reloading or just 1 shot before reloading, and so on... It seems that people just don't get these things, and you're passionate enough to demand legislation, please know a little about what you're talking about and be willing to give a few of the big picture details.

The ban ended in 2004. I am mostly in favor of a renewal as I think it would be better than the current situation, but I also think there are some simple fixes which would have improved things that may not have even been considered the first time around. To say I support exactly the previous ban would be untrue. For now I'm fine with saying I support an "assault weapons ban" as a starting point, although I'm not a big fan of the terminology.

It's not. But it is wrong if you conflate these people with everyone you disagree with. Hell, they may even be the majority but that doesn't prove one side or the other.

Your tax law analogy is a good one because the truth is the majority on both sides of that issue are ignorant of even basic details. But I don't use that fact to argue that we should never make any changes.

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #867 on: March 27, 2018, 10:57:42 PM »


Neither do I. I pointed it out to let another commenter know that I read what you said differently than they did which is why I spoke as if you had said "assault weapons". I made the assumption that you weren't differentiating between the two, which you were not.


You've taken a small part of what I said and made it the whole point. My point was that there was a very specific definition of "assault weapons" under the federal ban. Many people who use the term are referring to that definition. Admittedly most probably don't know every detail of that ban. But when I said that there is disagreement among proponents of an assault weapon ban I meant some of the lesser details, not as in some people think single shot shotguns should be considered assault weapons (you can probably find a few of those people and you can promptly ignore their opinions, I wouldn't blame you.)

I absolutely agree that the real conversations should be about specifics, but you can't expect everyone to understand all of the aspects of how guns work, ammunition types, accessories and to also to voice those opinions in the sound bites you see on TV. So instead, you get people marching and waving signs. Among that crowd marching is a whole spectrum of knowledge on weapons. Some may be ignorant of what they're really asking for, but what if they're just asking politicians to have the conversations you say you want.

The ideal situation would be to have some experts who understand the statistics (if we actually tracked them) and others who understand the weapons and how they work sit down and hash these things out AND on top of that get politics out of the way enough for us to actually take the advice of these experts. But clearly we're a long way from the ideal situation.

Ah, OK, so this was actually a situation where I didn't understand your main point, my bad. Now that I do, let me respond to that. It would make sense that at least some if not many people may think about reenacting that ban when the term comes up. I wish they would say, let's reenact the previous federal ban. Then I would know what they're talking about. I can agree that there are certain things that I wouldn't expect everyone to know. We're not all gun experts. Many gun control people even on this forum probably know more about guns than I do. I don't expect everyone waving a sign to know it all. However, I'll use an analogy. If you're passionate enough about tax law to go out and protest, great. I don't expect you to be an expert on tax law and know all the potential loop holes and this and that. However, I do expect you to know, let's just say, basic tax rate at different income levels - maybe 5 or 6 different percentages. If you don't have the fortitude to be knowledgeable enough to at least do that, I'm not really going to take you seriously. Sure, people out there marching may not know the benefits/risks of flash suppressors or pistol grips. I just wish they wouldn't get the "tax percentage" basics all wrong - conflating fully automatic with semi automatic. Wanting to ban semi-automatic rifles but then not seeing an issue with handguns because they think they're not semi-automatic or a million different variations that I see in the news and hear in every day conversation (like a teenage girl I overheard eating at a restaurant on Sunday because she was being so loud, and it was clear that she didn't even know the difference between a fully automatic gun and a semi-automatic one). That's a big frustration for me and most gun proponents. I don't think it's wrong for us to get frustrated with that. Auto vs. semi auto, the fact that all guns can fire a certain number of rounds without reloading or just 1 shot before reloading, and so on... It seems that people just don't get these things, and you're passionate enough to demand legislation, please know a little about what you're talking about and be willing to give a few of the big picture details.

I think the biggest problem with telling people they don't know what they are talking about so their proposals are worthless is there never follows a reasoned explanation and attempt to understand why the supposedly ignorant person would want change to gun laws in the first place. This makes gun owners who do this sound arrogant and dismissive, whether that was meant or not. It would be fantastic instead to hear non-dismissive explanations of said weapons and a gun owner perspective on how to change this. One that doesn't include "more guns" or "good guys" (why does that last one even get talked up? Like we're all watching Saturday morning cartoons and the good and bad guys wear black a nd white shirts so we are sure which side they belong to; real life ain't that cut and dried).

gooki

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #868 on: March 28, 2018, 04:33:48 AM »
Quote
Lets say, of those non-fatal incidents involving a firearm, 14% can be directly attributed to the availability of firearms... that 14% of  these crimes were possible mainly because of firearms, that firearms played a serious role in 14% of the incidents. That is ~57,000 incidents/yr.  Add in homicides... that's about 68000 per year.

Let’s say you live to 85 years old. That’s 5,700,000 incidents over your life time.

If gun violence continues increasing at 6% per year it’s 159,000,000 incidents in ones lifetime.

Either scenario seems far to high risk for my liking.

You realize how... wrong... you conclusion is? 57,000 is just a subset of 414k/year incidences of violent crime. by your math, and your assumption of a 6% increase every year, an individual would be subject to multiple cases of violent crime every year? Gun violence, and violence overall, by all credible accounts, has been steady or decreasing since the early 1990s.  The risk you face now is lower than it has been in a long time.

Try using facts instead of relying on the media to tell you what to be afraid of.

Let’s say you misinterpreted someone’s speculation as fact.

But if you want some facts it appears gun violence has been on the rise over the last 4 years.

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

Feel free to dispute them.

NoStacheOhio

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #869 on: March 28, 2018, 06:42:49 AM »
To your final point, there's a huge gulf between someone not being able to own any gun whatsoever and "any random slob off the street" owning "any weapon imaginable." I'm trying to refine what people actually want and have intellectual conversations on fair level ground where we both know what we're debating. But sure, act like I'm asking the world and deriding you when I ask for a few details....

The problem is our status quo is pretty close to the latter. Hell, I didn't even know bump stocks were a thing until Vegas. And since you can 3D print them, banning them isn't going to do shit. We need to address some fundamental design features of the weapons capable of bump fire (see my M1 Garand reference). Focusing on automatic fire is also beside the point. The bigger problem is the number of weapons already in circulation.

I don't disagree that handguns cause a lot of harm, and account for the majority of gun incidents in the U.S. They're also fundamentally less capable of destruction (by design) compared to something that was designed as an infantry rifle from the ground up.

I'm sick of people arguing against measures meant to address narrow problems by saying "yeah, but what about [insert tangentially related thing]." One law isn't going to fix all of our problems. Yes, we have a violence problem. It's compounded by easy access to powerful weapons.

I'm looking at it from a pseudo-public health perspective. Clearly, as a society, we've decided that shootings are acceptable at a rate somewhere higher than what we're currently seeing (how high? who knows!). I think it's a stupid attitude, but it's apparently where we are. A nonzero number of people need to die because "Fuck you, I like guns."

So taking that into consideration, how can we reduce harm? Let's examine some of the characteristics of weapons commonly used in mass shootings and see if we can change anything. We should probably also look at the types of ammunition that are available for public purchase. Would limiting the amount of powder in a round reduce harm? Would changing the composition or design of the projectile? But we're apparently incapable of having that discussion because the lobbying arm of the firearms industry controls a huge portion of the narrative.

caracarn

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #870 on: March 28, 2018, 07:00:25 AM »
So can we put to rest the whole “no one’s trying to take your guns away” tripe?


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
No. 

You can still own guns without having it in the Constitution.

Other countries have people who own guns and they do not have it in their documents.  They just have a set of rules that their society agreed to about how to handle that.  This over broad worry that not having something in the Constitution is just funny.

NoStacheOhio

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #871 on: March 28, 2018, 07:07:25 AM »
So can we put to rest the whole “no one’s trying to take your guns away” tripe?


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
No. 

You can still own guns without having it in the Constitution.

Other countries have people who own guns and they do not have it in their documents.  They just have a set of rules that their society agreed to about how to handle that.  This over broad worry that not having something in the Constitution is just funny.

To wit: cars are also not in the Bill of Rights

jimmymango

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #872 on: March 28, 2018, 07:36:26 AM »
Quote
Other countries have people who own guns and they do not have it in their documents.  They just have a set of rules that their society agreed to about how to handle that.

I think this quote is quite informative, especially when viewing the issue of gun violence through the lense of public health as NoStacheOhio mentioned. While I think it’s a good idea to try to design guns with safety in mind as  we do cars, the issue is not one without solid answers and evidence, which leads me to the conclusion that all this talk about the definition of assault rifles and the like is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Every other developed nation does not have a gun violence problem. They have the solutions. We can just adapt what they do to our own legal environment and likely see the mass reductions in gun deaths that everyone wants, balanced against respecting ownership rights. Rates may still be higher than in other countries, but I imagine they would be far lower than currently.

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #873 on: March 28, 2018, 07:55:33 AM »
Quote
Other countries have people who own guns and they do not have it in their documents.  They just have a set of rules that their society agreed to about how to handle that.

I think this quote is quite informative, especially when viewing the issue of gun violence through the lense of public health as NoStacheOhio mentioned. While I think it’s a good idea to try to design guns with safety in mind as  we do cars, the issue is not one without solid answers and evidence, which leads me to the conclusion that all this talk about the definition of assault rifles and the like is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Every other developed nation does not have a gun violence problem. They have the solutions. We can just adapt what they do to our own legal environment and likely see the mass reductions in gun deaths that everyone wants, balanced against respecting ownership rights. Rates may still be higher than in other countries, but I imagine they would be far lower than currently.

The problem is, pretty much every other developed country in the world has stricter gun control rules.  Gun advocates don't believe that guns are a problem because they like guns.  To them, the deaths and injury caused by guns are the price of freedom to use whatever toys you want, whenever you want . . . and no amount of death is worth the slightest inconvenience on that front.  I don't believe you'll ever get them on board.

Jrr85

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #874 on: March 28, 2018, 08:21:07 AM »

The former is not treating gun crime seriously.  If you don't think procuring guns for people who are banned from buying guns is worthy of jail time, then you obviously don't consider background checks that important. 

Sigh.

If you don't support a gun registry, you obviously don't believe that catching straw purchasers is all that important, because the costs of prosecution will deter cases from ever making it to court.  See?  I can play the same game that you're doing.  But it's not really productive.
  I'm not the one asking for law abiding gun owners to be entered into a registry.  To not prosecute actually identified criminals who have procured guns used in violent crimes (which is how straw purchasers are usually identified) and then ask for more burdens on law abiding gun owners is one of the reasons nothing is done.  If for no other reason than self interest, gun control advocates should at least act like they are more worried about deterring and decreasing violent gun crime than confiscating weapons. 


I'd personally like harsher penalties for straw purchasers than Maryland is handing out.  I'm happy that they've got a framework in place that actually allows small time straw purchasers to be caught and prosecuted though (unlike most places with lax gun laws).



And I'm still not buying that Texas doesn't make it illegal to act as a straw purchaser, at least for somebody banned from having a gun.

As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.  That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston? 

Davnasty

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #875 on: March 28, 2018, 10:11:43 AM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

TrudgingAlong

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #876 on: March 28, 2018, 10:43:26 AM »
This whole argument about straw purchasers is part of the bigger issues we have prosecuting gun owners who don't actually fire the weapon. All those kids who got a hold of their parents' unsecured weapon? "Tragic accident" Most of these school shooters are in that category. Parent does not secure their weapon adequately, kid uses it at school. Does parent ever get arrested? Nope! Is that because these gun owners fall into the the category of "good guy" so it's terrifying to think of them being prosecuted? What, then, makes someone a "bad guy"?

This stupid debate, by the way, is why I don't think stricter background checks will do a whole lot to tamp down the violence. Plenty of people who shoot others have clean background checks until that moment.

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #877 on: March 28, 2018, 11:08:00 AM »
It has already been mentioned in this thread, but 45% of American gun owners with children keep at least one unsecured firearm in the home.  More than half of gun owners in the US store their weapons unsecured so that they can easily be stolen or used by an unauthorized person.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-safe-gun-storage-20180223-story.html

The real reason that suggestions for things like a gun registry strikes terror in the heart of gun owners is that it means they might have to accept responsibility for their actions.

Midwest

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #878 on: March 28, 2018, 11:12:52 AM »
This whole argument about straw purchasers is part of the bigger issues we have prosecuting gun owners who don't actually fire the weapon. All those kids who got a hold of their parents' unsecured weapon? "Tragic accident" Most of these school shooters are in that category. Parent does not secure their weapon adequately, kid uses it at school. Does parent ever get arrested? Nope! Is that because these gun owners fall into the the category of "good guy" so it's terrifying to think of them being prosecuted? What, then, makes someone a "bad guy"?

This stupid debate, by the way, is why I don't think stricter background checks will do a whole lot to tamp down the violence. Plenty of people who shoot others have clean background checks until that moment.

Intentionally buying a weapon for another person and lying on the background check is different than a kid stealing an unloaded weapon from a parent or other parental figure.  I don't think it's a big leap to suggest the prohibited person who has now obtained a weapon is vastly more likely than the average person to commit a crime (apart from the crime of having the weapon) with said weapon.

If you are suggesting safes for all, I disagree.  If you are suggesting, parents be prosecuted for deaths/injuries of loaded firearms lying around, I tend to agree to depending on the circumstances.

In addition, mass shootings (of which school shootings are a subset) represent a small proportion of homicide in this country.  That doesn't make them any less tragic, but that is the reality.

TrudgingAlong

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #879 on: March 28, 2018, 11:31:37 AM »
It has already been mentioned in this thread, but 45% of American gun owners with children keep at least one unsecured firearm in the home.  More than half of gun owners in the US store their weapons unsecured so that they can easily be stolen or used by an unauthorized person.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-safe-gun-storage-20180223-story.html

The real reason that suggestions for things like a gun registry strikes terror in the heart of gun owners is that it means they might have to accept responsibility for their actions.

Ha, so very true.

jimmymango

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #880 on: March 28, 2018, 12:14:45 PM »
Just want to add a new element to this discussion that might illuminate one element of why the gun debate seems so intractable. I've been interacting with other people on a Reddit thread about a Salon article (https://www.salon.com/2018/03/27/why-are-white-men-stockpiling-guns_partner/) discussing gun ownership among white men (this is controversial based on Reddit comments in the thread, and it's not my intention to troll...just hoping we could add it to the mix and discuss academically).

The article discusses sociologist Angela Stroud's book Good Guys with Guns - https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469627892/good-guys-with-guns/, (the core of which is based on interviews with 20 gun-owning men) which highlights a lot of racial anxiety surrounding gun ownership. Her interviews dovetail with a lot of research on the subject which highlight an intersection between gender, race, political leanings, and socioeconomic research when it comes to gun ownership (all links from the Salon article):

* Racism, Gun Ownership and Gun Control: Biased Attitudes in US Whites May Influence Policy Decisions - http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0077552
* Racial Resentment and Whites’ Gun Policy Preferences in Contemporary America - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11109-015-9326-4
* Emerging Political Identities? Gun Ownership and Voting in Presidential Elections - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ssqu.12421
* Guns as a Source of Order and Chaos: Compensatory Control and the Psychological (Dis)Utility of Guns for Liberals and Conservatives - https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/695761?journalCode=jacr&
* Gun Culture in Action - https://academic.oup.com/socpro/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/socpro/spx040/4643202
* Protection or Peril? - http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM198606123142406
* Childhood Firearm Injuries in the United States - http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2017/06/15/peds.2016-3486
* Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self-Defense Gun Use - http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf
* State Firearm Laws and Interstate Firearm Deaths From Homicide and Suicide in the United States - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2673375
* Can the Science of Purpose Help Explain White Supremacy? - https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_the_science_of_purpose_help_explain_white_supremacy

Another interesting highlight: Household gun ownership has overall remained steady, but "three percent of the population now owns half of the country’s firearms".

Jrr85

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #881 on: March 28, 2018, 02:23:16 PM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there. 

If you have a gun that was purchased new 5 years ago by somebody with no apparent relation to the shooter, then maybe you can't prove that there was a straw purchaser even if there really was one.  But generally even the easy ones aren't prosecuted and handed stiff sentences.   

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #882 on: March 28, 2018, 06:20:09 PM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there.

OK.  So in your 'most of the way there' case:

- First the gun has to be traced.  That means that law enforcement has to contact the importer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of the firearm.  Then they get a retailer name.  Then they have to contact the retailer and manually search through records (since it's illegal to digitize this information). 

How many hours of time does this take away from other cases do you think?

- Then you depend on the brother saying that the gun wasn't stolen (or privately sold to someone else).  If he says that, you have no way of proving your case, so all that previous effort doing the trace was for nothing.

That's the closest thing to a slam dunk that they have, and you wonder why most states don't prosecute this.

SharkStomper

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #883 on: March 28, 2018, 07:36:13 PM »
Perhaps the specialized ESP MP's weren't on shift. You would think during those aimless hours of driving you would have used this thing called a phone. ( : Maps help as well.

You apparently have access to much better .gov maps then we do, have you ever tried to find a temporary trailer on one of those?  And .gov phone numbers that are up to date and answered when called??  And I thought your claim of emergency response times in the seconds sounded absurd.

Jrr85

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #884 on: March 28, 2018, 08:32:00 PM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there.

OK.  So in your 'most of the way there' case:

- First the gun has to be traced.  That means that law enforcement has to contact the importer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of the firearm.  Then they get a retailer name.  Then they have to contact the retailer and manually search through records (since it's illegal to digitize this information). 

How many hours of time does this take away from other cases do you think?

- Then you depend on the brother saying that the gun wasn't stolen (or privately sold to someone else).  If he says that, you have no way of proving your case, so all that previous effort doing the trace was for nothing.

That's the closest thing to a slam dunk that they have, and you wonder why most states don't prosecute this.

I guess they could try to track the chain of custody from the manufacturer down. Or  they could call the ATF and have them run a trace.

shenlong55

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #885 on: March 29, 2018, 06:29:57 AM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there.

OK.  So in your 'most of the way there' case:

- First the gun has to be traced.  That means that law enforcement has to contact the importer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of the firearm.  Then they get a retailer name.  Then they have to contact the retailer and manually search through records (since it's illegal to digitize this information). 

How many hours of time does this take away from other cases do you think?

- Then you depend on the brother saying that the gun wasn't stolen (or privately sold to someone else).  If he says that, you have no way of proving your case, so all that previous effort doing the trace was for nothing.

That's the closest thing to a slam dunk that they have, and you wonder why most states don't prosecute this.

I guess they could try to track the chain of custody from the manufacturer down. Or  they could call the ATF and have them run a trace.
I don't think that ignoring his main point is helping you make your case.  I'd like to know how you would go about proving that a person gave a gun to a criminal when they claim to have sold/given it to someone else.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk


RetiredAt63

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #886 on: March 29, 2018, 08:06:32 AM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there.

OK.  So in your 'most of the way there' case:

- First the gun has to be traced.  That means that law enforcement has to contact the importer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of the firearm.  Then they get a retailer name.  Then they have to contact the retailer and manually search through records (since it's illegal to digitize this information). 

How many hours of time does this take away from other cases do you think?

- Then you depend on the brother saying that the gun wasn't stolen (or privately sold to someone else).  If he says that, you have no way of proving your case, so all that previous effort doing the trace was for nothing.

That's the closest thing to a slam dunk that they have, and you wonder why most states don't prosecute this.

I guess they could try to track the chain of custody from the manufacturer down. Or  they could call the ATF and have them run a trace.
I don't think that ignoring his main point is helping you make your case.  I'd like to know how you would go about proving that a person gave a gun to a criminal when they claim to have sold/given it to someone else.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Well if anyone can sell to anyone then the person can say this.  If the sale had to be registered and thefts had to be reported then there would be a paper trail, eh?  No sale or gift, then the putative brother is still owner of record, and his criminal brother used the gun.

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #887 on: March 29, 2018, 08:42:09 AM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there.

OK.  So in your 'most of the way there' case:

- First the gun has to be traced.  That means that law enforcement has to contact the importer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of the firearm.  Then they get a retailer name.  Then they have to contact the retailer and manually search through records (since it's illegal to digitize this information). 

How many hours of time does this take away from other cases do you think?

- Then you depend on the brother saying that the gun wasn't stolen (or privately sold to someone else).  If he says that, you have no way of proving your case, so all that previous effort doing the trace was for nothing.

That's the closest thing to a slam dunk that they have, and you wonder why most states don't prosecute this.

I guess they could try to track the chain of custody from the manufacturer down. Or  they could call the ATF and have them run a trace.
I don't think that ignoring his main point is helping you make your case.  I'd like to know how you would go about proving that a person gave a gun to a criminal when they claim to have sold/given it to someone else.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Well if anyone can sell to anyone then the person can say this.  If the sale had to be registered and thefts had to be reported then there would be a paper trail, eh?  No sale or gift, then the putative brother is still owner of record, and his criminal brother used the gun.

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington require background checks on all weapons sold (public or private).

Maryland and Pennsylvania require background checks on handguns only.  Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey require a firearms permit for all sales of guns.  Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, and North Carolina require a firearms permit for handguns only.

In the other 31 states anyone can sell a handgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

In the other 37 states anyone can sell a rifle or shotgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

  - http://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/universal-background-checks/


Of the states where it's possible to prevent private sales to criminals, California, Connecicut, Delaware, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Maryland,  Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Iowa, and Michigan have typically voted democratic since Bill Clinton was elected (http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/10/george-will/george-will-paints-dire-electoral-picture-gop-says/).

79% (15 / 19) of states with laws that make it easier to prosecute straw purchasers are liberal . . . yet the claim has been levied many times in this thread that liberals don't want to prosecute straw purchasers.

Jrr85

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #888 on: March 29, 2018, 08:45:40 AM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there.

OK.  So in your 'most of the way there' case:

- First the gun has to be traced.  That means that law enforcement has to contact the importer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of the firearm.  Then they get a retailer name.  Then they have to contact the retailer and manually search through records (since it's illegal to digitize this information). 

How many hours of time does this take away from other cases do you think?

- Then you depend on the brother saying that the gun wasn't stolen (or privately sold to someone else).  If he says that, you have no way of proving your case, so all that previous effort doing the trace was for nothing.

That's the closest thing to a slam dunk that they have, and you wonder why most states don't prosecute this.

I guess they could try to track the chain of custody from the manufacturer down. Or  they could call the ATF and have them run a trace.
I don't think that ignoring his main point is helping you make your case.  I'd like to know how you would go about proving that a person gave a gun to a criminal when they claim to have sold/given it to someone else.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

I really am glad that this is a law abiding community, because if a lot of you engaged in crime, I think you'd be shocked to find that criminal prosecution doesn't work on the honor system, where they let anybody go that denies the crime. 

But, just so you know, one simple way would be:
ask the gun purchaser where their gun is. 
- if they say it was stolen, you ask if they reported it; if they did, you immediately charge the gun user with larceny (which will often be another felony with real jail time to tack on) if it was actually reported.  If it wasn't reported, you get them to issue an affidavit saying it was stolen, when they were aware it was stolen, etc.  If they swear out the affidavit, again, you charge the gun user with larceny.  If they won't swear out the affidavit, you can use that in impeaching them, either directly (if they take the stand) or indirectly, if you have the investigator testify to the fact that they wouldn't swear it was stolen.
- If they say they sold it to somebody else, you get them to identify them.  If they identify them, you start the process over with that person (if they deny purchasing the gun, then you use them to impeach the strawpurchaser at trial) go to them.  If they don't identify them, again, you have a case to present with strong circumstantial evidence.

Certainly not a slam dunk, but you should generally either get (1) additional time for the violent criminal (a win), (2) jail time for the straw purchaser, which should greatly deter future strawpurchaser (a win), or (3) a huge hassle for the straw purchaser (not a win, but not bad either, especially if it involves them spending a few days in jail, as again, the straw purchasers will be people with clean records and who spending any time in jail is less palatable than it might be for the typical criminal, although granted some of the straw purchasers may already be fairly enmeshed in criminal life and just not been caught yet, in which case that probably wouldn't be a big deterrent)

Jrr85

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #889 on: March 29, 2018, 08:48:19 AM »
As Texasrunner pointed out, that's totally illegal in Texas (with a maximum penalty of 1 year in jail or 4000$ fine).  There's just no way to prove the charge, so it's rarely prosecuted.

It's not that there is no way to prove the charge.   That's such a stupid talking point.  If it's not "worth the effort" to prove the charge, then that's just another way of saying prosecutors and/or lawmakers don't think it's important, which is fine (although I'd disagree with it), as long as they don't immediately turn around and pretend it's important in order to argue for more burdens on law abiding citizens.  I'm guessing that's not a huge problem in Texas though.  Maybe in Houston?

Is a private seller required to do a background check? Is a private seller even required to keep records of buyers?

If not, then in many cases there is no way to prove the charge. Why is this a stupid talking point? What am I missing?

Without these things you can't prove that the seller knew the buyer wasn't allowed to have guns and you can't even prove that the seller gave the gun to anyone directly. They could claim they sold it to someone else and they don't know how the convicted felon got ahold of it.

You don't have to have notarized confessions to prove a crime, even crimes with an elevated mens rea.  If you have a gangbanger that has not been eligible to buy a gun for three years who uses a gun in a violent crime, and the gun traces to a purchase by his brother with a clean record from one year ago, you're most of the way there.

OK.  So in your 'most of the way there' case:

- First the gun has to be traced.  That means that law enforcement has to contact the importer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of the firearm.  Then they get a retailer name.  Then they have to contact the retailer and manually search through records (since it's illegal to digitize this information). 

How many hours of time does this take away from other cases do you think?

- Then you depend on the brother saying that the gun wasn't stolen (or privately sold to someone else).  If he says that, you have no way of proving your case, so all that previous effort doing the trace was for nothing.

That's the closest thing to a slam dunk that they have, and you wonder why most states don't prosecute this.

I guess they could try to track the chain of custody from the manufacturer down. Or  they could call the ATF and have them run a trace.
I don't think that ignoring his main point is helping you make your case.  I'd like to know how you would go about proving that a person gave a gun to a criminal when they claim to have sold/given it to someone else.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Well if anyone can sell to anyone then the person can say this.  If the sale had to be registered and thefts had to be reported then there would be a paper trail, eh?  No sale or gift, then the putative brother is still owner of record, and his criminal brother used the gun.

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington require background checks on all weapons sold (public or private).

Maryland and Pennsylvania require background checks on handguns only.  Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey require a firearms permit for all sales of guns.  Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, and North Carolina require a firearms permit for handguns only.

In the other 31 states anyone can sell a handgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

In the other 37 states anyone can sell a rifle or shotgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

  - http://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/universal-background-checks/


Of the states where it's possible to prevent private sales to criminals, California, Connecicut, Delaware, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Maryland,  Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Iowa, and Michigan have typically voted democratic since Bill Clinton was elected (http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/10/george-will/george-will-paints-dire-electoral-picture-gop-says/).

79% (15 / 19) of states with laws that make it easier to prosecute straw purchasers are liberal . . . yet the claim has been levied many times in this thread that liberals don't want to prosecute straw purchasers.

Having laws is nice, but if you're not actually putting people in jail for straw purchasers, then you're not really in favor of treating straw purchasing as a serious crime. 

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #890 on: March 29, 2018, 09:02:04 AM »
I really am glad that this is a law abiding community, because if a lot of you engaged in crime, I think you'd be shocked to find that criminal prosecution doesn't work on the honor system, where they let anybody go that denies the crime. 

But, just so you know, one simple way would be:
ask the gun purchaser where their gun is. 
- if they say it was stolen, you ask if they reported it; if they did, you immediately charge the gun user with larceny (which will often be another felony with real jail time to tack on) if it was actually reported.  If it wasn't reported, you get them to issue an affidavit saying it was stolen, when they were aware it was stolen, etc.  If they swear out the affidavit, again, you charge the gun user with larceny.  If they won't swear out the affidavit, you can use that in impeaching them, either directly (if they take the stand) or indirectly, if you have the investigator testify to the fact that they wouldn't swear it was stolen.
- If they say they sold it to somebody else, you get them to identify them.  If they identify them, you start the process over with that person (if they deny purchasing the gun, then you use them to impeach the strawpurchaser at trial) go to them.  If they don't identify them, again, you have a case to present with strong circumstantial evidence.

Certainly not a slam dunk, but you should generally either get (1) additional time for the violent criminal (a win), (2) jail time for the straw purchaser, which should greatly deter future strawpurchaser (a win), or (3) a huge hassle for the straw purchaser (not a win, but not bad either, especially if it involves them spending a few days in jail, as again, the straw purchasers will be people with clean records and who spending any time in jail is less palatable than it might be for the typical criminal, although granted some of the straw purchasers may already be fairly enmeshed in criminal life and just not been caught yet, in which case that probably wouldn't be a big deterrent)

You're not required to know the name of the person you sell a gun to, or to verify their identity.  So, I'm a straw purchaser and I say 'I sold the gun to a guy with dark hair'.  Not only not a slam dunk, but your investigation is now over.

- No additional time for the violent criminal
- No jail time for the straw purchaser
- No hassle for the straw purchaser



California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington require background checks on all weapons sold (public or private).

Maryland and Pennsylvania require background checks on handguns only.  Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey require a firearms permit for all sales of guns.  Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, and North Carolina require a firearms permit for handguns only.

In the other 31 states anyone can sell a handgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

In the other 37 states anyone can sell a rifle or shotgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

  - http://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/universal-background-checks/


Of the states where it's possible to prevent private sales to criminals, California, Connecicut, Delaware, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Maryland,  Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Iowa, and Michigan have typically voted democratic since Bill Clinton was elected (http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/10/george-will/george-will-paints-dire-electoral-picture-gop-says/).

79% (15 / 19) of states with laws that make it easier to prosecute straw purchasers are liberal . . . yet the claim has been levied many times in this thread that liberals don't want to prosecute straw purchasers.

Having laws is nice, but if you're not actually putting people in jail for straw purchasers, then you're not really in favor of treating straw purchasing as a serious crime.

So having laws, a way to enforce them, and prosecuting, then meting out discipline (albeit without jail time) is bad.

Having laws, no way to enforce them, and never being able to prosecute anyone is OK.  Wait, what?

This is my confusion when someone says that 'liberals' don't want to prosecute straw purchasers.  They're the only ones actually prosecuting straw purchasers.  You can argue that they don't go far enough . . . but certainly you can't argue that they're doing less than more conservative states.

ncornilsen

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #891 on: March 29, 2018, 09:20:17 AM »
I really am glad that this is a law abiding community, because if a lot of you engaged in crime, I think you'd be shocked to find that criminal prosecution doesn't work on the honor system, where they let anybody go that denies the crime. 

But, just so you know, one simple way would be:
ask the gun purchaser where their gun is. 
- if they say it was stolen, you ask if they reported it; if they did, you immediately charge the gun user with larceny (which will often be another felony with real jail time to tack on) if it was actually reported.  If it wasn't reported, you get them to issue an affidavit saying it was stolen, when they were aware it was stolen, etc.  If they swear out the affidavit, again, you charge the gun user with larceny.  If they won't swear out the affidavit, you can use that in impeaching them, either directly (if they take the stand) or indirectly, if you have the investigator testify to the fact that they wouldn't swear it was stolen.
- If they say they sold it to somebody else, you get them to identify them.  If they identify them, you start the process over with that person (if they deny purchasing the gun, then you use them to impeach the strawpurchaser at trial) go to them.  If they don't identify them, again, you have a case to present with strong circumstantial evidence.

Certainly not a slam dunk, but you should generally either get (1) additional time for the violent criminal (a win), (2) jail time for the straw purchaser, which should greatly deter future strawpurchaser (a win), or (3) a huge hassle for the straw purchaser (not a win, but not bad either, especially if it involves them spending a few days in jail, as again, the straw purchasers will be people with clean records and who spending any time in jail is less palatable than it might be for the typical criminal, although granted some of the straw purchasers may already be fairly enmeshed in criminal life and just not been caught yet, in which case that probably wouldn't be a big deterrent)

You're not required to know the name of the person you sell a gun to, or to verify their identity.  So, I'm a straw purchaser and I say 'I sold the gun to a guy with dark hair'.  Not only not a slam dunk, but your investigation is now over.

- No additional time for the violent criminal
- No jail time for the straw purchaser
- No hassle for the straw purchaser



California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington require background checks on all weapons sold (public or private).

Maryland and Pennsylvania require background checks on handguns only.  Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey require a firearms permit for all sales of guns.  Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, and North Carolina require a firearms permit for handguns only.

In the other 31 states anyone can sell a handgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

In the other 37 states anyone can sell a rifle or shotgun to anyone else with no real chance of being caught if that person is a criminal.

  - http://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/universal-background-checks/


Of the states where it's possible to prevent private sales to criminals, California, Connecicut, Delaware, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Maryland,  Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Iowa, and Michigan have typically voted democratic since Bill Clinton was elected (http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/10/george-will/george-will-paints-dire-electoral-picture-gop-says/).

79% (15 / 19) of states with laws that make it easier to prosecute straw purchasers are liberal . . . yet the claim has been levied many times in this thread that liberals don't want to prosecute straw purchasers.

Having laws is nice, but if you're not actually putting people in jail for straw purchasers, then you're not really in favor of treating straw purchasing as a serious crime.

So having laws, a way to enforce them, and prosecuting, then meting out discipline (albeit without jail time) is bad.

Having laws, no way to enforce them, and never being able to prosecute anyone is OK.  Wait, what?

This is my confusion when someone says that 'liberals' don't want to prosecute straw purchasers.  They're the only ones actually prosecuting straw purchasers.  You can argue that they don't go far enough . . . but certainly you can't argue that they're doing less than more conservative states.

Having no law to enforce in this case is bad.

Having a law, and choosing not to enforce it, which is mostly the case in leftists states being discussed, is just as bad if not worse.

Chris22

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #892 on: March 29, 2018, 09:30:27 AM »
But in IL, home of Chicago and the cases in question...

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/private-sales-in-illinois/

Quote
Any private (unlicensed) seller of a firearm who seeks to transfer a firearm to any unlicensed purchaser must, prior to transfer, contact the Department of State Police (DSP) with the transferee’s Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card number to determine the validity of the transferee’s FOID Card.1 The seller must await approval by DSP before transferring the firearm. Approvals issued by DSP for the purchase of a firearm are valid for 30 days.2

...

Illinois law prohibits any person from knowingly selling firearms or ammunition to individuals who are ineligible to possess a firearm or who do not hold a Firearm Owner’s Identification (“FOID”) card. It is a Class 3 felony, for example, for any person to knowingly sell or give any firearm to any person who has been convicted of a felony.8 See the Licensing of Gun Owners & Purchasers section for information about FOID cards.
Any person who transfers a firearm must keep records of all such transfers for a period of 10 years.9 See the Retention of Sales & Background Checks Records section for more information.
All firearms sellers must abide by statutory waiting periods.10 See the Waiting Periods section for more details.

TheOldestYoungMan

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #893 on: March 29, 2018, 09:32:48 AM »
So can we put to rest the whole “no one’s trying to take your guns away” tripe?


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Yes, the total failure of gun enthusiasts to do anything about the problem has caused many of us to no longer care about your right.

I no longer agree that it is important, and I support a wholesale ban of all firearms and the uncompensated confiscation of all firearms.

To change my mind, all you have to do is literally anything to take responsibility for the potential harm caused by misuse of the right you hold so dear.  Make any move in the direction of giving the slightest shit that mass shootings occur.  Self-police as manufacturers, as sellers, as enthusiasts.

Protect your right if it means that much to you.  Because you've done literally nothing to address the problem in two decades.  This isn't a case of tried and failed, looking for new solutions.

You just don't give even one fuck.

And as is pointed out, non gun-enthusiasts lack the knowledge to fix it and protect your rights.  I'm ceding that argument.  You are correct.  We can't fix it and protect your rights.  You won't fix it.  So fuck your rights.

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #894 on: March 29, 2018, 09:40:28 AM »
Having no law to enforce in this case is bad.

Having a law, and choosing not to enforce it, which is mostly the case in leftists states being discussed, is just as bad if not worse.

That's not what we were talking about though.

The leftist state (Maryland) being discussed enforced their law (but not aggressively enough for those in this thread), the right state (Texas) doesn't bother to enforce the law because they've made it impossible to do so through lax gun laws.



But in IL, home of Chicago and the cases in question...

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/private-sales-in-illinois/

Quote
Any private (unlicensed) seller of a firearm who seeks to transfer a firearm to any unlicensed purchaser must, prior to transfer, contact the Department of State Police (DSP) with the transferee’s Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card number to determine the validity of the transferee’s FOID Card.1 The seller must await approval by DSP before transferring the firearm. Approvals issued by DSP for the purchase of a firearm are valid for 30 days.2

...

Illinois law prohibits any person from knowingly selling firearms or ammunition to individuals who are ineligible to possess a firearm or who do not hold a Firearm Owner’s Identification (“FOID”) card. It is a Class 3 felony, for example, for any person to knowingly sell or give any firearm to any person who has been convicted of a felony.8 See the Licensing of Gun Owners & Purchasers section for information about FOID cards.
Any person who transfers a firearm must keep records of all such transfers for a period of 10 years.9 See the Retention of Sales & Background Checks Records section for more information.
All firearms sellers must abide by statutory waiting periods.10 See the Waiting Periods section for more details.

Yep.  In the case brought up, that's how the state took away the right of the straw purchaser to buy a gun again from anyone.  It's currently impossible for Texas to take away this right from a straw purchaser.

Chris22

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #895 on: March 29, 2018, 09:49:20 AM »
Having no law to enforce in this case is bad.

Having a law, and choosing not to enforce it, which is mostly the case in leftists states being discussed, is just as bad if not worse.

That's not what we were talking about though.

The leftist state (Maryland) being discussed enforced their law (but not aggressively enough for those in this thread), the right state (Texas) doesn't bother to enforce the law because they've made it impossible to do so through lax gun laws.



But in IL, home of Chicago and the cases in question...

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/private-sales-in-illinois/

Quote
Any private (unlicensed) seller of a firearm who seeks to transfer a firearm to any unlicensed purchaser must, prior to transfer, contact the Department of State Police (DSP) with the transferee’s Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card number to determine the validity of the transferee’s FOID Card.1 The seller must await approval by DSP before transferring the firearm. Approvals issued by DSP for the purchase of a firearm are valid for 30 days.2

...

Illinois law prohibits any person from knowingly selling firearms or ammunition to individuals who are ineligible to possess a firearm or who do not hold a Firearm Owner’s Identification (“FOID”) card. It is a Class 3 felony, for example, for any person to knowingly sell or give any firearm to any person who has been convicted of a felony.8 See the Licensing of Gun Owners & Purchasers section for information about FOID cards.
Any person who transfers a firearm must keep records of all such transfers for a period of 10 years.9 See the Retention of Sales & Background Checks Records section for more information.
All firearms sellers must abide by statutory waiting periods.10 See the Waiting Periods section for more details.

Yep.  In the case brought up, that's how the state took away the right of the straw purchaser to buy a gun again from anyone.  It's currently impossible for Texas to take away this right from a straw purchaser.

Why is Texas the gold standard?  Does Texas have an abnormally high amount of gun violence with illicitly acquired firearms?

Nope, Texas doesn’t even crack the top 20 for states on gun violence rates. So why are you so hung up on Texas given that it isn’t a significant problem there?

 https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/21/

shenlong55

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #896 on: March 29, 2018, 09:50:48 AM »
So can we put to rest the whole “no one’s trying to take your guns away” tripe?


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Yes, the total failure of gun enthusiasts to do anything about the problem has caused many of us to no longer care about your right.

I no longer agree that it is important, and I support a wholesale ban of all firearms and the uncompensated confiscation of all firearms.

To change my mind, all you have to do is literally anything to take responsibility for the potential harm caused by misuse of the right you hold so dear.  Make any move in the direction of giving the slightest shit that mass shootings occur.  Self-police as manufacturers, as sellers, as enthusiasts.

Protect your right if it means that much to you.  Because you've done literally nothing to address the problem in two decades.  This isn't a case of tried and failed, looking for new solutions.

You just don't give even one fuck.

And as is pointed out, non gun-enthusiasts lack the knowledge to fix it and protect your rights.  I'm ceding that argument.  You are correct.  We can't fix it and protect your rights.  You won't fix it.  So fuck your rights.

+1.  I wish the current congress would pass something meaningful that also retained our right to bear arms, but if they don't I will fully support whatever solutions democrats come up with when they regain power.

Davnasty

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #897 on: March 29, 2018, 09:54:46 AM »
Having no law to enforce in this case is bad.

Having a law, and choosing not to enforce it, which is mostly the case in leftists states being discussed, is just as bad if not worse.

That's not what we were talking about though.

The leftist state (Maryland) being discussed enforced their law (but not aggressively enough for those in this thread), the right state (Texas) doesn't bother to enforce the law because they've made it impossible to do so through lax gun laws.



But in IL, home of Chicago and the cases in question...

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/private-sales-in-illinois/

Quote
Any private (unlicensed) seller of a firearm who seeks to transfer a firearm to any unlicensed purchaser must, prior to transfer, contact the Department of State Police (DSP) with the transferee’s Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card number to determine the validity of the transferee’s FOID Card.1 The seller must await approval by DSP before transferring the firearm. Approvals issued by DSP for the purchase of a firearm are valid for 30 days.2

...

Illinois law prohibits any person from knowingly selling firearms or ammunition to individuals who are ineligible to possess a firearm or who do not hold a Firearm Owner’s Identification (“FOID”) card. It is a Class 3 felony, for example, for any person to knowingly sell or give any firearm to any person who has been convicted of a felony.8 See the Licensing of Gun Owners & Purchasers section for information about FOID cards.
Any person who transfers a firearm must keep records of all such transfers for a period of 10 years.9 See the Retention of Sales & Background Checks Records section for more information.
All firearms sellers must abide by statutory waiting periods.10 See the Waiting Periods section for more details.

Yep.  In the case brought up, that's how the state took away the right of the straw purchaser to buy a gun again from anyone.  It's currently impossible for Texas to take away this right from a straw purchaser.

Why is Texas the gold standard?  Does Texas have an abnormally high amount of gun violence with illicitly acquired firearms?

Nope, Texas doesn’t even crack the top 20 for states on gun violence rates. So why are you so hung up on Texas given that it isn’t a significant problem there?

 https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/21/

It's not, it was just a matter of picking a state that doesn't require what Illinois does.

Besides that, I'm not sure what your point is. Texas isn't in the top 20 in gun violence so we shouldn't bother trying to prosecute straw purchasers?

GuitarStv

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #898 on: March 29, 2018, 10:01:24 AM »
Having no law to enforce in this case is bad.

Having a law, and choosing not to enforce it, which is mostly the case in leftists states being discussed, is just as bad if not worse.

That's not what we were talking about though.

The leftist state (Maryland) being discussed enforced their law (but not aggressively enough for those in this thread), the right state (Texas) doesn't bother to enforce the law because they've made it impossible to do so through lax gun laws.



But in IL, home of Chicago and the cases in question...

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/private-sales-in-illinois/

Quote
Any private (unlicensed) seller of a firearm who seeks to transfer a firearm to any unlicensed purchaser must, prior to transfer, contact the Department of State Police (DSP) with the transferee’s Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card number to determine the validity of the transferee’s FOID Card.1 The seller must await approval by DSP before transferring the firearm. Approvals issued by DSP for the purchase of a firearm are valid for 30 days.2

...

Illinois law prohibits any person from knowingly selling firearms or ammunition to individuals who are ineligible to possess a firearm or who do not hold a Firearm Owner’s Identification (“FOID”) card. It is a Class 3 felony, for example, for any person to knowingly sell or give any firearm to any person who has been convicted of a felony.8 See the Licensing of Gun Owners & Purchasers section for information about FOID cards.
Any person who transfers a firearm must keep records of all such transfers for a period of 10 years.9 See the Retention of Sales & Background Checks Records section for more information.
All firearms sellers must abide by statutory waiting periods.10 See the Waiting Periods section for more details.

Yep.  In the case brought up, that's how the state took away the right of the straw purchaser to buy a gun again from anyone.  It's currently impossible for Texas to take away this right from a straw purchaser.

Why is Texas the gold standard?  Does Texas have an abnormally high amount of gun violence with illicitly acquired firearms?

Nope, Texas doesn’t even crack the top 20 for states on gun violence rates. So why are you so hung up on Texas given that it isn’t a significant problem there?

 https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/21/

I picked Texas because it's a right leaning state that doesn't have particularly high gun crime so that I couldn't be accused of comparing with the worst right leaning state.  If you would prefer to use Alaska (ranked most deadly in your list) we can do that.  It's similar to Texas but even more permissive:

Alaska does not:
- Penalize a firearms dealer for failing to conduct the federally required background check on a purchaser;
- Prohibit any person from giving false information or offering false evidence of his or her identity in purchasing or otherwise securing delivery of a firearm;
- Prohibit obtaining a firearm with the intent to provide it to someone the person knows is ineligible to possess a firearm; or
Have any other laws aimed at firearms trafficking.
http://lawcenter.giffords.org/firearms-trafficking-in-alaska/

The point still applies of course.  It's not possible to prosecute straw purchasers in these states.  Which means they care less, not more about the problem of straw purchasers.

Jrr85

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Re: 11 School Shootings in 26 Days
« Reply #899 on: March 29, 2018, 10:09:46 AM »
Having no law to enforce in this case is bad.

Having a law, and choosing not to enforce it, which is mostly the case in leftists states being discussed, is just as bad if not worse.

That's not what we were talking about though.

The leftist state (Maryland) being discussed enforced their law (but not aggressively enough for those in this thread), the right state (Texas) doesn't bother to enforce the law because they've made it impossible to do so through lax gun laws.

If it's not what you're talking about it's because you've moved the goal post:



No, the best way to aggressively prosecute straw purchasers is to aggressively prosecute straw purchasers.  Straw purchasers aren't prosecuted out of political convenience and/or laziness, not because the ownership of the gun can't be traced. 

Certainly if straw purchasers were already aggressively prosecuted and punished, a gun registry would make it easier to identify and prosecute more straw purchasers, but since politicians and elected prosecutors aren't willing to treat straw purchasing as the serious crime it is, that's a pretty iron clad tip off that the gun registry, if it does anything, is just going to hassle law abiding gunowners. 

If the left would start treating straw purchasing as a serious crime, it would be pretty manageable to pass a law requiring that any sale of a gun within 12 or 24 months of purchase has to be through a federally licensed fire arm dealer.  Then you cut out the true straw purchasers with a pretty minimal impact to law abiding gun owners.

Again, leftists want to hassle law abiding gun owners, but they don't want to treat straw purchasing as a serious crime.  I'm not sure how many anti-registry people would change their mind, if any, but it's an easy argument for them now.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!