Leave the guns alone!!! - DPChallenge Forums

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

01/11/2011 01:52:47 PM · #126

Originally posted by Mousie:

...

I find myself in the middle honestly, but I don't like how Cory's been made out like a nut just because he supports the status quo, and doesn't want an increase in regulations of unproven efficacy.

...

You really are kind. Thanks for that, it made me smile..

Besides, they could have a point... I might really be just a wee bit crazy, but who the heck isn't? ;) Besides, don't they say the only crazy people are the one's who think they're absolutely sane? :)

citymars

Nikon D700

01/11/2011 02:01:53 PM · #127

Discussion distilled into cartoon form, thanks to Tom Tomorrow!

01/11/2011 02:03:30 PM · #128

Originally posted by spiritualspatula:

Wait... are you really claiming that we all live in a bizarro world because we haven't met these criteria? If you don't realize that your experiences are atypical and do not reflect the average citizen and the majority of experience, there's no way any discussion can be had. Laws are created for the masses to meet and affect the average experience of somebody. To assume that your experiences are typical is kinda like saying the experiences of somebody in a concentration camp typified the experience of all Europeans at the time...
I get your point that weapons can be created out of whatever, and yeah zip guns and bombs are easy to make. Look at prisons... pretty much everything is forbidden... and weapons still abound. But are you arguing that overall violence and bloodshed is higher than if we handed out bowie knives to every prisoner and said have fun?
Yes, civility is a yoke that we choose to wear. Yes, we can all go apeshit if we want to. The point of it is to serve as a reminder, descriptor, and hopefully enforcer of that which is accepted. Rules and morals do not require adherence, but they're all we have.

Ohhh, no not at all... But I'm certainly attempting to point out the fact that this world has many different facets / cultures / lifestyles, etc... And not all of them are visible to one another, sometimes it's good to remember that there are entire segments of our society that live in a secret hidden world, one that actually exists right before your very eyes in most places, yet you'll never know it... That neighbor, you know the one, that odd one, not too odd, just a bit off or something..(everybody has, or has had, one of these). Have you been in their house? Do you know how they treat their family when you're not watching? It happens every day, probably closer to you than you think, and the reality is there are people out there who are really quite willing to kill you, and your entire family, for a small amount of material gain, and to then subsequently "protect" themselves from you. Horrible? yes... True, unfortunately, yes..

So, of course I realize they are atypical, why the heck else would I mention them? They are meant to use myself as a "bridge" of sorts, to share a glimpse of a world that isn't often seen, except by those who find themselves living in it - and funny enough, all that really takes is finding yourself in the right place, at the right time, with the wrong group of freinds... I'm pretty sure you won't make freinds with too many people who've found themselves in that world.. Why? Because once someone falls into that lifestyle, that world, most of them never leave it, and really I don't expect you'll find yourself joining them for the hell of it anytime soon..

Message edited by author 2011-01-11 14:04:52.

01/11/2011 02:04:42 PM · #129

Originally posted by citymars:

Discussion distilled into cartoon form, thanks to Tom Tomorrow!

Scary.. LOL

01/11/2011 02:10:22 PM · #130

Originally posted by shutterpuppy:

Originally posted by jagar:
Interesting discussion, it got me thinking about the gun laws in my own country (France). Maybe more importantly i should be asking myself why I've no idea about them & why I've never thought about them before, incidentally i asked my wife who also didn't' know much about them, so obviously guns don't play a big part of our lives at least were we live. Here is what i found on the web about gun laws over here:
To keep a gun you have to have a permit from the right authorities (prÃ©fecture) and you must be officially registered. Your weapon also has to be registered in your name. You have to have a licence from the French shooting federation which you have held for more than six months. You have had to have proper training and taken three different shooting examinations spaced at two monthly intervals that are recorded on an official record book which you must have with you as well as your licence and identity card if you take your gun to another spot than your official residence. Your application to own a gun has to be endorsed and approved by your local branch of the shooting federation. You have to have a special reinforced safe where to keep your weapon in your home. You must have undergone police checks as to your suitability to own a gun, have a clean offence record, and be known in your community for your high morals. You must have no record of any kind with Social Services (DDASS).
If you carry a gun from one place to another, say to a shooting competition, or to a hunt, it has to be unloaded, in inoperative mode, and bagged in a proper container. It must be locked up in the safe at all other times and no other person than the licenced person must know the combination or be able to access the contents of the safe .

Are they proposing something similar in America? .

European-style gun control is not something that would be easily achieved in the United States. Even setting aside Constitutional and pro-gun culture barriers, the number of guns currently in circulation makes enforcement of even the the most restrictive gun control laws very difficult. As someone above noted, it is sort of a case of the horses already being out of the barn.

I am of the camp that feels that majority of firearm problems flow from too easy access to handguns. If I had my druthers, long-guns and shotguns would be available with minimal regulation, but handguns would be strictly limited to law enforcement and military personnel.

However, there simply isn't currently the political will or social concern in the United States necessary to achieve that kind of firearm reduction, even if it was just limited to semi-automatic handguns, and any local restrictions on handgun ownership (like we had until recently here in Chicago) is likely to be highly ineffective because of the ease of obtaining handguns through unofficial channels and even legally outside of the municipality and/or state.

That gun control efforts are stymied by too many guns already in circulation is well documented. Some examples:

Gun Control, Zimring (A 1986 article, but still pretty relevant.)
Originally posted by Zimring:
"The real difficulty in restricting handguns is whether any law can reduce
the number of such guns in circulation enough to make headway against gun
violence, and, if so, how long this will take and what its cost will be. It is possible, by law, to stop the manufacture of handguns at any time, but even if this were done, some of the 35 million handguns in the civilian inventory would still be killing people in the 21st century. Under the best conditions, collecting the vast arsenal of civilian handguns would be neither easy nor swift. Americans do not live under the best of conditions-the very crime rate that makes many people want gun control also makes gun control extremely difficult to achieve. How many citizens would turn in their guns when the law took effect? How long would it take to remove the guns from the streets, where they do the most harm? Should urban households be left fearfully defenseless? Is it desirable to add yet another victimless and unenforceable crime-possession of a handgun-to the depressingly long list of such crimes that have already accumulated? These are not easy questions to answer."

Book Review: "Can Gun Control Work," Jacobs
Originally posted by From The Review:
Can Gun Control Work? . . . is an unusual piece of scholarship, especially in the literature on gun control. It argues strenuously that controls are unlikely to have the effects hoped for by their advocates. Yet Jacobs is not a gun devotee. It appears that he is saddened by his conclusions, that he would prefer to live in a world without guns, and that he perceives guns to have far more negatives than positives. However, Jacobs consistently concludes that essentially all currently envisaged types of gun control fail to have the desired effects.

. . .

[The book looks at the] impediments to further gun control. One is the Second Amendment and the widespread belief among gun owners that it guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. Jacobs suggests that even under an individualist interpretation of the amendment, there is still scope for regulation of firearms. But he sees the technical implications of the Constitution as less relevant than long-standing hostility to gun regulation on the part of a substantial fraction of the country.

A second critical difficulty that faces additional controls is the large number of guns in circulation. This fact, combined with the durability of most guns, implies that even if no new firearms were obtained by anyone in the United States from some point forward, there will still be a high rate of gun ownership for decades. Thus even perfectly effective controls on new ownership cannot address problems related to existing guns.

The third key impediment that Jacobs emphasizes is the multitude of mechanisms by which new and existing gun-control laws can be circumvented or evaded. Any restrictions on the sale of guns are undone to a substantial degree by straw purchases, fake IDs, gun thefts, and unscrupulous federal firearms licensees. Jacobs notes that all these avenues for circumventing control apply even if both primary and secondary purchases are subject to background checks and even if all guns are registered.

Note that both of the sources above simply note the difficulty of implementation, which is separate from the issue of whether effectively implemented gun control would actually achieve lower rates of death and/or serious injury. As I have noted in my other comments, above, all available evidence indicates that such an achievement would be the result.

The issue, as I see it, is more that, regardless of the end equilibrium status and whatever that may or may not be, without a doubt there would be an interim period, where truly all law abiding citizens have no firearms, while the criminal element will be armed very well... That's a piss poor place to find oneself I think.

So, tell me how we avoid that, and then I'll really listen to the ideas, but as long as there is a strong likelihood that that situation will occur, you're not going to convince me that I should allow laws further restricting guns to be passed. In the end, the laws first affect then law abiding, then perhaps have a trickle down effect upon the criminal population, but that's really not the sort of effectiveness I demand and desire.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

01/11/2011 02:13:34 PM · #131

Originally posted by BrennanOB:

Originally posted by Mick:
I've never killed anyone. Although I must admit there have been a few brainless liberal-nonsense-spouting morons that I'd like to... Well, suffice it to say that I've never killed anyone. Yet.

This is the sort of semi threat that is more likely than anything to become outlawed. When we know you are armed, then when you jokingly threaten to kill us, we get worried.

When Sara Palin targeted Gabrielle Giffords' congressional seat and put her in her "crosshairs" on Ms. Giffords' picture, it was an unfortunate foreshadowing of Ms. Gifford taking a bullet to the brain.

When Tea party darling Sharon Angle suggested that Nevada Senator Reid ought to be taken out with "second amendment remedies" some of us found the idea of threatening a political opponent with murder less than funny.

You can think us brainless and whatever else you like, but when you threaten us with murder unless we shut up, you will be taken down. Rule by threatened killing is not a sound basis for society.

I'm hoping that it was simply a joke intended for the best, but in somewhat poor taste, given the context.

And I agree with you on all of these points Brennon. You're spot on.

Melethia

Canon EOS-80D

01/11/2011 02:24:55 PM · #132

Originally posted by citymars:

Discussion distilled into cartoon form, thanks to Tom Tomorrow!

Absolutely dead on. Do pardon the pun.

NikonJeb

Nikon D850

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f3.5-5.6G ED VR

01/11/2011 03:52:50 PM · #133

Originally posted by coryboehne:

You really believe that? Once again, the banning of firearms isn't being advocated, simply the regulation of them, and training has been suggested. Are these bad things on any level? Are you suggesting that if regulation and training is enacted that somehow during this transition we're all going to be taken out by criminals? Your hyperbolic assertions are just as bad in defence of no regulation, yet at least there's some hope of getting a handle on it if we can at least start to deal with the problem. Why is that a bad thing?

You're simply not being honest if you cannot admit that we have a gun problem here in the US.

For the record, as a rural dweller who has lived around firearms my whole life, I'm not an advocate of the wholesale banning of guns. But all of my redneck buddies sure wouldn't have a moment's problem taking, and passing, a tough test to ascertain their skill levels of weapons handling and general gun safety in their homes. The John Deere dealer where I work is practically a ghost town during hunting season........and we also have a couple of $5000 plus gun safes available at any given time.

I do have a problem with people parked out in my woods once a year with their Lexi, Escalades, and MB SUVs with their high-powered rifles who fly a desk 51 weeks a year. Test them.....and get the handguns out of the 'hood.

shutterpuppy

Sony Alpha a7

Canon FD 70-210mm f/4.0 MF

01/11/2011 04:00:15 PM · #134

Originally posted by NikonJeb:

Originally posted by coryboehne:
The issue, as I see it, is more that, regardless of the end equilibrium status and whatever that may or may not be, without a doubt there would be an interim period, where truly all law abiding citizens have no firearms, while the criminal element will be armed very well... That's a piss poor place to find oneself I think.

You really believe that? Once again, the banning of firearms isn't being advocated, simply the regulation of them, and training has been suggested.

To be fair to Cory, he was responding to my posts, and I specifically did indicated that my preference would be for a ban on handguns (in the "hood" and everywhere else, also), except for law enforcement and military personnel (although leaving long-guns and shotguns available and lightly regulated). I acknowledge that such a restriction is simply not possible in the current political and social climate, but that doesn't change the fact that it would be the approach I would choose, if possible.

Message edited by author 2011-01-11 16:01:30.