Every day, 20 US Children Hospitalized w/Gun Injury (6% Die)

[iNow]

In the Declaration of Independence, we recognized certain unalienable rights and the right to abolish the government that is destructive of those rights. Perhaps the second amendment of the constitution is a provision for American citizens to abolish the government if their rights were violated.

I actually find this to be one of the more absurd arguments out there... This idea that a few dudes with pistols and a couple of rifles can "abolish the government" that spends trillions and trillions of dollars on hardware and war capability (like 700 Billion dollars annually)... a government that has at its disposal 2 million active personnel plus triple the number of contractors... all using drones and tanks and missiles and aircraft carriers and submarines and helicopters and swat teams and seals... all supported by the CIA and the NSA and the FBI and all of this surveillance and data tracking and ad infinitum...

 

But nope... Uncle Bill's right to own a pistol will certainly keep them afraid and prevent their tyranny! It's a stupid stupid position, IMO.

 

Either way, it's also irrelevant. I'm not arguing for a complete ban on all guns, so I don't really need to respond to assertions about that.

 

 

Where is the line drawn within America, a nation built on a strong defense. Do we take away high capacity and high firing rate weapons? Do we increase restrictions on owning a weapon? If so, does this make our right to abolish more unrealistic? Would this also affect the integrity of the US national defense?

When was the last time that individual gun owners defended the US? It's not like farmers are defending themselves against attacking Syrians.

 

Also, you should note that other countries seem to defend themselves fine without a heavily armed under regulated populace. The national defense argument breaks down on several levels. Individual owners are not generally called on to defend the nation. The closest you get is National Guard, and even that is a military branch. Second, other nations have much more restrictive laws for individual gun ownership and they don't find their borders being overtaken by other nations or their government acting tyrannically (in fact, data shows that countries with the loosest gun laws often have the most tyrannical leaders... numerous African countries come immediately to mind).

 

 

And finally, my last question before I digress. If you rid of all guns, would this truly cut down the violence in the United States?

Well, yes. That's sort of remedially true... and even if violence weren't reduced, death from said violence most certainly would be.

[Moontanman]

We have to have guns to help the greys fight off the reptilians, get with the program dude.....

Edited January 31, 2014 by Moontanman

[overtone]

 

 

It's curious that you expect us all to accept YOUR one personal interpretation of the amendment to be accurate despite it being completely opposite to and at odds with the interpretation of constitutional justices for decades and decades and decades.

Start by noting that isn't true - my "interpretation" runs foul of no Court decision on record.

 

Then read the thing for yourself. It isn't rocket science - my "interpretation" is just a straight reading of the 2nd Amendment, backed by the traditional definitions of the words written there and knowledge of how the thing was taken at the time by essentially everyone. If you don't know what "regulation" meant to the writers of the Constitution, if you don't know what a militia is and how they were formed at the time (and still), if you have no comprehension of the ordinary import of the final and decisive clause in an English sentence (the right to keep and bear arms - identified as militia qulaity weapons in the introductory phrases - shalll not be infringed) but you have opinions on what the Amendment means, how is it me that is exhibiting arrogance?

 

 

 

This idea that a few dudes with pistols and a couple of rifles can "abolish the government" that spends trillions and trillions of dollars on hardware and war capability (like 700 Billion dollars annually)... a government that has at its disposal 2 million active personnel plus triple the number of contractors... all using drones and tanks and missiles and aircraft carriers and submarines and helicopters and swat teams and seals... all supported by the CIA and the NSA and the FBI and all of this surveillance and data tracking and ad infinitum...

At the time, those dudes with rifles were better equipped than the regular army soldiers. One thing the writers of the Constitution definitely did not foresee was the kind of standing military force that has become standard in Western industrialized countries. There's nothing in the Constitution, and nothing in the original papers and essays and so forth, that indicates a standing army such as we have would have been viewed as anything but a disaster and the end ot the United States as a free country by the Founders.

 

But besides all that, a well armed population is a check on even the strongest military - for starters, the assumption that his army (drawn from the same demographics and families) would be enthusiastic and cooperative in stepping on them is not one an alert tyrant would make.

 

The governmental force being feared is not military assault, but the potential daily impositions of local police and the like. Note that in the days of slavery and Jim Crow, black people were carefully restricted in their weapons - there was gun control for them, for sure. There's a reason for that, and it's not because anyone feared them defeating the US Army. Notice that the US demographic most rigidly opposed to curbs on their firepower is the same one that imposed Jim Crow and various enslavements on black people - they know by instinct how that worked.

[iNow]

I said your intepretation was different from that of a century worth of constitutional justices. Nothing arrogant about that, IMO. Also, I was sharing my opinion... I find the argument that we need our guns to overcome a tyrannical government to be misguided, at best. You're welcome to disagree.

[Moontanman]

This is an amazing conversation, no one who has three brain cells to rub together can believe every one has a right to have a gun much less military grade weapons. I live in the middle of the deep south "CSA" I have known people who had or maybe have small arsenals hidden in the ceiling tiles of their houses some have gun safes that are like fort knox. More than I like to think about probably shouldn't be allowed to have a pocket knife. Anyone who expects these people to give up their guns for the common good are delusional, I know I am not going to willingly give up my guns and I am one of the most reasonable people I know many are almost criminally culpable for acting like guns are toys or items of trade. in many cases it would be easier to borrow a gun than a car from most people.

 

Guns often lie haphazardly around peoples homes, I had a friend tell me just a few weeks ago she found a gun behind her couch, she had forgotten she even owned the gun, it was passed down from other family members. As many guns as are registered maybe even more are unregistered, stored, maybe even forgotten. Six months ago the police were combing the neighborhood looking for a young man who had robbed a house, he had stolen a gun and he ran across my back yard and tripped and dropped his gun and ran back for it and picked it up in plain sight of me and my wife. They caught him and no one raised much of an eyebrow. If he had been carrying some poisonous substance there would have been far greater of an outcry.

 

If you sit and think about it it is insane, everyone involved was around the age of 20, both the thief and the gun owner... I can't imagine treating a gun like that, a gun is a dangerous thing, when i look at one it screams danger as much as a poisonous substance label on a shipping container but then I know about shipping containers, hazardous warning labels and all the rest that comes from a life lived paying attention to danger, evidently not everyone worked for DuPont I am not trying to be funny, my wife and I sat for quite a while talking about being that close to some crazy person with a gun, if you stop and think it makes cold chills crawl up your spine but out and about it's not unusual to see people wearing guns and I know of many people walking around concealed carry. To me not knowing who is or is not armed is almost as disconcerting as knowing who is.

 

You stop to pump gas the guy next to you pumping gas has a pistol, out for a walk you pass people who are obviously carrying not very well concealed guns. Growing up there were always guns around the house, ready to be quickly picked up to shoot at some varmint. It's really strange to be both comfortable with and scared of something at the same time.

 

IMPO licensing and insurance much like cars and drivers licenses has to be the eventual answer. Guns are ingrained into our society in a way that's difficult for some to accept that haven't grown up with them, to a great extent almost as an extension of our manhoods if it wasn't for the simple fact of many gun toting women.

 

The idea of guns protecting us from our government is misguided at best as is the idea that our soldiers wouldn't fire on our own citizens if it came to it, I am quite sure a reason can be mocked up to satisfy any reason the government would give it's soldiers to fight. I am not trying to stain our armed forces but they are mostly young and at this point used to doing what they are told and demonizing the "other" is what governments do the best.

 

What really gives me pause is the ease that our own elected officials use the issue of gun rights as though it is a legitimate route for political change. I think the issue of humans having things like health care and food in their mouths is far more important than owning a gun and yet I have one, I must if i am to be honest label myself a sheep while the people tout gun rights label anyone who does not have a gun a sheep, I find myself at an impasse with my own hypocrisy in this fact.

 

No one can seriously claim that the police can protect us from violent crime and so the idea of having a gun to protect your self (on the spot) becomes addictive as any drug that cushions us from reality, we know the illusion is a delusion we perpetrate on ourselves but it's impossible to really see the truth from the inside...

 

The really bad thing is that 40 years ago in my neighborhood every Saturday night was like a small war, often with bursts of full auto weapons fire, now days shoot a gun and with in a few minutes the police show up, something about detecting a gun shot with sound and zeroing in on the location...

 

just my 2 cents worth on the subject...

[overtone]

 

 

This is an amazing conversation, no one who has three brain cells to rub together can believe every one has a right to have a gun much less military grade weapons

Of course not. Probably why no conversation based on anyone actually making that assertion is taking place.

 

Strawmanning the argument gets us nowhere. You guys seem baffled at the resistance US gun owners are throwing up toward your proposals - it looks like you aren't paying attention to the threats they perceive in the language and attitudes on display from gun control advocates.

 

Almost all gun owners in the US - including almost everyone in the NRA, etc - think that reasonable curbing of gun ownership and use in the US would be a very good thing. But they aren't seeing "reasonable" in these uninformed and poorly thought through assertions, proposals, etc. - and there are reasons for that, including the fact that a lot of this stuff is not, in fact, reasonable.

 

 

 

The idea of guns protecting us from our government is misguided at best as is the idea that our soldiers wouldn't fire on our own citizens if it came to it,

The threat is not the army. All tyrants know this - their primary force of oppression is not their armies. The threat is the Ku Klux Klan, the paramilitary organizations winked at by officialdom, the local mob boss in cahoots with the police, the removal of police protection and exposure to crazies and psychos, the actual instruments of oppression in real life The people who reject by reflex any and all gun control do not do so because they think free for all gun violence, or even the situation we have in the US (which is far more limited), is a good thing - it's because they don't trust the people who talk like the posters above with power over their daily lives. And they have a point.

 

Michael Moore said if pretty well, in Bowling For Columbine: Americans fear their neighbors more than other people do (the legacy of race, a large component). And they dislike what the government of this country has done on similar grounds as above - seat belts, driver's licenses, etc. The well is poisoned, in the US.

 

 

 

I said your intepretation was different from that of a century worth of constitutional justices. Nothing arrogant about that, IMO

Except it isn't true, and you are basing an ad hominem argument on it as an assumption. You assert that my straight reading of plain English prose is somehow an "interpretation", and rejecting it on that ground, without actually dealing with it,and without knowing what you are talking about.

 

 

 

I find the argument that we need our guns to overcome a tyrannical government to be misguided, at best. You're welcome to disagree.

Why address that to me? I'm certainly not making that argument.

 

Gun control advocates seem to be oblivious to the extent they are strawmanning and misrepresenting the gun rights supporters, and the extent their own arguments are poorly founded and frankly a bit nutsoid. And as long as this obliviousness dominates the debate, they will continue to meet resistance to anything they want to do, and continue to be baffled by it. The gun owners are not the only crazies in the room.

 

In my State, for example, we had a legitimate candidate for Governor, a former and populare police chief of the major city, in the middle of his campaign, a liberal hero in the making, up and advocate banning the possession of handguns by the citizens of all the major cities in the State - imagine the means necessary. That kind of surprise is suspected of underlying the entire gun control movement, by these fearful as well as experienced people.

 

There's too many of them to ignore, here. You have to separate gun control from that kind of motive and means - reliably.

[iNow]

Of course not. Probably why no conversation based on anyone actually making that assertion is taking place.

 

Strawmanning the argument gets us nowhere.

He wasn't describing this conversation, but was commenting how silly it would be to believe anyone should be allowed to own any type of weapon. Hence, it's not a strawman, but instead an observation that served to set the context for his next several comments. He was not misrepresenting any argument here in an attempt to knock down that misrepresentation.

 

You guys seem baffled at the resistance US gun owners are throwing up toward your proposals

First, both moontanman and I are gun owners, so there's that. Second, I've not made any proposals, so WTF are you even talking about?

 

The people who reject by reflex any and all gun control do not do so because they think free for all gun violence, or even the situation we have in the US (which is far more limited), is a good thing - it's because they don't trust the people who talk like the posters above with power over their daily lives.

Be specific. WHICH posters above and WHICH specific comments are you referencing (when you say "because they don't trust the people who talk like the posters above")? Please use the quote feature offered by this site to clarify your broad generalization.

 

You assert that my straight reading of plain English prose is somehow an "interpretation", and rejecting it on that ground, without actually dealing with it,and without knowing what you are talking about.

Attacking me personally doesn't change the fact that 1) constitutional text IS open for interpretation, and 2) your conclusion is opposite to that put forward by supreme court justices for decades. You can claim I'm making an ad hom argument against you, then level your own ad hom toward me in the very next sentence (and try to disparage me by suggesting I don't know what I'm talking about), but you cannot claim that your conclusion is aligned with the conclusion of decades of constitutional experts and scholars on the issue of individual gun ownership.

 

Gun control advocates seem to be oblivious to the extent they are strawmanning and misrepresenting the gun rights supporters, and the extent their own arguments are poorly founded and frankly a bit nutsoid.

Do you have any other massive generalizations you'd like to spout without specifically referencing any specific comments any specific individuals have actually made?

 

In my State, for example, we had a legitimate candidate for Governor, a former and populare police chief of the major city, in the middle of his campaign, a liberal hero in the making, up and advocate banning the possession of handguns by the citizens of all the major cities in the State - imagine the means necessary. That kind of surprise is suspected of underlying the entire gun control movement, by these fearful as well as experienced people.

Fortunately, slippery slope arguments don't tend to impress me very much. Edited February 3, 2014 by iNow

[Moontanman]

BTW overtone, I don't fear my neighbors, I fear psychopaths, sociopaths, the desperate, and the delusional, none of my neighbors seem to fit in any of those categories...

Oh yeah, on another note the gun my friend found was found due to a cat dragging in a bunch of baby opossums and turning them loose in the house, the woman thought they were rats and tore her whole house part looking for them and in that effort turning up an old loaded gun behind the couch... Weird things do happen...

[John Cuthber]

BTW overtone, I don't fear my neighbors, I fear psychopaths, sociopaths, the desperate, and the delusional, none of my neighbors seem to fit in any of those categories...

Oh yeah, on another note the gun my friend found was found due to a cat dragging in a bunch of baby opossums and turning them loose in the house, the woman thought they were rats and tore her whole house part looking for them and in that effort turning up an old loaded gun behind the couch... Weird things do happen...

A "none of my neighbors seem to fit in any of those categories"

B "the gun my friend found ... cat dragging in a bunch of baby opossums... tore her whole house part ..t turning up an old loaded gun behind the couch"

 

I think you can have A or B, but not both.

[overtone]

He wasn't describing this conversation, but was commenting how silly it would be to believe anyone should be allowed to own any type of weapon. Hence, it's not a strawman,

Strange he would explicitly label it "this {is an amazing} conversation", then, right in the line of the posting. I admit I took that to mean "this conversation" was an amazing one, for the reasons then stated. But you assert it is not a strawman, but instead completely irrelevant to the thread - my reply was then unnecessary, and I won't have to deal with, say, you, suggesting any such claim on my part? Welcome the new world.

 

 

Fortunately, slippery slope arguments don't tend to impress me very much.

Nor are you impressed very much by the people who have been vicitmized by such governmental actions in the past, have used such techniques themselves against others, and are now being confronted by folks who deny their existence while exhibiting their nature and threatening their consequences.

 

Constitutional rights exist to prevent people who are not impressed by the threats they pose to others from making good on those threats. .

 

 

 

Attacking me personally doesn't change the fact that 1) constitutional text IS open for interpretation, and 2) your conclusion is opposite to that put forward by supreme court justices for decades.

Once again: Number 2, there, is false. Repeating falsehood, especially after it's been pointed out to you, is what earns you the "personal attack" of observing that you are speaking either in ignorance (if you really think there are all those Court decisions that conflict with the plain text of the 2nd Amendment, or anything I've posted here) or obtuseness (if you have so baldly and badly mistaken my posting).

 

You would have to essentially rewrite, not "interpret", the 2nd Amendment, to remove its establishment of the right of people to keep and bear arms. What kind of arms? Those they would need to form a "well-regulated militia".

 

Easier to curb handguns than assault rifles, without running afoul of that.

 

I would not put anything past a Court that would declare a joint stock corporation to be a person with First Amendment rights, but the absurdity of such decisions is still obvious, one would hope.

 

 

 

BTW overtone, I don't fear my neighbors, I fear psychopaths, sociopaths, the desperate, and the delusional, none of my neighbors seem to fit in any of those categories...

Moore's point was not that all Americans feared all their neighbors - merely that Americans in general and routinely feared their neighbors more than other people do - say, Canadians - and that such fear seemed to be a larger and more directly relevant factor in US gun violence and gun control arguments than the prevalance of guns. He illustrated the point by actually going up to people's front doors in a large Canadian city full of guns and opening them - they were, as claimed by his informants, not locked. I live in a pretty small town in a very safe part of the US, and all my neighbors's doors are locked. In my old delivery job I often found myself locked out of wealthy suburban houses even after the residents had answered the door - we'd go back out to the truck and haul some large item around to the entrance, and have to knock and wait once again to get the door unlocked. These people's kids had a locked door between them and the outside world 24/7/365.

 

That's a lot crazier than finding a gun forgotten behind the couch.

Edited February 4, 2014 by overtone

[iNow]

And the Supreme Court of the United States is currently exploring ways to expand rights of gun ownership:

 

 

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/02/petition-of-the-day-551/

The petition of the day is:

 

National Rifle Association of America v. McCraw

13-390

Issue: (1) Whether the Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense in case of confrontation includes the right to bear arms in public; (2) Whether that right to bear arms extends to responsible, law-abiding 18-to-20-year-old adults; and (3) whether Texas’s ban on responsible, lawabiding 18-to-20-year-old adults bearing handguns in public for self-defense violates the Second Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.

[imatfaal]

And the Supreme Court of the United States is currently exploring ways to expand rights of gun ownership:

 

 

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/02/petition-of-the-day-551/

 

Correct me if I have the wrong end of the stick - if this petition goes through, the Texas state legislature will be in a position in which it can be forced to allow 18 years olds to carry guns in public?

 

Texans will be able to carry a gun but not drink alcohol till they are 21 y.o. (I suppose it stops them doing it at the same time!) - but seriously what value system do these laws represent?

[iNow]

Correct me if I have the wrong end of the stick - if this petition goes through, the Texas state legislature will be in a position in which it can be forced to allow 18 years olds to carry guns in public?

That is my understanding, yes. They cannot force people to carry guns, but they can force the state legislatures from preventing it.

 

Texans will be able to carry a gun but not drink alcohol till they are 21 y.o. (I suppose it stops them doing it at the same time!)

As of four years ago, 43 states allowed concealed carry of guns in restaurants that serve alcohol:

http://www.examiner.com/article/43-states-now-allow-gun-carry-where-alcohol-is-served

 

Worse still, governors in some states like North and South Carolina have already signed/are currently signing legislation making it okay to carry a concealed weapon into a bar or nightclub. No risk of something going wrong there, right?

 

http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/24670477/gov-haley-to-sign-concealed-carry-law-next-week

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/north-carolina-lawmakers-pass-bill-allowing-concealed-handguns-bars-restaurants-v19661345

 

 

but seriously what value system do these laws represent?

Value system? That individual freedom is always far more important than public safety and common sense, and that narrow myopic readings of a single poorly written amendment from almost 250 years ago should take precedence over reason, rationality, and the saving of lives. Edited February 11, 2014 by iNow

[Moontanman]

A gun in a bar, what could possibly go wrong? I am in NC, do not doubt that guns are in bars...

[John Cuthber]

 

... seriously what value system do these laws represent?

The right of the weapons industry to make profits shall not be infringed.

[CharonY]

A gun in a bar, what could possibly go wrong? I am in NC, do not doubt that guns are in bars...

 

I find it weird that it is generally accepted that drunken driving is a bad thing but the same logic is lost with guns. How about drunken chainsaw wielding in public...?

[overtone]

 

 

I find it weird that it is generally accepted that drunken driving is a bad thing but the same logic is lost with guns

That's a potentially enlightening example:

 

Part of the reason that the resistance to gun use curbs is so irrationally rigid and hostile is the experiences the hostiles have had of government curbing drunken driving, and regulating driving generally.

 

The problem is not the goal, which all agree is laudable (the logic is not lost), but the means, the regulations, the little details - like the merging of commercial with private driver's licenses, and the ratcheting reduction of the legal blood alcohol limit, so that now if somebody runs a stop sign on Saturday night and smacks your car in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, and you blow .08 in a slightly miscalibrated field sobriety tester, you can lose your weekday job in Fargo, North Dakota.

 

In my region we have seen roadblocks and random mass traffic stops to catch people driving with .08 blood alcohol - wtihout regard to their actual driving capability or behavior (varies by individual at that level), and without regard for the effects of such an imposition on the majority of drivers handed five to twenty minute delays on their travels for no reason connected to them.

 

The problem was, see, that under the old law (.1 blood alcohol, must be pulled over for cause) there were still some drunks on the road - and rather than interpret that as a natural limit to the effectiveness of such means, rather than recommending a turn to other means than such coercion and threat for the next level of benefit, the authoritarians tightened their regulations and redoubled their efforts to catch and punish malefactors.

 

That's how authoritarians act unless prevented. They are not rational people, in the larger context. They get a rightous cause between their teeth, and there's no arguing against whatever means they find necessary - reason and moderation go right out the window. And that's why those rights were written into the Constitution, clearly and directly and without serious ambiguity - including, to the dismay of people who want society to be a certain shape and any hammer handy a good tool to make it so, the right of the people of the United States to keep and bear militia grade arms.

 

The current political fight, in other words, is not between reasonable people trying to make life better for us all and unreasonable people fixated on fantasies of firepower. There is plenty of irrationality and delusion and reflexive resort to coercive means to go around.

[iNow]

How about drunken chainsaw wielding in public...?

I think that's simply called "living in Alaska." ... or Maine. Edited February 12, 2014 by iNow

[iNow]

Perhaps this thread should be moved to Philosophy, as my existential despair seems only to grow as a result of it. Yes, background checks can help save lives.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/15/3297141/study-proves-background-checks-save-lives/

Missouri’s decision to repeal its law requiring all handgun purchasers to obtain a “permit-to-purchase” (PTP) verifying they passed a background check led to a 16 percent increase in the state murder rate, a new study from Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research has found. The additional gun murders occurred as the national and regional homicide rates decreased.

 

State legislators eliminated the permit requirement in June of 2007, as part of a larger firearms bill granting criminal and civil immunity to homeowners who use deadly force against intruders. Proponents of the change, which included the local chapter of the National Rifle Association, boasted that the measure would streamline the purchasing process, save residents the $10 processing fee, and reduce the wait times.

<snip>

Using state-level murder data for the time period 1999-2012, researchers concluded that removing the licensing requirement contributed to an “additional 55 to 63 murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012.” The increases occurred in the first full year after the repeal, during which the state saw “large increases in the number of guns diverted to criminals and in guns purchased in Missouri that were subsequently recovered by police in border states that retained their PTP laws.”

 

The analysts controlled “for changes in policing, incarceration, burglaries, unemployment, poverty, and other state laws adopted during the study period that could affect violent crime,” a press release for the study says.

Sure... The state murder rate increased 16%, but at least purchasers saved ten bucks and had shorter wait times! I'd say that's a pretty balanced and fair outcome for all involved parties, wouldn't you?

[overtone]

That brief spike in "new gun" deaths in Missouri coincided with the election of a black President and a borderline hysterical run on guns throughout the Confederacy. If you recall, a spike in gun violence throughout the Bigot Belt was feared by lots of people, without reference to background checks etc - people were kind of going nuts out there, with that black face taking the oath of office and a black family walking into the White House through the front door as if they belonged.

 

Adding to that was the impact of the 2nd Republican Crash, which hit Missouri very hard that year, and highlighting the spike was a lull in murders in Missouri during the previous couple of years - the lull, coincident with the invasion of Iraq as well as the passage of Missouri's "shall issue" conceal carry law, significantly more unusual statistically than the spike: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/mocrimn.htm

 

If one were willing to accept correlation as evidence, and wished to argue in favor of "shall issue" conceal carry permits, the murder stats in Missouri provide significant support (the lull in the early 2000s) - much more than they do for the value of more stringent background checks.

 

But rather than that, if you read back in that chart, you'll find Missouri's peak years for murder are in its past, coincident with the election of the despised Clintons (the previous threat to take everybody's guns away and hand all the white women over to "inner city" subhumans), and also coincident with enforcement of the "permit to purchase" law. The murder rate did jump a full tenth per thousand in the repeal year, but it did that after the Clinton win as well - and was a full 2/3 higher to begin with.

Edited February 20, 2014 by overtone

[iNow]

So, you're basically suggesting that gun checks wouldn't help, but no longer electing Democratic or black presidents would?

[4G3NTian]

The NICS background check would most certainly help stop a felon or someone with documented mental health issues from purchasing a firearm from a documented FFL dealer, there is no doubt of that. It does not however stop a felon or wouldbe criminal from illegally obtaining one, and going about his business. Face-to-face transactions are obviously impossible to regulate (look how well it's working with the drug war), and thus rely on the integrity of the seller and his ability to sniff out a criminal based on limited interaction. Or for the seller to be legitimate in the first place.

I sold a 9mm to who turned out to be a sheriff in a neighboring town, I was worried it would turn out to be a crazy. You never know.

 

Tightening the hold does indeed increase demand, and therefore the illegal market. The biggest unfortunate side effect of that being that people who are already criminals, generally have easy access to this market; while regular folks, the ones worth defending, have no idea.

 

Addressing the lowering of gun violence based on the education of at-risk areas is a more realistic answer to the gun problem. The only other good answer I can think of is a couple generations off, and that's the personalized Judge Dredd or new James Bond style, my-gun-only-works-for-me type gadget.

 

 

As to the OP: I do recall reading in Steve Levitt's Freakonomics (of all the sources, I know), where he does a decent job showing with overwhelming data that un-fenced swimming pools are more dangerous every year to unsupervised children than a locked gun in the home.

 

I'm not necessarily arguing that they're not dangerous or that stupid/bad people don't do harm with them, just the realism with widespread restrictions, and the consequences thereof. It would be awful to increase violence this way, much in the same way restricting access to drugs has made drug lords rich beyond imagination.

 

I'm a newbie, so go easy on me

Edited February 21, 2014 by 4G3NTian

[iNow]

That brief spike in "new gun" deaths in Missouri coincided with the election of a black President and a borderline hysterical run on guns throughout the Confederacy. If you recall, a spike in gun violence throughout the Bigot Belt was feared by lots of people, without reference to background checks etc - people were kind of going nuts out there, with that black face taking the oath of office and a black family walking into the White House through the front door as if they belonged.

Let's look a little more closely at your counter argument here. You're suggesting the 16% rise of deaths by firearm seen in Missouri over the study period is related to bigotry in the south (I know I'm paraphrasing and missing important nuance in your position, but let's just agree here for the sake of discussion).

 

If that argument holds water, we would expect to see similar increases in gun related murders in the surrounding states... states that have similar bigotries and republican preferences present... states like Kentucky and Alabama and Tennessee and Kansas and Oklahoma... but we don't see that, so your argument seems pretty bunk.

 

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/21/what-missouris-gun-law-change-did/

Simply put, the consequence of more criminals getting guns was more deaths from guns in Missouri. Data from death certificates indicated that firearm homicide rates in Missouri rose dramatically in 2008, the first year after the law’s repeal, and were 25 percent higher than pre-repeal trends through the end of 2010. This change was at odds with national trends in firearm homicide, which declined by 5.5 percent during that period.

<...>

This was not a regional phenomenon. The aggregated firearm homicide rates for the eight states that share a border with Missouri were down 2.2 percent from baseline trends.

You know what we DO see, though? States with stronger background check laws and regulations have fewer deaths by firearm than those with weaker background checks and regulations, and that's true whether we have a black president or an old white republican one.

 

http://smartgunlaws.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/SCGLM-Final10-spreads-points.pdf

http://smartgunlaws.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Gun_Laws_Matter_Brochure.pdf

 

 

And, not to put too fine a point on the obvious, but:

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850436

More extensive background checks prior to gun purchase are mostly associated with reductions in firearm homicide and suicide deaths.

http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/AmericaUnderTheGun.pdf

 

While many factors contribute to the rates of gun violence in any state, our research clearly demonstrates a significant correlation between the strength of a states gun laws and the prevalence of gun violence in the state. Across the key indicators of gun violence that we analyzed, the 10 states with the weakest gun laws collectively have a level of gun violence that is more than twice as high104 percent higherthan the 10 states with the strongest gun laws.

Edited February 21, 2014 by iNow

[4G3NTian]

I'd enjoy some stats that show a reduction in gun ownership and/or a raise in registration/NICS checks that have a relation to a reduction in violence violence, and not just gun violence. South London is one of the most violent places in the free world, more "hot" home invasions than anywhere in the US... but guns are illegal there.

 

Regardless of what spiked deaths in Missouri, this did in fact coincide with the entire gun-owning conservative South buying up as many guns and as much ammo as they could find. There's still a shortage of it, as far as I can tell. They did indeed do this because of liberals entering office who would of course immediately 'snatch up all the guns' (though they did no such thing). Though not necessarily because of the guy's skin color. Of course whether or not they are directly related remains to be shown by the evidence given.

 

Obama's administration charged the Center for Disease Control, after Sandy Hook, with treating firearms violence as a disease and studying the consequences. The CDC reported back with gun death (suicide + homocide) averaging 36,000 per year, while justified self-defense shootings average possibly as low as low as 60,000 per year, with an upper limit at 2.5 million (though this specific high number has other assumptions made, and is less accurate) self-defense gun related scenarios.

 

 

Levitt, who I earlier mentioned, also shows with pretty strong evidence that even with the Clinton Assault Weapon ban of the 90's, the drop in crime that happened subsequently, had more to do with Roe v Wade 20 years earlier, thus curbing the 20-something year old criminal crowd that would been coming of prime criminal age in the 90's; than actual gun control laws had to do with the drop in violence/crime. Note that in his thought experiments he attempts to correlate gun control with curbing violence, not solely gun violence which gives erroneous results always in favor of gun control... even if more people were killed that year overall.

 

 

Once again, Obama and the CDC's firearm study (which I recommend googling and reading), is possibly one of the most comprehensive studies done on US firearm crime/violence, and they seem to conclude it's about split, with the necessity for more future data. I noticed conclusions drawn from that report were quoted in the OP, I thought it'd be fair if self defense part were mentioned as well.

 

IMHO, I trust Brady Campaign stats about as much as I'd trust NRA stats on the same subject, which is to say not at all.

Edited February 22, 2014 by 4G3NTian

[iNow]

Regardless of what spiked deaths in Missouri, this did in fact coincide with the entire gun-owning conservative South buying up as many guns and as much ammo as they could find. There's still a shortage of it, as far as I can tell. They did indeed do this because of liberals entering office who would of course immediately 'snatch up all the guns' (though they did no such thing). Though not necessarily because of the guy's skin color. Of course whether or not they are directly related remains to be shown by the evidence given.

And yet, as I've already noted in the post immediately preceding yours, deaths from guns decreased by 2.2% in neighboring states while increasing in Missouri by 16%. Deaths from guns further decreased nationwide by 5.5% during the same period.

 

The explanation you and overtone are trying to advocate here simply doesn't square with the facts or the reality being discussed.