The Big Gun Control Thread

Edwin wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:
Edwin wrote:

My only contribution is that good habits (instilled by training and a willingness to learn) negates the need of trigger locks, cable locks, etc. It's an excuse by some gun owners who don't take these dangerous things seriously and give it the respect they demand.

Your description of the gun buy-back leads me to believe that there are many, many gun owners who don't have the good habits

Former owners now.

Well.. former owners of those specific guns; previously owners of those specific guns until the buyback; possible owners of many more guns.

Tanglebones wrote:
Edwin wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:
Edwin wrote:

My only contribution is that good habits (instilled by training and a willingness to learn) negates the need of trigger locks, cable locks, etc. It's an excuse by some gun owners who don't take these dangerous things seriously and give it the respect they demand.

Your description of the gun buy-back leads me to believe that there are many, many gun owners who don't have the good habits

Former owners now.

Well.. former owners of those specific guns; previously owners of those specific guns until the buyback; possible owners of many more guns.

Out of everyone that I talked to in line, there was one person that still had more at home (he was selling it for the money). Everyone else was getting rid of stuff they inherited (widow giving up her husband's WWII trophy), stuff they had from their youth (hipster with sawed off and most others I talked about). Anecdotal evidence for sure, but it was encouraging to me to see those who weren't responsible taking action to get rid of it.

The two most common reasons I heard were so their kids couldn't get to it, and to get rid of it so no one can steal it. Most people never bothered with a safe, trigger lock, cable lock, etc. The Mayor's office handed out anonymous surveys to everyone so we will get empirical evidence as soon as everyone send it in and they tally it up.

And how do you get good training in handling weapons? The same way you get a "well-regulated militia" - by training every person 17 and older in the use of arms to current military standards. Conscription and mandatory service...

Robear wrote:

And how do you get good training in handling weapons? The same way you get a "well-regulated militia" - by training every person 17 and older in the use of arms to current military standards. Conscription and mandatory service...

Think of the money the government could save on advertising and recruiting!

Edwin wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

Any pro gun activist that makes a case for having a gun as a measure of safety is just bad at math. The safest thing anyone can do for themselves and their family is to get rid of their guns. Yes, you might need it for an intruder. But it is more likely that in a moment a great stress, someone in the home will use the gun on themselves or someone else in the house.

This is exactly why the NRA fights tooth and nail to ban studies into gun safety and violence. The NRA ceased being an organizational tool for gun owners a long time ago. They are now a lobby and marketing arm for the gun makers.

There are ways of mitigating the risk without having to be completely disarmed. Not everyone has to have a gun but those who want that option should have that option. We need to study the risks involved so people can make a better informed decision on how much risk they want to take.

Risk can be mitigated, but the risk of someone in the household being shot with a weapon that is kept in that household is still greater than that weapon being used in self-defense.

And I agree that the NRA should not only support more study, but willingly publish these statistics so that members can make informed decisions. They actively do the opposite.

No one needs a law to make smarter decisions.

Edwin is THE MAN. /thumbsup

The NRA lobby has been hard at work. It's clearly the games and not the guns.

At least Grassely had the balls to call out COD

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-va...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...

From another article on HuffPo, apparently NRA is no opposing all universal background checks. Wow.....

Under questioning from Leahy, LaPierre said that in a reversal his organization no longer supports universal background checks for gun purchasers as it did years ago.

"Back in `99 you said, `No loopholes, nowhere,' " said Leahy, referring to testimony delivered more than a decade ago. "Now you do not support background checks for all."

Bear wrote:
Robear wrote:

And how do you get good training in handling weapons? The same way you get a "well-regulated militia" - by training every person 17 and older in the use of arms to current military standards. Conscription and mandatory service...

Think of the money the government could save on advertising and recruiting! :)

Or you could just extend the current concealed weapons license system that every state already has, require training and make it mandatory to have said license cover not just concealed carry, but purchasing and ownership of firearms, munitions, etc.

The best example is the Florida CWL system. It was made by a former NRA president, so it has their support and it's one of the best we have in the union so gun control folks should like it too. It's far stricter than WA's. The added benefit is that we can make this change quickly and cheaply since the infrastructure to do all of this already exists.

More info here:

http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/FOR...
http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/fir...
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/...

Bear wrote:

Think of the money the government could save on advertising and recruiting!

You can still have a volunteer military; you just make two years of basic service with periodic refreshers mandatory, and the vast majority of citizens find themselves in a position similar to the Founders, who lost years of their lives to training and service in the wars, and had a visceral familiarity with weapons and national defense and the responsibilities of citizenship that we don't have today.

Edwin wrote:

Or you could just extend the current concealed weapons license system that every state already has, require training and make it mandatory to have said license cover not just concealed carry, but purchasing and ownership of firearms, munitions, etc.

The best example is the Florida CWL system. It was made by a former NRA president, so it has their support and it's one of the best we have in the union so gun control folks should like it too. It's far stricter than WA's. The added benefit is that we can make this change quickly and cheaply since the infrastructure to do all of this already exists.

I agree; I was trying to incorporate the now-ignored militia portion of the clause, rather than the newly discovered completely individual right...

Edwin wrote:

My only contribution is that good habits (instilled by training and a willingness to learn) negates the need of trigger locks, cable locks, etc. It's an excuse by some gun owners who don't take these dangerous things seriously and give it the respect they demand.

I agree on learning the safety rules and religiously following them. Risk reduction is about overlapping measures in case one measure fails to work in a given set of circumstances. When you own a gun, you're dealing with five primary risks (if anyone knows of additional ones, feel free to say so)

-Risk of intentionally shooting the wrong person by mistake
-Risk of accidental discharge
-Risk of rage killing with the gun
-Risk of using the gun to commit suicide
-Risk of someone stealing the gun and using it to hurt someone else

Evaluate each risk and ask in how many ways you might reduce it. That's what I would do if I owned a gun.

Jayhawker wrote:

Any pro gun activist that makes a case for having a gun as a measure of safety is just bad at math. The safest thing anyone can do for themselves and their family is to get rid of their guns. Yes, you might need it for an intruder. But it is more likely that in a moment a great stress, someone in the home will use the gun on themselves or someone else in the house.

This is exactly why the NRA fights tooth and nail to ban studies into gun safety and violence. The NRA ceased being an organizational tool for gun owners a long time ago. They are now a lobby and marketing arm for the gun makers.

How exactly could they stop me, for example, from conducting a rigorous scientific study on gun safety and violence? Difficulty: without shooting me.

If anyone is in the area, Town Hall Seattle is having a public form on Gun Violence: A Public-Health Crisis on Monday, February 4, 2013, 7:30 – 9:00pm at the Great Hall for $5 if anyone is interested in going with me. The Washington Arms Collectors will be there in force to probably shout "shall not be infringed", so I'll be there to tell them to stfu.

The NRA's War on Gun Science

Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms — or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
More recently, Republicans have gone after the National Institutes for Health, which has also funded research into the public health issues of guns. “It’s almost as if someone’s been looking for a way to get this study done ever since the Centers for Disease Control was banned from doing it 10 years ago,” Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said in 2009 of the NIH.

“You’d think that after the CDC had their money revoked, we wouldn’t be dealing with this,” Erich Pratt, a spokesman for the Gun Owners Association of America, told the Washington Times at the time.

Teen slain after performing at inaugural: 'Happiest day of her life and then she's gone'

A 15-year-old Chicago girl gunned down a week after she performed during President Obama’s inaugural festivities was remembered Wednesday as a “walking angel” – the last person her family could imagine dying by a bullet.
A sophomore at Chicago’s selective King College Prep High School, Pendleton was walking with fellow members of the volleyball team in a park Tuesday afternoon when the skies opened. They ducked under a canopy to get out of the rain, joining other teenagers.

At that moment, Chicago police say, a gunman came running down an alley behind the park, opened fire and then darted into a waiting vehicle and took off. No arrests have been made.

Jayhawker wrote:

The NRA's War on Gun Science

It kind of freaks me out, how true to life Thank You for Smoking is.

Oil, Tobacco, Gun lobby have a science all about how to fight science.

And it works. The Republicans still ran on anti-global warming big time the last election.

Bystander saves woman's life after firing a warning shot to man chasing her with a knife.

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) - Police in Everett say a bystander fired a shot into the air to scare a man who had been chasing a woman and threatening her with a knife.

Police Officer Aaron Snell said the man with the knife stopped chasing the woman Wednesday afternoon and was detained by several other people until police arrived and arrested him for unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon. Police say the woman fled.

Snell says the man and woman had been involved in a domestic dispute.

The 61-year-old Arlington man who fired his pistol told police he'd ordered the man with the knife to stop chasing the woman. Fearing for her safety, the bystander says he fired one shot.

Snell says police spoke to the man who fired his gun. They don't expect to pursue any charges against him.

That's a good outcome, but firing a gun into the air is dangerous. People should fire into the ground, assuming that's legal in their jurisdiction.

As far as posting stories go, I offer this one as an example of when CCW goes wrong.

Worth watching. I am in awe of David's ability to be so eloquent and show such poise under such horrific circumstances.

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/30/a-san...

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:

How exactly could they stop me, for example, from conducting a rigorous scientific study on gun safety and violence? Difficulty: without shooting me.

They lobby to put laws in place to prevent data from being collected; to prevent collected data from being accessed by the public, and to destroy it after a period of time; and to defund university and government research that might look at such data. It's quite effective, actually.

Robear wrote:

They lobby to put laws in place to prevent data from being collected; to prevent collected data from being accessed by the public, and to destroy it after a period of time; and to defund university and government research that might look at such data. It's quite effective, actually.

I think we can all agree that there is only one reason you'd want to prevent the collection of data and it's visibility. There's something you clearly don't want the public to see.

Ok everyone. I think you're getting a little too conspiracy theory crazy with the gun lobby. We're talking about a group that profits from selling a quick, easy method of murder. Why the hell would they want to hide that?

Counterpoint: Sons of Anarchy.

Side note: I have been guilty of more double posts using iOS than I ever recall under android.

Very interesting article on Eurogamer: How Video Games Fund Arms Manufacturers

When LaPierre criticised games he left out the ones with the realistic models. We can safely assume it was for the most cynical of reasons now.

Axon wrote:

Very interesting article on Eurogamer: How Video Games Fund Arms Manufacturers

When LaPierre criticised games he left out the ones with the realistic models. We can safely assume it was for the most cynical of reasons now.

Wow. It never occured to me. Is there any way to know which games pay licensing fees? If they use the names, they're paying I guess. My time with the Battlefield series might be over.

This double post paid no licensing fees.

lostlobster wrote:
Axon wrote:

Very interesting article on Eurogamer: How Video Games Fund Arms Manufacturers

When LaPierre criticised games he left out the ones with the realistic models. We can safely assume it was for the most cynical of reasons now.

Wow. It never occured to me. Is there any way to know which games pay licensing fees? If they use the names, they're paying I guess. My time with the Battlefield series might be over.

Any game that uses a weapons real name has to pay a fee. There's a handful every year.

Axon wrote:

Very interesting article on Eurogamer: How Video Games Fund Arms Manufacturers

When LaPierre criticised games he left out the ones with the realistic models. We can safely assume it was for the most cynical of reasons now.

Yup, I assumed that this is why LaPierre did not list the realistic shooters.

Keep in mind that while they may pay thousands for the use of the names they pay millions to military charities because of these games.

I'm not one to defend the NRA because f*ck them, but that's a pretty blatant misrepresentation. No where on the NRA-ILA site linked to in that article does it say enemy or even characterize them as enemies. It's just a donors list. Does that make the Mother Jones article I posted earlier an enemies list too? Or any of the other lists of donors when we fought back against anti-gay organizations?

We have plenty of other valid reasons to hate the NRA.