Ongoing Mass Shootings Thread pt 2

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What the heck does a gun have to do with your right to protect yourself or your property? That just makes it easier. Use a bat. Use a knife. Set up booby traps.
 
Perhaps we should have NFL players fire guns into the air during the national anthem. That'll get some movement.

Honestly.

Or maybe if every Arab in America went and bought 50 semi-automatics and started to open carry in states where allowed, you might get Republicans suggesting "sensible regulations".
 
If you started by banning further sales + offering buyback, that would at least stem the tide. You can figure out later what to do with the existing guns but I don't understand why you have to tolerate this lunatic buying 33 guns in a single year on a going forward basis.

I'm not sure a buyback program in the US would have much success. The one in Australia was actually mandatory. Good luck doing that in America. You'd have a civil war.
 
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An update about who owns guns in the U.S.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...half-of-americas-guns/?utm_term=.1c1868127746

3% of Americans own 50% of the guns. 78% of Americans don't own a gun.

So that's almost 20% of American adults who own 50% of the Nation's firearms, which comes to almost 50 million people who own somewhere between 130-150 million firearms. 3-4 guns for each of those people (depending on which numbers you believe). And those WaPo numbers are actually lower than some other studies. And that's assuming that there aren't a lot of gun nuts who aren't admitting to owning a firearm because they're afraid Hillary Clinton is going to take them. The people who conduct such surveys will dismiss this, but I'm not so sure it's not a real thing.

If you own four guns, you really like guns, and most likely aren't going to be willing to part with them easily. So these numbers aptly illustrate why confiscation or a mandatory buyback is never going to work in the US (even if you could get past the Bill of Rights). Which is all the more troubling because confiscation and a ban is probably the only thing that could make a significant dent in gun violence.
 
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That's true but that can be a separate conversation from banning further gun sales. This maniac in Vegas bought 33 guns in the lats year alone. Sure if he was hellbent on buying them and there were no gun stores and the only thing he could do is buy them privately under the table he could do that but it would be a hell of a lot harder and more expensive to get 33 of them in a year.
 
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That's true but that can be a separate conversation from banning further gun sales. This maniac in Vegas bought 33 guns in the lats year alone. Sure if he was hellbent on buying them and there were no gun stores and the only thing he could do is buy them privately under the table he could do that but it would be a hell of a lot harder and more expensive to get 33 of them in a year.

There's a great line in "A Few Good Men". The Tom Cruise character, who is Navy lawyer representing two guys accused of murder, is running through the defense strategy, and seems pretty confident the prosecution doesn't have any evidence of foul play....except, his colleague points out, "for the dead body".

"Damn, we keep running into that!" Cruise exclaims.

The Bill of Rights is the body you're going to keep running into when you talk about bans and confiscation. Again, you either change it, or you get a court who interprets it differently. But as it stands now, the Constitution means what the SCOTUS says it means.

I for one think a ban on handguns and assault weapons is the only thing that's going to make a significant difference in gun violence. And even that will take time. But given that even most Democrats aren't talking about an outright ban, it doesn't seem like such law will happen anytime soon. And you need a law before you get to the Constitutional question.
 
Yes, those things are all true and as a lawyer I know them quite well. The basic problem is that any legislation that will get passed will be killed by the SCOTUS eventually anyway given its current make up. That is why the Trump election is so much worse than the dumpster fire that it is day-to-day. He leaves the US with Gorsuch for decades to come on the Supreme Court. He is 50, the youngest on the court by 7 years. And Clarence Thomas (the fool) is only 69. The only conservative-leaning justice who is getting up there is Anthony Kennedy at 81 but frankly he could be replaced by a much worse conservative. Nevermind the ages of Breyer and RBG who is almost certainly the next retiree.

I didn't even consider new constitutional amendments because we'll get colonized by Martians before such a thing happens.
 
Yes, those things are all true and as a lawyer I know them quite well.

Right, I gathered you were (I'm an attorney as well). I didn't mean to suggest I was telling you something you don't already know. And of course you're right that Trump's election means we're stuck with a court that agrees with Heller for the foreseeable future.

My initial comment was concerning what I regard as dishonesty among Democrats and Republicans in Washington in framing the debate, and that it will take more than "common sense gun control" to get the gun violence situation under control.
 
How can there be a debate about this anymore... How can the Right or the NRA defend any of this with any type of conscience? It's blatant..... For a member or congress to vote against any type of gun regulations flies in the face of what they went to Washington in the first place. They're supposed to be defending our rights not the interest of the NRA or the Weapon Mfg's. Just that there's still an argument about this is laughable.
 
My initial comment was concerning what I regard as dishonesty among Democrats and Republicans in Washington in framing the debate, and that it will take more than "common sense gun control" to get the gun violence situation under control.

Realistically this problem is squarely on the Republicans. Most of the Dem base would be in favour of a wide range of gun control laws, and the younger you get the more pronounced the support. Particularly given urbanization and how guns are viewed there (almost universally negatively) compared to in rural areas. So the Democrats while they may not be honest in framing the debate are really not the ones who could make a difference in any event. First of all, even many of them have been bought by the gun lobby, especially in red or purple states. Second, let's suppose they come to power in Congress and the WH in some sort of wave election where they are the majority - they will still not be willing to act decisively so long as they know that in order to maintain power they have to court gun-toting people in their districts/states.

So we are left with almost half the country who is responsible for maintaining the status quo no matter what. Until THEY budge and in significant numbers or until you miraculously get young voters to show up (and we're talking like 80-90% of the eligible voters of that age group) such that they overshadow the Republicans there will be no change ever.
 
An update about who owns guns in the U.S.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...half-of-americas-guns/?utm_term=.1c1868127746

3% of Americans own 50% of the guns. 78% of Americans don't own a gun.



I think the 3% is a low number, I think Nick is right there are probably many who won't be honest about such a thing, but I do believe it's a small minority that own the majority of guns.

Technically I own a hunting rifle, but it resides at my parent's house. I grew up around guns, I live in TX and hunting is a sort of writ of passage here. My father is a formal NRA member, he now blames them for many of the senseless deaths we see in this country. Not because he's turned liberal by any means, he just sees them for who they are now. They're no longer a rights activist group. But he's a diehard Republican that won't let that sway his vote. And I believe there are many more like him, they're fed up, and they would probably vote more eagerly if the party removed their tongue from the NRA's ass.
 
How could the NRA hold such sway? I completely understand it's by lining the pockets of legislatures but at some point someone has to stand up and say this is beyond gone on long enough.... But unfortunately I don't think there's some one with the fortitude to do this ... But worse it might be too late... Its the old adage how do you get the toothpaste back in the tube... We're so far down this road is there any solution?

The NRA holds sway because they're actually a very influential, and popular, organisation among a very politically aware group of voters.

It's not even really about money (at least solely money), or the NRA "owning" GOP members via donations. The amount NRA gives to individual candidates is actually pretty small. Much less than some other large advocacy groups, on both sides, give. But if the NRA decides to "target" a candidate in a swing district where they hold sway with the constituents there, that candidate is in trouble. It's these "issue oriented" ads that can help sink a candidate hostile to the NRA's interests.

The other thing is, the modern version of the GOP is so far to the right the NRA doesn't have to buy them, their values are more or less aligned anyway. That's not to say elected Republicans don't fear the NRA...they do. Make the wrong vote and the NRA will be happy to find a primary opponent, or gun friendly Dem, and go after them too.
 
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Yep.

And the irony is, many of those "highly motivated voters" pay money to the NRA to be members.

So they vote, donate money to pro-gun candidates, and give money to the NRA. That's pretty highly motivated.
 
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Single issue gun voters are *highly* motivated voters, especially in the GOP primaries.

But when do we hit that tipping point where even these voters^ have to admit this is wrong on all levels..... These people can't be either this stupid or just mindless sheep heading to slaughter.
 
But when do we hit that tipping point where even these voters^ have to admit this is wrong on all levels..... These people can't be either this stupid or just mindless sheep heading to slaughter.



They are like religious fundamentalists.
 
But when do we hit that tipping point where even these voters^ have to admit this is wrong on all levels..... These people can't be either this stupid or just mindless sheep heading to slaughter.

They don't view themselves as heading to slaughter cause they have their guns to protect themselves.
Its the rest of us who are heading to slaughter.
 
But when do we hit that tipping point where even these voters^ have to admit this is wrong on all levels.....

Which "levels" are you referring to?

I'm sure most NRA members and pro-gun voters would tell you they condemn these mass shootings. But they'd also tell you that they don't believe that gun control will prevent them. And in any event, they believe passionately that they have a right to those guns.

They'll also point out the statistics mentioned above, about how many gun owners there are and how many are in circulation. The number of legal weapons involved in mass shootings is statistically insignificant next to the total number of legal guns out there. So they have a point when they say that most gun owners are law abiding (at least in the sense that the vast majority of them don't kill anyone with their guns).

Let me be clear. I'm not taking their "side", I'm just saying I understand their arguments. And I don't think suggesting they're all idiots is helpful.
 
Level = Morality, Care for fellow human beings, being armed with weapons of war, making after market products that make their already deadly weapons even more lethal.

As I've said in earlier posts.... One should have the right to be able to protect kith and kin (I do), but one shouldn't be able to own these type of weapons in my view period.
 
As I've said in earlier posts.... One should have the right to be able to protect kith and kin (I do), but one shouldn't be able to own these type of weapons in my view period.

When you say "type of weapons"....which types, specifically, are you referring to?

I probably agree with you, I just want to make sure I understand your terms.
 
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Type of weapons = Semi-Automatic, after-market parts that make these weapons more lethal. I come from a part of the US where hunting is huge I'd like to see what a deer would look like after being shot by one of these weapons.
 
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