Soxbadger

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 18, 2012 -> 12:49 AM) So someone tried to massacre some people in Texas, he didn't get too far. Charles Whitman killed 16 and injured approximately 30. That was in Texas. Not sure where you are going with this.

Bigsqwert, There is another pretty famous example, Dunblane, Scotland, 16 students, 6 adults. http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/world/europe/dunblane-lessons/

I went with. 1) East - West 2) Inner - Outer 3) Keep the same

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 04:21 PM) I honestly do not know who you are talking about. He likes the Bills, its okay to laugh.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 04:18 PM) Correct but it also means that guns do have a use and people not only have a right but need them for various reasons. Depends on your definition of "need". All of the examples you used could be solved through other methods (compound bow, fence, trap, etc.) But the gun is an effective tool. Most reasonable people recognize this. Its just there needs to be some recognition that you dont need a 30 clip magazine to effectively prevent squirrels or any other animal. A bolt loading rifle could handle many of those jobs, and unless someone has great proficiency they are unlikely to get as many shots off as they would with a semi-auto.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 04:04 PM) I never said having such lax gun control was a good thing. As a matter of fact, not long ago I said it needs to be federally mandated, no state laws, no local laws, etc...without that, there will never be real gun control here. I'm absolutely for effective restrictions on gun use/ownership, etc...I'm not arguing against it. I'm arguing against silly "bans" or restrictions that are local law only...they mean nothing. I think most people understand this. But when you live in a reality where I can not change the minds of everyone in the US, you have to do what you can do. So if all I can do is protect my little hut, then I am going to protect my hut, even if it means I cant stop the other hut owners from doing what they want. It just has to start somewhere.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:43 PM) The issue comes from how it's currently handled by the "law". These restrictions are often argued because they're not on a level playing field. For example, Chicago has far more restrictions than a neighboring suburb when it comes to purchasing, registering and owning. This type of enforcement doesn't work well...and it leaves too much room for argument. This has to be handled federally, across the board, across all 50 states or the argument will never end. I'm not a fan of guns...never have been. But the idea that people a few blocks away from me are able to have weapons I'm not allowed to have seems unfair...even for a person that has no use for such weapons. This is one of the HUGE problem areas that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately I cant convince a certain subset of people so in order to effectuate any change, I gotta take what I can get. There is no way that I believe the entire United States can agree on comprehensive gun regulation. Which is why the best I can do is hope that the area I live in passes reasonable regulations. And to be clear, no guns on the street, to me is a reasonable regulation.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:35 PM) Are you not reading the headlines right now? It's not just dumb people responding. It's smart people who truly believe that proper response to these tragedies is to take away guns entirely. Are you implying that I think newspapers or the media are smart? Because that would be a faulty premise. Taking away guns entirely is most likely not possible, so its a waste of time to argue about it, and a waste of time for that to be proposed as a solution. Which is why its frustrating to discuss, because certain people can not separate "gun regulation" from "guns being completely banned" when they are 2 separate things. Id die of joy if they allowed drugs to be regulated, because thats not banned and it means all I have to do is follow the rules and I get what I want. Why is that so hard? Why do pro-gun people always have to make it some outlandish "I wont be able to have a gun ever"?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:32 PM) I think in his post he's saying exactly that...it's peoples fault, not the objects fault. And I absolutely despise that addiction is a disease excuse. People don't willingly choose to get cancer, or lupus, or the swine flu. But when it comes to addiction, they absolutely did choose at some point. I get what he is saying, I just dont understand how its a response to anything that is being said in this thread. Most of the proposals are that PEOPLE should be punished if they do something that causes someone else to be hurt. I have yet to see a proposal that states guns should be punished. BURN THOSE GUNS IN A FIRE FOR COMMITTING ALL THOSE CRIMES! Yeah, no. This is about how we create rules to stop guns from getting in the hands of the wrong PEOPLE. See how that is about people, and why the statement is irrelevant. A gun by itself is neither good nor bad, it just is.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:27 PM) Oh bulls***. At some point we just choose not to care because of the importance of the object at issue. Obviously you could give two s***s so of course it's a bad analogy for you. I do care, so it's a good one. I care and I pointed out why its a terrible analogy. You just choose to completely ignore it and say "Well dumb people say things", yet you are not recognizing you are creating an argument from something a dumb person would say and then acting like someone in this thread is making that argument. Its boring.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:24 PM) Idiots do this, rational people do not. When you get involved in a car accident, you don't immediately blame the vehicle. You blame the driver. And rational people blame the person who shot the gun. It doesnt mean that rational people dont say "Well how did that gun get into X persons hand in the first place." Just like I would assume a rational person investigating a car crash would look into the vehicle to make sure that the brakes worked. No idea where you are going with this line of reasoning if you are just trying to say "idiots say dumb things" well great they do, but I have yet to see anyone in this thread say "guns kill people on their own." So really it just seems like a distraction.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:19 PM) Point stands. Modern armies with all their toys cannot occupy an armed population, dont work. I mean, when has an American military successfully occupied a country with a hostile population? Japan, Germany, New Mexico, Arizona, California, North Dakota, anywhere that Native Americans lived... Should I go on? I assume what you meant is: "Modern armies who are willing to not commit genocide cant occupy an armed population." If the US wanted to occupy Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, it could. You just would be talking to the next Hitler, Stalin, etc.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:18 PM) No, like everything else in life, when something goes wrong, we don't blame the product, we blame the person making the mistake. If you own a gun and someone accidentally gets shot, it's because you f***ed up and made a mistake, just like running a red light and hitting something with your car. It's not the cars fault, it's your fault for operating the car the wrong way. If your seven year old gets ahold of the gun, you made a mistake. If you have a teenager with a problem, and he gets your gun, you made a mistake. That doesn't make guns anymore dangerous because some asshole somewhere shoots up a school or some negligent gun owner allowed his kids to get his guns. Hmm what world is this? We blame drugs, we blame video games, we blame rap, we blame no religion in the classroom, we blame prostitutes, we blame gambling, we blame tv. Since when we do we blame the person, all Ive ever seen is blaming everyone else. Everything is now an "addiction", tomorrow well have "gun addicts" and we cant blame them because "they are addicted to guns and its a disease." I seriously dont know what world you are in where people ever take the blame.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:12 PM) *driving a car on public roads You can drive a car without a license on your property to your little hearts content. Its when you take it out in public, where you are given the privilege to use state-owned roads, that your right to drive a car is limited. Same should go for guns. If you want them in your house go for it dude, but if you want to take around town in public places then you have to play by a set of rules. Well then we basically agree as my arguments are generally against c&c (which is in the public). Having a gun in your own home is your risk, although I do think there should be some sort of common sense laws about keeping the guns away from people who are not residents of the home.

Well the simplest place to start is that guns are a privilege not a right and therefore they should be able to be restricted like any other privilege (driving a car.)

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 03:02 PM) Restriction can be made, but when they place an undo burden on using that right, like poll taxes and what some claim ID's are to voting, they are unconstitutional. Placing a tax on ammo high enough to make it unobtainable to all but the rich would be an undo burden. At some point, restricting the type can also be an undo burden. I dont value guns nearly as much as I value speech, voting, etc. I think gun ownership should be unduly burdensome.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 01:14 PM) And my problem with this has always been that there are an infinite number of dangerous objects that can be used, in the heat of the moment or deliberately, to kill. We all don't live in some strange fear of cars or knives or whatever. The ease of killing doesn't change the fact that if I wanted I can just run people down in my car. Or go around slashing people with a knife like in China. Cars and knives have useful purposes. My car gets me to work. My knife allows me to put butter on bread. Lets be realistic here, someone could have burnt that entire school to the ground if they just wanted body counts. They could have driven a truck full of gasoline into the front of the school as kids were leaving. The difference is that a gun is designed to harm things. And so if we have a product thats purpose is to harm things, we should really regulate that product more than other products. And you are right, nothing changes the fact that you cant stop someone from killing you. So it begs the question, why have a gun if you admit that your survival is completely out of your own hands. If someone creates a fertilizer bomb and drives it into your house, no amount of guns will save your family. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 01:15 PM) The actual numbers say that if you have a gun in the house, you're an order of magnitude more likely to accidentally use it to shoot someone you know, or your family is vastly more likely to use it to hurt themselves, either accidentally or on purpose. The number of successful defenses against home invasions by people with guns is miniscule compared to the number of gun accidents and suicides by people who used a family member's gun. I didnt even want to get into this, but it goes with the entire theme of my argument. No one even knows if you are safer with a gun, let alone that it makes such a difference that you need to have instant access.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 01:08 PM) Your fear of being a victim in the cross-fire of a public shootout at the local saloon is ridiculous. Its not fear. Its common sense. If I invented a protection suit that would guarantee my protection but kill 1 out of every 1million people I walked past, would the govt allow me to wear my suit? The answer in my opinion is no. My safety does not outweigh the potential risk to others safety, even if my safety is guaranteed and their risk is negligible.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 12:18 PM) I want ready access to my gun in case of an emergency and I think a lot of gun owners add that to their list of reasons for having a gun. I get there's a reasonable restriction for having to lock up your guns if children are present in the home, but to lock them up all the time is too restrictive IMO. What if you live alone? You still have to buy a gun safe in the random chance your place gets robbed and someone steals your gun? We can legislate the hell out of everything. But history has shown that most of the time all you're doing is punishing the law abiding citizens at the expense of a relatively low change in whatever problem you're trying to cure. I'm fine making it more difficult to purchase guns. I'm fine having to take classes, be certified, wait longer periods of time, whatever. But once you start restricting my use of guns, in my own home no less, I think that goes above and beyond what is acceptable. And therein lies the problem. You want to have quick access to a tool that is extremely dangerous. In all other circumstances it is completely reasonable to restrict quick access to something that is dangerous, but to some guns are the exception. To me they are not. Guns are just a nice bed time story to make you feel safe at night. The night time break in hypothetical is also one of the most dangerous. Its dark, you may have been sleeping, you are now going to arm yourself and make a difference? I just dont get it. I do not expect everyone to be like me, to simply accept that our lives are so random that having a gun likely wont matter. So I go to sleep at night without a gun. And if someone breaks in my house, I have some plans. Maybe theyll kill me, maybe Ill get them. Win some, you lose some. The problem with your justification "in my house" is that you are not willing to accept your gun can be taken from your house, where it becomes my problem. The easy access you desire, also means easy access for a child or criminal. But to answer your question, if I wanted to own a gun and somehow was fearful to the point where I wanted close easy access. I would keep the gun locked in a wall safe or nightstand next to my bed.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 12:11 PM) But do they really? I think after they're elected, they mostly do what they want, and on a select few issues they may get called out by their constituents when it comes to them doing something their people didn't want. But more often then not, when it comes to knee-jerk reaction, they get away with a LOT because people are too busy fighting to notice. Im trying to be less cynical. But if Americans really started to care and wanted to make changes, Congressman would have to either go for the ride or they would lose their seats. Most candidates dont tell people what to think, they just do what they think people will like the most.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 12:07 PM) WE can make sense here all day long...however, WE aren't the ones that implement these laws. The same people who implemented the Patriot Act are. It has to start somewhere. Congressman just do what people tell them. It is our responsibility to effectuate change. That is our social contract.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 12:02 PM) The problem with a lot of that is a locked up gun is a useless gun when you have mere seconds to react to the armed robber that just kicked your front door in and started firing off rounds. I think it'd be more responsible if the gun was stolen that you immediately report it as such. If we are going to implement laws, we need to make them effective. Forcing people who own guns to render them useless for the intention of protection isn't effective legislation. I agree that lock/storage may not be the best solution. I am just saying that instead of throwing my hands up in the air saying "no solution criminals will always have guns" that I at least am going to kick around a few ideas. The likely answer is that none of them would absolutely work, but I wont just give up because of the "only criminals will have guns" meme.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 11:58 AM) I think it's vague, which is the very point I was highlighting. Being more responsible could mean a whole swath of things...vagueness of a law/act and ineffective practices implemented in reaction to this is what we need to avoid. Well everything is vague when its in the brainstorm stage. I can make things as specific as you want. Gun Ownership Act of 2012 1) All guns must be registered yearly. 2) All guns must be purchased legally. 3) All guns must be kept in a locked approved container. Now onto the fun ones: 4) All guns must be reported missing within 24 hours of detection. 5) All gun owners with missing guns must file a police report 6) All gun owners with missing guns must allow the police to search their premises. 7) All gun owners who lose more than 1 gun in a 5 year span will have their license to own guns permanently revoked. Failure to follow any of the above listed laws will result in a minimum of X and a maximum of the equivalent sentence of the crime commissioned by the gun. Sincerely, Stalin

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 11:54 AM) They already have that law. Drug Dealer Liability Act. Either way, that's an insane penalty. We don't do that in really any other setting when you're doing something legal. This is premised on the fact that they did not store their weapons legally, which means that their actions were illegal, aka criminal. I thought you kept saying that there was no way to enforce people keeping their guns properly. So it clearly can be done. Whether or not we want it to be done, is a different argument. But that is where the argument should be, why do we not want people to have to lock guns up. Why do we want people to be able to easily transfer weapons to other people. Why do these have to be allowed? And drug dealer liability act wont make much sense if drugs were legalized.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 11:50 AM) ...in response to a tragic situation, for the safety of all of us, we should also implement the patriot act, allow warrentless wiretapping and spying of citizens, and indefinite detention of anyone accused, without proof, of a plethora of vaguely described situations, too. What we need to do is think this through, be calm, and implement changes that will make an actual difference...not implement changes with knee-jerk reaction that do nothing but detain or inconvenience people with no actual results. For a good example of this, consider body scanners at airports...which have been proven ineffective...yet we use them anyway, all in the name of safety. I thought I already made that pretty clear. QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 01:38 PM) This is going to sound cold as hell, but if you want to live in a free society, you are going to have to accept that there are going to be body counts for that freedom. Even if we were to ban every gun, it would not stop people from murdering each other. I often think about how amazing it is that we have so few of these incidents given how easy it is to kill people in modern society. There is no answer, and if we are going to look at the 2nd amendment, it should be cold and heartless, not on the back of an extreme tragedy. Emotion makes for bad laws.