Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:49 PM) But doing nothing today will do nothing for today and nothing for tomorrow. You at least need to install some sort of increased barrier on the acquisition of handguns. I've never said do nothing. I've said to implement more restrictions. But i still maintain you're not going to stop these mass murders by doing it, and it's a nonstarter to talk about banning all guns like the initial post of this thread.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:46 PM) you do realize how terrible that is, right? "We have a few years every now and then with no mass-shootings!" It's absolutely terrible. But s*** dude, I live near the City of Chicago. Watch the first 5 minutes of the news and there's a murder story. It's f***ing pathetic and a tragedy, but at some point it just becomes white noise. And let's not pretend like these events haven't happened before. I think the biggest school mass murder occurred in like 1925. Mass media coverage and a s***ty economy brings out the worst in society.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:43 PM) Most of us are in reality. But part of being in reality is that we hope/dream/strive to do the impossible. What is our purpose if we simply give up whenever a problem arises? Then let's start talking about it realistically. Enforcing a ban today isn't going to shore up all of the problems, and by the time gangs go through the hundreds of millions of guns out there, a secondary market will have popped up. I watched Revolution, I see how they still use guns even when there is no electricity to manufacture more!

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:41 PM) You would think simple principles would prevail. But the problem is that many of the people who are the strongest voices, do not really understand criminals. They think that somehow criminals have easy access to everything in the world. They just do not understand that getting something on the black market is difficult and then once you have it, you dont do stupid things like killing 30 random strangers to lose it. We're talking about black market guns here. How would that ever get traced back to a source? Especially in murder-suicide situations. The person acquiring the gun can't exactly give you up.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:39 PM) But supply of said guns would be severely restricted. And this idea that a world where gangs didn't have guns would be just as violent is just plain dumb, sorry. You can't have drive-by knifings and innocent bystanders being knifed in their homes by stray knives. I'm having a conversation in reality, when banning guns will never happen and simply flipping a switch won't remove 300 million guns in this country.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:35 PM) If you set the limit at 30 dead, sure, but if you just include all mass shootings it's every couple of months, on average. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/1...ince-columbine/ Recently yes, but some years (2000-2002, 2004) had none, 2010 had one incident, etc.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:33 PM) If gangs have significantly less access to firearms... And around and around we go. They'd find other means of killing themselves and/or would buy up illegal guns. Would the number shrink? Maybe. I still don't see how that'd stop a gunman killing 30 people though.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:32 PM) There has been a decades-long campaign against drunk driving with ever-stricter requirements and penalties. But no one talks about banning alcohol.

QUOTE (Wanne @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:29 PM) Dude...there's an estimated well over 300,000,000 firearms in America. How on earth do you get them all? Not gonna happen. I'm a law abiding gun owner...and proud of it and carry daily. Have always been under the idea of: "Rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it...". Where's the outrage at the number of drunk driving deaths each year which hover around 12,000? Because they're generally one or maybe a handful of people involved, and it happens so frequently it's another blip on the news. A gunman killing 30 people happens every few years, and gets much more airtime.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:15 PM) Then whydoes the US constantly have one of the highest homicides rates of civilized first world countries? The UK and Europe overall have about 25% of the homicide rate. WHy is that? Gangs. Seriously, that's the answer. No other country has the number of gangs and gang members as the US. It's a small, incredibly violent, group of people in our society. I've looked before but couldn't find a study that looks at homicide rates in non-gang related shootings. I bet it's still higher than the rest of the world, but that number of gun related homicides shrinks to a much more comparable figure.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:11 PM) Right, as much as we rightly all point and laugh at how terribly ineffective alcohol prohibition was, estimates are that it cut consumption by 70%. If we could knock down gun deaths and injuries in this country by 30%, that would be pretty damn good. Can you find the same statistic for drugs? Because alcohol consumption was insane right before prohibition, and a lot of what curbed that was education and the rise of groups against drinking. There was a bunch of PR campaigns like "if you drink you're killing your family" type stuff. Of course, with that reduction in drinking, came the explosion of crime.

QUOTE (3E8 @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:09 PM) I still think there's a big difference in cost and difficulty of manufacturing/transporting arms and ammunition compared to alcohol and drugs. According to this, there are over 50 armament manufacturers in the USA. There are four in Canada, one in Mexico. The black market definitely exists, and would have to be met by suppliers overseas, but it would produce a more limited supply. If it reduced firearm homicide in the USA by 20%, then over 2,000 less lives are lost each year using the current rate of death. You can't make that assumption because people will still end up killing people, they'll just do it a different way.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 03:00 PM) So? Someone who's snapped but still has easy access to guns can easily do those sorts of things that someone who's snapped but does not have easy access to guns cannot. You don't need to plan something like this out if you have the guns laying around already just because. Ok, so you agree with me that restrictions won't do anything because people can just snap anyway. So the only solution is an outright ban, which will never happen.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:56 PM) How can you say that with any sort of certainty? You have no idea if this guy just snapped today, grabbed his legally owned guns, and went shooting. He put a vest on and grabbed more than one gun, and there's a body at his house (reportedly). That's not exactly "hey I think i'll go for a stroll today..."

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:52 PM) So you suggest everything remain the same or find a way to arm everyone? Something has to change. Again, no one really knows if it would have made a difference today, but you really have to be in denial if you think it wouldn't make a difference any day. Read my posts and you'll find my answer to this.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:44 PM) Drugs, of which alcohol is one, do not represent the same type of demand as guns do. It isn't even close to comparable. But "people willing to spend top dollar" for guns means that people have to spend top dollar and that when someone with schizophrenia goes off of their medication, there's not guns laying around all over the place for them to pick up and start shooting. edit: I can make bathtub gin or beer or wine on my own pretty easily. my great-grandparents built a home in Kankakee to do exactly that! fermenting fruit or grain isn't that difficult. owning a machine shop and building guns is considerably more complex. IIRC the vast majority of prohibition alcohol was smuggled in, not made in bathtubs. The same would happen with guns. Ok so fine, maybe you make a dent on the random killings (which are still rare and random) but you're not stopping these major tragedies.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:42 PM) I think the 2nd amendment is actually quite a bit more broad than where current interpretation stands, and that if we want sane gun regulations or even to keep current regulations (NFA/machine gun ban) constitutional, we do need to revisit an amendment written in the 1790's based on 1790's technology and society. That doesn't mean we need to ban guns, but we can't have a sane conversation about guns in this country as long as we have the 2nd, imo. And that's all fine and good and I agree. Let's have that discussion. But we all know guns will never be outright banned in this country because our entire history revolves around personal freedoms and the barrier between us and our government. We're not Japan or the UK. We don't tolerate nearly as much government oversight, even if we could get an extra 1-5% increase in our safety. So the real question is, since we will never get a full ban, would any reasonable restriction actually stop a tragedy like today? IMO, not likely, and not enough to start imposing unreasonable demands on the 99.9% of law abiding gun owners.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:38 PM) But now Remington and Colt are producing tens of thousands of less guns every year. Ammunition suppliers are producing millions of less rounds. You can't just go to Bass Pro or Walmart to pick this s*** up--there's not a fully legal, national distribution network and demand. Make guns illegal, and now you've really gotta want a gun to get it. You want to be willing to risk being imprisoned and having a felony record to keep that shotgun in the closet or that 1911 in the nightstand. Demand would be seriously reduced and, with it, supply. Yep, and if we made alcohol illegal all the alcohol makers would shore up and then no one would have the ability to drink! You all have established the need for guns for criminals. Why do you not think there'd be a similar demand in a black market that people would be willing to spend top dollar for?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:35 PM) So what can we do about this problem if gun regulation won't do s***? Nothing? Stop pretending that guns are the problem. Focus efforts elsewhere. That'd be the first step IMO. Make them more difficult for me to obtain. Make me take a course every year or two. Fine. But the idea that we need to "revisit the 2nd amendment" is, quite frankly, idiotic. Especially as a response to a tragedy like this.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:33 PM) According to statistics, it would put a HUGE dent in it. Over 267 crimes last year most of them homicides would never have happened in chicago. That's assuming those criminals would not find (1) another gun (2) another means of killing. Guns aren't the only way to kill people.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:31 PM) Uh huh. Take that away and then what? Trucks from Mexico and a guy on the corner that can sell you an illegal handgun? Are gangs going to start outdancing and outsinging the other? You guys are completely delusional if you think making gun ownership illegal would magically cure this problem or even put a dent into it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:28 PM) If you restrict the legal flow of guns, you've restricted the supply to the black market as well. There's not tens of millions of handguns to steal or straw-purchase if no one can legally buy a handgun. How's that war on drugs working out?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:28 PM) I call bulls***. Those guns were legally obtained in the US at some point. In the case of Chicago they found roughly 20 percent came from one store. Of all off the 267 guns recovered last year used in crimes and studied they were ALL purchased legally. Purchased legally, stolen, then used by criminals who by law can't touch the guns.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:22 PM) If guns will be just as available why is it shown by facts that higher rates of gun owners=higher rates of firearm caused death? Just a little snippit: BTW, the difference is almost entirely attributed to handguns. Comparing the US to any other country is comparing apples and oranges. Go look at gang violence statistics. There's 90% of your answer right there. And guess what, they mostly use illegally obtained weapons. So ban every gun in the country and our homicide rate will still overshadow everyone elses.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 14, 2012 -> 02:12 PM) When was 'the last gun-related tragedy that occurred'? THIS f***ING WEEK. Maybe there's a problem with how easy it is to get a gun in this country? And as i've said, make it more difficult to get guns. I'm fine with that if that would make you happy. But that's not going to do anything and you know it. This guy and the others like him plan this s*** out. So unless you're going to just ban guns altogether, no amount of restrictions would to stop this type of stuff. But continue to believe the problem is society allowing guns, and not the random crazy people that are just random crazy people who do random s***.