Gun Control

Quote: SOOPOO

Yes on question one, after some time period allowing for the disposal of illegal guns in your possession. Make the rules for legal gun possession easy to understand. Than easy to enforce. With severe penalties.

The problem is simple possession hurts nobody. We do not need to make even more victimless crimes.

Quote:

As far as your second point, I’m not going to compare unnecessary gun deaths to auto deaths for this analysis, because one (guns) adds nothing to MY quality of life, while the other (driving a car) adds substantially to MY quality of life. So to ME, it’s easy. You may feel differently, as you may feel owning a gun gives you joy. I’d compare gun deaths to ZERO gun deaths. I do agree with you that the media does blow the problem out of proportion. But it is still a problem.

I will counter and repeat if you are going to cite raw numbers you must say "compared to what?" I would not say it gives me "joy" more security. But there are many collectors and target shooters who do indeed experience joy. They are hurting nobody, why punish them?

Quote:

Point 3…. I want the penalties even harsher than they are today.

Why? Seriously, why?

Quote:

Point 4…. Agree. For ME. I can easily avoid areas with high gun crime. But what do you do about the poor law abiding citizen that can’t afford to live in Amherst? As a society we collectively believe they are entitled to a safe place to live. Do you disagree?

They should have a safe place to live. But I do not believe gun laws are the way to do that. I believe the way to do this was shown by Rudy in "broken window policing." Lets say you live in a bad area. The kind that makes Clinton Ave look like Clarence. What is going to improve your safety more, stricter gun laws or rousting the guys selling dope on the corner? More gun laws or closing the nuisance bars? More gun laws or a better general police presence?

See, it is easy to support more gun laws thinking you are making things safer. But you are in fact doing little to make things safer, just making people feel better. "High gun crime" is driven by high crime in general. Crack down on the lesser crimes and you will have a safer area with less gun crime.

This is how effective gun laws are. Sweden the darling of the socialists and the political correct now has a severe gang problem. The reason they have a gang problem is a non political correct discussion for another post. But it also now has an out of control gun problem.

" There were 391 shootings in 2022, 62 of them fatal, a rise from 45 fatal shootings in 2021. Guns are everywhere. Social services in the small city of Örebro say guns are now so easy to come by that most of the ‘at-risk’ youths they work with could probably get hold of one in a day."

But people still think that gun laws will prevent gun deaths. The proposed solution in Sweden isn't more gun laws. The Prime Minister is bringing the army into help solve the problem by putting more enforcement on the street.

The largest purchaser is the one that wants to prevent arms' distribution.

It's like John Kerry wanting us to reduce carbon usage, while he consumes more than thousands of citizens combined.

Controlling guns might be OK if it weren't listed in our rights.

Even if you wanted to change our rights, I'd think you'd quit being the largest purchaser.

Either guns are safe for us or they're not.

Can't be both.


So the first thing that needs to happen before trying to change rights, is quit being a hypocrite.

"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."


It states nothing about crack heads lying on the application.

Sure, the Biden Crime Family shouldn't own any guns, but it doesn't have qualifiers.

Quote: kenarman

But people still think that gun laws will prevent gun deaths.

Gun laws can definitely prevent gun deaths. It may not be practical but if it was illegal to own any gun and guns were removed from society, there would be no gun deaths.

I would guess that if the government offered $1 million for every gun turned in and destroyed most of the guns would be turned in and gun deaths would decline significantly.

Quote: DRich

Gun laws can definitely prevent gun deaths. It may not be practical but if it was illegal to own any gun and guns were removed from society, there would be no gun deaths.

I would guess that if the government offered $1 million for every gun turned in and destroyed most of the guns would be turned in and gun deaths would decline significantly.

Grenades aren't legal in Sweden and yet we have the following.

"All in all, there were 77 incidents of detonated hand grenades in Sweden ... individuals were injured and one killed. The number of incidents increased ..."

Quote: Tanko

It is a step in the right direction, but it will not make a dent, as long as there are 45 states that have no limit on bulk gun purchases.

Gun traffickers go those states to purchase as many guns as they want.

Texas, Arizona and New Mexico supply the guns for the Mexican cartels.

Yes and no, (that is an arguments for Federal regulation), but CA also has some things going for it, it is a large state, with more isolated borders (there are not many cities that basically hug a border -in fact basically none that I can think of-), so most of the major cities in CA are more geographically isolated from other states (and really other cities in many cases), yes still very possible, but much more difficult than when you can walk a couple blocks and be in a new state. Though it borders two states with pretty lenient gun laws, there is a massive unpopulated desert as a buffer against these states.

But, that is also an example of why small States with several populated buffers can have strict gun laws with minimal effect (and why city level gun restrictions are even more useless.)

So these laws can be effective for the right kinds of states.

Quote: kenarman

Grenades aren't legal in Sweden and yet we have the following.

"All in all, there were 77 incidents of detonated hand grenades in Sweden ... individuals were injured and one killed. The number of incidents increased ..."

Very misleading editing of the quote, "All in all, there were 77 incidents of detonated hand grenades in Sweden during the six-year observation period, in which nine individuals were injured and one killed. "
-It was a six year period, and only 9 of the detonations resulted in any injuries, and one 1 death (over 6 years). While alarming and tragic, this is not even close to the same scale as gun deaths in the U.S. -
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330137442_Explosive_violence_A_near-repeat_study_of_hand_grenade_detonations_and_shootings_in_urban_Sweden
(link to the study you quoted from)

Also, I am not sure that I follow the argument, grenades are illegal in Sweden (as they are virtually everywhere.) People still do stuff that is illegal (to a much lesser extent). But, what is the policy path here, if some terrorists and radicals smuggle grenades in (most seem to be obtained by terrorist groups and old cold war era stockpiles floating the black market), should grenades be legal for everyone? Will less crazy people attack crowds with grenades if everyone carries them? Can grenades even be used for self defense?

I cannot think of a single justification for making grenades legal even if there was a legitimate black market problem (there isn't, just a slight increase over the six years observed.) Even in actual combat operations grenades are getting rarer (because outside of traditional battlefields which don't really exist anymore -at least not for the U.S. they are really not super useful except for very particular scenarios.)

This is like saying, "terrorists are increasing their use of suicide vests in cafes in Eastern Europe, and yet suicides vests remain illegal for normal citizens." It is just such a strange hill to fight over.

Quote: Gandler

Though it borders two states with pretty lenient gun laws, there is a massive unpopulated desert as a buffer against these states.

Only a few hours by car.

"A majority of the California-recovered firearms traced to out-of-state sources were traced to dealers in three states: Arizona (30%), Nevada (14%), and Texas (10%).”