Tony_Tarantula on 6/6/2016 at 01:26
Quote Posted by nicked
Absolutely - in that way it's the same as anything dangerous. A stricter system could still make plenty of allowances for sport, clubs etc. Imagine if dangerous animal laws were as lax as gun laws, and everyone could own a tiger.
"I'm a responsible tiger owner, I keep my tiger locked up safe in my large garden with proper security fences etc. Why should I be denied my tiger ownership because of those thousands of people that got mauled and eaten by tigers last year?"
That's another reason why, in one of the rare instances with which I'm OK with compelling people to do things, that I support mandatory military training. Not only does it ensure that people understand weapons and can either handle them safely or react appropriately to one appearing when it's not supposed to, but it helps weed out nutters.
DaBeast on 6/6/2016 at 03:10
Quote Posted by bjack
Thanks for that explanation. I confused myself thinking .50 meant 50 caliber! Duh? My fault.
And I question the limit on capacity too. Criminals will use whatever they want. They have zero respect for the law.
Bullets can be bloody confusing so no need to feel silly. .50, 50 calibre, .500 and 12.7mm are the same, the difference is the casing. Since you can't fit rifle rounds into a handgun (unless it's one of those wacky specialist pieces), the round has to be smaller, but you can maintain roughly the same mass of the higher calibre in a shorter round.
So yea, like Volitions said, different shape of casing. I'm not 100% but I think .223 remington and 5.56 nato might have slightly different loads, resulting in different velocity too, but most shooters seem to use it synonymously and have argued that they're identical. Also not uncommon are people who use rounds that technically fit and will fire, that aren't rated for the weapon they're using, sometimes nothing happens, sometimes the gun blows up.
While I'm kind of ambivalent on Gun Law, it does seem that the limitations are about as effective as DRM, in that it annoys the hell out of legit users while criminals just find a way around it anyway.
I kind of like Sam Harris' notion that it shouldn't be easier to get license for a gun than a car.
scumble on 6/6/2016 at 10:31
Quote Posted by Starker
Yes, but we do try to prevent terrorist attacks. We don't just go, "Ah, f*ck it, them's the breaks." Likewise, it might make sense to try to prevent someone from stockpiling weapons and ammo. At least it will be easier to do when it's illegal.
As for the chances, yes, mass shootings are somewhat rare, even though you hear about them a lot when they do happen. Overall, though, from what I remember, gun related deaths are somewhat comparable to motor vehicle accidents in the US, but I haven't looked at the latest data.
I don't think I was trying to make a point about what should be done about terrorism or gun control, it was an observation on the emotive nature of rare catastrophies, and that boring causes of death might actually add up to make more suffering, with equally dodgy policies surrounding them and not much attention on them.
There's an element of political pressure to be seen to do something about guns in the wake of a mass shooting. Similarly the government has to be seen to be doing something about terrorism.
I don't want to get into the question of how much government action has actually led to increases in the amount of terrorist activity, I'm thinking about what actually happens rather than taking political messages as they come out. Are resources sensibly allocated or just thrown at the most obvious cause for scoring political points?
Guns wouldn't be the only debate affected. Part of the reason why I'm generally tired of politics and probably somewhat out of touch with current events. So it's interesting to see what people are coming up with in this thread.
Quote Posted by faetal
A small pool of gun owners, all of whom are on the police radar. Certainly a lot easier to contain than everyone potentially being armed after a trip to Walmart.
I understand that it might feel better, but as heywood pointed out, it's not exactly a minuscule number of gun owners. I don't like to post-rationalise the reason there are relatively low levels of gun crime just from the laws and imagined oversight from the police. The benefit is statistical if anything, because I don't think perpetrators of the big shootings in the UK were obviously identifiable as crazy from a CRB check. Looking up Dunblane and Hungerford the information dug up afterwards points to craziness, but the guys were both licensed to own the guns they used. Today they could have still got hold of guns to do as much damage. I've just looked up the Cumbria shooting which happened after the above mentioned events led to more laws.
I think the logic of gun control is really all or nothing. If you can't demonstrate that guns can be removed entirely we're only left with a statistical advantage. I guess I'm not hugely convinced exactly how much gun control helps in itself beyond a bit of a feel-good "we've got more gun control" sense for most people.
I suppose I'm back to the headline events leading to some political action that doesn't look like a real solution to these big massacres that happen every so often.
faetal on 6/6/2016 at 11:33
I think a large part of it is culture, but the legal environment can act to dampen or amplify the effect. In the UK, if you are in public with a gun, you have committed a crime. In the US, depending on the state, you can carry a gun around and only when it is misused has a crime been committed, at which point it is too late and you're a statistic. For culture - look at Switzerland (mandatory gun training and ownership as part of citizenship (someone correct the finer points if I'm mistaken)) and Finland (similar deal with Switzerland - widespread citizen gun ownership as an extension of the military - basically an on standby civilian militia - again, correct me if wrong). Low incidence of per capita gun deaths, possibly because gun ownership is just a default thing and not linked to any form of preference. In the US however, guns are considered a form of personal empowerment, protection from fellow citizens with guns, they're fetishised a lot and probably as a separate issue, individual gun ownership goes way back in US history.
What I think this all amounts to is the gun as a form of personal power and it is each person's perceived right to wield that power. For most people, this isn't a problem because most people understand that with power comes responsibility. For others however, the way they choose to direct this personal power is not always healthy, and I won't even go into suicides & carelessness. This is just my personal perspective though, so probably there are misconceptions, inaccuracies and differences in understanding which I'm happy to debate. The biggest question for me is what does a pro-gun ownership US citizen think is wrong with countries with very tight gun ownership legislation? Are those countries functioning less well than the US? Which problems in other countries with lower gun ownership per capita (which would be most other countries really) exist which would be addressed by expanding gun ownership? Are the rape, mugging, murder, burglary etc... statistics in the US markedly lower than other places due to all of this perceived protection?
Bear in mind, these are just my musings - feel free to pick them apart, bat some ideas around. I'm not trying to offend, it's just a thing which interests me.
Starker on 6/6/2016 at 13:00
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
That's not true for the US as a whole. The largest source of illegal weapons is that they are smuggled in via the Mexican border with the main corridors being California and Interstate 25 (runs N/S from Wyoming down to Mexico through CO and NM). A smaller number come in by boat or hidden in commercial shipping and the rest are kind of scattered all over the board.
For the US as a whole, the largest source of illegal weapons is the sale of legal weapons. All but a small fraction of guns confiscated from criminals have once been sold legally. Like in Chicago, there are a lot of straw purchases, where the weapon is bought by a girlfriend or someone like that, often with no or very small consequences to the buyer.
The lesson to take away from this is that Chicago's gun laws simply don't work. Not because gun control cannot and will not work, but because Chicago's gun laws are a joke.
Quote Posted by scumble
I think the logic of gun control is really all or nothing. If you can't demonstrate that guns can be removed entirely we're only left with a statistical advantage. I guess I'm not hugely convinced exactly how much gun control helps in itself beyond a bit of a feel-good "we've got more gun control" sense for most people.
I'm very surprised about the all or nothing attitude. Would you at least agree that if there are less guns available and they are harder to get then there will be less crimes committed with a gun and less accidents? Isn't the statistical advantage not worth pursuing if it meant less people dying?
Vivian on 6/6/2016 at 13:16
How the hell is 'only a statistical advantage' a negative point? Like the statistical advantage you get from taking medicine?
also preaching either to the choir or to a different choir who've all bought guns to the church because they live in fear and so aren't going to listen, but no, you shouldn't be allowed to just wander about polite society with a fucking gun in your pocket, you mad idiots.
faetal on 6/6/2016 at 14:33
Quote Posted by Vivian
a different choir who've all bought guns to the church because they live in fear and so aren't going to listen
[video=youtube;NAQy8v0d_qo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAQy8v0d_qo[/video]
Starker on 6/6/2016 at 14:42
I actually do agree that the threat of terrorism is somewhat blown out of proportion in the US, though. For example, last year, more people were killed by toddlers (1-3 year olds) than by terrorists in the US: (
http://www.snopes.com/toddlers-killed-americans-terrorists/)
Vivian on 6/6/2016 at 14:45
Quote Posted by faetal
[video=youtube;NAQy8v0d_qo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAQy8v0d_qo[/video]
One of the worst aspects of everything in the west at the moment is we've become too ridiculous for chris morris to continue lampooning us. We've caught up with him.
faetal on 6/6/2016 at 14:48
Some world leaders seem to have made it a priority to stamp out satire by making it redundant.
