Gun Control: For it or against it.

The reason people aren't for gun control is two fold:

1. they view gun control as the same as an outright ban on guns. Obviously it isn't but the arguments about such tend to devolve into this sort of black and white logic.

2. they view the gun controls as needlessly restrictive on a constitutional right. Take for instance the recent 'people on the watch list should not be able to own guns'. Sounds great at first until you realize that the watch lists are completely unregulated and unchallengeable. So effectively this would be negating a constitutional right completely based on arbitrary parameters. This is actually a common problem with proposed legislation that it simply sounds good, but on closer inspection shows it to be sloppy.

3. And of course you have those with a vested interest in how things are. Gun manufacturers, those selling them and so forth. Obviously this bunch are going to be firmly against anything they perceive as potentially harming them.

People in the 1 and 3 camps you can't do much with. The 2 camp are more reasonable, and some careful legislation might win them over if they aren't just using 2 as an excuse and are in fact in the 1 or 3 camp (which sadly is quite common).

Personal defense would end in death.

Given the common range of combat in shooters, a realistic shotgun would be the BFG 9000.

While I do not have any firearms, I have the knowledge and training behind me to know what they can and cannot do and how "evil" they aren't. People who rattle off accessories and other parts that make rifles "scary" are ill-informed or just plain ignorant. While I have fired many different types of firearms, I have an affinity to ones with polymer stocks or grips. Most people do not understand the reasons why people want such nowadays compared to when they were made of wood. Still, there is a trade-off due to preferring a semi-automatic to a bolt action, though I can and do shoot both. I do not try to hide or muddy facts.

The fact is, it is humans that are dangerous, always have been and always will be. The tools used have just progressed from sticks, bones, stones, arrows, blades to firearms. Just the other day, a man was arrested for trying to run over a reporter and cameraman with an SUV. It is humans, not the tools, that are behind the violence. The tools are inanimate objects that do not care what they hell they are for.

Many factors play into the violence we have here in the US, the kind that are not necessarily prevalent in other 1st world countries (though can be found in 3rd world countries where the violence is even higher than the US). Heck, even the other day, Queen Elizabeth was almost shot by someone who is allowed to have a firearm in England, a guard. Go figure. At least she was a good sport about it when the guard confessed to almost shooting her. In England, the incidents of stabbings and beatings with baseball bats has risen with the decrease in shootings though there are still some of them every once in a while.

@WhiteKnight77 said:

I always love how those who want strict gun control always overlook the number one killer in the US, vehicles of some sort, yet we never hear for bans on cars and trucks. Do cars and trucks have a purpose? Sure, just like firearms have a purpose and not necessarily to kill. There are those who just like putting holes in paper or other inanimate objects. There are those who love to eat wild game (such as me and others in my family) and cannot just run to the local grocery store to buy venison (illegal to sell wild game).

Something many people who complain about the AR-15 and thinking it a bad rifle is that they do not realize that the bullet is not even 1/4" in diameter. This picture has 4 rounds shown that are under 1/4" in diameter and it is the smallest one that is feared by many police officers due to it being able to go through body armor completely.

Outside of the pistol round, the others are rifle rounds and a shotgun shell for those who do not know. The .243 round is a varmint round and has more gunpowder than the 5.56mm/.223 round. the .30-30 round is a typical hunting round.

Don't forget the .50 BMG being perfectly legal.

A bullet that was designed to punch a hole through a cast iron engine block to disable it, and will put a fist sized hole in a human being... is perfectly legal to shoot, so long as you do it from a single-shot rifle. But the .556... oh the horror! Scary scary bullet in a scary scary gun!

@DerekLoffin: lol I should have said, "I don't understand why [any reasonable] people are not in support for gun control" haha.

I know about 1 and 3. But when the 2's also say no I scratch my head because that's all they say. There's hardly any discussion or compromise or any suggestions. I always see extreme pro gun control people who want to ban all guns, balanced pro gun control people who follow the 2nd amendment, and the people who are outright against it. But then again you could be right and some 1's and 3's are very loud pretending to be 2's.

Not all .22 rounds are rimfire as seen in the picture I posted earlier and seen above.

Firearm, firearm accessories and firearm modification have been surging in sales for a while now.

What most people do not realize is the US already has a plethora of gun laws. One of the biggest arguments from the anti-gun crowd is we need more background checks. Fact, background checks are already done if you go to a store. They all go through NCIC, the very same place a background check for a TWIC card, TSA PreCheck, access to nuclear power plants, joining the military (it's even deeper if you need a security clearance) as well as a few other reasons. I have had at least 5 background checks, 4 in the last 6 years. I should be able to go into a sporting goods store and present my TWIC card (issued by the Department of Homeland Security no less) and purchase any firearm I so choose, yet people want to make it even harder for me to buy one. Why?

Are there those who should not have access to firearms? Sure, but responsible people, no matter how young (with proper training) should be able to use them instead of being demonized for wanting to own or use them.

@luckylucious said:

@thegerg said:

@joebones5000:

"We lead the world in gun violence,"

This is simply untrue. I think that we can all agree that gun crime is a bad thing, and that we need to try effective ways to combat it. But, we need to make sure that we are honest and factually correct in how we address the issue.

Liberals claiming they've won, when the poll, the data and the facts argue against their narratives all the time.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The black hole once again enters the arena and comes out swinging with a top 20 lists that compares the US to some extremely violent counties,, often dealing with some kind of civil war. Fucking brilliant. Jesus Christ.

Oh fantastic, thanks for clearing that up.

But remind me again where and why the 100 round clip and other extended magazines were created? Bulletproof vests, silencers, them-16 or ar-15 itself, etc. Go ahead and remind me and please cite the origins of these items.

Ask yourself why people are buying such to begin with. The left has been trying to ban firearm and accessory sales for years so those who want such have gone on a spending spree. Until those on the left learn the real facts about firearms, they will try to keep banning such even though the Supreme Court has ruled that the people have a right to own such. Getting rid of the 2nd Amendment will be a tough sell as then the rest could follow as Amendments give the people rights.

M-14, not M-1

Yah sure, look it up. They are all over the place before. And prior to 2005 it was illegal (with federal approval) to have these weapons, so... figure it out.

http://tacfirecon.com/ . A triger modifier is their best selling item. In fact, most online retailers will tout that these kits or triggers are all top sellers. But this is one of these semantic things i mentioned before right? Its not enough that we know its done regularly now by a lot of people, you want to take my terminology and then demand what? Peer review? As if one has to be as specific as possible in a general conversation, not even with you i might add, and if not then youre just going to dismiss the point altogether. Which again, is how common this is now and up until 05, 06 or whatever, its not something we saw AT ALL. So you can nit pick my terms all you want, but youre goddamn right youre not also going to ignore the point.

Pretentious liberal alert. He won't engage because I'm peddling nonsense yet he directly said the US led the world in gun violence without citing his sources, then he changed what he meant to suit his argument.

Because about 40% of the nation lives in fear and buy into bullshit sold to them? And now that the democrats have now followed the republicans down the path of full retard, its probably about 70% now.

No one has attempted to ban firearms, not once. I remember it was suggested one time in a county in California, like ten years ago, and that was it. Aside from that not one single politician has ever attempted to even come remotely close to even suggesting the banning of firearms. This is all hyperbolic bullshit from rather stupid people. Its actually rather funny because even in threads like this, ive never seen anyone suggest these actions, let alone a politician.

Its funny that youre trying to play this partisan game and attempting to suggest what the left has been doing (even though its never been suggested by a politician, let alone attempted) when in order to come to this conclusion, you have to ignore reality to such a degree that it makes North Koreans look in touch with the real world and its all because instead of paying attention and looking into these things yourself, you just go by whatever bullshit ultra far right wing source you pay attention to.

I dont even know where to start with this one.... ive never seen a single sentence with so many problems...

1. No one has ever suggested doing this. And again, lets not nit pick. When i say "no one" i mean politicians and those who write our laws.

2. While again, its never been attempted by a politician (at least not in our lifetimes, before this i dont know) AMENDMENTS are AMENDED because its a governments job to keep up with the changes of our world and society. They are called AMENDMENTS...... pick up a dictionary.

3. The 2nd amendment does not even come close to doing what you seem to think it does. The only way it does this is if people like yourself and the wonderfully brilliant internet libertarians, manage to ignore the entire paragraph of the 2nd amendment, except for like 6 words. If you're concerned with your rights, then youll be able to read an entire paragraph, if you cannot do this, then you're definitely not going to convince me that you're concerned with rights because you cannot even fucking read them.

Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/02/yes-they-want-to-take-your-guns-away.html

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0623/Why-Australia-isn-t-a-model-for-US-gun-control

So a presidential candidate, former secretary of state and former senator actually suggested following the australian model and you're saying its never been proposed?

And you can still apply for federal approval.

The problem is, because we've done nothing but loosen our gun laws and ignore them as much as we can, its created a surge in these kits and part swap outs that can very easily turn a semi into a full auto. If we did a better job with this topic in general, we would not see this byproduct.

http://www.ammoland.com/2013/07/atf-confiscating-drop-in-auto-sears/

Thats from 2013 and we know the "could haves" that drive the gun market, didnt happen. The whole situation came about because of the increased number of these modifications the ATF started finding. I will say its funny how youre willing to dismiss the simple fact that this was not even close to being an issue when we actually had some degree of proper regulations on the books (and we had no lack of firearms and no ones freedom was at risk. we simply didnt have these "choppers" all over the place mowing down 50 people).

https://www.thetrace.org/2015/11/ar-15-bump-fire-legal/

http://grabagun.com/firearm-accessories/gun-accessories-for-sale/conversion-kits.html

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/atf-national-firearms-act-handbook-appendix-b/download

Pretty sure each state has its own gun laws if you didn't know, which one are you talking about?;

Source: https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/06/16/the-gun-control-farce-3638b

@luckylucious said:

Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/02/yes-they-want-to-take-your-guns-away.html

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0623/Why-Australia-isn-t-a-model-for-US-gun-control

So a presidential candidate, former secretary of state and former senator actually suggested following the australian model and you're saying its never been proposed?

Yes black hole, we have already established that you don't like to pay attention to wording and nuance. Yes, proper regulations most likely means you cannot buy any gun under the sun, but it does not ban all firearms or keep you from practicing ownership of thousands of different types of firearms, just like non-oppressed American's did between the early 90s and early 2000s and just like how tens of millions of non-oppressed, gun loving Australians practice.

But you said this is what you said:

So you contradicted yourself, since there have been many tried bans:

Lets keep our wording clear. "Black hole" - Meaning I point out the holes in your arguments on the OT frequently? Sounds accurate.

@kod: Now that we've found contradictions and holes in your statements, when are you going to address the massive boom gerg seems insistent about?

Do you have a source? These ad hominems and curses aren't really saving you here. Perhaps employing more sources and less opinions will.

@luckylucious said:

@Shmiity said:

The 2nd amendment should go. It's just not needed anymore.

Edit: When your topic gets locked and you have to come back to this thread lol

This is a huge false equivalence. Drug abuse is an addiction; a disease. The war on drugs failed, as we all know- because drugs should be treated like an illness. Guns are killing tools- that's it. Look at Australia- they banned guns and their gun violence rate decreased drastically.

Yes I am. Because it's time to act. Enough is enough. Let's get political, let's get something happening. You and your gun cronies are just holding the country back. Do you have a confederate flag, too? You seem like the type.

People will still go out and do it illegally. A ban won't change that. Drugs are a perfect example of this, since the war on drugs (A ban on drugs) has largely been a failure.

Banning things will not stop those from doing it.

As the name implies gun control is about control, not banning.

And I'm talking to someone that wants to get rid of the 2nd amendment:

So please read the entire conversation before jumping in and making assumptions.

I'm for gun control

Correct stance, firm grip, accurate sight alignment and smooth trigger pull.

Good gun control leads to accurate fire. And first round on-target wins.

Gun Control Misses Mark: Sen. Feinstein Shoots-off Mouth, Hits Foot shows that you really should pay attention to idiotic politicians.

First, while she now contends that her intent is simply to restrict certain “bad” guns (based upon totally arbitrary criteria her staff has established), that claim doesn’t jibe with what she told CBS’s 60 Minutes. Upon seeing her Clinton gun ban enacted in 1994, she said: "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it."

Feinstein told the Associated Press on November 18, 1993 that: “Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe”. Yet referring to a time when she believed she was the target of a terrorist group, the senator expressed a very different viewpoint to colleagues during April 1995 Senate hearings on terrorism. She said: "And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself, because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I'd walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me."

This shows that she wanted an outright ban on all firearms, though she bought and has owned one for years. The hypocrisy of said liberal woman who should not be telling others what they can and cannot own is deafening.

Yes we need all those militias

There's been plenty of data on this thread to prove that gun control doesn't work. Why come at us instead of our arguments?

Run out of bullets m8?

Isn't that what this entire post is doing right now?

Also one or two studies (Lol outliers)? Clearly more than that since gun control is a serious issue, as illustrated by the mere divineness off the thread and poll alone.

I am in agreement. Which is why this post claiming your side is right is irrelevant. There are many cities, counties and places I could cite gun control as not working (Chicago, etc. etc.) but whats the point if you're just going to claim your side is always right.

I have plenty of data to counter your statements as well: (http://www.dailywire.com/news/7872/7-facts-gun-crime-show-gun-control-doesnt-work-aaron-bandler)

I definitely should've worded the poll better though. I just like freedom to do what I want and I generally dislike restriction.

Oh heres one:

Source: http://www.dailywire.com/news/7872/7-facts-gun-crime-show-gun-control-doesnt-work-aaron-bandler

Not exactly sure what you're trying to say in the first sentence; what has "not been done"? What said conversation and said information? I've discounted the referenced article because did not fit the context of the discussion. The other poster specifically stated that the evidence established a causation relationship between gun law and crimes, that in fact did not happen as it was very clearly declared in the conclusion of the study he posted. I didn't argue against what the article is claiming, rather I argue that the poster either didn't read or understand what he was actually posting since it didn't only not support his points it undeniably contradicted them.

Except your entire "world" consist of one single source, Joyce foundation, a well known political organization with anti-gun agenda.

http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000760-Engaging-Communities-in-Reducing-Gun-Violence-A-Road-Map-for-Safer-Communities.pdf is straight from Joyce Foundation, a political organization well known for its anti-gun right agenda (source)

Arthur of this: https://www.press.umich.edu/script/press/17530 is David Hemenway.

He also happened to coauthored this: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMP0805923.

And this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178997000578

AND this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178903000442

Seriously, did you just go on his site and linked every research the man was involved in? In case you weren't aware, David Hemenway is the director of Harvard Injury Control Research Center. You probably also didn't realize that Joyce Foundation funds all HICRC research regarding gun control (source). Would you honestly trust series of studies disclaiming global warming all from one particular person who heads a program funded by OPEC? I didn't think so. So why do you expect someone else to trust your references? Also we are not discussing some well accredited and recognized expert of a scientific field here. Hemenway has a doctoral degree in economy, but not exactly a household name in the economists circle. Stop trying to spin this as some undeniable scientific fact or that there's any sort of general consensus among social/public policies or economic experts on the topic, there isn't. You have a few usual suspects behind the scenes like NRA for pro gun rights and Bloomberg and Joyce Foundation for anti gun rights pulling the strings and funding various academic research to further their cause (although the strategy is much more prevalent with latter than former as you so aptly demonstrated).

What is bullshit? I specifically stated that what I'm debating is that gun control legislation is not the proven solution. Any form of regulation is effectively gun control legislation. You apparently failed to comprehend what I was saying and just went off on a tangent about various things you believe to be obvious but are not. That's fine with me, since you brought up several other point I want to discuss. Not sure how ballistic armor is relevant to the topic of "GUN" control but okay. Also is that your issue? That things aren't considered necessary are not being banned? You know what else is unnecessary, alcohol, pools, fast cars, motorcycles, fast food, cigarettes, things that kill considerably more people each year than "100 round clips". Also terrorist watch list is an extrajudicial system, barring a citizen from exercising his or her civil right based on a list that exist outside the legal system is a very dangerous precedent. For that reason, even ACLU, an organization not known for it's defense of the 2nd amendment is adamantly against it (source). There's also a very good reason why Trump would want to support something like a "no fly no buy" law. As the POTUS, he would have the ability to issue executive order to any Federal agencies on the performance of their duties. If "no fly no buy" bill had successfully passed into law, this mean a president Trump could in theory issue an EO to DHS to place all Muslims on the no fly list to extrajudicially suspend their civil liberties legally due to this precedent.

Except I've repeatedly did exactly just that. I don't know how many times I have stated that the issues with crime and violence are rooted in our failures in dealing with drugs, poverty and substandard education. Gun control is a wasteful distraction that does absolutely nothing to mitigate much less resolve those problems. It's a political partisan issue because it was an issue intentionally created to take the focus away from the fact that politicians don't want to deal with difficult problems that lack the easy short term solutions. If you are only in office for 4 years, do you REALLY want to tackle the war on drug or poverty which best case scenario, you improve the situation a bit several years after you've left office, OR you sign a gun control bill into law and people praise you for job well done? You are probably too young to remember Clinton's Assault Weapons Ban and how Democrats celebrated it's passing as a turning point in gun violence in America. No one cared that it didn't do a thing in the decade it was in effect. DOJ's own study on the effect of AWB found no evidence that it was remotely successful in reducing gun crimes and violence (source).

Police are not experts in fields of violence and crime, but some Harvard economist happen to be because it's a well known fact that criminals love to target Ivy league researchers? Honestly do you read the shit you type?

That's just patently wrong. Jesus, for someone who put such a focus in verfiable facts, one would think you'd do some googling before posting. Select fire weapons have never been outlawed. If you have "federal approval" then it's not illegal d'uh. You can convert guns to full auto weapons, provided that the receiver/auto sear is registered prior to 1986, you submit form 4, pay $200 stamp tax and get approval from ATF. And no, there's no surge of people doing that because such receiver/auto sear are anywhere from $25k to $60k plus 7-10 months wait for ATF approval.

The product you linked (though dead, this is their actual site https://tacconusa.com/) is NOT a full auto trigger nor capable of being converted into full auto firing. It was even approved by the ATF as a non-NFA item (meaning not regulated as machine guns) (source). There's no real significance for 2005 in terms of NFA or firearm regulation. Without NFA stamp, any NFA items was illegal before 05 and after.

If you are still interested there's an excellent article about murkiness of gun research at Politifact. It's simply not as clear cut as some people would have you believe. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/apr/26/special-report-examining-state-gun-research/

Since the federal government was elbowed out of the gun-research business, nonprofits that advocate against gun violence are now the main funders. This means that much of today’s research is being funded by groups that have staked out clear positions on gun policy.

For instance, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation’s leading voices for gun control, has given so much to Johns Hopkins University that it named the public health school in his honor. Johns Hopkins and a host of other universities that study gun policy have received funding from the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based philanthropic group concerned about the toll of gun violence.

The institute held its first hearing Tuesday, attracting both academic researchers and the NRA. In other words, research on guns — whether funded by government or private groups — seems to be on the verge of a comeback. But the return of federally sponsored research comes at a time when the sponsors of gun research have strong views about gun control, raising questions about whether the findings are — or seem to be — influenced by policy positions.

Other gun-research heavyweights from around the country attended, including researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Harvard University School of Public Health, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, the University of California at Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and the Firearm & Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Those institutions have something in common: They’ve received grant money over the years from the Joyce Foundation, which also funds advocacy for gun control policies, including the Violence Policy Center and Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Obama served on the board from 1994 until 2002, before he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004.

Honestly I'm all for Federal agencies being involved in data gathering and analysis to support an informed approach to policy making but gun control is a distinctly law enforcement and justice system issue not something that CDC should be wrapped up in.