Obama vows to pursue gun control ‘with or without Congress’

Onslaught2996
reply to post by Bassago

 

Let me apologize for accusing you of malicious behavior...my mistake. Rarely post and forgot. Mods forget my alert...it was my idiotic fault.

No harm, no foul.

VictorVonDoom
reply to post by Bassago

 

No, no, no ... you got him all wrong. He didn't say he wanted to pursue gun control. He said he want to help prevent these tragedies. Obviously, what he intends to do is relax gun restrictions. Then there would be more armed citizens available to help stop these lunatics. I mean, who would try to shoot up a shopping mall where half the people are armed? Have you ever heard of somebody going on a shooting spree at a police station (aside from the Terminator)?

The President has finally seen the light. He realizes that what is best for America is for the leadership to follow the Constitution. He finally understands the meaning of the phrase, "... shall not be infringed."

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Funny thing, I lived in South Africa for 4 years and worked for the military. I had CC permits just like almost everyone else, well I carried a 9P and a 44 and 4 spare clips, most people only carried one ;-) You know, I can't remember one time that any kind of violence broke out around me anywhere, except on the borders or outside military bases and that always involved terrorists. In the cities, generally, everyone played nicely because you didn't know who was carrying what or how fast or accurate they were and you really didn't want to find out the hard way when a difference of opinion can generally be solved with a smile or a drink.

When Florida passed their CC law a few years back, if I remember right, violent and gun related crime dropped by about 60% the first year the law was in effect. This is what people don't understand, with open gun laws you will get the occasional nutter and they will do damage one time, with restrictive gun laws, you get gun violence perpetrated 100's to 1000's of times greater in occurrence on people, because he criminals have guns and there is nothing to stop them if the average person doesn't. There may be a way to tighten up gun licensing to keep guns out of the hands of potential crazies but unfortunately that is open to abuse by the government.

People have to get the idea that we are all in this together and that we have to have each other's backs. Police and the courts should be looking at responsible gun owners more as domestic assistance rather than criminals. We do after all have to support each other against the real criminals in society, be they foreign or domestic.

Cheers - Dave

reply to post by bobs_uruncle


Interesting to hear about your experience in SA. From what I understand, getting a CCW permit is almost the same as in the US, except you have to show the police where you're storing your firearm and it must be locked in some sort of container. (I may be missing a few things though, but then again I haven't looked extensively into SA and their gun laws). I'll eventually look more into their gun laws.

In the cities, generally, everyone played nicely

It's a bit opposite over here. Take New Orleans as one example (2011). This comes from the wnd source listed below.

If it were a country, New Orleans, with a rate 62.1 gun murders per 100,000 people, would rank second in the world.

The inner cities make up the vast majority of homicides. I live near Dallas, TX, (and lived there for awhile to) so I'll use that as a personal example. Overall, Dallas is a pretty nice place. Then again, it is also pretty large, and certain neighborhoods make up the majority of the crime for the entire city. Oak Cliff and Pleasant Grove come to mind. I avoid those areas as much as possible.

As for other big cities, below are a few links. Newark, NJ is the first link. If someone was shot and killed in Newark in 2011, there's about an 80% chance they were arrested on an average of 10 times before they were murdered.

Cory Booker says Newark shooting victims have high chance they’ve been arrested an average of 10 times

Booker said "if you are shot in the city of Newark, you have over an 80 percent chance that you've been arrested before an average of 10 times."

Politifact corrected his statement, which says he should have said "shot and killed".

Then there's this article from WND, which compiles a few large cities and says what % of victims had criminal records.

www.wnd.com...

A review of murder statistics across America shows that in many large cities, up to 90 percent of the victims have criminal records.

Though data is no longer published in Baltimore, USA Today reported in 2007 that 91 percent of the then-205 murder victims in the city between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, 2007, had criminal records.

Of the victims of murder in Chicago from 2003 to 2011, an average of 77 percent had a prior arrest history, with a high of 79 percent of the 436 murdered in Chicago in 2010 having arrest histories.

As for Florida and their drop in crime and CCW permits increasing, you're right.

Florida firearm violence hits record low; concealed gun permits up

NAPLES, FL - In the so-called Gunshine State, home to the most gun permits in the country, firearm violence has fallen to the lowest point on record.

The firearm-involved violent crime rate has dropped 33 percent between 2007 and 2011, while the number of issued concealed weapons permits rose nearly 90 percent during that time, state records show.

Im not exactly sure when Florida introduced their CCW law, but here's the % drop from 2007.

Mirroring the 33 percent decline in gun violence since 2007, the violent crime rate also dropped 26 percent during that time, which could suggest other factors at play in causing fewer criminal acts.

reply to post by Onslaught2996


A gun-nut is a coward?? How is that again?

reply to post by buni11687


Excellent response! I guess though I am a bit weird when it comes to guns and rights. I am one of those people that believes that guns are a necessary evil because you tend to have to fight fire with fire, but I also believe that my rights end where yours begin and if I see a crime, I act. I also watch out for my neighbors and they watch out for me, of course I am in a rural setting, so we tend to know pretty much everyone in the area directly or indirectly. However, I think if more people thought that way, we'd have fewer problems. It's this "separation" of people that seems to be driving the crime, "I am my own little island and I can do WTF I want to" attitude. If people believed that helping their neighbors and watching out for them protected them as well, maybe things would change.

In SA, I bought my first 9mm and walked into the police station, signed a form, they gave me a stamp for my ID book and that was that. Same thing when I sold my 9mm, bought a 9mmP and got desert eagle 44. I had a gun safe, but that was just to keep one of the guns packed away when I wasn't wearing both and before I started teaching my kids to shoot at the range. My kids never touched the handguns for ANY reason unless I was there and handed it to them at the range, because I showed them what a frag hollow point does at 25 meters to a large squash. My daughter at 5 years old got quite good, she centered her shots at 25 meters and always hit the target at 50 meters. CC permits in SA in the late 80's were quite easy to get, but a little easier for me as I worked for the military (CI/MI/Armscor/SADF) directly and indirectly through a military contractor, so I was on the borders and military bases almost every week and occasionally in hot zones (once a month).As I said however, everyone was pretty polite, never saw actual fight start even with heated words, because you just don't know how accurate or fast someone else is or who has their back.

I stayed a couple of nights in Warrenton at the hotel (between Jan Kempdorp and Kimberley) when I was developing and then testing the Jan Kempdorp ammunition depot security systems, and I had the Chief of CI's son with me, he was 5th column, special forces/recon, a real piece of work. We went into the bar after getting back to have a drink and play some pool and since it was my first time at this particular bar/hotel I noticed a banner above the bar with three 7's and "AWB" written on it. So I said, "Hey, what's that mean, average white boy?" People in bar sort of got itchy, but my associate just looked around the room and everyone got calm very fast (he'd been there before). He said to them, "He's new, but he's one of us" in Afrikaans and then they all chuckled a bit and we had a good time. Apparently I had insulted Terreblache's AWB group and it was a heavily populated AWB territory.

I did a lot of stupid things in SA, was a bit of a hot dog, have I've been referred to as flippantly arrogant, but the only time I have unholstered my weapons were during cleaning, training or if I had to use them, never in anger.

Cheers - Dave

reply to post by Wiregrab


If the man wants background checks and bans on automatic weapons, he already has them. If you purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer at any venue, including gun shows and online, you're going to have to submit to a background check at some point before taking possession of that firearm. That's the law already. At least some states don't require one on private sales, but I don't know how they realistically expect to enforce that, anyway. In theory, I'm not against it, I suppose, as long as that's all it is.

Deer with an AR-15? Its already illegal in most states, but probably not for the reason you think. As it turns out, .223/5.56 is considered too weak to take deer quickly and humanely, and most states don't allow it for that reason. Its probably the weakest centerfire round in common use, and for civilians, those uses are primarily recreation (because ammo is cheap and plentiful) and pest control, which is what it was designed for. As for the magazines, with so many of them floating around already, attempting to 'control' them is going to be an exercise in futility, especially in the coming age of 3d printing.

Automatic weapons? They're not technically illegal, but they're already much more heavily regulated as NFA weapons than what you can typically buy in a gun store. There's a more extensive background check process, but not only that, the price to play that game will run you into the many thousands of dollars for the rifle, and, of course, burning through ammunition at that rate isn't cheap, either. As for .50 caliber weapons, although they're not regulated under the NFA, the financial cost is prohibitive, and aside from a wealthy few, again, not many are going to bother. Both are essentially a non-issue.

Finally, as for the anti-Constitution tirade, let me remind you that in spite of having the third highest population in the world, the population density of the United States is one of the world's lowest. In other words, we still have huge tracts of rural territory. Until the police and local sheriff's depts can ensure quick response times, your argument is going to fall on deaf ears. Even in semi-rural areas, it usually takes at least half an hour for them to arrive. If you live out there and don't have a means of defending yourself, well, good luck with that if you ever need it, because law enforcement isn't going to be there for a while.