Tucson Shooting Survivors Appear in New Ad Demanding Plan to End Gun Violence

I had to undergo a background check when I got my carry permit. It was nothing to the one I got when I joined EOD in the navy. I also had to undergo a psych screen for that. I might have had another when I got my TS clearance, I am not sure. It was 27 years ago. If we went that way, then anybody who passed should be able to carry everywhere; including courthouses and airplanes imo. There is a compromise for you.

reply to post by muse7

I'm not for banning people from owning guns, because the 2nd amendment prohibits that. I actually think that everyone should be allowed to own at least 1 hand gun or a shotgun for home/personal defense, the 2nd amendment gives us the right to bear arms.

And assault rifles to defend ourselves from an out of control government.

I would like to see more background checks, and an actual mental evaluation whenever someone applies for a FFA.

We already have the NICS system. What I would like to see is an improvement on the NICS system.

Presently private sellers are not allowed to use the NICS system to run background checks on people they want to sell their personal firearms to. That's a problem in my opinion. Secondly the NICS system, while it asks for mental health history, has no way of LEGALLY verifying the accuracy of the claims made on ATF form 4473. So even if that person does have a mental health issue they cannot legally get that information without breaking federal privacy laws. That needs to be changed.

Gun control, on the other hand, is something I am totally against. Banning any style of gun, limiting the size of a magazine, or requiring an even longer barrel will not change anything at all.

Originally posted by muse7
So implementing more rules on who can get their hands on DEADLY devices is bad?

Only in America.....

Check the stats...in the top 15 causes of death in the USA, homicide (with or without using a gun) is last at number 15.

The death rate of Americans due to assaults (homicides) has remained amazingly steady for decades at around 17,000 per year.

Suicides has stayed steady at around 30,000 - 35,000 per year, as has deaths due to motor vehicles at 42,000 - 45,000 per year.

The biggest single cause of death in America is heart disease, again holding amazingly steady at around 600,000 every year.

For the year 2010, homicide (by any means, not necessarily involving a gun) actually dropped off the top 15 list for causes of death, being replaced by pneumonia.

According to the stats from the US government, gun crime is actually falling.

Heart disease is going to kill 2,500,000 people in America during the next presidential term.

I'd say you want start thinking about banning or controlling buns and burgers, instead of guns and bullets.

A sensational and tragic event like a lunatic going on a murder spree is always going to provoke a knee jerk reaction and a politician or two trying hard to look as though they care, but looked at in perspective, guns used for public protection defensively will probably save many, many more people from actually becoming homicide victims, than those that do become victims of any type of murder from any means.

 

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


"Gun Deaths" is a slanted statistic that doesn't take self defense into account. It groups lawful use of firearms with criminal uses.

That is no way to conduct a study on the effectiveness of gun control.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

"Gun Deaths" is a slanted statistic that doesn't take self defense into account. It groups lawful use of firearms with criminal uses.

That is no way to conduct a study on the effectiveness of gun control.

I also believe it doesnt take suicide into account which is a pretty big chunk.

reply to post by DarthMuerte

Statistics show that areas with loose gun laws have fewer attacks.

That is not true. Produce those statistics.

Well we did know this was coming.

why dont they start at the top of the list of things that kill people.
ok ban all cars, drink, drugs, governments.

What happens when people stop using guns, and just revert back to beating the brakes off people with their fists, and they die? Should we outlaw hands next and just start chopping off everybody's hands at birth?


That would help the machine run along nicely, wouldn't it?

Anti-Gun legislation is just that.....Stupid...Gun's don't kill people, people kill people. They just sure help expedite the process a bit. Period. A gun can no more jump up and pull the trigger on it's own, than a car can drive itself, aside from A.I. of course.

reply to post by rnaa


Actually, I believe it's either Sweden or Switzerland that requires every home to have an automatic assault rifle. The crime rates as such are considerably low. See the bad guys have the upper hand because they don't care about gun permits, and etc. They will carry regardless. The good people who want to abide by the law are forced to go through so much more to get the same thing, and as such are often discouraged from doing so. When everybody is on equal playing field, it's not the same. Going into a house in that country for any kind of robbery, you know already what they have inside is no joke. This is discouraging in itself. Nobody wants to die for a few grand. They want quick easy money. Car theft must be quite rampant, I suspect.

Originally posted by VeritasAequitas
reply to post by rnaa

 

Actually, I believe it's either Sweden or Switzerland that requires every home to have an automatic assault rifle. The crime rates as such are considerably low. See the bad guys have the upper hand because they don't care about gun permits, and etc. They will carry regardless. The good people who want to abide by the law are forced to go through so much more to get the same thing, and as such are often discouraged from doing so. When everybody is on equal playing field, it's not the same. Going into a house in that country for any kind of robbery, you know already what they have inside is no joke. This is discouraging in itself. Nobody wants to die for a few grand. They want quick easy money. Car theft must be quite rampant, I suspect.

edit on 5-8-2012 by VeritasAequitas because: (no reason given)

It's the swiss. It's not so much that every citizen is required to carry a certain type of weapon, so much as it is that their entire population is pretty much their standing army, and every single one of them (even retired) has weapons in their homes they were trained to use, and are required by law to retain them. I am unsure if they have open carry policy, but it is a good example of a people who are well armed and trained who have almost zero gun violence.

reply to post by VeritasAequitas


That's Switzerland, probably lol. But they don't drive cars as often as Americans. Read Switzerland's history from WW1 to the present day. VERY interesting country.

Edit: What DeadSeraph said.

“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.”

The 2nd amendment was added to protect the new country from internal insurrection or foreign invasion, it wasn't added for your personal hoarding of assault rifles and ammo.

If we want to follow the constitution word for word, then I say everyone who wants to "bear arms" should join the national guard or any branch of the military, that way you will be able to bear arms and protect the country from internal insurrection or foreign invasion.

reply to post by muse7

Well Muse, that was in dispute prior to District of Columbia Vs. Heller. That established the right as an individual right, not a collective one. It ended the debate for all intents and purposes until the court gets another case to set law, as they determined one need not belong to a Militia or organized force to own and bear arms.

DC vs. Heller also incorporated the 2nd amendment, which is a very important distinction, even if it went almost unmentioned in the media. It means the right applies to the states equally as it applies to the Federal Government. The right to own weapons cannot be banned, is what the reality became. Chicago and D.C. both got slammed the hardest by that outcome.

A well timed thread. Of course YouTube ratings have been disabled for that video, else it'd be deep in the red from down votes.

48,000 over the course of the next presidential term, huh? That's nothing on the FDA - They will kill 400,000 during the next term - That's 274 adverse drug reactions leading to death per day. But no one's calling for action there, are they?

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Statistics show that pretty much every country in the world that has gun laws also has much lower incidents of gun related crime.

An armed society is a dangerous society - especially an american armed society.

Then how come the country that has 3rd most guns isn't one where mass shootings happen all the time? I mean we're lucky to get one in a year. It's a huge deal here if someone goes berserk. We get shootings but not random killings like these in US.
And I know we just had one but before that one we didn't in years.

[Edit to add] Actually now that I think about it the comparison doesn't really work. Finland has only about 6 million people or something. I'm gonna leave my original post as it was for the sake of transparency.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by DarthMuerte
Arm everyone. Add weapons training to middle school curriculum. Statistics show that areas with loose gun laws have fewer attacks. An armed society is a polite society.

Statistics show that pretty much every country in the world that has gun laws also has much lower incidents of gun related crime.

my home country of New Zealand apparently has about 1.1 million firearms for a population of 4.5 million - so it can hardly be said to be "unarmed". Australia has about 20 million people and somewhere between 2.5 and 5 million guns (estimates/survey results vary/are argued about)

An armed society is a dangerous society - especially an american armed society.

edit on 5-8-2012 by Aloysius the Gaul because: (no reason given)

I do not see your point. You are saying that countries that have stringent gun laws also have lower incidents of gun crime. WOW! What an amazing leap of logic. I could argue talking points about these matters. I could argue that the statistics are an unreliable measuring tool. I won't.

The fact is that countries with tight firearm control laws do indeed experience firearm crime. Firearm crime is not the cause of such things. It is the symptom. That symptom is Human Nature.

Good luck attempting to tame violent men and women with laws. There is only one way to combat senseless violence......that is to meet that violence with equal force.

Now I will retreat as the people that have been labeled peace loving tree-huggers attack my opinion with extreme oratorical violence.

reply to post by VeritasAequitas

Actually, I believe it's either Sweden or Switzerland that requires every home to have an automatic assault rifle. The crime rates as such are considerably low.

That is unresponsive. You claimed statistics, not anecdotes. Link to the statistics you claim make your point.

I can list anecdotes too. Australia has stricter rules than the USA and much lower gun crime rates. There were several mass killings in the 80's and 90's. Mass shootings are unknown since the rules were tightened. People who need guns can still get them, but large magazines and rapid fire weapons are very difficult to get. You don't need an AK47 to shoot foxes or rabbits.

That is not to say it will never happen in Australia again, but it proves your foolish assertion wrong, and demonstrates that you don't think before you type. I wonder, do you think before you shoot?

Originally posted by muse7
So implementing more rules on who can get their hands on DEADLY devices is bad?

Only in America.....

What you don't understand is, we can take away every damn gun but that is not going to stop anything. In fact the crime rate will skyrocket. Did you not learn anything from prohibition?

We can take away guns but that's not going to stop someone from creating make-shift bombs, or other devices that could be just as destructive an deadly. I'm all for more restrictions but taking guns away is not going to be the answer to this problem in our country.

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by Domo1

 

This one is easy.
Require everyone to carry a gun.
If everyone is armed this sort of thing won't happen.

An armed society is a polite one.

I went to the store one day for milk and as I was heading back for my car I saw a family, standing horrified next to their mini van, looking at a gentleman who was carrying openly, a gun holstered properly on his side. A woman said, "I'm not going in there until HE is gone". I took one look at their license plate and it said California. I nodded my head and thought yep, welcome to Montana!! Enjoy your stay.

I see people carry often, and it does not bother me. Give it some time though and some of these transplants will start working on ways to stop people from having open carry.