Anti-gun control people, where would you draw the line?

[Ihrgoth]

the reason I'm against gun control is that in Switzerland the only places with gun violence are "gun free zones" everywhere else has no gun control and Switzerland has the lowest gun violence in the world. Why? well when you turn 18 they give you a gun and train you how to use it. Who will try to shoot people in a murder spree when they know that everyone else has a gun?

 

[Echopunk]

The only problem with the laws that already exist are that criminals have a stubborn tendency to break laws. I don't have a problem denying firearm ownership to people who were convicted of violent crimes, duis, hate crimes, anyone who is the reason for a restraining order, sex offenders, or the mentally ill.

Laws are not the issue. It comes back to whether or not people were raised properly. My dad bought me my first gun when I was 10 years old. I was ready for it. I never had to sneak around to have access to firearms. If I wanted to go shooting, I would say, "Dad, can we go out to the base this weekend?" and we went. There was no mystery, no allure.

I think we need to change the way mass shootings are covered in the media. There should be a full blackout on the identity of the shooter. Everybody involved signs n.d.a's. Any reporter who "breaks the story" and gives airtime to the sack of shit that opens fire on a crowd of people gets thrown in jail/and or blacklisted so they never work in the press again.

Right now, the message we send is this: Go out in a blaze of glory. If you can't be famous, be infamous. Everyone will know your name. You'll become important. The site of your massacre will join the likes of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Aurora, Sandy Hook, etc. Other sad pathetic people will look up to you as an inspiration.

The message we should send is: Fuck you. Nobody cares who you are. You will be dead. You will be forgotten. You were nothing in life, you will be even less in death.

 

[luke10123]

Umm, hope about none? I mean if you're going to control guns, CONTROL GUNS.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think we need to change the way mass shootings are covered in the media. There should be a full blackout on the identity of the shooter. Everybody involved signs n.d.a's. Any reporter who "breaks the story" and gives airtime to the sack of shit that opens fire on a crowd of people gets thrown in jail/and or blacklisted so they never work in the press again.

Right now, the message we send is this: Go out in a blaze of glory. If you can't be famous, be infamous. Everyone will know your name. You'll become important. The site of your massacre will join the likes of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Aurora, Sandy Hook, etc. Other sad pathetic people will look up to you as an inspiration.

The message we should send is: Fuck you. Nobody cares who you are. You will be dead. You will be forgotten. You were nothing in life, you will be even less in death.

I tend to agree. Unfortunately, we can't legislate about what journalists can say. However, they really should be a lot more responsible. Experts have warned, over and over against the sort of coverage these shootings get.

 

[spartan231490]

You need exactly the same amount of licensing to buy a car as you do a gun: none.

Not universally true, but more importantly, is debating semantics. You can't legally operate a car without a license, snip

This is actually a common misconception. You need no license to operate a car. You need a license to operate a car on public roadways and private property that is used by the public for driving or parking. If you keep the vehicle on private land very few, if any, traffic laws apply. Which laws apply and which don't depend on the specific jurisdiction involved, but in many states you don't even need registration or insurance on the car.

I'd say restrict gun ownership to weapons available at the time the 2nd Amendment was drafted, so smoothbore muskets and flintlock pistols for everybody. Miss your one shot? Too bad, better pray the other guy misses too, and that you have brushed up on your swordsmanship and/or other hand to hand combat skills. You get your right to bear arms exactly as the founding fathers intended, and you eliminate the whole mass shooting problem the US has.

No I'm not being particularly serious about this, but I don't have much of a stake in this debate, I don't live in a country where half of everyone is armed to the teeth because they are afraid the other half is going to show up, kill them, and burglarize their miscellania.

I'd like this, but also shotguns. They also existed at that time, and unlike assault rifles, submachine guns, and pistols, they have actual, real world home defense applications. No, really. They have limited range

false. With modern shotguns it's perfectly reasonable to hit your target at upwards of 300 yards with a shotgun

, wide spray, and are much better at wounding than killing

No. A shotgun is typically a more lethal weapon than a rifle.

If you want to stop a charging intruder, the shotgun is the weapon of choice. Not a rifle, which is too long heavy.

a shotgun is far longer and heavier than an AR-15 style weapon or any defense rifle. Typical barrel length on a shotgun is 20 inches for a slug barrel(not recommended for shot), legal minimum at 18 inches. On the other hand, the typical barrel length on a defense carbine is between 16 and 18 inches, because the legal minimum there is 16 inches, not 18. As far as weight, defense carbines are designed to have a combat weight and balance for obvious reasons. However, typical combat shotguns are quite heavy, in order to compensate for recoil.

Not a SMG, which has so much kick after the first shot that all the others aren't going to even hit your target (unless you're an off-duty soldier. Real SMGs are hard to control. Very hard.)

This is closer to the truth, but is also a bit of a lie. More modern SMGs can be controlled quite easily.

And not a Pistol, which due to common bullet velocities are more likely to ricochet and potentially kill you instead of the intruder.

what? Shotgun rounds have higher velocity(and therefore more dangerous ricochets) than a handgun. In fact, More importantly, bullets don't ricochet straight back, and very few things are hard and strong enough to cause ricochets in the first place. Unless you have chunks of solid steel or solid concrete walls around your house, ricochets are extremely unlikely.

Only the shotgun has the proper characteristics to be a workable home defense weapon. Anyone who says otherwise has never woken up at 4:37AM in a stupor and tried to hit a target who was threatening to break down your door and kill you.

Shotguns are not like in the movies bro, they don't throw down a cone of death that fills an entire room. At typical home defense range, a shotgun is going to have a spread of about 5 inches at best. At those ranges, it really isn't substantially easier than hitting a target with a rifle. The lower rifle of an AR-15 type weapon also offers substantially faster follow-up shots, which any self-defense instructor or self-defense blog will tell you is the most important thing about self-defense. Even the best trained marksman is pretty likely to miss in a high-stress situation like that. Considering that, multiple shots is typically the more important consideration. That said, shotguns are still often a better choice because they have much less penetration(assuming you're using shot), only two or three walls worth. If you have close neighbors or any other over-penetration considerations, shotgun is the way to go. It's naive to say that only one weapon type has the correct characteristics for something like home defense. Every home is different, and therefore the perfect weapon for defending each home is likely to be different.

My cousin did. It's also nice that shotguns make good door-breaching weapons. Best part? I got to see the bastard hauled off.

If, on the other hand, you want to pick off 20+ children at mid range in rapid succession like the impotent dickhead you'd have to be to want one, buy an AR-15.

The AR-15 is one of the most popular models of rifle in the US. Tens of millions of people own them, considering how few use them for mass murder, it's a pretty fair assumption that there are other, much more common reasons to want one.

And for hunting, like quote said, musket. If you can't hit one of the dumbest creatures on earth (a deer) with bait and a miniball that travels at nearly 90 times the speed of the arrows that have killed them for fucking millenia, you're just a bad hunter.

it's not about accuracy, hunters prefer rifles because they're safer to the hunter and more humane to the deer. Did you know that even a modern muzzle-loader can have a delay fire, where you pull the trigger and then it doesn't go off until a minute or five or twenty have passed. Since the only way to make the weapon safe again is to unload it, a process that usually involves putting various body parts in front of the barrel, they're just not as safe. Also, every single time you shoot it has a different time delay before it goes off, which makes it much more difficult, not to hit the animal, but to hit it an a way that kills it quickly.

One more thing while I'm on the topic: The presedent of the NRA (the guy with the French name. which I'm sure he hates when people remind him, heh) said that "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Yanno what the Navy Yard Shooting has taught us? There are two ways to really stop a "bad guy with a gun."

A) A good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. And another good guy. That's all. Only 13 good guys had to die to stop this bad guy.

http://dailyanarchist.com/2012/07/31/auditing-shooting-rampage-statistics/ There are numerous instances where a single armed civilian stopped potential rampage shooters.

B) A mental health system where, when the guy told the cops he was hearing fucking voices, he gets some fucking help. Nobody dead. Problem (mostly) solved.

No argument here, but passing gun control laws won't help our miserable mental health system.



Where did you learn all of these "facts"?

 

[Gromril]

The way th UK does it. You can own a gun, if you have a legitimate reason to do so beynond "I just want one ok?".

 

[Rellik San]

The way th UK does it. You can own a gun, if you have a legitimate reason to do so beynond "I just want one ok?".

Not strictly true, you have to go through the licensing process yes, but there are no restrictions on owning them for display or recreational use.

 

[Nalikill]

I'm pretty pro-gun-control (so feel free to disregard what I'd say in a thread asking for the opinions of anti-gun-control people), and I feel that civilians should only have access to rifles and shotguns with fairly limited capacities. Handguns, combat rifles and automatic weapons have no business being in civilian hands, as they're designed specifically to commit murder, which is of course, illegal.

Well. They have business being in civilian hands, to permit civilians to be able to kill Army men and Marines, who have weapons to match and exceed those capacities.

Remember: the original purpose of the Second amendment- the original purpose of the Constitution- was to prevent the reinstatement of a tyrannical, irrational, or distant regime which bore no relation to the will of the people. The point was to prevent civilians from relying on the military to protect them- because the military had, in the Revolutionary war, tried to disarm the populace and had tried to infringe upon its liberties for the sake of enforcing tax laws. (Hence the Posse Comitatus act later, as well as the Third and Fourth amendments.)

So the foundational purpose of firearms in America is to permit civilians to kill soldiers, and establish militias to defend their homes. Other purposes- self defense and hunting- are secondary; good ideas but not the thrust of the right. From that perspective, it makes more sense to restrict handguns and shotguns than it does to restrict rifles. Rifles are all but necessary to restrain the potential excesses of soldiers (see the Civil War, see Syria right now, see Libya a year or two ago, see Egypt in the same period- the examples are legion and tiresome to recite.) whereas handguns and shotguns are really of little use in killing soldiers. Restricting handguns and shotguns but not rifles also ensures that the secondary applications- hunting and self defense- are necessarily premeditated acts, restricting the use of handguns and shotguns in anger, making it more difficult to pull a gun in the heat of anger, and making street muggings and the like using handguns and shotguns far more difficult.

And that's the thing to keep in mind- these mass-killings constitute a minute, near-zero percentage of the annual murder rate- the vast majority of murders are actually done BY handguns, by mentally stable people with no criminal past, in the heat of anger, with the majority of the remainder being shotguns in the same scenario. Rifles constitute less than I believe 5% of the overall murder rate- so allowing military-grade rifles but restricting handguns and shotguns allows for the best of all possible worlds in terms of upholding people's rights under the Second Amendment and protecting them from murder.

 

[Soundwave]

Well. They have business being in civilian hands, to permit civilians to be able to kill Army men and Marines, who have weapons to match and exceed those capacities.

That entire school of thought has been rendered moot by today's military. The incredible amount of money spent on military equipment puts it completely out any civilian's price range. There is no way that a militia could compete against our drones, ships, or aircraft. The only thing protecting the average citizen from government sanctioned murder at this point is The Humanity of the men and women in the armed forces.

Edit: Since what I'm saying isn't clear, I'm saying the civilian population is safe BECAUSE our military is ethically bound to protect us from tyranny. A corrupt politician or military coup would not happen To Us because our military's culture wouldn't allow it.

 

[Nalikill]

That entire school of thought has been rendered moot by today's military. The incredible amount of money spent on military equipment puts it completely out any civilian's price range. There is no way that a militia could compete against our drones, ships, or aircraft. The only thing protecting the average citizen from government sanctioned murder at this point is The Humanity of the men and women in the armed forces.

There are a large number of counterpoints to that idea; the Libyan civil war, the Syrian civil war- the former was won without the rebels having conventional weaponry stronger than firearms (for the most part) and with only minimal Western intervention. The latter are holding their own against one of the most formidable militaries in the Middle East.

And these populations were (relatively) poorly armed prior to their rebellions- whereas there are more guns than people in the United States.

You can also take as (more morally dubious) counterpoints the Boston Marathon Bombing, the Benghazi attack, and the Naval Yard shooting. In the first case, a citizen was responsible for finding the person responsible- even with a city-wide manhunt, the fed failed to find them without civilian help. In the second case, on 9/11 in one of the worst security situations on the planet, our consulate in Benghazi was attacked- and not one drone, not one airplane, not one response team had the resources to respond to an en-masse attack for over 8 hours. In the third case, a man with just a shotgun was able to shoot his way into a highly secured facility and kill thirteen civilians before being gunned down himself.

In all three cases, they benefitted highly from civilian compliance- the Libyan people are friendly to America, because of the help we gave and because they admire our freedom; the Bostonians largely complied with a curfew and restrictive lockdowns, and the civilians cleared out of the way of the emergency response vehicles for the Naval Yard shooting, allowing them to get there more rapidly.

Without that assistance, those three attacks would have been far worse- even in a post-drone, post-airplane, post-artillery era.

The ancient truism still holds: all governments rely on the consent- or at a minimum, tacit agreement- of the governed. A military cannot suppress a population that desires to defy it, if that defiance permeates enough of the populace.

 

[Soundwave]

There are a large number of counterpoints to that idea; the Libyan civil war, the Syrian civil war- the former was won without the rebels having conventional weaponry stronger than firearms (for the most part) and with only minimal Western intervention. The latter are holding their own against one of the most formidable militaries in the Middle East.

And these populations were (relatively) poorly armed prior to their rebellions- whereas there are more guns than people in the United States.

You can also take as (more morally dubious) counterpoints the Boston Marathon Bombing, the Benghazi attack, and the Naval Yard shooting. In the first case, a citizen was responsible for finding the person responsible- even with a city-wide manhunt, the fed failed to find them without civilian help. In the second case, on 9/11 in one of the worst security situations on the planet, our consulate in Benghazi was attacked- and not one drone, not one airplane, not one response team had the resources to respond to an en-masse attack for over 8 hours. In the third case, a man with just a shotgun was able to shoot his way into a highly secured facility and kill thirteen civilians before being gunned down himself.

In all three cases, they benefitted highly from civilian compliance- the Libyan people are friendly to America, because of the help we gave and because they admire our freedom; the Bostonians largely complied with a curfew and restrictive lockdowns, and the civilians cleared out of the way of the emergency response vehicles for the Naval Yard shooting, allowing them to get there more rapidly.

Without that assistance, those three attacks would have been far worse- even in a post-drone, post-airplane, post-artillery era.

The ancient truism still holds: all governments rely on the consent- or at a minimum, tacit agreement- of the governed. A military cannot suppress a population that desires to defy it, if that defiance permeates enough of the populace.

Please understand, that I do by and large agree with your points.

However, in what will no doubt be the most controversial opinion I share on the internet, I think people's need to fetish-ize the Second Amendment (and really, any document from any by-gone era) is unhealthy. The situations you describe while compelling, are small and isolated incidents. I personally do not think ANY of our military personnel would attack our civilian populace in any substantial capacity. I understand that just because I can't conceive of a situation wherein our military would have to attack our populace doesn't mean that one can't exist.

My reasoning for supporting hunting rifles and shotguns, (and I suppose target pistols), is that they have applications that are still necessary. Protecting people from wild animals, hunting said animals, and "fun" are all ideas I can get behind. As far as home and personal defense, I would much rather see people using non-lethal methods (which I do recognize has become something of a legal quagmire).

I have been given substantial anecdotal evidence from personal friends of mine in law enforcement that legally it is better to shoot a person in the head than it is to taze them and receive a lawsuit in return. Is that not a travesty?

 

[spartan231490]

Well. They have business being in civilian hands, to permit civilians to be able to kill Army men and Marines, who have weapons to match and exceed those capacities.

That entire school of thought has been rendered moot by today's military. The incredible amount of money spent on military equipment puts it completely out any civilian's price range. There is no way that a militia could compete against our drones, ships, or aircraft. The only thing protecting the average citizen from government sanctioned murder at this point is The Humanity of the men and women in the armed forces.

That's a fallacious thought process. If there were a revolution, it wouldn't be civilians vs military. It would be part of the military reinforced by civilians, against another part of the military. I'm not saying this makes it any more solvent, but do you really think the government could order a large scale attack against US civilians without having some of it's troops defect, taking god knows what equipment with them? Not to mention what might happen if highly ranked individuals take moral umbridge with the event and take those under their command with them(or at least try). We can't really predict what would happen, too many unknown variables.

 

[Queen Michael]

...moral umbridge...

Any Harry Potter fan knows that this is an oxymoron.

 

[chuckdm]

I'd like this, but also shotguns. They also existed at that time, and unlike assault rifles, submachine guns, and pistols, they have actual, real world home defense applications. No, really. They have limited range, wide spray, and are much better at wounding than killing. If you want to stop a charging intruder, the shotgun is the weapon of choice. Not a rifle, which is too long heavy. Not a SMG, which has so much kick after the first shot that all the others aren't going to even hit your target (unless you're an off-duty soldier. Real SMGs are hard to control. Very hard.) And not a Pistol, which due to common bullet velocities are more likely to ricochet and potentially kill you instead of the intruder.

I'd like to know exactly how much experience you have with weapons, if any at all, because I have to say that not a single thing said in this paragraph is true.

It really sounds like you're getting all your weapons "facts" from Call of Duty.

I shoot sporting clays every weekend. I've racked up over 3,000 registered targets with a Baretta Urika 2 391 over the past 4 years. I have a friend in ROTC who is able to hit a man-sized target with an AR-15 at 500 yards (on a range) 884/1000 times who could barely keep an MP5 on target for 3 rounds at only 200 yards, and he's built like a running back.

So that's my fucking experience. What's yours?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'd like this, but also shotguns. They also existed at that time, and unlike assault rifles, submachine guns, and pistols, they have actual, real world home defense applications. No, really. They have limited range, wide spray, and are much better at wounding than killing. If you want to stop a charging intruder, the shotgun is the weapon of choice. Not a rifle, which is too long heavy. Not a SMG, which has so much kick after the first shot that all the others aren't going to even hit your target (unless you're an off-duty soldier. Real SMGs are hard to control. Very hard.) And not a Pistol, which due to common bullet velocities are more likely to ricochet and potentially kill you instead of the intruder.

I'd like to know exactly how much experience you have with weapons, if any at all, because I have to say that not a single thing said in this paragraph is true.

It really sounds like you're getting all your weapons "facts" from Call of Duty.

I shoot sporting clays every weekend. I've racked up over 3,000 registered targets with a Baretta Urika 2 391 over the past 4 years. I have a friend in ROTC who is able to hit a man-sized target with an AR-15 at 500 yards (on a range) 884/1000 times who could barely keep an MP5 on target for 3 rounds at only 200 yards, and he's built like a running back.

So that's my fucking experience. What's yours?

Can't keep an MP5 on target from 200 yards away? Yup, must be completely unsuitable for home defense even though the average distance you'd be shooting at in a house is only about 10 yards.

And this is of course discounting the fact that 99.9% of civilians can't even legally get their hands on a fully automatic MP5 anyway, and they'd be using a semi-automatic knockoff, one that isn't any more difficult to handle than your average 9mm carbine.

But no, no you're right, all of your friend's experience completely trumps all logical sense. I still maintain that you know nothing about firearms and that nothing in your previous post makes any logical sense.

 

[chuckdm]

Yanno what? Nevermind. I've read everyone else's replies and it's clear none of you have ever handled a firearm.

And to the man who "did Navy time" (as if volunteering for the armed forces was like prison, lol): fuck you too buddy. Preferably with a supermodel. Really, I thank you for your service, but your attitude could use some work.

But back on everyone else, I'm not going to watch this thread and respond any more, this is all I'll say.

1) Barrel length is irrelevant and you're wrong anyway. Nobody shoots sporting clays with anything less than a 28" barrel, and usually a 32" if you can afford it. Length narrows shot pattern and makes the spread tighter, and helps you hit clays. That said, the barrel length of an AR isn't relevant because, if it isn't a bullpup, the stock sticks out at least 9" to 13" past the chamber, farther on some models, while a shotgun is often as low as 5". The shorter barrel doesn't mean a shorter weapon. And if you're buying a shotgun FOR home defense, you could easily go with a 20 or 28 guage, or even a .410, and the weapon will weigh less than a 9mm M92.

2) Spread on a shotgun is a function of the choke used. With a Skeet or Improved Modified choke, yes, you could easily keep the spread pattern as narrow as 2-3 feet at 80+ yards. However, for a home defense weapon, a full choke will rapidly expand to a 3 foot diameter at as little as 20 feet. As above, this is a matter of buying the right tool for the job. If you want to shoot clays, Skeet (or in my case, an Improved Modified). If you want to kill an intruder, full choke.

3) Velocity on a shotgun pellet is very low compared to a handgun or rifle. That doesn't mean it's slow, and I wasn't saying it was. Whereas a rifle bullet will simply pass right through a wall, and a 9mm or .357 pistol round will richchet if it hits a wall stud, a standard Size 8 or 9 buckshot will simply embed itself in the sheetrock. This I know from my cousin's encounter with the intruder. While he did shoot the guy through a door, it was a hollow plyboard door. The man had to have about 30 splinters pulled out of him at the hospital, but he was very much alive. I wish he hadn't been on some level, but he was. The intruder had filed down a Mac-10 to fire full auto and showered my cousin's living room with 31 9mm rounds (a 30 round extended mag, plus the chamber round) which fortunately woke him up. They found a lot of pockmarks but all of the bullets eventually settled on the floor, albeit some on the floor in adjacent rooms. Pistol rounds ricochet like crazy. This is a fact.

So that's all. I'm not going to check back here or counterpoint yall any more. Argue or don't. My opinion remainds: revolutionary war era weapons, including shotguns. Nothing else should be legal.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

I believe we should use a method of gun ownership more similar to car ownership. You'd need to get a gun license after you can prove that you're responsible enough to possess a gun. Of course I would also allow a non user gun owner status, in case you collect antique firearms or inherit any guns.