Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[Daelak]

I'm not a fan of what the NRA has become, and I already stated I support a "Swisstalian" model of gun control, so I don't quite understand why you're telling this to me. Besides, it's no secret that here in Europe investigative agencies do not have their hands tied by whoever control the government - not when it comes to keeping their tabs on terrorists at least. Of course none of this changes the fact that one can cause more casualties with a vehicle, which was my point.

But vehicles cannot cause a mass casualty incident anymore, due to expeditious governance in the EU with a combination of concrete and steel bollards in high pedestrian traffic areas, a more stringent entry/no entry policy for delivery vehicles at large public gatherings, and a more robust monitoring system in place for the rental of large trucks. The same cannot be said in the US after Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Stoneman Douglas.

So older, white, non college-educated, retiree, living in a rural area automatically makes one an idiot? Nice logic. By nice, I mean appalling. Most comprehensive ad personam I've seen in a while. Besides, it's relevant for the topic, because as I said in my reply to him, Norway's gun laws substantially differ from those in the US.

No, his posting history and his deliberate shying away from facts about firearm violence and the propagation of firearms in the US via gun manufacturers marketing strategies, gun groups like the NRA, and his insistence that the flood of firearms in this country has nothing to do with the extremely high rates of firearm violence; couple that with his description I said above, and there is no other definition to describe him. He wants to live in a bubble, disconnected with reality, to make himself feel better.

[zenkai]

That's what they do, cherry pick facts.

[Coolthulhu]

But vehicles cannot cause a mass casualty incident anymore, due to expeditious governance in the EU with a combination of concrete and steel bollards in high pedestrian traffic areas, a more stringent entry/no entry policy for delivery vehicles at large public gatherings, and a more robust monitoring system in place for the rental of large trucks. The same cannot be said in the US after Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Stoneman Douglas.

Do you honestly think all of our high pedestrian traffic areas have been secured like that? Because that's absolutely not the case. What has been secured are for the most parts areas where vehicles weren't permitted in the first place, save for those of residents, and barriers were thus already present. One could still steal a truck and run over hundreds of people just about anywhere - metropolis, medium sized city, small town, anywhere. This is a sidewalk in a mayor European city, for instance. Those sidewalks get 10x busier during the Christmas shopping season and fashion events. Care to explain how can that be secured, aside from replacing all streets with overpasses Tokyo-style?

No, his posting history and his deliberate shying away from facts about firearm violence and the propagation of firearms in the US via gun manufacturers marketing strategies, gun groups like the NRA, and his insistence that the flood of firearms in this country has nothing to do with the extremely high rates of firearm violence; couple that with his description I said above, and there is no other definition to describe him. He wants to live in a bubble, disconnected with reality, to make himself feel better.

Still not a good reason to make such sweeping generalizations and attack him on such a personal level, but that's just me liking to keep things as civil as humanly possible I suppose.

[LeGin Tufnel]

They also like to forget the source of the highest number of death's in a mass shooting on record. It did not happen in the US.

So, you're referring to e.g.,

2015 Garissa University College Attack Garissa, Kenya
2014 Peshawar School Massacre Peshawar, Pakistan
2015 Paris Attacks Paris, France

All of which resulted in more deaths than the 2017 Las Vegas shooting?

They were terrorist attacks, conducted by militant Islamists. I assume we're all in agreement when we say cutting off their funding / supply of arms would be a beneficial thing?

[Svifnymr]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...D=ansmsnnews11

This is actually what I expected more of, should be an easy case given that they made an ATF approved product which ATF then ruled illegal with no change in laws.

[Ghostpanther]

I assume you refer to Breivik, yes. I'm not personally familiar with gun control laws in Norway, but I'm pretty sure they are tighter than in the US. That's not to say I fully support the US model. I support it in that I believe it should be a citizen's right, and not a privilege, to own a weapon. However I like the Swiss/Italian systems more than I do the American one, for the simple fact that when I walk in gun range there, I automatically know I'm entering a "safe place" where people have been subjected to thorough police background check, psychiatric examinations, and had to attend mandatory courses on gun safety and handling. When I visit my American cousins and we hit the range, I have to admit I don't feel quite as safe.

Yeah. That is the one. And yes, Norway has much tougher gun control laws than the US has. The point was, tough gun laws do not always equate no mass shootings. Same case you made that automobiles can still do a lot of killings when you ban one tool. And I do not need to go to a licensed range. I have my own. But I would not have any fear to. Millions of shooters do across the nation each year. They are pretty safe.

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So, you're referring to e.g.,

2015 Garissa University College Attack Garissa, Kenya
2014 Peshawar School Massacre Peshawar, Pakistan
2015 Paris Attacks Paris, France

All of which resulted in more deaths than the 2017 Las Vegas shooting?

They were terrorist attacks, conducted by militant Islamists. I assume we're all in agreement when we say cutting off their funding / supply of arms would be a beneficial thing?

I am assuming those were done by organized terror groups? And not individuals?

And yes, I agree we should have laws and make efforts to keep firearms from those individuals and groups. But without infringing on the rights of those who do not fall into that category.

[Ghostpanther]

My base problem with gun control in the US is that in a country full of guns, all gun control does is disarm law-abiding people in favor of criminals, who, by definition pay no attention to those laws anyway. A lot of shootings simply aren't relevant to gun control laws, because people ignored the laws completely in those cases.

I also think it's no accident that some of the worst mass shootings took place in 'gun-free zones'...you think the perpetrators might have planned it that way? Other perpetrators *didn't* think it out, didn't go to 'gun-free zones', and got shot before they could really get started in some less-highlighted cases.

Some good points. The one thing which is keeping us with the right to use firearms for self defense, is the Constitutional right to. However we do need some gun control laws anyway. But without strong enforcement of said laws, they are not going to be as effective.

And as you pointed out, the mass shooters, criminals had much rather confront defenseless victims than armed ones. Having armed guards works.Which is why banks, politicians and the rich have them. For those who are not rich, we have the Second Amendment.

[Stormdash]

Ironically after the Nice massacre their respective LEOs and intelligence agencies drastically increased their preventative methods in monitoring the large truck rentals in the region. As such, there have been no large casualty incidents with those since then.

A) there have been truck attacks since Nice in Europe, even if not so effective, but that's down to the chosen target not any sort of Truck Monitoring Ministry policy.

B) it's the same myopic and ultimately cowardly instinct as the gun control lobby here - "let's focus in on the inanimate objects and ignore the underlying degeneracy leading to the behavior, because that would mean making value judgments about human beings, their psychology and/or ideology and that's hard, yo".

[Daelak]

A) there have been truck attacks since Nice in Europe, even if not so effective, but that's down to the chosen target not any sort of Truck Monitoring Ministry policy.

Right, it has nothing to do with the concerted efforts of their respective intelligence communities (deep states!) in conjunction with adding physical deterrents, just because the terrorists just became more lazy in their targeting.

B) it's the same myopic and ultimately cowardly instinct as the gun control lobby here - "let's focus in on the inanimate objects and ignore the underlying degeneracy leading to the behavior, because that would mean making value judgments about human beings, their psychology and/or ideology and that's hard, yo".

Right, I can see it now, Louie Gohmert and Matt Gaetz leading the cerebral and prolonged committee debate on improving the lives of human beings most at risk to conservative propaganda which radicalizes them, advocating with such solutions as improved public education, a more robust public welfare system, and job placement/retraining programs.

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Do you honestly think all of our high pedestrian traffic areas have been secured like that? Because that's absolutely not the case. What has been secured are for the most parts areas where vehicles weren't permitted in the first place, save for those of residents, and barriers were thus already present. One could still steal a truck and run over hundreds of people just about anywhere - metropolis, medium sized city, small town, anywhere. This is a sidewalk in a mayor European city, for instance. Those sidewalks get 10x busier during the Christmas shopping season and fashion events. Care to explain how can that be secured, aside from replacing all streets with overpasses Tokyo-style?

By using the protocols introduced by French and Spanish authorities before the holiday season. This is the exact reason why there has been an immediate drop off of vehicular attacks. You have temporary barriers and restricting the tonnage of vehicles that are allowed on certain streets at certain times of day. Local LEOs do most of the heavy lifting now.

Still not a good reason to make such sweeping generalizations and attack him on such a personal level, but that's just me liking to keep things as civil as humanly possible I suppose.

It was specifically targeting his behavior and his aversion to seeing the reality of firearm violence and the proliferation of firearms in the US.

[Svifnymr]

By using the protocols introduced by French and Spanish authorities before the holiday season. This is the exact reason why there has been an immediate drop off of vehicular attacks.

Can something really "drop off" if it was rare to begin with?

[Daelak]

Can something really "drop off" if it was rare to begin with?

Yeah as it gets closer to zero. It happens with all types of terrorism once counter measures are put into place, except for you know, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Stoneman Douglas.

[Svifnymr]

Yeah as it gets closer to zero. It happens with all types of terrorism once counter measures are put into place, except for you know, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Stoneman Douglas.

So how many vehicle attacks were before and after Nice?

[Coolthulhu]

By using the protocols introduced by French and Spanish authorities before the holiday season. This is the exact reason why there has been an immediate drop off of vehicular attacks. You have temporary barriers and restricting the tonnage of vehicles that are allowed on certain streets at certain times of day. Local LEOs do most of the heavy lifting now.

The cities you're referring to? I'm very familiar with them and their layouts. Paris, Madrid, Milan, Berlin, München, Zürich, the latter two even during holiday season... yes, there are barriers. Some are temporary for the holiday season, and some are there to stay permanently. They still cover but an infinitesimally small percentage of the sensible targets, anyone could see that. There simply is no way to secure a European city from that kind of attacks, except for psychologically important stuff (such as Christmas market). This doesn't mean one could steal a truck and run over just as many people in regular streets that can't physically be secured without paralyzing the city as a whole.
The reason there's been a drop of vehicular attacks is that intelligence agencies got a wake up call and started to closely monitor truck rentals and radicalized individuals. Even so, it's impossible to track them all, and it's still easy for a terrorist to just steal a truck if he can't obtain one through legal means., as the guy who was caught in America just demonstrated. They also somehow managed to better coordinate at an European level, which seems too good to be true, but it actually happened.

[Daelak]

So how many vehicle attacks were before and after Nice?

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/world...cts/index.html

[Svifnymr]

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/world...cts/index.html

But that lists no European car attacks before Nice, and 6 after, so I'm not sure how to track the effectiveness of the post-Nice measures you mentioned? Do you mean that there were none in Nice after that?

[Ghostpanther]

A tragic accident which also teaches a lesson of why it is so important to keep your firearm on your person even when in a vehicle.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/6-year-ol...her-police-say

A Georgia girl died this week after her younger brother accidentally shot her in the head, police say.

Investigators say the mother of a girl identified in media reports as Millie Drew Kelly loaded her and her 4-year-old brother into a car Monday at their Paulding County home, but couldn’t get it to start. When the mother left the vehicle to see what was wrong, she heard a shot fired from inside it, they added.

"Detectives determined that the 4-year-old male sibling retrieved a handgun from the console of the vehicle and accidentally discharged it, striking his 6-year-old sister in the head, fatally wounding her,"

[Ghostpanther]

Interesting. I do not know much about Canada's gun laws, but if this article is true, not only are they very restrictive on handguns, but it seems they are trying to push to ban them entirely for private citizens.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/2019...s-within-reach

A section from the article...A Canadian news source summed up this prohibitive regulatory regime by noting that the “majority of Canadians don’t meet requirements to legally own a handgun.”

Nonetheless, gun control groups in Canada continue to press for ever more prohibitions, including the elimination of private ownership of handguns. Late last year, Heidi Rathjen, a spokesperson for anti-gun group PolySeSouvient, told a source that, “Saying you don’t want criminals to have handguns or assault weapons is not saying much. The point is we don’t want any Canadians to have handguns and assault weapons.”

[Ghostpanther]

Thoughts and prayers right? Another young life needlessly lost because irresponsible morons are able to be in possession of portable killing machines.

I'm not against abolishing the 2nd amendment by any means, but you can't sit there with a straight face and say that there doesn't need to be more regulations. If you want to carry or possess a firearm (if any caliber) there needs to be strict and very high standards in which to do so, and extreme penalties against the owner should accidents happen involving your firearm.

I am not against extra storage requirements being added for gun owners when minors are present. In this case, whoever simply had the firearm in the center console unsecured with children present, does have some responsibility for this accident.

But laws with extreme strict and over burdensome requirements for every firearm owner? Na. A common sense law would require all gun owners to have a firearm locked up or on their person when minors are present. Not for every firearm owner who has a firearm in his car or home no matter the circumstances of the environment.

[Coolthulhu]

I am not against extra storage requirements being added for gun owners when minors are present. In this case, whoever simply had the firearm in the center console unsecured with children present, does have some responsibility for this accident.

But laws with extreme strict and over burdensome requirements for every firearm owner? Na. A common sense law would require all gun owners to have a firearm locked up or on their person when minors are present. Not for every firearm owner who has a firearm in his car or home no matter the circumstances of the environment.

As far as home storage is concerned, don't you think it'd be a good idea to require gun owners to store their guns in a place that's not easily accessible to anyone, not only to children? I ask this because I remember of a couple of tragedies involving adults (one of which, having no gun education, thought it would've been safe to just remove the magazine - you can guess the results: assuming the gun couldn't fire, he pulled the trigger and fired the round that was still in the chamber).

But aside from that, I myself wouldn't be required to actually get myself a gun safe, because the number of guns per place of residence is within the limits of what would require a collector license (which mandates the use of a gun safe). Even so, I bought a gun safe prior to even buying my first gun, because as the saying goes, "I'm all for gun control, if there's a weapon around I want to be in control of it". So when I'm at home with others, including adults, the gun is either locked up or holstered. And even when I go out, I feel so much better knowing that should a burglar break in, he couldn't get a hold of my guns, which is not only a safety consideration, but as a collector, I would rather have just about anything else in the house stolen than say my 1962 AKM with Russian factory stamps, perfectly preserved wood and all. And when I will have to get a collector's license, and I eventually will because let's face it, there's no such thing as "too many guns", I'll already have the safe ready, so that move resulted in a win-win, although my main motive for getting the safe was security, not a law requirement that would've only applied several years later.

[Daddy Cool]

On CNN:

A child is found hiding under a bed after father kills mother and 2 siblings over affair suspicions, police say

A Phoenix man killed four people, including his wife and two children, in a shooting rampage that started as a domestic dispute over allegations of an affair, police said.
The suspect, Austin Smith, 30, returned home from a bar Thursday night and confronted his wife over accusations that she had cheated on him, which she denied, according to CNN affiliate KNXV.
He then killed his wife and two daughters at the family home and drove to the apartment of the man he believed she was having an affair with, said Sgt. Tommy Thompson of the Phoenix Police Department.

There, he fatally shot the man and injured two others, he said.
Police: One daughter survived
His wife, Dasia Patterson, 29, and their daughters Mayan Smith, 7, and Nasha Smith, 5, were found dead in the family's home, police said.
His 3-year-old daughter was hiding under a bed when police arrived and was not injured, Thompson said. The suspect told police that he chose not to kill her because she "reminded him of himself," the affiliate reported, citing court documents.

How does a psychiatric patient gets a hold of a firearm?