Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[Stormdash]

I have been in many altercations in my life, and my impression of you is of a weak, paranoid man that should kept away from weapons. Strong men do not want weapons legalized, it takes away their edge.

Moral men, strong or otherwise, don't care about "protecting an edge" since they don't think in terms of how best to be able to prey on others. I'm pretty glad that people who can't win the arm-wrestling match aren't at the mercy of might make right, which is why armed self-defense is such an important human right.

In societies where weapons are outlawed, generally speaking criminals do not acquire weapons illegally. You would know this if you studied these things properly.

Yeah, all those third world countries where you see roving civilian militias? Those are not legally owned or acquired, almost all those states are de jure under heavy gun control.

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Why would you not do it personally? And true, I have to consider what I am going to wear every time I dress to go to town to be sure I am not printing.

One of the reasons I really like my Ruger LCP II for conceal carry. Very easy to conceal and very lite weight.

Y'know, honestly, because of how people would react - but I think that's a "them being flakes" problem and not an "open carry" problem, if that makes sense. I honestly would have no problem with a social norm that was indifferent to OWB open carry by as many people as have brown hair.

[Ghostpanther]

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Y'know, honestly, because of how people would react - but I think that's a "them being flakes" problem and not an "open carry" problem, if that makes sense. I honestly would have no problem with a social norm that was indifferent to OWB open carry by as many people as have brown hair.

That is a very good reason not to. And why, some reasonable restrictions need to apply to open carry. Since the large majority of the public do not carry firearms, a large part of them will look at them as a dangerous item they have little knowledge of apart from the narrative the media portrays.

[bladeXcrasher]

The victim complex in Conservative fictional paranoia is HILARIOUS.

   Red Flag Laws. Here’s a scenario...

It’s a Sunday night and your family has all gone to bed. You let the dogs back in and lock the deadbolt like you do every night. All the lights are off now except a couple of night lights scattered throughout the house leaving that dim glow throughout your home. It’s bedtime and work and school are going to come early in the morning. You crawl in bed, kiss your wife and drift off to sleep being thankful for the air conditioning that allows you to pull that heavy quilt up over your shoulder despite the fact it’s still 85 degrees outside. A few hours pass...

0200 Monday morning and your wife taps your leg and says, “baby I heard something outside”. As you sit up in bed you hear the dog growling in the living room and you know something isn’t right. You grab that trusty ole 870 and head into the living room. Your wife grabs her 9mm and heads down the hall to the kids rooms just like you have rehearsed. “Good boy” you say as you enter the living room, trying to calm both the dog and your wife just as splinters fly across the room and the front door flys open. “Oh Crap!” As you shoulder your weapon and send a load of 00 Buck across your living room and see the perpetrator fall in a heap. Before the “thank God” can even run across your brain, you see a second man coming in the door and you fire again. This time you hear the pop of your wife’s 9mm as she has joined in the fight. It has to be those damn meth heads from down in town! Just then you are consumed by a wall of bullets as you see multiple muzzle flashes from just outside the door and you realize something isn’t right. You turn to yell at your wife to “get down” just in time to see her take a load of buckshot to the face and her brain matter splatter the wall behind her. You feel the burning as 5.56 bullets Riddle your body. One clips your spine as you’re scrambling away and paralyzes your lower body. The last thing you see before you bleed out is a SWAT guy from your local PD holding your teenage daughter on the floor with a knee in her back as she screams and cry’s because she just watched her parents being murdered.

Why did this happen? You’re no criminal. You’re a Conservative and an honest family man. Your wife is a school teacher and your daughters are on honor roll. Why did this happen?

Well two days ago, you and your wife went down to welcome the new neighbors to the community. Your wife made them some of her “world famous” cookies and you invited them to church on Sunday. Later that afternoon, you got a friend request on Facebook from your new neighbor, which you gladly accepted. They seemed a little odd, but in the few minutes you talked they were pleasant enough. The next day while you and your family sat in church, your new neighbor scrolled through your Facebook profile. He saw that “Trump 2020” post and got infuriated. See, he’s a staunch liberal and he hates your kind. The next thing he sees are the hunting pictures you took last fall when your daughter bagged her first buck. Now he’s seething with fury because he is wholeheartedly against the “slaughter of innocent animals”. Next he sees your post from the last range day with your buddy and sees those scary black assault weapons on the table and that does it! He has to do something about the racist domestic terrorist living next door. He picks up the phone, calls the local Sheriffs Office and reports you as a threat under the new Red Flag law. The SO follows their SOP’s and conducts a no knock warrant because you have now been denied due process and you are considered guilty until proven innocent.

Now you, your lovely wife and two deputies have been killed for nothing. Your daughter will have absolute hell for the rest of her life. She will never be that successful person you dreamed for her to be because of the mental tragedy caused from seeing her parents murdered. The local news paper will report that you were killed after firing on and killing two deputies and that “over a thousand rounds of ammo and 22 guns were confiscated from your residence”.

Oh, those two deputies were just following orders. They left behind families as well and had served their community for over a decade. They didn’t know you were a stand-up guy with a great family. They weren’t allowed time to investigate things under due process. They were told you had threatened your neighbor and were out in the street waving an AR15 around.

This is the reality of Red Flag gun laws. Innocent people will lose their lives. Red Flag laws will be used for petty and vengeful reasons without merit.
-Chris Anders

[ysosrs]

id like to see the NRA lot actually fight without guns , bunch of fucking pussies

[Ghostpanther]

The victim complex in Conservative fictional paranoia is HILARIOUS.

   Red Flag Laws. Here’s a scenario...

It’s a Sunday night and your family has all gone to bed. You let the dogs back in and lock the deadbolt like you do every night. All the lights are off now except a couple of night lights scattered throughout the house leaving that dim glow throughout your home. It’s bedtime and work and school are going to come early in the morning. You crawl in bed, kiss your wife and drift off to sleep being thankful for the air conditioning that allows you to pull that heavy quilt up over your shoulder despite the fact it’s still 85 degrees outside. A few hours pass...

0200 Monday morning and your wife taps your leg and says, “baby I heard something outside”. As you sit up in bed you hear the dog growling in the living room and you know something isn’t right. You grab that trusty ole 870 and head into the living room. Your wife grabs her 9mm and heads down the hall to the kids rooms just like you have rehearsed. “Good boy” you say as you enter the living room, trying to calm both the dog and your wife just as splinters fly across the room and the front door flys open. “Oh Crap!” As you shoulder your weapon and send a load of 00 Buck across your living room and see the perpetrator fall in a heap. Before the “thank God” can even run across your brain, you see a second man coming in the door and you fire again. This time you hear the pop of your wife’s 9mm as she has joined in the fight. It has to be those damn meth heads from down in town! Just then you are consumed by a wall of bullets as you see multiple muzzle flashes from just outside the door and you realize something isn’t right. You turn to yell at your wife to “get down” just in time to see her take a load of buckshot to the face and her brain matter splatter the wall behind her. You feel the burning as 5.56 bullets Riddle your body. One clips your spine as you’re scrambling away and paralyzes your lower body. The last thing you see before you bleed out is a SWAT guy from your local PD holding your teenage daughter on the floor with a knee in her back as she screams and cry’s because she just watched her parents being murdered.

Why did this happen? You’re no criminal. You’re a Conservative and an honest family man. Your wife is a school teacher and your daughters are on honor roll. Why did this happen?

Well two days ago, you and your wife went down to welcome the new neighbors to the community. Your wife made them some of her “world famous” cookies and you invited them to church on Sunday. Later that afternoon, you got a friend request on Facebook from your new neighbor, which you gladly accepted. They seemed a little odd, but in the few minutes you talked they were pleasant enough. The next day while you and your family sat in church, your new neighbor scrolled through your Facebook profile. He saw that “Trump 2020” post and got infuriated. See, he’s a staunch liberal and he hates your kind. The next thing he sees are the hunting pictures you took last fall when your daughter bagged her first buck. Now he’s seething with fury because he is wholeheartedly against the “slaughter of innocent animals”. Next he sees your post from the last range day with your buddy and sees those scary black assault weapons on the table and that does it! He has to do something about the racist domestic terrorist living next door. He picks up the phone, calls the local Sheriffs Office and reports you as a threat under the new Red Flag law. The SO follows their SOP’s and conducts a no knock warrant because you have now been denied due process and you are considered guilty until proven innocent.

Now you, your lovely wife and two deputies have been killed for nothing. Your daughter will have absolute hell for the rest of her life. She will never be that successful person you dreamed for her to be because of the mental tragedy caused from seeing her parents murdered. The local news paper will report that you were killed after firing on and killing two deputies and that “over a thousand rounds of ammo and 22 guns were confiscated from your residence”.

Oh, those two deputies were just following orders. They left behind families as well and had served their community for over a decade. They didn’t know you were a stand-up guy with a great family. They weren’t allowed time to investigate things under due process. They were told you had threatened your neighbor and were out in the street waving an AR15 around.

This is the reality of Red Flag gun laws. Innocent people will lose their lives. Red Flag laws will be used for petty and vengeful reasons without merit.
-Chris Anders

What's up with your " code: "? I can only read part of it. Will not scroll far enough to the right to read it all. And why that way to post it anyway?

[bladeXcrasher]

What's up with your " code: "? I can only read part of it. Will not scroll far enough to the right to read it all. And why that way to post it anyway?

Sounds like a you problem, it prevents a wall of text, and it works just fine.

[Ghostpanther]

Sounds like a you problem, it prevents a wall of text, and it works just fine.

Well, I guess I will have no input into your post. Which is ok by me. Thanks for the reply. I will know now in the future if you make another post using that method.

[Dadwen]

Well, I guess I will have no input into your post. Which is ok by me. Thanks for the reply. I will know now in the future if you make another post using that method.

Shurg, didn't work for me either (funny part it will let me scroll a little on your re-quote on it but not all the way, but nothing in his post it just cuts it off) odd way to post something.

[Tasttey]

Shurg, didn't work for me either (funny part it will let me scroll a little on your re-quote on it but not all the way, but nothing in his post it just cuts it off) odd way to post something.

Interestingly enough if you "quote" his post it will let you read the whole dang thing in your reply window. Either way, its a ridiculous fearmonger story filled with hyperbole and vitriol toward the left.

[Ghostpanther]

Interestingly enough if you "quote" his post it will let you read the whole dang thing in your reply window. Either way, its a ridiculous fearmonger story filled with hyperbole and vitriol toward the left.

I did that and it still will not let me read it all. And I figured it was some type of fearmonger story, with a left tilt. Thanks for confirming it.

[Spectral]

Quick question intended primarily for pro-control people - I've been muddling through thinking about the ostensibly common sense idea that mentally ill people shouldn't have guns. i think that they're right that this feels like it's basically common sense, that mentally ill people are prone to hurting themselves or others. That sounds pretty obvious and if I could wave a wand to magic a way to mentally ill people not being armed, I'd wave that wand. But...

I don't follow how this is going to fit with HIPAA protections. Generally speaking, medical privacy is tightly protected (read more here) and can't be accessed by anyone other than healthcare providers without the explicit consent of the patient. Patient health information violations are treated very seriously in the medical industry. So what's the proposed flow of data here? All mental health data is aggregated and reported to some federal agency I suppose is the idea. How's that intended to work in practice? I go to a store to buy a hunting rifle, they enter my info into some federal database and it tells them... what exactly? Just a generic "Person Cannot Buy Gun" message to protect privacy I suppose, but now as the buyer I'm in a circumstance where I'm being denied one of my civil rights and I don't even know why.

I have some other concerns on the specifics of implementation (e.g. what diagnoses make some too crazy to own a gun, who decides on that, for how long, etc.), but it's really the patient privacy thing I'm having trouble figuring out a sensible plan for that lines up with basic expectations of patient privacy. This seems guaranteed to have a chilling effect on people that would otherwise seek mental health assistance.

[Draco-Onis]

Quick question intended primarily for pro-control people - I've been muddling through thinking about the ostensibly common sense idea that mentally ill people shouldn't have guns. i think that they're right that this feels like it's basically common sense, that mentally ill people are prone to hurting themselves or others. That sounds pretty obvious and if I could wave a wand to magic a way to mentally ill people not being armed, I'd wave that wand. But...

I don't follow how this is going to fit with HIPAA protections. Generally speaking, medical privacy is tightly protected (read more here) and can't be accessed by anyone other than healthcare providers without the explicit consent of the patient. Patient health information violations are treated very seriously in the medical industry. So what's the proposed flow of data here? All mental health data is aggregated and reported to some federal agency I suppose is the idea. How's that intended to work in practice? I go to a store to buy a hunting rifle, they enter my info into some federal database and it tells them... what exactly? Just a generic "Person Cannot Buy Gun" message to protect privacy I suppose, but now as the buyer I'm in a circumstance where I'm being denied one of my civil rights and I don't even know why.

I have some other concerns on the specifics of implementation (e.g. what diagnoses make some too crazy to own a gun, who decides on that, for how long, etc.), but it's really the patient privacy thing I'm having trouble figuring out a sensible plan for that lines up with basic expectations of patient privacy. This seems guaranteed to have a chilling effect on people that would otherwise seek mental health assistance.

Well in theory you would have a panel of professionals do reviews of cases like these to determine. A person would get a do not sell flag with a number to contact to appeal their case in theory they would already know this because the red flag laws would have due process. There's no need for private medical information to be leaked outside the panel and the court review process.

I am saying this knowing full well the odds of anything being done now that Trump has said the NRA needs to be listened to are close to zero, republicans will just run out the news cycle clock.

[Spectral]

Well in theory you would have a panel of professionals do reviews of cases like these to determine. A person would get a do not sell flag with a number to contact to appeal their case in theory they would already know this because the red flag laws would have due process. There's no need for private medical information to be leaked outside the panel and the court review process.

I am saying this knowing full well the odds of anything being done now that Trump has said the NRA needs to be listened to are close to zero, republicans will just run out the news cycle clock.

I'm not following - what triggers that information to the panel? What's the expected workflow for sending information from care provider to trigger a red flag? I have a fair bit of hands-on familiarity with how medical information exchange works and it seems to me that people that are glossing over this like it's not a huge change with massive expense and dubious legality are pretty naive about how they'd expect it to work in practice.

[Muzjhath]

Quick question intended primarily for pro-control people - I've been muddling through thinking about the ostensibly common sense idea that mentally ill people shouldn't have guns. i think that they're right that this feels like it's basically common sense, that mentally ill people are prone to hurting themselves or others. That sounds pretty obvious and if I could wave a wand to magic a way to mentally ill people not being armed, I'd wave that wand. But...

I don't follow how this is going to fit with HIPAA protections. Generally speaking, medical privacy is tightly protected (read more here) and can't be accessed by anyone other than healthcare providers without the explicit consent of the patient. Patient health information violations are treated very seriously in the medical industry. So what's the proposed flow of data here? All mental health data is aggregated and reported to some federal agency I suppose is the idea. How's that intended to work in practice? I go to a store to buy a hunting rifle, they enter my info into some federal database and it tells them... what exactly? Just a generic "Person Cannot Buy Gun" message to protect privacy I suppose, but now as the buyer I'm in a circumstance where I'm being denied one of my civil rights and I don't even know why.

I have some other concerns on the specifics of implementation (e.g. what diagnoses make some too crazy to own a gun, who decides on that, for how long, etc.), but it's really the patient privacy thing I'm having trouble figuring out a sensible plan for that lines up with basic expectations of patient privacy. This seems guaranteed to have a chilling effect on people that would otherwise seek mental health assistance.

Have a state/federal office that covers fire arms licensing. They have access to that shit. Then to actually buy a gun you need to show said license. When you apply for a gun lisence person in charge of seeing if you're fit will talk to medical personel attatched to you.
As well as make sure you've got training, secure storage, and all that sort of stuff.

With that office keeping check on lisence holders to some degree too. So having some way of getting medical updates sent in if stuff happens to a lisence holder.

Simple.

[Ghostpanther]

Quick question intended primarily for pro-control people - I've been muddling through thinking about the ostensibly common sense idea that mentally ill people shouldn't have guns. i think that they're right that this feels like it's basically common sense, that mentally ill people are prone to hurting themselves or others. That sounds pretty obvious and if I could wave a wand to magic a way to mentally ill people not being armed, I'd wave that wand. But...

I don't follow how this is going to fit with HIPAA protections. Generally speaking, medical privacy is tightly protected (read more here) and can't be accessed by anyone other than healthcare providers without the explicit consent of the patient. Patient health information violations are treated very seriously in the medical industry. So what's the proposed flow of data here? All mental health data is aggregated and reported to some federal agency I suppose is the idea. How's that intended to work in practice? I go to a store to buy a hunting rifle, they enter my info into some federal database and it tells them... what exactly? Just a generic "Person Cannot Buy Gun" message to protect privacy I suppose, but now as the buyer I'm in a circumstance where I'm being denied one of my civil rights and I don't even know why.

I have some other concerns on the specifics of implementation (e.g. what diagnoses make some too crazy to own a gun, who decides on that, for how long, etc.), but it's really the patient privacy thing I'm having trouble figuring out a sensible plan for that lines up with basic expectations of patient privacy. This seems guaranteed to have a chilling effect on people that would otherwise seek mental health assistance.

I also have some real concerns with these red flag laws. I emailed my federal and state level representatives expressing those concerns. Have not heard back yet from ether. More than likely will be the generic answers. There is the potential of a lot of abuse with these laws. Yet something needs to be done. In Indiana, their red flag law, states that a police officer can sign a affidavit to have the court consider temporarily remove guns from any one they feel is a threat to the themselves or the public.

Others, like in Colorado, state any family member who is living with the person of concern, can ask/notify the authorities for them to be temporarily removed. Not sure of the other states which already have such laws. Is it something which should be left up to the states to decide? Or do we trust the federal government to come up with a generic red flag law which has safe guards built into it to protect the citizens from overreach of the government?

I do know when you get a conceal carry license here in Ohio, they do check to see if you have ever been committed to a mental facility, which can be found in the court records if it was ordered by the court. A standard back ground check, asks the applicant for a firearm, some questions about mental health, but not sure how in depth those go in actually checking them. Probably just checks a data base to see if there is any record of such.

You bring up some good questions on this subject and I am not sure what the answer is to help prevent abuse. I will be watching for any legislature from my state for red flag laws for sure. I do not like the universal background check law the House passed a while back. It needs some amendments. Has the potential for abuse as written. But I am not opposed to a universal back ground check law for all firearm purchases.

[Spectral]

Have a state/federal office that covers fire arms licensing. They have access to that shit. Then to actually buy a gun you need to show said license. When you apply for a gun lisence person in charge of seeing if you're fit will talk to medical personel attatched to you.
As well as make sure you've got training, secure storage, and all that sort of stuff.

With that office keeping check on lisence holders to some degree too. So having some way of getting medical updates sent in if stuff happens to a lisence holder.

Simple.

So the plan is to create a massive bureaucracy that accesses tens of millions of people's health records and places a new burden on medical professionals to talk to said bureaucrats about people's mental health. Thereafter, the medical organizations that provide patient care are then required to set up interfaces (or is this supposed to be done with fax machines or something?) to trigger mental health information to state and federal hospitals with continual updates on their patients.

This sounds like both a logistical nightmare to try to get into place combined with just demolishing patient privacy rights. We don't actually have such a surplus of medical professionals that any of that licensing staff are going to have meaningful medical training, so this is basically going to be kicking over sensitive patient health data to the equivalent of DMV staff. Imagine having to argue with these people that you're not crazy if you're in fact not crazy.

[Ghostpanther]

Have a state/federal office that covers fire arms licensing. They have access to that shit. Then to actually buy a gun you need to show said license. When you apply for a gun lisence person in charge of seeing if you're fit will talk to medical personel attatched to you.
As well as make sure you've got training, secure storage, and all that sort of stuff.

With that office keeping check on lisence holders to some degree too. So having some way of getting medical updates sent in if stuff happens to a lisence holder.

Simple.

It may be simple in Sweden. But not here. Safe storage laws, some states have those already. And I am not against safe storage laws if they let the individual decide how to safely store their firearm, because each scenario in a home, will vary as to the degree it needs to be done. Households with children or minors living or visiting in them require more safe storage then some who have none. All firearms sold now, have trigger locks which come with them. Making it mandatory all firearms be in a safe, is government overreach in my opinion and I am opposed to such.

[Spectral]

I also have some real concerns with these red flag laws. I emailed my federal and state level representatives expressing those concerns. Have not heard back yet from ether. More than likely will be the generic answers. There is the potential of a lot of abuse with these laws. Yet something needs to be done. In Indiana, their red flag law, states that a police officer can sign a affidavit to have the court consider temporarily remove guns from any one they feel is a threat to the themselves or the public.

Others, like in Colorado, state any family member who is living with the person of concern, can ask/notify the authorities for them to be temporarily removed. Not sure of the other states which already have such laws. Is it something which should be left up to the states to decide? Or do we trust the federal government to come up with a generic red flag law which has safe guards built into it to protect the citizens from overreach of the government?

I do know when you get a conceal carry license here in Ohio, they do check to see if you have ever been committed to a mental facility, which can be found in the court records if it was ordered by the court. A standard back ground check, asks the applicant for a firearm, some questions about mental health, but not sure how in depth those go in actually checking them. Probably just checks a data base to see if there is any record of such.

You bring up some good questions on this subject and I am not sure what the answer is to help prevent abuse. I will be watching for any legislature from my state for red flag laws for sure. I do not like the universal background check law the House passed a while back. It needs some amendments. Has the potential for abuse as written. But I am not opposed to a universal back ground check law for all firearm purchases.

Right, removing imminent threats from the pool of purchasers seems reasonable enough to me - there should certainly be some discretion in telling someone that's pretty obviously dangerous from getting concealed carry licenses or purchasing new weapons. What I'm struggling with is how people expect that to be simple, common sense, and scalable to a national model; the NIH says that nearly 20% of Americans have a mental illness - trying to manage all of the records, data interchange, data standards, and new bureaucracy would be an enormous undertaking and people seem to just kind of shrug and say "sounds common sense to me".

It's also pretty easy to picture there being a chilling effect, even for people that don't currently own firearms or even plan to own firearms in the future. Personally, I just flat out wouldn't want data sent to some centralized government depository that "red flags" me for life if I go talk to a therapist if I were feeling hinky. This is literally what HIPAA is for. Law abiding citizens shouldn't have faceless bureaucrats pouring over their medical information when they exercise their civil rights.

[Ghostpanther]

So the plan is to create a massive bureaucracy that accesses tens of millions of people's health records and places a new burden on medical professionals to talk to said bureaucrats about people's mental health. Thereafter, the medical organizations that provide patient care are then required to set up interfaces (or is this supposed to be done with fax machines or something?) to trigger mental health information to state and federal hospitals with continual updates on their patients.

This sounds like both a logistical nightmare to try to get into place combined with just demolishing patient privacy rights. We don't actually have such a surplus of medical professionals that any of that licensing staff are going to have meaningful medical training, so this is basically going to be kicking over sensitive patient health data to the equivalent of DMV staff. Imagine having to argue with these people that you're not crazy if you're in fact not crazy.

Yeah and knowing how bias some judges can be....do we trust them all to be non bias? And who pays for this defense if you challenge it?

[Draco-Onis]

I'm not following - what triggers that information to the panel? What's the expected workflow for sending information from care provider to trigger a red flag? I have a fair bit of hands-on familiarity with how medical information exchange works and it seems to me that people that are glossing over this like it's not a huge change with massive expense and dubious legality are pretty naive about how they'd expect it to work in practice.

My idea would the panel handles appeals and the courts do the flagging and removal of the guns but currently the idea seems to be to let the courts handle everything. I do agree logistically a lot needs to be worked out but as i have stated I think this is moot nothing is going to be done since the NRA is strongly against this.

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Yeah and knowing how bias some judges can be....do we trust them all to be non bias? And who pays for this defense if you challenge it?

You think anyone with an education is biased and you don't trust anyone your solutions mostly involve doing as little as possible.