Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[Moadar]

At this point I'd concede to upping the age to purchase weapons or making it so you can't clear a background check until you are 2 years removed from school.

Security at schools needs to be regulated. Even if you banned all guns it would not stop ones in circulation from being used or other methods of killing.

[Edge-]

Security at schools needs to be regulated. Even if you banned all guns it would not stop ones in circulation from being used or other methods of killing.

I mean...you could check the John Oliver episode or stuff like this - https://www.aclu-wa.org/story/school...-worse-disease

Putting cops in schools doesn't make kids safer and doesn't stop mass shootings. If anything, those cops being present on a daily basis causes more harm than them not being on the premises at all.

But a big point of the ban is that many of the guns used were all purchased legally by individuals that would have largely otherwise passed basic background checks. It's the ease of access to firearms that continues to be one of the unique features of the US that makes this a persistent problem here, and in no other developed nation in the world.

[PhaelixWW]

At this point I'd concede to upping the age to purchase weapons or making it so you can't clear a background check until you are 2 years removed from school.

We could just up the legal age of adulthood to 21 or 22.

[Svifnymr]

Let's presume for a hot second that the anti-gun-control's side's position actually were "we don't think mass shootings can be largely prevented".

Totally. I said totally, not largely.
The two options are "Mass shootings are something we can prevent and stop if we really tried" vs "Mass shootings are something we unfortunetly have to accept as part of a free society". Canada has restricted guns for decades, and they haven't prevented or stopped entirely, so they restrict guns more and more, because maybe now that will do it.

The least evil is that mass shootings tend to cause a bump in gun sales so mass shootings are good for business, and more dead kids selling more guns means more NRA/gun lobby money in their pockets.

Mass shootings don't increase gun sales, laws attempting to restrict or remove the right increase gun sales.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'll just note that Canada's taken action in the past to reduce access to guns, and just put another bill forward to further restrict mass-shooter weapons and handguns. And it has worked well, and our vastly lower gun violence and particularly mass shooter rates are proof positive of that.

Sure doesn't seem like I'm the one who has no concept of how things work.

"how things work" in this regard are understanding the sides in a discussion, not your perception of how to restrict the 99.99% because of the actions of the .01% in the hopes that removing all those firearms from the law abiding will move the needle by 10%.

If you just want to believe that the NRA is in league with gun manufacturers to sell more guns, and ignore the discussion around their policies and place in the debate, there is nothing there to discuss. Same if you want to dismiss all the other intricacies of various discussions on this topic in order to pigeon hole those you disagree with.

Hell, just look at any of the other topics you participate in, the pattern is pretty much the same.

In this thread, it's been easy enough to dismiss the clarification of the difference between an "assault weapon" and an "assault rifle", but the fact that it's a discussion about the difference between a machine gun and a semi-automatic is an essential part of the discussion. Likewise it's not "semantics" to discuss the power levels of various rifles when discussing the inane ideas presented. And that's just ignoring that "assault weapons" includes various handguns, shotguns and other things.

But again, it's been many years in this thread, and many decades for this discussion, so an inability to understand the opposition is pretty prevalent.

[Edge-]

Mass shootings don't increase gun sales, laws attempting to restrict or remove the right increase gun sales.

No, the fear of "gub'mint taken our GUNZ" drives increased gun sales. Since there's rarely even any legislation passed following most of these school shootings, and local legislation doesn't account for the national increase in sales.

It's the same fearmongering tactic that's worked for decades.

[Svifnymr]

Canada's rural population is 17.8% of the total. The USA's is 14%. That's not a significant gap.

And population density breaks down how?

As for the "demographic", that just seems like you're playing coy to avoid admitting to pretty fuckin' egregious levels of outright bigotry.

I used to joke that it was proximity to Mexico, but no one ever called me on it. Basically you can see the drug routes and the crime paths and the vast majority of the casual violence, linked to the big cities of course. And of course, there's always been a link between press coverage of school shootings and follow up violence, for the glory.

[Jastall]

It's proportional, but Canada has 10x the amount of space.

Not really the demographic is gang members, and that's a pretty diverse group both in the US and Canada. Sorry if I seem bigoted against criminals. Canada has members in the thousands and the US has well over a million, which is orders of magnitude more even after taken proportionally.

.

America's difficulties in combating crime, organized and otherwise, are due to many factors and far beyond the scope of this thread but it's not like you can chalk everything up to that alone. Yes, criminals use illegal firearms, but the omnipresence of firearms in the first place makes finding them easier as a rule. It's a connected whole.

And Canada isn't the only other Western country. Some such as France also have a hardly insignificant criminality problem but also don't have anywhere near the same amounts of shootings, mass or otherwise, proportionally.

[Svifnymr]

No, the fear of "gub'mint taken our GUNZ" drives increased gun sales. Since there's rarely even any legislation passed following most of these school shootings, and local legislation doesn't account for the national increase in sales.

It's the same fearmongering tactic that's worked for decades.

It's amusing really, to dismiss as fear mongering the idea that Democrats want to ban stuff, simply because they have failed to ban things for a bit. (Assuming you don't count the various ATF actions.) It's such great fear mongering, it's worked for decades, ever since that time they... you know... banned a bunch of guns and folks couldn't get them and prices went up.
But, other than that, yeah I guess it's unfounded fear mongering to look at history and expect similar trends to reoccur simply because the news and the government are trying to make it happen. That's logical, for sure.

[Moadar]

I mean...you could check the John Oliver episode or stuff like this - https://www.aclu-wa.org/story/school...-worse-disease

Putting cops in schools doesn't make kids safer and doesn't stop mass shootings. If anything, those cops being present on a daily basis causes more harm than them not being on the premises at all.

But a big point of the ban is that many of the guns used were all purchased legally by individuals that would have largely otherwise passed basic background checks. It's the ease of access to firearms that continues to be one of the unique features of the US that makes this a persistent problem here, and in no other developed nation in the world.

Are you just interested in banning guns or saving lives? Because if you don't address the issue of security at schools then lives will continue to be lost, guns or not.

Police aren't the end all answer. The building itself can be secured so that this stuff is near impossible to carry out.

- - - Updated - - -

We could just up the legal age of adulthood to 21 or 22.

21 is the age required to buy handguns anyway. I'd be fine with that.

[Endus]

Mass shootings don't increase gun sales, laws attempting to restrict or remove the right increase gun sales.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7369030/

Oops.

Maybe take a half a moment to double-check your facts before contributing.

[Deus Mortis]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7369030/

Oops.

Maybe take a half a moment to double-check your facts before contributing.

He says sales increase when the restrictions increase. From the link provided it does say:

Every year since SH, California has strengthened gun laws in response to mass shootings yet sales have risen immediately preceding enactment of these laws each January.

Our study supports the paradoxical increase in gun sales with new gun legislation. California has strengthened gun laws every year including and since 2012.

For nearly every year, December was the month with the highest sales. New laws go into effect January 1st each year in California. Thus, this spike occurs in the 30 days immediately preceding the timing of the new laws taking effect. Although other factors such as holiday sales and mass shooting events in the latter part of the year may also contribute to this observation, new laws appears to be an important driving force of gun sales. This is supported by studies showing that gun owners fear that these high-profile events will lead to increased gun regulation making it more difficult to acquire a firearm in future years.

Did you read the article you posted?

[Endus]

He says sales increase when the restrictions increase. From the link provided it does say:



Did you read the article you posted?

I did;

Beginning in late 2011, related and proportional spikes in gun sales occurred in 1 months to 3 months immediately following each subsequent shooting on the deadliest list. Each one lasted approximately 2 months to 3 months following the event, and in the case of rapid succession events, the effect appeared additive.

I didn't cherry pick useful quotes out of the article and ignore the rest of it, though.

And hell, the last bit of your own last quote backs me up, directly, but you didn't put it in bold.

Yes, it explains that the primary push seems to be a fear of future legislation, rather than a desire for personal protection, but I didn't posit the motives for that increase, I merely pointed to the fact of that increase. Which the study fully supports and delineates. As your own quotes prove. That there's a 1-3 month bump in sales after every shooting, where there isn't an increase in gun legislation at that same pace or time frame demonstrates.

Also, don't point to the impact of legislation and pretend that disproves me; I never claimed mass shootings were the only factor that ever boosted gun sales.

[Deus Mortis]

I did;



I didn't cherry pick useful quotes out of the article and ignore the rest of it, though.

And hell, the last bit of your own last quote backs me up, directly, but you didn't put it in bold.

Yes, it explains that the primary push seems to be a fear of future legislation, rather than a desire for personal protection, but I didn't posit the motives for that increase, I merely pointed to the fact of that increase. Which the study fully supports and delineates. As your own quotes prove. That there's a 1-3 month bump in sales after every shooting, where there isn't an increase in gun legislation at that same pace or time frame demonstrates.

Also, don't point to the impact of legislation and pretend that disproves me; I never claimed mass shootings were the only factor that ever boosted gun sales.

My fault going back and reading it again, I apparently skimmed over the first half of his post which as you stated was incorrect and focused on the 2nd half of his post which has truth to it if we took it in isolation from the first half, and thus my reply to you in my post above above. My bad.

[Edge-]

Are you just interested in banning guns or saving lives?

I don't support outright banning, but repealing the Second Amendment and making gun ownership a regulated privilege rather than a right, absolutely. That being said, there's no distinction between those two things in general.

Because if you don't address the issue of security at schools then lives will continue to be lost, guns or not.

Why is the need for armed school security fairly unique to America in the developed world, and even in some parts of the developing world? Are we just more naturally murderous as a people? More inherently violent? More prone to wanting to just shoot a bunch of kids? I don't think so, personally, but other conclusions for this line of thinking elude me.

Police aren't the end all answer. The building itself can be secured so that this stuff is near impossible to carry out.

This is hilariously impossible, especially considering that, as we're still seeing, the school shooters can have attended the very schools and participated in all the active shooter drills, so they know exactly what the plan is. Beyond that, the notion of making schools more like prisons with limited points of access - really? Will that be effective at stopping a lone gunman? Or just making entering and existing the school a nightmare for kids, but doing a great job of training them to work in some hellscape call center with a single entrance. Oh, and totally not a fire hazard in any way at all. Booby traps like others have suggested? Because those are super safe around...kids? Bulletproof blankets and backpacks that...I mean I guess it saves lives so go levy another tax that most folks supporting this idea won't want to pay, but it won't stop continuing to traumatize a generation of kids knowing that they may realistically have to use this in a school in the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet. Every proposed solution on this front I've heard from Fox News talking heads and the conservative intelligencia on social media honestly sounds like truly dystopian hellscape shit. Very much "This is fine" meme level shit, unironically. Again, as a reminder - many of the ideas floated would cost a lot of money, money that comes from taxes that the proponents of these same "solutions" decry as tyranny and complain about endlessly.

The way "gun enthusiasts" brag about carrying around a firearm at all times to protect them and their family is honestly a fuckin batshit crazy concept to me. Because that's an implicit statement that they are living in a failed state, a nation that is no longer sovereign, one that has lost the monopoly on the use of force. I get it, there is crime out there and all, but there will always be crime out there so having a permanently armed, and largely untrained populace in addition to an abusive, ill trained police force just seems like a continuing recipe for America to have astronomically high rates of gun violence. And dead kids.

[Endus]

This is hilariously impossible, especially considering that, as we're still seeing, the school shooters can have attended the very schools and participated in all the active shooter drills, so they know exactly what the plan is. Beyond that, the notion of making schools more like prisons with limited points of access - really? Will that be effective at stopping a lone gunman? Or just making entering and existing the school a nightmare for kids, but doing a great job of training them to work in some hellscape call center with a single entrance. Oh, and totally not a fire hazard in any way at all. Booby traps like others have suggested? Because those are super safe around...kids? Bulletproof blankets and backpacks that...I mean I guess it saves lives so go levy another tax that most folks supporting this idea won't want to pay, but it won't stop continuing to traumatize a generation of kids knowing that they may realistically have to use this in a school in the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet. Every proposed solution on this front I've heard from Fox News talking heads and the conservative intelligencia on social media honestly sounds like truly dystopian hellscape shit. Very much "This is fine" meme level shit, unironically. Again, as a reminder - many of the ideas floated would cost a lot of money, money that comes from taxes that the proponents of these same "solutions" decry as tyranny and complain about endlessly.

Also, school hardening works both ways. If it's harder to get in, it's harder for anyone in the middle of a shooting incident to get out. It's harder for police to get in. It's easier for the active shooter to barricade and fortify themselves. It's like arming teachers; it sounds like a great idea, until the attacker kills the teacher, and now has an additional weapon.

This is shit we worked out 1000 years ago in building fortifications; if you build a tower, and the enemy captures that tower, they now have a strong point to use against you. That's why castle construction developed tiers of walls, so the enemy capturing the outer walls would now how to deal with the taller, thicker inner walls that still held the advantage. It's why redoubts, small "extra" outside forts, would not have crenellations or protections on the sides facing the main fortifications, and later no means to shift the cannon and such to aim back at those fortifications. If you create a strong point, it's only a benefit as long as you control it. Once an enemy takes control, it's now their strong point.

It's the absolute fuckin' stupidest take.

It's also willfully ignoring the problem; that if you eliminate the threat, you don't have to fortify against that threat. It's like you've got a problem at your daycare because one toddler found a stick and is hitting other kids with that stick. If your approach to handling that is to put armor and helmets on the toddlers so they don't get hurt, rather than just taking the stick away, you're an idiot. And to take on the "good guy with a gun" argument, the solution isn't to make sure all the toddlers have sticks, either. That's stupid as fuck, too.

[Rasulis]

I did;



I didn't cherry pick useful quotes out of the article and ignore the rest of it, though.

And hell, the last bit of your own last quote backs me up, directly, but you didn't put it in bold.

Yes, it explains that the primary push seems to be a fear of future legislation, rather than a desire for personal protection, but I didn't posit the motives for that increase, I merely pointed to the fact of that increase. Which the study fully supports and delineates. As your own quotes prove. That there's a 1-3 month bump in sales after every shooting, where there isn't an increase in gun legislation at that same pace or time frame demonstrates.

Also, don't point to the impact of legislation and pretend that disproves me; I never claimed mass shootings were the only factor that ever boosted gun sales.

Canada has the same problem with California when it comes to firearm-related crimes.

Testifying before the Commons public safety committee on Tuesday, Toronto Police Deputy Chief Myron Demkiw said that of the crime guns last year that investigators could trace, 86 per cent were smuggled into Canada from the United States — a trend he said has been on the increase since 2019.

Statistics indicate that most guns used in crimes in California are not purchased here. As the Sacramento Bee reports, “In 2016 and 2017, law enforcement recovered 80,561 guns in California. About 58 percent came from out of state. The No. 1 out-of-state source was Arizona, with 4,053 guns, followed by Nevada at 2,765.”

[Edge-]

Canada has the same problem with California when it comes to firearm-related crimes.

Testifying before the Commons public safety committee on Tuesday, Toronto Police Deputy Chief Myron Demkiw said that of the crime guns last year that investigators could trace, 86 per cent were smuggled into Canada from the United States — a trend he said has been on the increase since 2019.

Statistics indicate that most guns used in crimes in California are not purchased here. As the Sacramento Bee reports, “In 2016 and 2017, law enforcement recovered 80,561 guns in California. About 58 percent came from out of state. The No. 1 out-of-state source was Arizona, with 4,053 guns, followed by Nevada at 2,765.”

...are you fucking serious that America is smuggling fuckin weapons into god-damned Canada? Man, are we should we shouldn't like...offer to build a damn wall between us and Canda for the Canadians or something?

Also, glad that my hazy memory of out of state firearms being responsible for a lot of the crime in CA was accurate, even if I got their primary state of origin wrong.

[PhaelixWW]

Statistics indicate that most guns used in crimes in California are not purchased here. As the Sacramento Bee reports, “In 2016 and 2017, law enforcement recovered 80,561 guns in California. About 58 percent came from out of state. The No. 1 out-of-state source was Arizona, with 4,053 guns, followed by Nevada at 2,765.”

Except that that statistic is incorrect.

There were 80,561 firearms recovered in California, sure, but only 17,966 were traced to a source state outside California.
That article should have reported 22% from out of state.

Of course, a whole bunch weren't sourced at all, but even if you limit it to just firearms recovered and sourced to a state, then it would still be only 34% from out of state.

It's also a bit of a misleading thing in the first place, as Nevada, for example, has the same 34% of its sourced crime guns coming from out-of-state in that same time frame. In fact, 7.6% of Nevada's sourced crime guns come from California, which is higher than the 5.3% of sourced crime guns in California which come from Nevada.


Edit: I posted the same thing here back in 2015 (based on 2012 data). Granted the numbers were more lopsided back then; things have come closer to parity between the two states since:

The vast majority of guns used in California... come from California.

Did you know that:
Only 3.0% of the crime guns traced in California came from Nevada.
And yet 9.7% of the crime guns traced in Nevada came from California.
72% of the crime guns traced in California actually originated in California.
And only 65% of the crime guns traced in Nevada actually originated in Nevada.

[Draco-Onis]

...are you fucking serious that America is smuggling fuckin weapons into god-damned Canada? Man, are we should we shouldn't like...offer to build a damn wall between us and Canda for the Canadians or something?

Also, glad that my hazy memory of out of state firearms being responsible for a lot of the crime in CA was accurate, even if I got their primary state of origin wrong.

It's pretty much all our neighbors

Mexico sues US gun manufacturers over arms trafficking

[Mayhem]

And population density breaks down how?

Pretty much all of Canada lives in one area.

here's another



here's countries by number of guns per residents



here's country by gun homicide rate



and last one countries at war and organized violence