Mega-Thread: Gun Control Thread

[Edge-]

Yeah I have a problem with them being allowed to have weapons, as they have shown they can't control their emotions. Other problems that I have mentioned before is we need to be harsher on crimes committed where firearms are concerned.
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local...271917112.html
In this case the person pleaded no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm and got a five year sentence and got released after 6 months, and then proceeded to kill a cop. We need to stop pleading down gun crimes which happens far too often https://www.indystar.com/story/news/...unty/16760997/ as well as stop letting people out early that have gun crime related offenses.

I've been hearing some tidbits about the CA prison credit system and problems surrounding it/challenges in improving it, need to read more into it since it's a topic I'm largely ignorant of.

But for the bolded, that's not really true like, anywhere. There are absolutely isolated incidents where people let out early or who were released without bond reoffend in light of more recent criminal justice reforms, but that's not really a "thing". Older article (2014), but there are much more recent examples like in NY where a city cop is out there talking to the media about how CRIME IS SKYROCKETING BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE LET OUT WITHOUT CASH BAIL!

Until he has to testify under oath in NYC to officials, where he sings a different tune about how reoffending amongst those released due to bail reform is statistically insignificant.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Wild that you'd respond with this unhinged screed when you had to explicitly snip this bit out:

"Wild" to mean that I'm just sick of all the intellectually dishonest bullshit that the right spews for the sake of the NRA. The wild part is that most don't even know why they're spewing it, they just follow the NRA's marching orders.

[Mayhem]

I would personally prefer to live in a society that doesn't buy into the notion that once someone's out of prison that they're exactly the same as anyone else and no more prone to violence than anyone else.

would you? well then you should probably protest for prison reform because whatever system the US is sporting right now rehabilitation isn't part of it, more like the polar opposite

[Cthulhu 2020]

would you? well then you should probably protest for prison reform because whatever system the US is sporting right now rehabilitation isn't part of it, more like the polar opposite

We know that capitalist USA is far more concerned with punishment than rehab or crime prevention. We could be investing money into impoverished communities to lift them out of poverty. But nah, just reactively send police officers after them and lock em up for life for stealing $5 for food.

[Mayhem]

We know that capitalist USA is far more concerned with punishment than rehab or crime prevention. We could be investing money into impoverished communities to lift them out of poverty. But nah, just reactively send police officers after them and lock em up for life for stealing $5 for food.

As Jesus said, let the poor rot in prison for not being able to pay their bills.

[Captain N]

We know that capitalist USA is far more concerned with punishment than rehab or crime prevention. We could be investing money into impoverished communities to lift them out of poverty. But nah, just reactively send police officers after them and lock em up for life for stealing $5 for food.

Spending tax money to help citizens is socialism and is not welcome in the USA. Instead we need to use our tax dollars to fund a for-profit prison system to keep people who steal $5 worth of food behind bars because it's so much cheaper!

[Cthulhu 2020]

tldr: Stalkers, harassers, woman beaters, etc. are allowed to own guns because beating women wasn't against the law in the origins of our country.

Insert Clown Face Emoji

A man beating his wife was legal across the United States until 1871, when Alabama and Massachusetts banned it. That fact has new relevance in today’s gun laws thanks to the Supreme Court.

Following the logic of Justice Clarence Thomas’ 2022 opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a federal law banning the sale of guns to people subject to restraining orders in domestic violence cases. In striking down a New York law requiring proper cause for concealed handgun permits, Thomas explained that the law was illegitimate because it was not “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” In other words, if there was no such law in 1791, it’s unconstitutional now.

Which brings us back to how a man beating his wife was fully legal back then, so there were no laws saying that men who beat their wives (or kids) couldn’t have guns. And therefore, the Fifth Circuit ruled, following Thomas, there can’t be such laws now.

Yes, really.

The case in question involved Zackey Rahimi, a man who was subject to a February 2020 protective order preventing him from stalking or harassing his ex-girlfriend—who he had assaulted—and their child, and from owning a firearm. In December 2020 and January 2021, Rahimi went on to be involved in five shootings. FIVE. He sold narcotics to someone, then fired into their residence. He got into a car accident, shot at the other driver, fled, returned to the scene, and shot at the other driver’s car. He shot at a constable’s vehicle. He fired into the air after his friend’s credit card was declined at a restaurant.

Rahimi was indicted based on his violation of the protective order’s ban on him owning a firearm. But then Thomas fired up his computer for the Bruen decision, and now Rahimi is off the hook because the courts say that it’s not acceptable to ban men who beat their wives and girlfriends and children from having guns, because that’s not part of the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The government, in defending the law in question, did identify several laws dating back to colonial times that stripped some groups of people of the right to have guns, but the conservative Fifth Circuit mysteriously finds that those laws don’t apply here.

The law blocking people like Rahimi from having guns “embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society,” according to the Fifth Circuit, but that’s not allowed under Bruen, which “forecloses any such analysis in favor of a historical analogical inquiry into the scope of the allowable burden on the Second Amendment right. Through that lens, we conclude that [the law’s] ban on possession of firearms is an ‘outlier’ that our ancestors would never have accepted.”

Because our ancestors believed women were the property of their husbands. That’s it. That’s the logic here, according to one conservative appeals court scrupulously following the logic of the Supreme Court. Justice Stephen Breyer anticipated this moment in his dissent on Bruen, noting that a “study found that a woman is five times more likely to be killed by an abusive partner if that partner has access to a gun.” But Thomas says if the founders couldn’t contemplate it, it can’t be in the law now. At least when it comes to guns. Other things, not so much.

The Justice Department is likely to appeal. Bruen was decided 6 to 3, so the question now, Chris Geidner notes, is whether John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, who concurred, will go all the way along for the ride if or when the issue comes back to them.

https://crooksandliars.com/2023/02/5...medium=twitter

[Mayhem]

tldr: Stalkers, harassers, woman beaters, etc. are allowed to own guns because beating women wasn't against the law in the origins of our country.

It is impressive how things can somehow always get worse. I don't get it though, slavery is unconstitutional but women being property is also totally fine as an argument against other laws.

wat?

[Grinning Serpent]

In all seriousness I'm still not sure what actual practical utility the Second Amendment has overall, beyond people literally forming religious sects based around guns (I'm not kidding) or making it their whole-ass identity. Though neither of these things would be disallowed without a Second Amendment as a lack of a right to own guns does not mean that guns are actually banned.

The ability to shoot others who would do you harm, in brief. This doesn't have anything to do with it being *legal* to do that, mind.

Even if the US wasn't impressively difficult to invade due to geographic concerns (probably why any "war comes to murrica" media usually either has to be coupled with widespread socioeconomic devastation or has to come from an internal source), the fact that we have a civilian population that is both exceptionally well armed *and* well trained (a lot of "gun people" are retired service personnel, regardless of political affiliation, or come from regions where "they grew up with a gun in their hands") is also relevant. Trying to invade or occupy the United States, or even just a small region of the US would be a nightmare for the occupying forces. Like, imagine you were Mexico and trying to reclaim and occupy Texas and *only* Texas.

It sounds ridiculous, and to me it's not why I support gun ownership and gun rights (*because* it sounds ridiculous, even though it really isn't.) But keep in mind it hasn't even been 100 years since the last world war, and barely more than 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and official end of the Cold War. Folks are complacent, thinking that "*real* wars can't happen anymore," but that was probably the thinking before the first and second world wars, too. If you actually follow history, I think you can make a very reasonable case for an armed population. Shit, look at Ukraine - did anyone actually believe Putin would have been insane enough to pull the trigger? But he did. Would he have done it if Ukrainians were as well-armed as Americans?

Note that I don't think this is mutually exclusive with the ideas of "loose" gun control - like what Canada uses, for example. But the US is many magnitudes past the point where such laws would be effective or make any sense.

Statistically it largely just seems to result in skyrocketing rates of gun violence, including suicide, and accidental injuries/deaths that don't exist in any other developed nation. Which compounds other problems like institutional racism and violence within law enforcement given that they must simultaneously not treat every gun as a threat to their lives since we have a right to own them but also treat every individual as potentially armed with a firearm because of that same Amendment.

More guns in circulation means more injuries and deaths involving guns, intentional or otherwise. No shit, Sherlock. The issue is that you have to prove that the availability of guns *causes* those things, which is less clear-cut. There does seem to be a strong correlation, but a lack of reliable data is an issue with *proving* it. And thanks to the CDC's bullshit years back, the idea of getting actual data developed is basically a poisoned well at this point. Not that Republicans would ever be willing to cross the aisle since Gingrich started his stupid bullshit years ago, anyway.

Oh, right - remember that? Gingrich achieved power thanks to Clinton's horse trading to get his gun control package pushed through. How'd that work out for us?

So if we can't carve out what I think most people would argue is a reasonable limitation/exception - like people with convictions for domestic violence and/or restraining orders being prohibited from purchasing guns for at least a fairly long period of time until they haven't re-offended - it sure seems like we as a nation are at the mercy of the Second Amendment requiring that we knowingly allow likely violent individuals to purchase guns that are likely to be used for further violence.

Which is a bit batty to me, but I guess makes perfect logical sense to some folks?

Dude, honestly? If you wrote a bill that closed the "boyfriend loophole" (in brief, the prohibitions applied to convicted domestic abusers only apply if they were spouses or cohabiting with the victim) and did *ONLY THAT*, it would receive nearly unanimous support from both sides of the aisle. Just about the only people that would push back against it are the extreme-right "never agree with liberals on anything" types... and cops. Because cops are so often the abusers. But they wouldn't be able to outweigh the support coming from everyone else.

And I bet you could get some of the nay-sayers on board by eliminating some of the idiotic parts of the NFA that do fuck all to make us safer - specifically, the limitations on SBRs and suppressors. That would make a pretty fucking compelling olive branch to get people who would traditionally fight you on principle to see reason and vote aye. And who knows? Maybe if you can convince them to sit back down at the table and have proven, via such a bill, that you are actually willing to compromise and listen to their concerns, maybe it could be a start to us actually fucking *moving forward* on this issue of ridiculous gun violence in our country.

But every time the issue of the boyfriend loophole has come up, the bill gets scuttled because the politicians involved just cannot fucking help but cram other unrelated shit into it, which deprives them of the off-side votes they require to get it written into law. Because our politicians *DO NOT ACTUALLY FUCKING CARE* about "solving" gun violence. They just want to maintain the status quo (possibly wiggling a bit) so they can continue to use it as a wedge issue.

There *are* things we can be doing about our gun violence, but our politicians are either uncaring or too stupid or some mixture of the two to actually do anything about it. We *already have* effective laws on the books, but they are rarely enforced to any meaningful degree. We *know* about widespread straw purchasing and gun trafficking taking place (see: the iron pipeline) but action is slow and weak on addressing it.

[Cthulhu 2020]

There *are* things we can be doing about our gun violence, but our politicians are either uncaring or too stupid or some mixture of the two to actually do anything about it.

Option 3: The NRA has lobbied so much and so hard that politicians who are on a 175k/year salary suddenly mysteriously have 50 million in assets. As of citizens united, bribery is legal, and no amount of bribery is more clear and obvious than the NRA's promoting gun sales through fear of government tyranny and other things that don't exist.

https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphic...ying-rcna30537

Gun sales saw a huge spike under Obama, and once Trump lost there was an astronomical rise in sales. But totally not planning on an insurrection again!

[Endus]

Shit, look at Ukraine - did anyone actually believe Putin would have been insane enough to pull the trigger? But he did. Would he have done it if Ukrainians were as well-armed as Americans?

Small arms would achieve absolutely fuck-all against armored vehicles, which is what Putin invaded with. The idea that an armed populace is a deterrent to military invasion is as completely fucking ludicrous as the idea that it supports an armed uprising against your own government (which, again, has tanks and drones and shit, and using those to end a violent rebellion is literally part of the oaths of service taken by every member of the US Armed Forces).

More guns in circulation means more injuries and deaths involving guns, intentional or otherwise. No shit, Sherlock. The issue is that you have to prove that the availability of guns *causes* those things, which is less clear-cut. There does seem to be a strong correlation, but a lack of reliable data is an issue with *proving* it.

Not particularly. It's a intellectually vapid defense used to try and deflect from what's known.

And thanks to the CDC's bullshit years back, the idea of getting actual data developed is basically a poisoned well at this point. Not that Republicans would ever be willing to cross the aisle since Gingrich started his stupid bullshit years ago, anyway.

The "CDC's bullshit" was politically obligated upon the CDC, not something they developed in-house.

[Grinning Serpent]

Small arms would achieve absolutely fuck-all against armored vehicles, which is what Putin invaded with. The idea that an armed populace is a deterrent to military invasion is as completely fucking ludicrous as the idea that it supports an armed uprising against your own government (which, again, has tanks and drones and shit, and using those to end a violent rebellion is literally part of the oaths of service taken by every member of the US Armed Forces).

Armored vehicles use flesh and blood humans to operate. Those humans are vulnerable. They need a place to sleep, a place to eat, a place to take a shit. They need food to eat, they need bedrolls and clothing and equipment. Their machines need spare parts and fuel and ammunition. Those machines need a place where maintenance, refitting, and loading and unloading can take place. Drones are not especially well known for pinpoint precision, and neither are aircraft. Drones and aircraft can't take or hold territory. You need boots on the ground to accomplish that.

Yeah, no shit, you aren't going to kill a tank by shooting at it with a "tactical rifle" or whatever marketing term you'd like to use for a civilian AR or AK or whatever. But for literally thousands of years of human history, attacking supply lines, outposts, and other places where armies are vulnerable has traditionally been *BY FAR* the most effective way to deal with hostile forces, and *especially* invading forces. Vulnerable supply lines are what stopped Napoleon in 1812, and Hitler in 1943. Look at almost any major, famous battle in historical record and the war it was a part of and you will find that supply lines are a common denominator in the outcome.

Acting like having potentially hundreds of thousands of insurgents in territory they know and live around isn't a huge factor is flatly ignorant. It is you either arguing in bad faith (possible, but not usually what I see from you), or you are just ignorant of the reality of how invasions and insurgency operations actually function. "Dudes in caves with rifles" successfully fought off the Soviets, then the United States afterwards.

"Dudes with rifles" are able to get shit done. Remember, insurgents don't have to "win", they just have to not "lose." So long as an insurgency is active and functioning, it is an ever-present threat to the sovereignty of the government or the success of occupation forces (depending on if you're talking about muh tyranny or invasion and occupation by a hostile force.) Moreover, "well just shoot them with tanks" is the opposite of what the solution to insurgencies is. The United States has quite literally written the book on how to grapple with insurgent forces, in fact.

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would you? well then you should probably protest for prison reform because whatever system the US is sporting right now rehabilitation isn't part of it, more like the polar opposite

Funny thing, too - if we actually focused on rehabilitation instead of retribution (and effectively enslaving prisoners), we'd see a marked decrease in violent crimes. Turns out that when you don't offer rehabilitation services in prison (such as education and training opportunities, treatment for mental illnesses or counseling, etc) and basically just throw people out on their ass after they've spent several years inside a prison, and when many employers summarily reject felons... those folks often tend to fall back into crime because they've got little else going for them.

But if you actually try to campaign on that, you get accused of being "soft on crime." And the private prisons definitely don't want their "well it's not *really* slavery..." labor, either.

[Endus]

Armored vehicles use flesh and blood humans to operate. Those humans are vulnerable. They need a place to sleep, a place to eat, a place to take a shit. They need food to eat, they need bedrolls and clothing and equipment. Their machines need spare parts and fuel and ammunition. Those machines need a place where maintenance, refitting, and loading and unloading can take place. Drones are not especially well known for pinpoint precision, and neither are aircraft. Drones and aircraft can't take or hold territory. You need boots on the ground to accomplish that.

Yeah, no shit, you aren't going to kill a tank by shooting at it with a "tactical rifle" or whatever marketing term you'd like to use for a civilian AR or AK or whatever. But for literally thousands of years of human history, attacking supply lines, outposts, and other places where armies are vulnerable has traditionally been *BY FAR* the most effective way to deal with hostile forces, and *especially* invading forces. Vulnerable supply lines are what stopped Napoleon in 1812, and Hitler in 1943. Look at almost any major, famous battle in historical record and the war it was a part of and you will find that supply lines are a common denominator in the outcome.

Acting like having potentially hundreds of thousands of insurgents in territory they know and live around isn't a huge factor is flatly ignorant. It is you either arguing in bad faith (possible, but not usually what I see from you), or you are just ignorant of the reality of how invasions and insurgency operations actually function. "Dudes in caves with rifles" successfully fought off the Soviets, then the United States afterwards.

"Dudes with rifles" are able to get shit done. Remember, insurgents don't have to "win", they just have to not "lose." So long as an insurgency is active and functioning, it is an ever-present threat to the sovereignty of the government or the success of occupation forces (depending on if you're talking about muh tyranny or invasion and occupation by a hostile force.) Moreover, "well just shoot them with tanks" is the opposite of what the solution to insurgencies is. The United States has quite literally written the book on how to grapple with insurgent forces, in fact.

"We need guns to slaughter our fellow Americans en masse" is sure a game, but there you go.

And before you whine about that phrasing, that's what an armed insurgency is.

[Edge-]

The notion that armed civilians in the US does, or has ever, had an impact on whether a nation chooses to invade the US or not is absolute fantasy, especially in modern times.

It includes the preposterous notion for many that Japan was totally going to invade the continental US except they were afraid of the armed populace. A myth which still goes around despite there being zero evidence for it and every reason why simple impossibilities of staging a land invasion across the entire Pacific Ocean are real reasons why.

Jim-Bob's shotgun collection isn't keeping Canada, Mexico, or any other nation from invading the for much the same reason that global wars are largely not going to happen again: Countries economies are too interconnected and war would not just fuck themselves over, but other nations as well.

See: Russia invading Ukraine, a fairly "local" war, and one that would have happened regardless of Ukrainians being armed or not.

Real though, I don't know why this myth that an armed civilian population is any protection for a nation nowadays perpetuates.

[Grinning Serpent]

Real though, I don't know why this myth that an armed civilian population is any protection for a nation nowadays perpetuates.

It's not a protection for the nation. It *never has been.* The only time that might have been true was when the country was literally just reliant on militias and not a formal, permanent army. So... well over 200 years ago, basically.

It's a protection *for the people.* It gives the people that one last option to preserve their lives and the lives of the people they care about that they would otherwise not have.

If you don't think guns are useful in that context, then why is it that every time an *actually* tyrannical government takes over and selects a group or groups of people to oppress, disarmament is invariably a precursor to oppression of that group or groups of people? I mean, the government has soldiers and tanks and bombs and fighter planes and stuff - why would they need to disarm the people they're focusing on oppressing?

[Endus]

It's not a protection for the nation. It *never has been.* The only time that might have been true was when the country was literally just reliant on militias and not a formal, permanent army. So... well over 200 years ago, basically.

It's a protection *for the people.* It gives the people that one last option to preserve their lives and the lives of the people they care about that they would otherwise not have.

If you don't think guns are useful in that context, then why is it that every time an *actually* tyrannical government takes over and selects a group or groups of people to oppress, disarmament is invariably a precursor to oppression of that group or groups of people? I mean, the government has soldiers and tanks and bombs and fighter planes and stuff - why would they need to disarm the people they're focusing on oppressing?

You're. Including the acts of oppression itself with some kind of required precursor to oppression.

Note that the Nazis loosened gun control regs, for "decent" Germans​.

[Grinning Serpent]

Always seems like such a dishonest misnomer to apply "guns" to "protection".

Why? A gun is unequivocally the most effective tool for self-defense available. There are hundreds of millions of guns in civilian circulation in the United States and the overwhelming majority of them will never be used aggressively in any capacity.

Why wouldn't "protection" apply to a gun?

- - - Updated - - -

You're. Including the acts of oppression itself with some kind of required precursor to oppression.

Note that the Nazis loosened gun control regs, for "decent" Germans​.

Yes, and they systematically began to disarm Jews and others they would go on to oppress, prior to beginning the process of rounding them all up for genocide.

South Africa has a long history of colonists disarming the native population, going back to even before there was a South Africa. Apartheid denied gun rights to blacks, and indeed almost certainly existed only *because* the black population was disarmed.

I don't know if it qualifies as "tyrannical" (that word is frankly too vague for my liking, since "nazi" is pretty much what everyone thinks of when they think "tyranny" anyway...), but in Japanese history, it wasn't uncommon for a new regime to call a "sword hunt" to go out and confiscate weapons from anyone who might potentially oppose the new regime.

Disarmament of people you are planning on oppressing, or at least have reason to fear rebellion from, is *incredibly* common throughout human history, going all the way back to antiquity. People who are armed are a hell of a lot harder to oppress.

[Endus]

Why? A gun is unequivocally the most effective tool for self-defense available. There are hundreds of millions of guns in civilian circulation in the United States and the overwhelming majority of them will never be used aggressively in any capacity.

Why wouldn't "protection" apply to a gun?

Its the "most effective" if your goal is to maximize the chance of someone in your house being shot.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-killing-study

To quote the study, "zero evidence of any kind of protective effects" for gun ownership. Just an increase in gun mortality for residents.

[Edge-]

It's not a protection for the nation. It *never has been.* The only time that might have been true was when the country was literally just reliant on militias and not a formal, permanent army. So... well over 200 years ago, basically.

It's a protection *for the people.* It gives the people that one last option to preserve their lives and the lives of the people they care about that they would otherwise not have.

If you don't think guns are useful in that context, then why is it that every time an *actually* tyrannical government takes over and selects a group or groups of people to oppress, disarmament is invariably a precursor to oppression of that group or groups of people? I mean, the government has soldiers and tanks and bombs and fighter planes and stuff - why would they need to disarm the people they're focusing on oppressing?

Why does literally no other country need this if people need this protection so much?

[Grinning Serpent]

Its the "most effective" if your goal is to maximize the chance of someone in your house being shot.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-killing-study

To quote the study, "zero evidence of any kind of protective effects" for gun ownership. Just an increase in gun mortality for residents.

Which just goes to show you they aren't actually looking for evidence. It isn't *that* hard to find examples of people using a gun to protect themselves.

https://www.ktvq.com/news/crime-watc...-her-residence

Hell, that's from last week. What would have happened to her if she wasn't armed, or if she'd had a knife instead of a gun?

Hell, that article's even a twofer - it gives an example of someone misusing their rights and ending up in jail because a jury determined that his use of the gun was not appropriately in self-defense.

Like, you can argue that you are statistically more likely to be shot by a gun in a house with a gun (which is really just a no shit, Sherlock kind of thing... kind of like how you are a lot more likely to drown if you have a pool or a lot more likely to be bit by a dog if you have a dog), but claiming that there is "zero evidence of any kind of protective effects" is complete bullshit and is immediately disproven by literally just checking the news.

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Why does literally no other country need this if people need this protection so much?

Dude. It ain't even been 100 years since Nazis were running around. Putin pulled the trigger on Ukraine. The fuck are you talking about?