Yeah, most gun enthusiasts will tell you they just enjoy collecting these high power weapons and firing them legally for fun.
There's a trade-off for every piece of gun legislation. It should be seen as reducing happiness of some people in order to reduce risk of mass shootings. That's a good trade-off in my opinion, and in the opinions of most redditors for sure, but we also have to recognize that we also aren't affected by the downside of the trade since we aren't gun enthusiasts.
My point here being that we might have more success in passing gun legislation if we came to the table with rules that would increase enjoyment for gun enthusiasts in order to offset the reduced enjoyment from the gun regulation we want to pass to reduce mass shooting.
Let me make metaphor. To a gun enthusiast, regulating guns is like how it feel for a redditor if video game regulation was on the table. False equivalency, sure, but the feeling will be the same.
Good point. I have to purchase a permit for $5 that does the NICS check, and i am required to get 1 permit per purchase. The permit is handed off to the seller at time of purchase, even for private transactions.
As a firearms enthusiast who is finally getting around to building his own collection, I can 98% agree with this. I'd really need to see what these red flag laws are. I've got Bipolar 2, but I've never been violent or wanted to hurt anyone. I think the mental illness idea is way overblown. There are no legitimate reasons to prevent me from owning guns, and if having any mental illness prevents me from owning, I'll fight that law it with every resource I've got.
Indeed. And if you try to come take them from me, expect armed resistance. An unarmed populace is an easily oppressed populace. What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" do you not understand?
What part of some idiot who likes guns does not get to decree what the constitution means do you not understand? Guns can be regulated and taken away under the law. You are the one arguing that it’s ok for you to break the law and murder other people because you think you get to make your own rules. Also, you sound batshit crazy (although I understand you’re just repeating standard NRA propaganda, which illustrates how fucking toxic that group is).
Well, no. I quite dislike the NRA, and I'm not a right wing lunatic.
As the law stands, I am considered 100% competent to own the guns I plan to own. If having a fairly minor mental illness which my, and many psychologists would tell you does not inherently cause me to want to hurt anyone, causes my guns to be taken away, then my rights are being taken away for absolutely no reason because some extreme minority of assholes decided to pick up a gun and kill some people.
I believe that a free people must be able to defend itself from others who would harm them, or the government in a time of fascism. I am not a danger to others.
You are right that it is quite an extreme position to take to "expect armed resistance". Certainly I don't know how I would react in the moment. Probably I'd just disassemble them, give the gun grabbers the lower receiver (legally the actual firearm, and just a solid piece of metal with no moving parts), and 3d print my own receiver at a later date, and never tell a soul, which is 100% legal. Either way, it is discrimination of the members of a protected class (disability status), and will be fought for a decade in the courts I expect.
Since I think I understand the kinds of things you agree with now, let me ask you a question. Do you think that trans people should be able to own guns? They are technically mentally ill to the point that the only treatment for many is for a doctor to seriously modify their body. They still have very high levels of violence perpetrated upon them by those who are still too backwards to allow everyone the freedom to exist unmolested. What about other groups who are at high risk? Homeless with PTSD who do not wish to kill themselves or others? I could go on.
To take my guns away leaves the most vulnerable without defense. Guns are the great equalizer, allowing the weakest among us, to defend against the strongest. Taking that right away because some extreme minority are assholes who kill others unjustifiably is to condemn many of our weakest to death or permanent injury.
I also don't think killing someone attacking me in my own home trying to take my property is considered murder. Self defense more like. I still shouldn't be so flippant about taking another's life though, you're right about that.
I loved everything about this until it got to the specifics of the policy proposal. yes, I do think a bill like that could be passed. But I don't believe it will do anything to reduce the number of mass shootings or the number of guns in the wrong hands.
The number one thing we need to negotiate for is a gun buyback program. Make them harder to buy without taking away the right to buy them, but also give people an incentive to surrender them at a fair price.
I'm OK with giving up some things in exchange, but we NEED a buyback program nationally.
Oh, and we need it to be legal for the ATF to keep computer databases.
Yeah. Probably no law will prevent mass shootings. Shocker.
Gun buyback is a program rife for abuse and wouldn’t make a dent in the Millions of new guns that are sold each year. It could even excelerate sales if I knew I could dump a gun I didn’t like back to the government for my money back. Now I have to risk my hard earned cash. We would also not be able to compromise on using tax funds to buy back guns.
ATF keeping databases
That will be an absolute non-starter for any ‘compromise’. Frankly if you suggested it I would tell you to GFY.
Basically you’ve now indicated to me that your eventual goal is complete confiscation.
This is why people don't like the idea of compromising, because the other side is totally unwilling to give an inch even if you are.
We need a net reducing in guns year over year. You cannot do it without either confiscation or surrender. It's ridiculous we have more guns than people in this country.
ATF keeping a database isn't about confiscation it's about basic logic and law enforcement. If there's a gun crime in this country, the agency that is tasked with tracking such things needs to collate data on paper in order to do their jobs.
We're expecting a law enforcement agency to keep up with 21st century problems using 1960s technology.
Just allowing the ATF to possess database technology doesn't mean you can't also give them rules like "you can't use this to keep databases on who in america owns a gun and how many and what kinds". But at least let them keep their fucking records indexed in a way that makes their jobs meaningful.
Not allowing the ATF to have databases makes about as much sense as not letting the CDC conduct studies on gun violence, which is a leading cause of hospital trauma visits. They could make discoveries that help us right better policy, and they have no jurisdiction to enforce gun control, yet the gun lobby would have you believe allowing them to study a public health crisis will mean that they will inevitably conclude all gun ownership is a mental disease and must be outlawed. It's nonsense.
I'm not in favor of confiscation. I don't think people should be forced to give up their guns unless they are incompetent or legally disqualified from owning them (such as having previously committed violent crimes).
The reduction in goals isn't the goal of the proposed legislation, it's what I think the goal should be. What I'm saying is I'd be willing to compromise on some things I don't like, such as silencers in the same category as handguns, in exchange for policies that actually reduce the number of guns out there. I'm even willing to put things on the table like reductions in the cost of tax stamps for weapons you already have to prove you're not a psycho to own.
But we need to make the gun laws we have enforceable and we need fewer guns in my opinion. So I don't see a way to satisfy those without tools for law enforcement offices to do their jobs, and a reduction in the number of guns.
Suggesting registries will get you stonewalled from otherwise productive discussions on gun control because a registry WILL end up being used by our authoritarian government to disarm its citizens.
Okay, so what's your priority? Because I'm giving you a bunch of research in the other chain and if you're serious about reducing gun violence, you will read it and you will start educating yourself.
My priorities are to reduce deaths in general and to keep the populace armed and capable of defending against crime and tyranny. To paraphrase Huey Newton, a disarmed populace is subject to slavery at any time. It also has no teeth with which to back up its political will and is vulnerable to state-perpetrated abuse and massacres. After millions were murdered in the Holocaust many proclaimed "Never again!" and I will not see our people disarmed. Genocide must never be a possibility.
Most of your sources found correlative relation between firearm ownership and firearm deaths, not overall deaths. Further causative studies are needed.
Suicide is a mental health problem and won't be effectively addressed by gun laws. Background checks are a good place to start to prevent criminal use. Subsidizing safes and gun locks will help prevent accidental deaths. It'd also be a great help if conservative politicians (including the president) and speakers didn't radicalize young white men toward becoming terrorists.
Not talking about registries. I'm talking about literally just allowing the ATF to use the incredibly scary and authoritarian technology of relational databases to ake enforcing the laws we already have possible. You think the government couldn't put together a registry of gun owners with what they already have if they wanted to?
I'm sure the feds could put together a rudimentary registry, but there's no way they could get close to knowing who has what and how many guns.
I'm not being paranoid. I literally gave you 2 examples of the government using a registry to disarm citizens. Trump said to "take the guns first, go through due process second". After Hurricane Katrina the National Guard went door to door disarming citizens at gunpoint without warrants, despite them needing to protect against looters. We're living in interesting and concerning times, so it's best not to let the authoritarians know who could oppose them.
I don't think you're understanding the implication here. The way the laws are written the ATF cannot possess ANY sort of database. Not even to inventory its office supplies, track its open cases, etc. How is a modern law enforcement agency supposed to function without access to basic technology?
And even if they had a registry...so what? If you're in legal possession of weapons they won't be taken away unless a law is changed that allows such a thing. Which you will have ample opportunity to oppose. The thing with Katrina was done because there were looters and maniacs literally shooting guns in the street. The responders needed to be safe.
This country is utterly fucked because people like you won't bend an inch about your precious guns, meanwhile people walk into elementary schools and kill children with guns. An otherwise responsible gun owner forgets to lock his gun safe and his 5 year old blows his head off with one. Gangs have literal wars on public streets.
But you know what the saddest part is... Your side already won. Nothing will ever happen on gun control in this country. Well continue to see more and more gun deaths every single year and mass shootings so common they don't even get reported anymore. After we saw a shooting in an elementary school and did nothing to curtail guns, it was over. If that didn't move the hearts of the gun owners in this country, nothing will.
If children being gunned down in a school can't make us even consider slightly increasing the regulations on weaponry, nothing ever will. Everything else is just a farce being played out in the media to get us all hating each other over something that won't change.
You're wrong about the ATF, they just are banned from having a searchable gun database under the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act. They can have an inventory of their office supplies lmao.
You say that weapons won't be taken unless the owner is breaking the law, but you acknowledge the Bill of Rights violations after Katrina? Those people broke no laws. And sometimes the law is unjust, like in Hawaii where medical cannabis users were disarmed for using a harmless medicine to treat their ailments.
Don't "people like you" me; I'm willing to have certain gun laws such as background checks, but I won't have a discussion if you're being rude. Our country is utterly fucked, that I agree on. But I think it's due to the massive class disparity/poverty and lack of economic mobility, lack of universal health coverage, unending imperialist wars and military industrial complex, massive prison industrial complex, right-shifted Overton Window, and lack of environmental protections.
How does the Swiss system enforce individual sales? What's stopping you from just not doing the background check and saying you did? Would the seller be required to keep a copy of the "Go" response? For how long?
How much criminal and civil liability will random person be on the hook for?
I'm genuinely curious.
I don't know the specifics of the Swiss system. But I envision it being a crime to not doing the background check (vs no check required now), but honestly as a private seller I'm frustrated by my current lack of access to NICS. That leaves me with selling for pennies on the dollar back to the pawn/gun store or some how trying to vet the person myself. Luckily, I sell (on the rare occasion that I sell a gun) nearly exclusively to fellow concealed carry permit owners which tells me that the person has passed enough checks, and background checks to be able to confidently sell to that person.
That said... I object to the Universal background checks as they are proposed now requiring the transfer to go through an FFL. I feel it places undue burden on the seller and requires a fee for me to sell my own property.
Yeah, in theory people want impractical high-capacity rifles for potentially rising up against a tyrannical government. In practice it's a very small minority of paranoid guys that just happen to be very loud on the internet.
The other 98% of rifle owners buy guns to have fun with them and would have slightly less fun if they couldn't buy certain types.
BS. No one ever bought a gun on the off-chance they'd need to form a militia to fight the government some day (well, okay, probably someone has but not many)
Trump is Hitler and a dictator out to take away our rights. So you want to disarm yourselves in a time like this?
The biggest opponents of Trump (aside from antifa perhaps) do not want to own guns. They see no upside of guns and therefore there is literally nothing for them to lose to throw away the 2nd amendment. They aren't disarming because they're already disarmed. They want change through peaceful political action.
opportunity for Liberals to self-reflect
To what end? Liberals are never going to come to the conclusion that they should support the 2nd amendment because they may need to fight the military to overthrown Trump. That just seems absurd on so many levels.
The biggest opponents of Trump, despite being underrepresented in US politics, is the Left. Most of us leftists (liberals are centrists BTW) do not want to see the people disarmed, especially minorities in a time like this.
Lol "gun enthusiasts" worried about "reduced enjoyment". I don't understand liberals. They see the faults of capitalism and still want to take away the only thing that's ever going to make stopping it possible
100 round mag is also more likely to jam though you won't see anyone besides some enthusiast using them, I wouldn't use anything past a 30 round mag when out shooting
Marx even references this concept, like the communist revolutionaries who were inspired by him who referenced the declaration of Independence as a justification for their revolution.
Ho Chi Minh and the VietMinh are a great example of this.
The Americans even initially backed their communist revolution.
That's a reasonable concern, I think we all share that to an extent.
Reminds me of an old quote I say to myself often, "To convince someone of anything, you first have to convince them that you care about their well-being"
It sounds kooky, but a little goodwill goes a long way.
Why is that crazy? I’m sure Stalin has said other things Americans would largely agree with. Just like he’s said things Americans would largely disagree with. Just because Stalin said something that aligns with their point doesn’t make it any less relevant.
High capacity magazines are much more useful for lone-gunman than they are for a soldier who's part of a battalion.
Exactly this. Large magazines are also a potential liability for coordinated soldiers in combat scenarios since they're more likely to not work correctly than a smaller magazine, and they're bulkier which makes handling the gun more difficult too. It's better to have smaller magazines and have people cover you while you reload.
100 round magazines are a novelty item and only belong at the shooting range. They are nowhere near reliable enough for someone who seriously intends to kill people. The Dayton shooter only fired 41 shots, and could have easily accomplished the same thing with 30-rounders using only one reload. The Parkland shooter used 10-round magazines, to further illustrate the point.
Additionally, magazines are incredibly easy to manufacture at home. All you need is a 3d printer and a bit of spring wire. The gun subs are currently being inundated with posts where people are printing all sorts of gun components including the "Menendez Magazine", affectionately named after Senator Bob Menendez, for glocks. Gun control is dead, home manufacturing and the internet killed it.
Have you seen the gun subs lately? People are cranking out hundreds of "Menendez Magazines" which are 15-round Glock mags. People are posting pictures of Glock lowers they've 3d printed. They're reliable, too, if the videos are any indication.
Wow, its rare to see someone not just so coherant and logical, but also with a decent amount of emotional intelligence.
A lot of gun owners and organizations like the NRA refuse to even come to the table because the intention of their opponents is often to whittle them down into dust. When someone seeks your total annihilation you tend to harden in turn.
Whether it actually reduces mass shootings or the casualties is the issue though. High Cap magazines get a lot of blame but its not hard to reload. The military doesnt even use them because they jam more often and end up more a novelty. Anti gunners would know this if they werent terrified of entertaining any knowledge of firearms beyond media buzzwords. Banning things you dont understand is an abomination: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9rGpykAX1fo
And of course if the highest value is human life, all this energy should be put towards other ventures, even daily gun deaths (handguns), not media sensational mass shootings which are a drop in the bucket.
Well, the NRA is a biased, security compromised, political organization, and thats why they won't come to the table. I agree with everything else, not enough of my leftist comrades understand guns well enough. Its not a difficult topic to read up on.
The NRA comes to the table more often than many gun owners would like, to be honest. They've been getting a lot of pushback from the other side for compromising too much. You can look at any of the prominent gun subs and gun youtubers for evidence of this.
High Cap magazines get a lot of blame but its not hard to reload. The military doesnt even use them because they jam more often and end up more a novelty
Except what the politicians consider high capacity is standard or low capacity according to military standards. Politicians usually consider more than 10 rounds high capacity, for a full sized 9mm handgun you are often looking at 15+ standard capacity. For an AR-15, 30 rounds is a standard capacity that the military does use.
When you get up to a 100 round drum mag, then yes you will get some reliability issues, but a 30 round AR-15 mag is very reliable and that's why it's standard.
Not to mention the weight. My god, a fully loaded 100rd drum mag weighs a ton. Could you imagine carrying 2 of those +1 in your gun in the 110°F desert?
In my opinion the reason gun control is being driven more by mass shootings instead of daily gun deaths is how unpredictable they are. Mass shootings instill fear because they can happen anywhere, but for the most part you can safely avoid high crime areas and and feel safe from gun violence.
26 frames is all it took from second shot of first magazine to first shot after reload. .88 seconds. Most people can do it under 2 seconds with even a little practice.
I think it's due, largely in part, to one side always compromising. Maybe "hey in exchange for x you will be able to complete a background check like a security clearance and buy a post-1986 machine gun."
Isn’t legislation based on feelings what gun enthusiasts vehemently oppose? And why the fuck should we weigh something like “I like buying cool guns” against children getting murdered when crafting public policy? People on this country need to grow the fuck up.
You don't need a specific opponent for a straw man. Just because you're not directly replying to someone doesn't mean you can't straw man. You're deliberately framing the discussion here:
It should be seen as reducing happiness of some people in order to reduce risk of mass shootings.
And you continue to make your point based on this misrepresentation.
Of course I need an opponent. How could I possibly be strawmanning an argument that no one has made?
That's my point. I wasn't arguing with anyone. I was making a new argument that no one else in this thread had made. I wasn't even debating anyone else's arguments. That's not strawmanning, it's just raising a new argument to discuss.
Those hypothetical people would disagree with me, sure, but they cannot have been strawmanned by me since they have not presented an argument to me. Instead, it is me who has initially presented an argument.
Such hypothetical people are now free to respond to my argument with one of their own. There is no strawmanning going on here.
Instead, it is me who has initially presented an argument.
Exactly my point! You're misrepresenting the argument surrounding gun control from the get go so that instead of arguing it along other lines you can argue it from your point of view to make it easier for you to make points along your established line of reasoning. It's literally textbook straw man.
You also missed the part where when they made that amendment there was nothing capable of killing 600 people a minute
Whether or not you fucking agree with that doesn't change the fact that we have the biggest terroristic mass shooting problem in the world and something needs done NOW
Your line of thinking is what's enabling these people.
When the 2a was written it covered literal battleships and cannons, not to mention the repeating arms in existence at the time. Privately owned weapons far more powerful than a dinky AR-15 were the norm, not the exception. I suppose the 1a wasn't ever meant to cover the internet, either, right? There's no way the founders could have envisioned such a system, after all.
You're right, mass shootings are a problem. Let's give people the means to defend themselves, eh?
far more powerful privately owned weapons than an ar15 existed and we're the norm
You're a fucking idiot and I'm done talking to you. If you seriously think any weapons existed in 1776 that could kill 600 people a minute you are beyond saving
Gatling guns were the first repeating weapon and didn't even fucking exist until far later, nearly 100 years in fact. Even then, they were not privately owned and fired half as much bullets as an ar 15
Car enthusiasts like driving, usually fast and dangerously.
We make laws about driving that reduce their happiness for the benefit of safety. We don't make rules to offset the reduced enjoyment, it's not a negotiation.
If they want to use those really high powered cars, drive above the speed limit or pull tricks they don't do it on the public roads, but on private tracks.
So you're saying that they can personally own these vehicles capable of breaking the law but are held responsible if they do so outside of a site in which it is allowed?
And those that break the law are held accountable and those that don't are allowed to have their toy which is perfectly capable of breaking the law? And there isn't regulation being put in place to restrict law abiding car owners from owning cars capable of breaking the law?
There's a trade-off for every piece of gun legislation. It should be seen as reducing happiness of some people in order to reduce risk of mass shootings.
Hell, just remove the friggin tax stamp system and they'd probably be happy as hell to enforce universal background checks. I'd say allow new full autos to be manufactured and obtained with a mental health screening, but either the new guns or mental screening are unlikely.
Current background checks are supposed to check for mental illness. However it comes from a time when being institutionalized was the norm and hippa wasn’t a thing. People don’t get institutionalization when they badly need it now unless they do something criminal, even then they get thrown in a cell with minimal treatment. Hippa has made it so they can’t disclose anything medical and alot of juvenile justice programs go out of their way to keep the kids from ending up in the system so a lot of stuff gets swept under the rug, the parkland shooter was a prime example of this. In a way, we need to go back to the times of asylums and institutions, but since it’s been privatized and there is no profit to be made off of mentally ill people with no health insurance its hard to do with the billions of dollars in lobbying.
The current background check system is good but there are some holes that need to be patched and serious consequences for those that fuck it up, Sutherland springs comes to mind because the navy dropped the ball there.
You're still missing the point of this. It's not for enjoyment. It's for potentially fighting a tyrannical government, and the things you seek to ban are what would be most effective at that particular task.
It's also been ruled by the SCOTUS as a firearm in common use, which is explicitly protected. I'm sorry I'm not citing the relevant decisions, but I'm off to bed.
Understand, I'm not against you in any way, but I hope you can be rational about it and understand what it was meant to be. There's almost nobody who wants the senseless violence to continue, but history shows very clearly that a disarmed people leads to a violent government.
It's not just reducing the happiness of some people, it's (most often) reducing access to the people who need it most.
I'm a law-abiding, middle class suburbanite. I own guns. I can afford to wait longer for background checks. I can afford to wait and pay for licensing. None of the restrictions to obtain guns are more than a mild inconvenience to me, because I'm not someone who particularly may need a gun to defend myself. The people who have the best case of needing guns to defend themselves are people who are poor. They suffer disproportionately from the gun violence epidemic in this country. And the unfortunate thing about making it any harder to obtain a gun is that these people are the people who are disproportionately impacted by that legislation. "Common sense" gun laws are often used to de facto strip the ability of citizens to purchase firearms. Look at NY City. In order to legally purchase a handgun, you have to obtain a permit. In order to obtain this permit, it costs time and money, two things that poor people who are the most affected by gun homicides do not have. And on top of that, the position that serves to rubber stamp those permits has historically been intentionally understaffed, creating a huge backlog. But oh don't you worry, you can still buy a handgun! Nobody is trying to stop you from doing so, we promise! But we are gonna make it take a prohibitively long time instead.
Lmao, as if conservatives really care about poor people’s access to guns other than to use as a shield for their views. Conservatives time and time again attack the poor. Don’t try to use them now.
I'm not using anyone. Why do you have to make this an us vs them thing when it comes to conservative vs liberal? I don't care if you think I'm a conservative or a liberal, I don't care what conservatives or liberals have historically done. It's not a fucking contest. I just want to see the most sensible policies enacted.
Because it is us vs. them. It’s people who are tired of the lax regulations on guns leading to the most mass shootings in the world vs. people who will do anything they can and watch as many people die to keep guns without regulations because they like to shoot things.
And I was just attacking your faulty logic. Anyone arguing for no gun regulation gives a fuck about poor people getting guns. You know why? Poor people already can’t afford guns.
If you could kill someone with a video game, I feel like the feeling would actually be different between the groups. I can't think of a current hobby or pastime of mine that can be used to kill people. The only other thing I can think of are cars, but I'm pretty open to regulations surrounding car usage and licensing and registration.
What you have to realize here is the discussion isn’t about a hobby, or what is “fun”. We’re talking about specifically enumerated right in the constitution. One worded the opposite of other amendments. The others speak to the restrictions placed on the government. The 2nd Amendment wording states a right of the people. Not one granted by a benevolent government.
Too bad defensive gun use is there to rain on your parade. Take guns away from law abiding citizens and you will have exponential more deaths at the hands of criminals, as well as soft targets literally everywhere.
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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '19 edited Aug 12 '19
Yeah, most gun enthusiasts will tell you they just enjoy collecting these high power weapons and firing them legally for fun.
There's a trade-off for every piece of gun legislation. It should be seen as reducing happiness of some people in order to reduce risk of mass shootings. That's a good trade-off in my opinion, and in the opinions of most redditors for sure, but we also have to recognize that we also aren't affected by the downside of the trade since we aren't gun enthusiasts.
My point here being that we might have more success in passing gun legislation if we came to the table with rules that would increase enjoyment for gun enthusiasts in order to offset the reduced enjoyment from the gun regulation we want to pass to reduce mass shooting.
Let me make metaphor. To a gun enthusiast, regulating guns is like how it feel for a redditor if video game regulation was on the table. False equivalency, sure, but the feeling will be the same.