Gabby Giffords Gun Violence Initiative

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Originally Posted by Spartana

"Am I the abused woman who's hubby is trying to kill me for leaving him and I need to protect myself and my kids, or the angry wife who just discovered the home address of the new mistress and want to visit her with my shiney new gun"? Hard to tell, so having a couple of weeks cool down period is a good thing imo.

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I usually found it pretty easy to tell from the bruises, sprains, broken bones, and physical evidence of rape. I know more-than-a-few women who would be dead today had they had a waiting period to contend with, to "cool off". They would have cooled off. In the morgue.

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Originally Posted by Spartana

Thus enabling you to shoot hundreds of rounds in a "regular" handgun just as fast as with a semi-automatic assault-style rifle like an AR-15. And lets not forget that even a regular hunting rifle or pump action shotgun can be used to shot multiple rounds in seconds. They are just not as easily reloadable.

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Actually, correctly configured, you can reload a bolt action rifle incredibly quickly - check out how the British Enfield rifle works. And with proper training, you can keep a pump action shotgun or lever-action rifle firing almost constantly, you don't run it dry, pause to reload, then continue - you reload in progress.

I have a US military assault rifle from 1874. It is a single-shot rifle, each new cartridge must be loaded in by hand. I can fire an honest 45 rounds a minute from it, until I run out of ammunition. It can put a bullet through 3 inches of oak and 8 inches of sand backing at 3500 yards. A bullet roughly 7x the weight of the bullet the AR-15 typically fires. At the Second Battle of Adobe Walls, a man was dropped at ~1500 yards by a shot with one of these (or something very similar).

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Originally Posted by bae

And of course, Spartana, there exists before-and-after data in California speaking to the effectiveness of the various recent-ish California laws, which really started in the 1980s. And that data shows pretty much zero effectiveness, significant cost, reduction of freedoms of law-abiding citizens, and so on.

But data and reasoning aren't the order of the day. Childish sophistry from a sock-puppet is.

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Back in the late 1980's as I was just getting out of the Coast Guard and finishing up my (almost useless) Bach. in Criminal Justice at a Calif state university, in class us senior students would spend hours and days in round table kinds of discussion on the current gun laws in Calif and their relative effectivness. And like anything else in the world, we discovered just how easily it was to manipulate data to go anyway you want. So now I have a tendancy to look at data from unbiased places like the Justice Dept that just handle statistics rather then groups that are either pro or anti gun (including NRA stats) as most have one agenda or another and can easily manipulate the data. But over all, my personal view and data from relatively unbiased sources support your data that restrictions on certain types of firearms (like the former Federal semi-auto rifle ban) do not lead to a reduction in gun violence - and certainly not a reduction in mass shootings. Even yesterday, here in Calif, a student took a regular, no need to register, hgunting shotgun into his class and shot a fellow student and grazed a teacher. The teacher (bravely IMHO) was able to put himself in front of the shooter and talk him out of shooting more people and get the shotgun away from him. Otherwise he could have shot - and probably killed - many more. This is a firearm that is owned and used worldwide and in almost all places - including Canada that no longer has a long gun registry - does not require registraion or licensing. It is also one of the most common firearms used n the commission of crimes and shootings. This gun, which holds numerous shells and can be fired rapidly - less then a second between rounds and can do much more physical damage then a handgun or rifle round - would not be any more regulated under the current proposed assaut rifle ban then it is now.

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Originally Posted by gimmethesimplelife

Hi Spartana! Thanks for posting - I always like it when you respond to my posts (smiley face here).

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Thanks Rob - I do hope you stay around (at least here at this site even if you are living in some quaint fishing village in Mexico and lying on the beach drinking margaritas all day!) as I think you have a lot to offer. Yes Canada and those other countries mention are relatively peaceful places in terms of gun violence - even if there are lots of hunting rifles and shot guns there.I think that we can learn alot from their society on how best to address our situation to make these kinds of instances (mass shootings) very rare or non-existent in the future. Of course all of Canada and those Northern European countries are buried in 200 feet of snow three-quarters of the year so maybe that helps when it comes to gun violence. It's just too darn cold and snowy to venture outside :-)!

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Originally Posted by Gregg

One important consideration Rob... Just because there are 88 guns for every 100 people in the US it does not in any way mean there are 88 people out of every 100 with guns. A 2011 Gallup poll estimated 47% of American households own at least one gun. The gap between 47% and 88/100 is closed because a lot of people own more than one. That 88/100 figure is, in the grand scheme of things, meaningless and it is often used in deceptive ways.

A possibly more important thing to remember is that poll numbers reflect responsible owners of legal guns. No one knows how many illegal guns there are and how many criminals they are distributed between. That is, as always, the elephant in the room.

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That's true Gregg. I was only using it as a statisic for comparability purposes to other countries not saying that 88 out of every 100 people own a legally registered firearm - same with the other countries mentioned. I agree that of the approx. 300 million registered legally owned guns out there is the USA, most are owned by people who have more then one (and I'm one of those people) and my belief is that less then one-tenth of a percent (probably less) of those legal firearms owners have ever, and will ever, engage in any kind of criminal or mass shooting kind of situations.

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Originally Posted by jp1

I could be wrong, and I hate to put words in someone else's mouth, but since bicker hasn't answered I will, and he/she can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they intended simultaneous possession to mean "carrying around on their person at any given moment" as opposed to "all of the guns one owns".

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I'll have to re-read what Bicker wrote but I understood he/she meant that they didn't see any reason for anyone to own more then 2 firearms at any given time - not carry. I don't know the law in other states but in Calif a CCW is often only for one specific handgun not multiple concealed handguns. And since it's only handguns (pistols and revolvers) the CCW permits are for (they don't include things like shotguns or rifles) I guess I just assumed that Bicker was talking about ownership rather then carrying a concealed gun. But I'll reread that post.

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Originally Posted by bicker

......This is a self-deception. I have responded, completely and comprehensively......

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I'll agree with the fact that you have responded, but unfortunately you haven't answered a single question or advanced any discussion. I may be a bit slow at times but I think I've finally gotten the point you're conveying.

I'll be interested in seeing how future discussions go.

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Originally Posted by jp1

After reading through this thread I have to say that I am much heartened to see a good debate on possible solutions and their merits or lack of merit, carried out mainly by the gun owners on this forum.

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As a gun owner I'll take that as a compliment ;-)! I actually posted almost the exact same thing on those other 2 recent "gun debate" threads as I have here so I feel like I'm really repeating myself, but I think it's important to look at all aspects of the debate and try to come up with a solution. Of course this debate, like any debate, is going to be subject to different ideas as to the causes and to the solutions.

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Originally Posted by bae

I usually found it pretty easy to tell from the bruises, sprains, broken bones, and physical evidence of rape. I know more-than-a-few women who would be dead today had they had a waiting period to contend with, to "cool off". They would have cooled off. In the morgue.

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True. But maybe having to go into hiding for awhile is the best thing there is for people like that. Or finding an experienced and trained protector would be the best if the police aren't able to do that. I am quite wary of an inexperienced - and possibly highly emotional - untrained person (one who may have children to protect as well) getting a gun asap in that kind of highly emotional situation. I think that could make the situation much worse. I think it would be wise to find an alternative solution for the immediate protection needs and then work towards becoming trained before just issuing a firearm. Now if the person is already experienced, trained and comfortable with firearms then that is different.

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Originally Posted by creaker

If you extend this logic, any law that someone would be willing to break is ineffective. Why have laws specific to things like "armed robbery" or "assault with a deadly weapon" when it does not appear to stop people from using weapons comitting these crimes?

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Originally Posted by Yossarian

Presumably people who break those laws think that the reward > (risk * penalty). They probably think that they won't get caught or if they do, hey, do your 5 years and get out. So either we need to increase the risk or the penalty.

In the mass shootings I have heard of I don't know any of them that had a real plan to escape death or capture. What is the incremental penalty that you are going to impose on top of suicide or 27 murder convictions that would have made a difference?

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I think Yos pretty much nailed it. Deterrents work because almost everyone in our society 1) has a fairly defined sense of right and wrong (and wants to do right), and 2) even for those who would cross the line the risk is too high. I don't know what percentage of our population is involved in criminal activity, but I have to believe it is very low. What, maybe 2% tops? Using that figure just for example that means the laws are effective at keeping 98% of the population in line. Some of the 2% will get caught, some won't. Then there is that 1/10,000th of 1% who do not bother to even consider the laws. Or other humans. Or much of anything beyond their own world. As Yos said, if someone has already determined that they will die what deterrent is there to add? We will always have those people and they will always find a way to do harm. Unfortunately, no law will change that.