Gun control

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Shilo
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Re: Gun control

Post by Shilo »

I hope that someone stateside can enlighten me. I have seen this figure of 30000 gun deaths per year bandied about. Who is it the mostly gets shot?
Secondly I have heard that a state with the most lenient gun laws and least gun crime is Vermont. Can anyone confirm this? I genuinely would like answers to these questions
As for the Swiss whomever actually has title over the gun is not relevant. The fact remains that most had a working firearm in their possession. If they were going to shoot someone. I don’t think they would be deterred by a slap on the wrist for an mproper use of government property
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Pdxfashionpioneer
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Re: Gun control

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

I'm sorry Shilo, last things first. The Swiss are known for being obsessively methodical and law-abiding so being told that rifle that's locked away in the gun vault is a military weapon, for official use only and as I said
severe
penalties for using it for personal reasons, probably would suffice to keep the Swiss for misusing them.

I am not up to date on Vermont's gun laws nor on their crime statistics. It's a small, sparsely settled, rural state so its statistics can't be compared to the country as a whole, let alone densely populated urban areas.

But as to your first question as to who are those 30,000 people in the US is getting shot and killed every year, I don't have exact up to date figures, but the majority are suicides. This held true even when the "drug wars" in the US were at their height. Next up are homicides and the biggest subcategory is domestic disputes, family then friends. As the social scientists put it, they're the people most likely to upset you enough to get you to kill. And again, this held true through the drug wars years.

Let's keep in mind that disputes among friends and acquaintances include neighborhood disputes that get out of hand. For instance, during the drug wars years, youth street gangs became such a problem that the Portland, Oregon Police Dept. organized a Gang Enforcement Unit to try to get them under control, stop the drive-by shootings, etc. The first teenage gang member who was killed by another such individual with whom he had a disagreement was not shot over gang territory, nor in the midst of drug deal gone bad, it wasn't even over a girl. No, that unfortunate, misguided youth got killed over a disagreement about a DOG!

Despite what we see on television, the number of people killed during the commission of another crime is vanishingly small.

Before I go any further, I would need to consult up to date figures because mass shootings have become so prevalent that since the
Sandy Hook Massacre there has been 50 or so mass shooting per year at US schools and colleges. In other developed countries, maybe a handful. Total. World-wide. Some of which have been stopped and others prevented from started by unarmed school personnel.
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Shilo
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Re: Gun control

Post by Shilo »

Thanks for the info!
Back to the Swiss; As I mentioned a while ago, the problem as I see it is not the possession of guns but people’s attitude to them. Fundamentally the Swiss are humans too and no different from everyone else. It is their society and education which makes the difference. That’s also why they don’t have a litter problem
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Re: Gun control

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Shilo wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:19 amBack to the Swiss; As I mentioned a while ago, the problem as I see it is not the possession of guns but people’s attitude to them. Fundamentally the Swiss are humans too and no different from everyone else. It is their society and education which makes the difference.
That's the enlightened view in the US as well -- it's a societal problem not a legal problem. The United States has a lot of societal issues, not least of which is that it glorifies violence at the expense of everything else; that alone creates a serious problem. Further compounding the problem is that mental health issues in the US carry a very strong stigma which means that a large percentage of the population ignore the symptoms and/or cover them up with a facade. Merely seeking help for a mental health issue can sometimes cause a loss of employment because the employer becomes aware of the issue through communication with their insurance company. Then there's social isolation and disenfranchisement; both of these contribute to radicalisation and the "justification" of violence.

The solution here is to fix the ills of the society not to layer on more and more draconian laws. "Old thinking" has demonstrably failed -- repeatedly; it's time for a new course of action.
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Shilo
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Re: Gun control

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crfriend wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 11:35 am
Shilo wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:19 amBack to the Swiss; As I mentioned a while ago, the problem as I see it is not the possession of guns but people’s attitude to them. Fundamentally the Swiss are humans too and no different from everyone else. It is their society and education which makes the difference.
That's the enlightened view in the US as well -- it's a societal problem not a legal problem. The United States has a lot of societal issues, not least of which is that it glorifies violence at the expense of everything else; that alone creates a serious problem. Further compounding the problem is that mental health issues in the US carry a very strong stigma which means that a large percentage of the population ignore the symptoms and/or cover them up with a facade. Merely seeking help for a mental health issue can sometimes cause a loss of employment because the employer becomes aware of the issue through communication with their insurance company. Then there's social isolation and disenfranchisement; both of these contribute to radicalisation and the "justification" of violence.

The solution here is to fix the ills of the society not to layer on more and more draconian laws. "Old thinking" has demonstrably failed -- repeatedly; it's time for a new course of action.
Absolutely !! No arguments there
Laying my cards on the table; I’m one of the small percentage of Brits who owns a legal firearm. I keep it locked in a steel cabinet as instructed by the licence conditions Only use it at my club or on private land and would never consider using it to threaten anyone. I used to be periodically visited by the police when my licence was due for renewal. This has now Ben delegates to a civilian function. On one occasion there must have been a firearms officer available so they sent an ordinary beat cop. She treated me as if I was a potential serial killer. So unlike the regular FAOs
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Pdxfashionpioneer
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Re: Gun control

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I agree with both Carl and Shilo on the root causes of the unchecked epidemic of gun violence and therefore the long-term solutions.

Where I disagree is on the immediate responses. In the 1920’s when automobile ownership and usage was becoming a common occurrence, so did deaths caused by motor vehicles. As a first step, we Instituted a system of drivers licensing and automobile registration. The first to ensure that all drivers had some basic competency behind the wheel and a rudimentary knowledge of the motor vehicle laws. The latter was meant to ensure that if anyone was injured by someone else’s auto, it would be easier to identify the owner, who, btw, holds strict liability for those injuries. Mind you, this was for a product that was well on its way to becoming a practical necessity and was never meant to hurt anyone.

When we learned that automobiles were not as safe as they could be, legal standards were set for personal safety equipment such as seat belts and built-in safety standards such as minimum protection standards for bumpers and now passenger compartments.

Finally, as states found that too many people were getting harmed without recompense from the guilty parties, we now have mandatory insurance laws.

On the other hand, firearms, as I pointed out before, are intentionally lethal and in the US none of the public safety measures we put on car drivers, owners and manufacturers are imposed upon their gun counterparts. In fact, firearms are specifically exempted from the Consumer Product Safety Act and gun manufacturers and dealers are exempted from all liability for gun deaths no matter how outrageous their acts!

It’s my firm belief that if all modern firearms had to be registered, users licensed and regularly tested for bare minimum proficiency and required to carry liability insurance there would be far fewer guns and with that far fewer gun deaths. Many people who buy guns for self-protection soon tire of them, hide them on the top shelf of their bedroom closet where their kid finds it and accidentally blows his little buddy away. Or the neighborhood cat burglar finds and steals it as that most valuable of commodities, an untraceable gun!

If people like that had to pay an insurance premium on it every month, they’d soon find a legal means to get rid of it so their name is off of it. On the other hand, after the requisite moaning and groaning, serious, responsible gun owners would probably find these a small price to pay.

Why go through all this, when at heart the problem is the All-American predilection for violence? Because beating that problem into submission will take a LONG time. In the meantime, we need to do what we can to turn down the insane number of Americans getting killed by guns, year in and year out!

For sure, the black market in guns would dry up and blow away, because few people would be so foolish as to run the risk of selling their gun outside the legal channel to another person who might in turn use it for criminal activity or sell it to a criminal.
Last edited by Pdxfashionpioneer on Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sinned
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Re: Gun control

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Dave, that is a refreshing post, with common sense solutions. Not that they will get implemented, of course. I agree also with Carl in that your society's ills need correcting. Since your American Rifle Association seems to have a lot of political clout then maybe the first step should be to reduce its contact and sway with your legislators since any attempt to implement any form of gun control will have them gnashing their teeth at the prospect. Over here mental health issues doesn't have the stigma it used to have. I think that with figures such as Prince William highlighting it and other important figures giving their experiences than it is just becoming another health issue. At one time I was off work for nearly a year with stress and depression and it wasn't until relatively recently that I realised that this was classed as a mental health issue.
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Re: Gun control

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A couple of things I am in favor of better back round searches for gun owners but I don't want to give the government another list to control people.

I don't feature the government having a list of all gun owners.

The gang enforcement in Portland seems like a good Idea but it will most likely be defunded. As was the special crimes unit in NYC .

in all of these new " communities" that developed there were many individuals with weapons I would doubt if they were legal gun owners

People need to feel safe and reducing the police departments is not the way. with all the talk of defunding the police, gun sales have greatly increased

If suicide is the greatest amount of gun deaths you have to address the reason for the desperation because the people that desperate will find another method.

I don't know the answer but putting more regulations on law abiding citizens is not the answer .
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Re: Gun control

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Sinned wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 10:59 amDave, that is a refreshing post, with common sense solutions. Not that they will get implemented, of course. I agree also with Carl in that your society's ills need correcting.
The biggest problem with the ownership of private firearms in the United States is that there are two "churches" of approach, and both have completely opposite and naive stances devoid of rational thought and realistic ideas. On one side you have the NRA, which Sinned has alluded to, and on the other you have the radical "left" who wants to disarm everybody (save for those who hold power, of course). Since both sides operate out of faith rather than reality there can be no middle ground -- and that's where the solution lies. (And why this thread could -- and still can -- go toxic.)

Another problem we have is a hodgepodge of state and sometimes local laws regarding the matter, and very little harmonisation of them at a national level. I will agree that the problem is different in Detroit than, say Montpelier (Vermont), but the disparity in law creates problems. Another interesting facet is that just about everybody -- including gun owners -- agrees that better control is required, but differ on what measures to take. If the laws are draconian in nature, it'll be the law-abiding citizen that will suffer the brunt of the issue whilst the criminal won't care -- and that's counterproductive.

Numbers are also manipulated and spun in different ways, for different purposes. One thing I'd like to see is the number of suicides removed from the number of "gun fatalities". From a personal perspective, if life has gotten so bad that it is intolerable, an individual has an inalienable right to remove himself of his own free will. Full stop. However, the government regards that as "destruction of government property" and outlaws it. A suicide is not the killing of another. We also need to separate out the number of people shot and killed by the police (whether lawfully or not) because the number contaminates the magnitude of the problem at hand.

So, if the reader is getting the impression that the true nature of the problem isn't well understood, good: because that was the message. What is glaringly obvious, however, is that old school approaches to the problem have not worked, and will not work; we need new thinking on the matter and a new approach. I think that fixing the societal problems will go a long way towards solving the issue and to stop treating the tools as inherently evil objects with will of their own. Recall that it takes three things to initiate a "shooting": a firearm, ammunition, and a shooter -- remove any one of those and the problem goes away. The first two are inanimate objects; the third is capable of learning and altering behaviours. Start with the third.
At one time I was off work for nearly a year with stress and depression and it wasn't until relatively recently that I realised that this was classed as a mental health issue.
Absolutely that qualifies -- and could disqualify you from owning a firearm in some jurisdictions of the US because of the stigma, to the point where the police would show up and confiscate any you had.
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Re: Gun control

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Recent enactment of "Red Flag Laws " allowing officials to take guns away from certain people who are deemed unsafe. would seem reasonable.

However considering the extent that some local officials greatly exceeded their authority in regards to Covid 19 concerns presents a great chance for these same officials to impose their own gun laws
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Re: Gun control

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Sinned wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 10:59 am ...
Since your American Rifle Association seems to have a lot of political clout then maybe the first step should be to reduce its contact and sway with your legislators since any attempt to implement any form of gun control will have them gnashing their teeth at the prospect.
...
The leaders of the NRA have been found to be stealing company funds big time. There is talk of legally disbanding the NRA. I think that would be a good thing.
NRA lawsuit: NY attorney general accuses Wayne LaPierre, other execs in multi-million dollar fraud scheme
August 6, 2020

The leaders of the powerful National Rifle Association were accused Thursday of participating in a fraud scheme that contributed to $64 million in losses and financed lavish lifestyles featuring private jet travel to exclusive resorts, according to a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who seeks to shut down the gun rights organization.
...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 309412001/
The NRA used to be a gun safety and education organization; they supported reasonable gun control. Their history is not "gun rights".
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Re: Gun control

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Jim, Thank you for the updates. It would be great to see the NRA get back to fact-based gun safety and proficiency classes.

OMG Carl! There are so many mistaken notions in your screeds I hardly know where to begin or end so I'll just respond to a few of the most egregious and quit so I can make dinner sometime before midnight.
Carl said, on the other (hand) you have the radical "left" who wants to disarm everybody

This is nothing but NRA propaganda. It has no basis in fact.
just about everybody -- including gun owners -- agrees that better control is required, but differ on what measures to take

Again, not true. There are many specific measures that people in general have been polled on and when the gun owners have been pulled out of the survey sample, the majority of gun owners agree with.
if life has gotten so bad that it is intolerable, an individual has an inalienable right to remove himself of his own free will
I think most people, including most mental health professionals, would agree with this. As far as it goes. The fallacy is that in-person interviews with people who had unsuccessfully (if that's the right word) attempted suicide established some interesting facts. The average time between when the person decided to attempt suicide and their acting on the thought was five minutes! Hardly time enough to reason out all of the implications, consider alternatives, etc. Coming that close to death convinced nearly all of those surveyed that they would never think seriously about ever doing it again.

As most psychologists have been saying for years, most people who attempt suicide don't really want to die; the attempt is a desperate cry for help!
the government regards that as "destruction of government property" and outlaws it

Really Carl?! Those laws have been on the books for a VERY long time. I suspect since the Victorian Era when the purpose would have been to literally legislate morality.
stop treating the tools as inherently evil objects with will of their own

And just who exactly thinks that?!

Let's go back to the folks who think they want to commit suicide. In five minutes one can quite easily open up their gun vault remove their handgun, load it, put it up against their head and squeeze the trigger. My ex- can tell you from personal experience, it's no fun cleaning up the aftermath.

More to the point, in over 90% of the cases of attempted suicide by firearm there's no chance of second-guessing oneself because they're dead! Looking at all other known suicide attempts, the statistics flip-flop; 90-some percent of the attempts do NOT result in death. So red-flag laws and waiting periods would prevent a large number of those deaths that even the attempter would find regrettable.

As to collecting national statistics on the nature of gun violence, starting with separating out how much of each type is out there is a great idea, because you're right, some of the solutions may mitigate all types of gun deaths, but at some point, the types with the highest remaining body counts will require their own treatment. Who has prevented the CDC from getting such basic data? The NRA.
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Re: Gun control

Post by Ray »

Dave,

No need to be quite as blunt with your opening comments regarding Carl. Civility is better.
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Re: Gun control

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Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 6:13 am Jim, Thank you for the updates. It would be great to see the NRA get back to fact-based gun safety and proficiency classes.

OMG Carl! There are so many mistaken notions in your screeds I hardly know where to begin or end so I'll just respond to a few of the most egregious and quit so I can make dinner sometime before midnight.
Carl said, on the other (hand) you have the radical "left" who wants to disarm everybody

This is nothing but NRA propaganda. It has no basis in fact.

[
If it has no basis in fact than why are the people who are most vocal on taking away guns DEMOCRATS extreme DEMOCRAT s
BIDEN , BUTTIGIEG ,KL0BUCHAR, SANDERS , WARREN HARRIS, BOOKER

YOU WANT MORE NAMES

Are these people figments of the NRA's propaganda

oh yea I forgot the biggest figment BETO O'ROURKE
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Re: Gun control

Post by Kirbstone »

I'm firmly with the radical 'left' on this one. Let's disarm everybody, so long-range and mass killings disappear.

Then there'll be the much more difficult problem of taking knives off everybody.
After that, the blunt instruments remain, so those who want to kill someone will find a way to do it, no matter what.

Utopia will forever remain elusive.

Tom
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