Everything but bolt actions rifles should be banned for home use and storage (nod to hunters). All other guns can be stored at licensed facilities for sport (nod to sportsmen). Buybacks should ensue. Extensive background checks should be required for all purchases. A mental health bill should be introduced in parallel to fund mental health professionals for high school age kids targeting angry white males and getting them the help they need before it's too late. None of this will "solve" the problem immediately or ever fully but it will my belief is it will begin the process so that my kids and their kids will live in a safer environment and a less violent culture. None of this will happen until a Democrat controls all three branches of government and even then it will be an uphill battle.
Gun Control (Spray yourself down when entering and exiting the thread)
- Thread starter Crolis
- Start date
Moved from Msc theread
The complaint about the assault weapon ban is also bogus. Assault weapon bans and universal background checks seem like "low hanging fruit" to most people and I think the gun culture people like restricting the conversation to them. The fact is, it really doesn't matter if a shooting death is during a mass shooting or single homicides. Does it matter if 255 people are killed in mass shootings or 8,000 in single incidences? They are all dead by gun related violence including suicide with 17,000 injuries half way through the year.
Restricting ourselves to mass shootings and rapid fire guns plays into the hands of the people who want to obstruct the conversation just as the ban on financing gun related violence research obstructs the evaluation of solutions. There is no use in trying to include people in the conversation whose main purpose is to stop the discussion and are not participating honestly. Like the people who abuse free speech under the guise of protecting it, the gun safety obstructionist will continue to delay resolution to both mass shootings and the larger and more general problem of non-mass shooting gun violence.
We do need the sane people in the gun culture. The ones who understand the need for gun safety in a society that protects private gun ownership. They tend to be well informed and when engaging in talk about safety are quite valuable in finding the least restrictive, but effective means of preventing gun violence. We need to take the "wedge" out of the issue and work on real solutions.
The complaint about the assault weapon ban is also bogus. Assault weapon bans and universal background checks seem like "low hanging fruit" to most people and I think the gun culture people like restricting the conversation to them. The fact is, it really doesn't matter if a shooting death is during a mass shooting or single homicides. Does it matter if 255 people are killed in mass shootings or 8,000 in single incidences? They are all dead by gun related violence including suicide with 17,000 injuries half way through the year.
Restricting ourselves to mass shootings and rapid fire guns plays into the hands of the people who want to obstruct the conversation just as the ban on financing gun related violence research obstructs the evaluation of solutions. There is no use in trying to include people in the conversation whose main purpose is to stop the discussion and are not participating honestly. Like the people who abuse free speech under the guise of protecting it, the gun safety obstructionist will continue to delay resolution to both mass shootings and the larger and more general problem of non-mass shooting gun violence.
We do need the sane people in the gun culture. The ones who understand the need for gun safety in a society that protects private gun ownership. They tend to be well informed and when engaging in talk about safety are quite valuable in finding the least restrictive, but effective means of preventing gun violence. We need to take the "wedge" out of the issue and work on real solutions.
This is so very hard. I happily call myself a liberal Gun Nut.
Ars Mods, I am aware that term was previously banned as an insult. I am not calling anyone else that, I am using it to describe myself.
I am a Democrat who enjoys firearms. So much so I bought another assault rifle. I disagree with most Democrats on gun control, but I still vote Democrat because there are far more important concerns for me than owning guns. Like health care, freedom of speech, privacy, etc.
I'd like to support sane and rational gun control. Gun control is rarely sane or rational. As an example. If you buy a pistol from the store, you can convert that pistol into a rifle, and back to a pistol. But if you buy a rifle from the store, you can never convert it to a pistol. That is an immediate Federal felony. You can buy American manufactured AR-15s, but you cannot buy Foreign manufactured AR-15s because they aren't sporting.
The other half of gun control is emotional. I will admit when talking about health care, I can get pretty emotional because it affects me very personally. And so I can understand why people involved in talking about gun control can get very emotional. But when you do that, you aren't thinking dispationally.
I see a lot of gun control proposals that are purely political. Going after assault rifles while ignore handguns is a classic example. Mass shootings make great headlines, but only make up 5% of deaths. Handguns and pistols make up 60%. Why are there no serious proposals to legislate pistols (magazine capacity restrictions don't even count as handgun legislation)?
To legislate guns, one should understand guns. Willful ignorance while advocating to ban the shoulder thing that goes up creates an everlasting imagine. And my personal favorite.
“This is a ghost gun. This right here has the ability with a 30-caliber clip to disperse with 30 bullets within half a second. 30 magazine clip within half a second,”
Everything about that statement is completely wrong.
So, how do you take the wedge out of the issue? How do you get a gun control component to come with an agreement with someone like me? And I'm already voting Democrat, so I'm the easy convert compared to Conservative voters. But we would have to come to some sort of compromise. It's not a one way street. Gun owners need to get something out of an agreement in exchange for giving something up. And be extremely careful using the words Ban, Confiscation, Registry, and Mandatory. That immediately causes most gun owners to shut down and stop being willing to talk. And you can thank New York and California for permanently burning the bridges of trust between gun owners and most gun control proposals.
The problem with the bulk of these people IMHO is not that they don't exist, it's that they aren't willing to vote for a Democrat if their GOP rep doesn't enact reform. That leaves the GOP politicians with no reason to change and instead cater to the hardliners who will be incensed if the GOP does anything.
Can you define the difference between "hunters" and "sportsmen"? Those are typically synonyms. What did you have in mind for "sport" and "licensed facilities"?
I'm assuming the buybacks are voluntary, what's the next step when everybody willing to turn over their guns has done so?
How much more extensive should these be? What specifically should be checked? Or do you just mean that every purchase should require the same background check as if you purchased from a FFL? Or maybe just no purchases outside a FFL?
Hunters being people that need to carry their bolt-action rifle to hunt in the morning and thus can't store it in a licensed facility. Sportsmen being people that compete or just like shooting guns at the range. Licensed facilities being ranges as a starting point but can be expanded by someone that knows more about the various sports. The key being a secure location that has regulation/inspection to make sure that security is in place.
My initial thought would be something like a 10 year voluntary buyback and then a ban after that point (outside licensed facilities of course).
Maybe extensive is the wrong word. I would probably be ok with the level of background checks that happen now, but removal of any of the loopholes that currently exist such that every single purchase has one.
I don't think you have any meaningful statistics on the effects of my proposal over the course of say 30 years.
I can compare my likelihood of being murdered in the US vs say Finland or Australia.
Feel free to actually do the work if you want to contribute to this thread. Note my proposal is aimed at not only curbing mass shootings but all gun related crime AND suicide.
Thanks for the clarifications. Just FYI, people who do things like 3-gun and IDPA tend to call themselves "gamers", which is super confusing. Maybe "competitive shooters" would be a better name? "Sportsmen" really does mean "hunters", so "hunters" and "competitive shooters" might be better terms to refer to those two groups of people. There's a third class to consider, "recreational shooters". People who just like sending lead down range to punch holes in paper. They're not interested in competing and they're not interested in killing anything. You may or may not be ok with eliminating this group. They're kind of the "mushy middle" of gun rights arguments. They enjoy shooting to various degrees and would be ok with owning or renting their guns to various degrees. I'm one of these--I don't own any firearms, but I enjoy shooting them and will occasionally pay for range time and gun rentals.
Honestly I don't care about getting rid of any specific class. If hunters/sportsmen can do their thing with a bolt action rifle stored at home then good! If both competitive shooters and recreational shooters can do their thing at the licensed facility then great! I'm also open to certain shotguns being allowed at home for hunting fowl.
This seems right to me and would be a healthier conversation to have. While this is the kind of outcome I want, I have some sympathy for the pro-gun people who see some of the proposals as a bit fishy. We could enact universal background checks and at some point after that there'd be another mass shooting with one of the millions of existing guns. I *really* doubt liberals at that point would shrug and say "Well, we've got the background checks. There's nothing else to be done". The real solution is large scale disarmament and whether or not we want to do that is a more honest debate.
That's perfect! Given it's also a statistically miniscule inconvenience for people to have their access to any and all firearms removed entirely!
Seems pretty balanced to me if we're comparing aggregate impacts over total populations.
This is why I want to be as upfront as possible about my goals. I'm not about slippery sloping my way into this deceptively. These would be my eventual goals. If it took a decade to get all this passed then ok but my goals are clear.
There's functionally no real difference between a bolt-action rifle and a pump-action shotgun. Both can hold multiple rounds within the gun but require a manual action to eject a spent casing and load the next round. Neither typically holds more than a half-dozen rounds. The bolt-action rifle is *much* faster to reload than the shotgun.
All that to say that in terms of safety, if you're drawing the line at manually-cycled actions, there's no reason to exclude pump-action shotguns.
Revolvers would probably fall into a similar margin of safety too, so for simplicity's sake you could craft a firearms legislation overhaul that bans semi-automatic actions, and has whatever restrictions you want on storage, purchasing, ownership, etc. of bolt-actions, pump-actions, revolvers, etc. That would be simple to understand and simple to enforce without any stupid "scary black gun" pattern-matching needing to be written into the law. It would cover rifles, handguns, and shotguns and end up banning like 80% of weapons out there.
It would be interesting to know the murder rate per population in each country. Also, compare the ratio of targeted murder (someone you know) vs. random murder.
I still think the possibility of anyone die from a random firearm shooting is relatively low. I am more concerning about the Xenophobia message that draw people to do hateful acts instead of gun at this point. Gun is more a magnify glass for the issues already in the society. It turned every conflicts to 11, and increase the possibility of killing or permanently harm people.
I think if we are interested to reduce mass shooting, may be we should control the gun cartridges size? May be drop the legal cartridges size to 5 or something? That may be a good middle ground of kill gun around while reduce damage of mass shooting.
If we want to go further, we will have to stop all semi-auto. That would leave bolt-action, lever-action, pump-action and single-action revolvers at that point.
I still think the possibility of anyone die from a random firearm shooting is relatively low. I am more concerning about the Xenophobia message that draw people to do hateful acts instead of gun at this point. Gun is more a magnify glass for the issues already in the society. It turned every conflicts to 11, and increase the possibility of killing or permanently harm people.
I think if we are interested to reduce mass shooting, may be we should control the gun cartridges size? May be drop the legal cartridges size to 5 or something? That may be a good middle ground of kill gun around while reduce damage of mass shooting.
If we want to go further, we will have to stop all semi-auto. That would leave bolt-action, lever-action, pump-action and single-action revolvers at that point.
Huge nod to this post. I agree with pretty much everything in it. Intrigued by your ideas, subscribed to your newsletter, etc. I'd also absolutely call myself a 'LGN' (Liberal Gun Nut.) We're definitely not the audience for most of this discussion, as we're already voting D.
One structural element that I always propose but never seem to get much traction: divorce the policy of 'who should get a gun' from the policy of 'what kinds of guns are allowed.' Extensive background checks, mandatory training, etc., are all fair game to me, and I think would eventually get buy in from most R voters - it fits the narrative of 'I'm not the problem'. What's one of the most consistent image memes I see on Facebook from my fellow comp shooters the last 2 days? "Every time there is a shooting crime they want to take guns away from those that didn't do it." Push policy that limits who can get firearms the first place, and as long as most lawful people see themselves in that group and you should have greater policy success in the long term.
There's also the discussion differences between 'what policy can we enact in the next few years' vs. 'what should an ideal society look like in a generation or two?' The former is greatly constrained by the current SCOTUS. A resurrection of the AWB is highly unlikely legally even if possible politically. 'Banning' home ownership of the most popular firearms in the US (which assumes forceful removal) is still a non-starter from a 'can this law pass' perspective.
Yeah I could see that and would be open to it.
Ultimately I would want revolvers banned as well, not due to their loading mechanism but rather their concealability and easier use in suicides.
I'm ultimately uninterested in what can pass now because there are so many blockers to any and all legislation that we might as well not even have the conversation. My proposal is firmly in the "This is what I want."
So you know nothing about guns other than the TV has scared you? Not a good foundation to call for a ban from.
ARs (American Rifle!!!! Yeeehaw!!!!) are sexy. Every action movie uses them. If you know absolutely 0 about guns but want one, you want an AR, an AR that is so "tacticool" it makes gun enthusiasts vomit.
Banning semiautomatic rifles from the AR to the venerable "Browning BAR" *cringe* (it is like they do not know what the "B" is for) is feel good legislation. Banning all shotguns is ??? Banning all pistols? do the police know about this? So adults lose their hobbies because fear.
As I said long ago in one of these previous threads "If people can't get guns they will just use vehicles" since then we have seen vehicles used to devastating effect.
The nightmare terrorist attack that ends the American way of life would work great with bolt action rifles. I do not talk about what this is because I do not want to see it happen. It is worse than a Romanian garage sale nuke removing New York city or LA from the planet in terms of America.
Everyone in Switzerland has a machine gun (not just some little semi automatic) in their closet. No one is shooting up Switzerland. So guns are not the problem. "Guns do not kill people, Incels do."
If we want to fix this:
1. Everyone does gun safety in 6th grade.
2. Everyone needs to be licensed to own firearms. You still have the right to bare them but you have to have some basic knowledge about them. If you are mentally unable to pass or insist on maintaining ignorance, just like a driver's license you do not get a gun license.
3. "Enhanced taxation" for media that caters to the male evolutionary power base (violence).
4. Reduced taxation for media that highlights the importance of intelligence and figuring things out.
5. Make it so gun stores can get sued when someone who clearly screams "I'm mentally ill!!!" gets a gun and shoots up the place. The Giffords shooter and this new "rape list" guy look crazy enough you could spot them from orbit. Gun stores may want to hire a shrink or social engineer to talk to customers. Disbar lawyers who try to abuse this for $$$.
6. STOP REPORTING MASS SHOOTINGS!!!!!! Infotainment glorifying these just leads to more. Make Infotainment sites/stations responsible for mass shootings if they report on them. It works the same way as with suicides (Netflix knew there would be a body count when they released 13 Reasons Why)
7. Rebrand America. Lets become The Smartest Happiest Nation instead of The Most Ass Kicking, Take No Shit, Bad Ass Nation.
8. Make those who sell and profit from hate responsible and let them get sued. The POTUS with be broke 3 days after he leaves office.
9. Go back to Pre-Reagan tax rates and financially brutalize those who are outsourcing/H1B'g the good jobs out of the country. Suck it Disney!
10. Make adulthood something you earn and not something that just happens due to attrition.
11. Spot the incels and work to fix them. "I'm sorry loser, your mom may have told you you are special and will have the most beautiful girl in the world but she was lying. Your narcissism doesn't entitle you to a super model. Now read all these books, groom, and git swol... and change your major to nursing studies from Smoking weed and watching Netflix.".
12. When you need a bumbling villain in a show make it an incel.
13. Stop tracking Muslims and start tracking incels. It would be nice if we could buy 10K sq miles of the Australian outback, wall it in, and ship all the incels there but something something human rights.
14. Kill the child tax credit.
15. Mandate sterility for welfare checks. Make sterility part of the penalty for committing crimes against people.
16. Glorify not having children.
Is this a 100% fix? Nope no Nirvana falsies here. It will stop most of them though. You will still occasionally have someone with an m700 decide they can Whitman a whole pile of people, just like you will have someone floor a snowplow and drive it through a music festival at some point. When you have minute chances of an occurrence but massive numbers to multiply that by bad things will always happen.
I can see where you are going with your proposals. But I have several questions.
What about rural gun owners? Are they expected to store their restricted classification firearms at a facility that could be a two hour drive away?
What about people in NYC that have like only 5 choices to shoot and space is a premium?
How do you travel with a restricted firearm? Competition shooters can store their firearms at a range. But competitions are held around the country. So what sort of transportation is allowed?
I feel fair amount of gun people do not want any tracking? That is why we can do further background check. Also, the gun purchase record is still on micro-film or paper, because gun lobby prevent the purchase record to be digitalized.
USA people can be weird something. They also do not want national ID card, but we already use social security number that way already.
The premise of this whole discussion is unsound.
Having previously been ensconced in gun culture, been to the shows, been to the ranges, been out in the woods, been in the back of the truck, grew up around antique collections, and owned several shapes and sizes myself... I would more deeply consider the impulse and impetus for people who cling to the special status of firearms and lax proliferation constraints around them.
I'd posit they're suffering either from arrested development and/or delusions of grandeur. None of the "reasonable" reasons are the actual reasons. Which makes the entire thing an exercise in knocking down bad faith strawmen.
When the premise of the discussion is based on, "Look. I just really, really like the idea of being able to realize my good-guy/bad-guy murder fantasy. Okay?", so we can be interacting with the actual problem, then we'll be getting somewhere.
Having previously been ensconced in gun culture, been to the shows, been to the ranges, been out in the woods, been in the back of the truck, grew up around antique collections, and owned several shapes and sizes myself... I would more deeply consider the impulse and impetus for people who cling to the special status of firearms and lax proliferation constraints around them.
I'd posit they're suffering either from arrested development and/or delusions of grandeur. None of the "reasonable" reasons are the actual reasons. Which makes the entire thing an exercise in knocking down bad faith strawmen.
When the premise of the discussion is based on, "Look. I just really, really like the idea of being able to realize my good-guy/bad-guy murder fantasy. Okay?", so we can be interacting with the actual problem, then we'll be getting somewhere.
I know registrations are anathema to the pro-gun side. But I think that the only way to stop the flow of guns into inner city locations is to create and maintain a registry with strong penalties for those who violate it.
I would propose a couple of grace periods, after which the penalties for non-compliance would increase. In exchange there would need to be an iron clad law preventing the use of this registry for confiscation or other measures designed to punish those who did register. For example in 2019 I register my firearms, then in 2030 they make the ones I own a prohibited class and the jack booted thugs show up to take my legal yesterday weapon.
By having forcing all firearms into the registry, we can track who owns them and how they travel. Guns in criminal hands aren't magically appearing, some (probably small) group of people are funneling them from jurisdictions with lax laws into areas with strict laws. These handful of people are causing disproportionate harm in the name of profits and should be prohibited from doing so.
With a grandfather law in place for registered guns, there shouldn't be an argument that registering your firearms is an infringement on your right to possess.
I would start with an announcement that firearms sales would continue under currently law for a year. After that all sales need to record the serial number, seller's and buyers identification. After 5 years any firearm found that is not in the database will be confiscated, if necessary kept in evidence for prosecution, and eventually destroyed.
This registration could be implemented alongside the other proposals that people are making.
I would propose a couple of grace periods, after which the penalties for non-compliance would increase. In exchange there would need to be an iron clad law preventing the use of this registry for confiscation or other measures designed to punish those who did register. For example in 2019 I register my firearms, then in 2030 they make the ones I own a prohibited class and the jack booted thugs show up to take my legal yesterday weapon.
By having forcing all firearms into the registry, we can track who owns them and how they travel. Guns in criminal hands aren't magically appearing, some (probably small) group of people are funneling them from jurisdictions with lax laws into areas with strict laws. These handful of people are causing disproportionate harm in the name of profits and should be prohibited from doing so.
With a grandfather law in place for registered guns, there shouldn't be an argument that registering your firearms is an infringement on your right to possess.
I would start with an announcement that firearms sales would continue under currently law for a year. After that all sales need to record the serial number, seller's and buyers identification. After 5 years any firearm found that is not in the database will be confiscated, if necessary kept in evidence for prosecution, and eventually destroyed.
This registration could be implemented alongside the other proposals that people are making.
Agreed, that's a feature not a bug.
I like your proposal. It's both draconian (with respect to the insanely permissive status quo), and simple.
I'm leery of committing in principle right away because gun control is a notoriously tricky subject. Then again, what makes it tricky is any effort to maximize gun rights while substantively increasing public safety. Your proposal admirably cuts to the chase on that score, by simply adopting the view that providing for personal ownership of bolt-action long guns, and regulated sport access to other guns, is as far as society can safely go in the direction of gun rights.
There's a clear-eyed elegance to that stance and I salute it.
This is probably one of the easiest to pass - most gun enthusiasts (that I'm familiar with) aren't rabid on this subject. We know the purchase record can (and is) tracked in many ways, from the card used in the sale to FFL paperwork compliance. Waiting periods also aren't that contentious, and may actually stop a few potential mass shooters who purchase weapons immediately before the crime and for the express purpose of committing that crime.
Want to have an immediate impact on gun sales without involving the government at all? Have Visa/MC/Discover/Amex/etc. refuse to process any firearm transaction. You already can't use Paypal.
Fair enough. What you probably want then is to ban semi-automatic long guns and all handguns. That would leave bolt-action, lever-action, break-action, and pump-action rifles and shotguns. All of those require either manual effort to cycle the action or are restricted to one or two shots before needing to reload (break-action).
That's not a bad set of requirements--it leaves hunters basically untouched, requires a bunch of target shooters to switch weapons, and cuts out pretty much everything else.
I assumed that these numbers are generally well known "off the top of the head" so to speak
In any case.
For my group, homicide rate is about 2.2 per 100K
In Finland or Australia homicide rate is about 1.2 - 1.3 per 100K
Let's say much stricter gun control will lower homicide rates to what, 1.8? Miniscule increase in safety in my book.
Single action revolvers (cowboy style) is something I would place in the bolt-action (manual action) category. Not well suited for criminal use. And if you already have a shotgun, having a cowboy revolver doesn't change the suicide risk.
And yet cars are not the tool of choice for those who want to kill a bunch of people. Dylan Roof did not run down the people he killed, Pulse was not run through by a vehicle, nor did parishioners at First Baptist have someone zoom through the pews with a vehicle but rather had someone walk down the center aisle of the church shooting people in pews. Why are firearms the weapon of choice if vehicles can so easily substitute?
LMAO.
You know nothing about guns CHECK
Guns don;t kill people CHECK
Switzerland absurd claim CHECK
Eugenetics CHECK
This will end well, fact free poster is already spotted and blasting full toot out of his hindquarters.
You know nothing about guns CHECK
Guns don;t kill people CHECK
Switzerland absurd claim CHECK
Eugenetics CHECK
This will end well, fact free poster is already spotted and blasting full toot out of his hindquarters.
We have this in place already with NFA weapons. It's legal to buy and sell machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors (colloquially known as "silencers"), etc.
But (and this is a huge "but"), they're very tightly regulated. They *must* be registered, proof of registration must be with them, and you have to get permission from BATFE to own one before you can take possession of it. Get caught breaking the rules and it's instant confiscation.
This was the solution for machine guns, which were already privately owned in the US before they were "banned", so there's historical precedent. The "ban" was basically saying that these things are too dangerous to just be owned and traded willy-nilly. For some classes of NFA weapons like machine guns, it became illegal for manufacturers to sell them to civilians, so supply was basically eliminated. The ones in circulation can be traded under the NFA stamp rules but no new ones are being added to the pool.
If you wanted to enact a ban on say semi-automatic weapons of all kinds, this is how you'd likely have to do it. You'd have to have a grace period for registrations, probably make the registrations free (as a bone thrown to the gun lobby), then on X date it's no longer legal to sell new ones to the public and any trades require a NFA stamp.
You can read how it all works here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
I don't disagree, I'm just trying to help Crolis out with requirements. One thing he wanted was "not concealable", which means no handguns of any kind. Sure you can't fire a cowboy revolver any faster than a pump shotty, but you can fit the cowboy revolver in your jacket pocket.
So let's run with .4 people saved per 100K. There are 325 Million people in the US. That translates to 1,300 people saved every year.
I'm not too sure of how efficacious vehicles will be generally for mass casualty incidents, but this is an absurd response to the point. Firearms are the weapon of choice because of easy availability and fit for use, obviously. The question is what will happen if they're not. A cargo van can (and has) been used to kill an enormous number of people in a short time, but it's much harder to do on impulse. Bombs are still, by far, the most lethal thing that can be used to cause mass casualties, but once again it's not an impulse thing, and it also requires skills that are harder to learn than 'buy gun, pull trigger'.
Back on topic, I don't think Crolis has seen what can be done with even a minimum amount of practice time with a shotgun, lever gun, or even a bolt action rifle. Watch WWI themed 3-gun comps or Cowboy Action Shooting comps. For a society to be safe from mass casualty events caused by guns, there would have to be no guns.
That is not safety, that is a rounding error.
The first time a cop shot at me for fun I was 3, I have knife scars, I stopped a freshly paroled convict from shooting up a party with his 357, with my long history of violence I still know that if I do not get old it will most likely be due to an inattentive driver, not a psycho with a gun.
So Gun owners find no value in saving the lives of 1,300 people every year? I mean if that's true then I don't see why the rest of society would care anything about whatever they care about.