Gun violence in America continues unabated

[SecularMotion]

A deadly shooting Saturday about 30 miles from the nation’s capital came nearly a full year after President Obama made gun control a centerpiece of his 2013 State of the Union address.

Three people, including the suspected gunman, were killed in Saturday’s shooting, which occurred at a mall in Columbia, Md., police said. NBC News reported that the shooting was an apparent domestic incident and not a random shooting.

It was a grim reminder, just days before the president is set to deliver the State of the Union, that gun violence in America proceeds unabated.

The new year is barely three weeks old, and there have already been eight school shootings.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/maryland-shooting-obama-gun-violence

[gejohnston]

1. Even Australian gun laws would not have prevented it

let alone prevented it. BTW, what was with the backpack full of pipe bombs? Were they registered and taxed destructive devices as required under the NFA?
His shotgun, was it NFA compliant? The reason I ask is HuffPo says he took a taxi to the mall. Somehow I don't picture cab drivers in Maryland stopping for some guy with a 12 gauge. He walked into the mall with it, didn't anyone see it and call the cops?
How many fatal school stabbings so far this year? Out of those school shootings and stabbings, how many were in places that have effectively banned guns? Why didn't the federal law banning minors possessing pistols deter those attacks?

[SecularMotion]

2. When Australians gave back their guns

Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer warned Australians to “think twice” before traveling to the United States because you are “15 times more likely to be shot dead.”

“This is the bitter harvest and legacy of the policies of the National Rifle Association that even blocked background checks for people buying guns at gun shows,” Fischer said. “I am deeply angry about this because of the callous attitude of the three teenagers, but it’s a sign of the proliferation of guns on the ground in the U.S.A. There is a gun for almost every American.”

In 1996, after a gunman killed 35 people and wounded 18 others in Port Arthur, a former penal colony turned tourist attraction, Australians collectively decided not to follow what then-Prime Minister John Howard called “the American way” on guns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-australians-gave-back-their-guns/2013/08/23/108458dc-0c09-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html

[gejohnston]

3. they didn't give back anything

since they did not get them from the government. The Op Ed didn't even get the title right. Op Eds means opinion piece without actually knowing what they are talking about.
The Port Author shooter did not legally obtain his rifles. Tasmanian State (as probably most Australian states) law required a license to own a firearm. He didn't have a license and one of the rifles was stolen from a police evidence locker.
The National Firearms Agreement [where the federal government blackmailed the states (the same way the US states were blackmailed to adopt a uniform drinking age) to pass the gun law right wing neocon John Howard wanted] did not reduce the (already dropping) murder rate, nor did it do anything about the suicide rate. Since the NFA, there has been at least one mass shooting and two mass murder by arson. The Hells Angels and Banditos are still at war using pistols smuggled in (or have never been registered) and submachine guns made by basement gunsmiths.

[SecularMotion]

5. A third of the guns in Australia were handed in to the government.

A third of the guns in Australia were handed in to the government. Polls found that as much as 90 percent of the public approved of the stricter gun laws.

There had been 11 gun massacres in the decade preceding 1996, but there have been no mass shootings since. This is a source of national pride, though statisticians still argue about what caused the change.

- - - -

Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the Sydney School of Public Health and a specialist in firearm injury prevention, has documented that after the laws were changed, the risk of an Australian being killed by a gun fell by more than 50 percent. Australia’s gun homicide rate, 0.13 per 100,000 people, according to GunPolicy.org, is a tiny fraction of that of the United States (3.6 per 100,000 people). It should be noted that our gun homicide rates were already in decline, but the gun laws accelerated that slide.

In a 2010 paper, economists Andrew Leigh and Christine Neill found that the law change had led to a 65 percent decline in the rate of firearm suicides. Firearm homicides fell by 59 percent.

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. That's a lot of fine words. Why is it that the word "confiscated" was not used?

Beacuse that, in fact, was what happened in Australia
(From a linked page from the article you posted)


http://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/australia.php

he sale, possession, and use of firearms are regulated by the Australian states and territories, with cross-border trade matters addressed at the federal level. In 1996, following the Port Arthur massacre, the federal government and the states and territories agreed to a uniform approach to firearms regulation, including a ban on certain semiautomatic and self-loading rifles and shotguns, standard licensing and permit criteria, storage requirements and inspections, and greater restrictions on the sale of firearms and ammunition. Firearms license applicants would be required to take a safety course and show a “genuine reason” for owning a firearm, which could not include self-defense. The reasons for refusing a license would include “reliable evidence of a mental or physical condition which would render the applicant unsuitable for owning, possessing or using a firearm.” A waiting period of twenty-eight days would apply to the issuing of both firearms licenses and permits to acquire each weapon.

Alongside legislative reforms to implement the National Firearms Agreement, a national buyback program for prohibited weapons took place in 1996-1997 and resulted in more than 700,000 weapons being surrendered. Further reforms were later implemented as a result of agreements made in 2002 on firearms trafficking and handguns, as was a national buyback of newly prohibited handguns and associated parts.

Why is it that gun prohibitionists think we don't notice?

[SecularMotion]

12. Because a buyback program is not confiscation?

[friendly_iconoclast]

13. You elide the fact that the owners only "choice" was to be reimbursed or not.

Their guns were going to be taken in any event.

We'll just go ahead and mark you down in the "advocates gradualist gun prohibition"
column, mmkay? You're really not fooling anyone here...

[Oakenshield]

26. I'm not entirely sure why you people are welcome around here.

My post will likely be alerted, but this needs to be said damn it. Every time Gun Control advocates point to Australia as a success and a platform to emulate, you people come crawling out of the woodwork. Using words like "prohibition" to imply not only that we want to take ALL of your guns, but that any attempt to more firmly regulate firearms will fail abysmally like the prohibition on liquor. This is Republican style ratfucking pure and simple. Twisting the language to suite your own selfish agenda.

Responsible gun-owners who are eager to support universal background checks, who understand that a civilian population shouldn't have access to military grade assault weapons, these are people we can work with. Ass-hole gun owners who immediately clutch their guns jealously at the mere mention of a tragedy involving a firearm, those kind of people really need to clear the fuck on out of here. We didn't win the 2008 and 2012 election by chanting the "ME! ME! ME!" of the conservatives. We're supposed to be the kind of people who are willing to make sacrifices in the pursuit of creating a society and infrastructure that benefits everyone.

In short, you have a shitty Republican attitude.

[gejohnston]

27. we don't alert

My post will likely be alerted, but this needs to be said damn it.

Unlike most gun control advocates, we welcome open and honest discussion. Unlike gun control advocates, we don't name call, and don't greet every emotional tirade and bigot produced cartoon as some kind of revealed truth.

Every time Gun Control advocates point to Australia as a success and a platform to emulate, you people come crawling out of the woodwork. Using words like "prohibition" to imply not only that we want to take ALL of your guns, but that any attempt to more firmly regulate firearms will fail abysmally like the prohibition on liquor.

How was Australia a success? Each state in Australia already had strict gun laws before the National Firearms Agreement. Tasmania, where the Port Author shootings happened, required licencing and registration. The shooter did not obtain those guns legally, one was stolen from a police evidence room. The murder rate was already falling, and continued to fall at the same rate as before. The suicide rate remained the same. Everything that has been published in peer reviewed criminology journals contradict the claim. Also, New Zealand also had a rash of mass murders at the same time, and ended without doing anything. So, saying that the NFA, which banned all semi automatics and pump action long guns, cured the problem is post hoc ergo propter hoc. There is a prohibition movement in Australia not because it will reduce crime, because biker gangs smuggle guns in and buy illegally made sub machine guns.

This is Republican style ratfucking pure and simple. Twisting the language to suite your own selfish agenda.

No, it is looking out for our interest.

Responsible gun-owners who are eager to support universal background checks, who understand that a civilian population shouldn't have access to military grade assault weapons, these are people we can work with.

There is no such thing as "military grade assault weapons" that is simply a propaganda term to play on the fears of people who don't know anything about firearms to make them think they are machine guns. People who know about firearms understand this. Yes there is a prohibition movement in the US.

Ass-hole gun owners who immediately clutch their guns jealously at the mere mention of a tragedy involving a firearm, those kind of people really need to clear the fuck on out of here. We didn't win the 2008 and 2012 election by chanting the "ME! ME! ME!" of the conservatives. We're supposed to be the kind of people who are willing to make sacrifices in the pursuit of creating a society and infrastructure that benefits everyone.

Because asshole classists and anti rural bigots (not to mention the anti Mormon bigots) come out of the woodwork to blame millions of innocent people for the crime of one. Those faux liberals need to get the fuck out of here. We won because we had the better candidate and still had a bad taste of Bush in their mouths.
It isn't liberal or "reality based" to base public policy on ignorance, fear, lies, ignorance, and hysteria spewed from ideologues and their dishonest allies in the media. How do you feel about pit bulls? The parallels are stunning.
http://ethicsalarms.com/2013/03/08/beyond-the-myth-disturbing-and-revealing-lessons-about-more-than-pit-bulls/

[Oakenshield]

29. It was a success...

Because since adopting more firm gun control there hasn't been a single mass-shooting. It isn't just coincidence. As for there being no such thing as military assault weapons, I would point you towards Federal Assault Weapons Ban that Bill Clinton signed into law. It banned weapons such as the m70AB2 and the ar-15. The latter weapon was used in both the Sandy Hook shooting and the Aurora theater shooting in recent years. Had the assault weapons ban not been allowed to expire, the killer's ability to wreak damage would have been lessened.

[gejohnston]

33. not true

Because since adopting more firm gun control there hasn't been a single mass-shooting.

Not true. There has been at least one mass shooting and three mass murder by arson. Which begs the question, why do gun control advocates care only about the means but not the violence? Also, the the Australian chapters of Hells Angels and Mongols are at war using smuggled pistols and sub-machine guns illegally made in basements.
Again, it was coincidence just like New Zealand.

As for there being no such thing as military assault weapons, I would point you towards Federal Assault Weapons Ban that Bill Clinton signed into law. It banned weapons such as the m70AB2 and the ar-15. The latter weapon was used in both the Sandy Hook shooting and the Aurora theater shooting in recent years. Had the assault weapons ban not been allowed to expire, the killer's ability to wreak damage would have been lessened.

Not true either. Only a few cosmetic features were "banned" but the guns were not. AR type weapons were still made minus those features and sometimes with a different name. CT has a similar law. The rifle that is reported to be used at Sandy Hook was not an "assault weapon" under the 1994 law or the CT law.
"Assault weapon" is simply a political term to refer to firearms politicians don't like and want scare people in their supporting their ban. These law are written by ignorant people and ideologues. The absurdity of California's "assault weapons" ban is that it also banned pistols, like the Walther GSP, used by Olympic shooting teams and have never been used in any crime. It is also banned in New York. Under NY's SAFE act, .22 rifles that have never been used in crimes, and only been fired at boy scout camps are now "assault weapons".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon

When someone uses the term "military style assault weapons" it show that they obviously got all of their information from some pompous fool like Piers Morgan. No one who actually knows anything on the issue knows better. In fact, every gun control advocate I have seen is ignorant about firearms be it a Colorado state senator who thinks magazines are single use, or RINO McCarthy talking about heat seeking missiles. Not only are the politicians and leaders of gun control ignorant, they are often dishonest.

[Oakenshield]

36. Drop the arson cases already.

Gun Control advocates naturally focus on controlling gun-violence. If you want to talk about arson cases, I recommend creating a different thread for that discussion. To bring it up here is just another attempt at trying to re-frame the debate in an attempt to stifle or otherwise detract from pertinent discussion.

So we have one possible case of a mass-shooting in Australia, that's ONE over the course of 18 years. Very damn impressive, given that we have at least one such event here in the States EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

[gejohnston]

45. so it's about the guns, not the violence.

According to gun control advocates, 7 people shot to death is a moral outrage, but 35 people burned alive is a non issue? Or, the murder rate goes up, but the use of guns goes down is success? Do you have any idea how morally bankrupt that sounds?
And, this is an example of gun violence and this is a non-issue.

Gun Control advocates naturally focus on controlling gun-violence.

this is what you said really sounds to me.

So we have one possible case of a mass-shooting in Australia, that's ONE over the course of 18 years. Very damn impressive, given that we have at least one such event here in the States EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

one confirmed, possible more. Here is the what Wiki has, not likely the complete list, it it is there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_mass_murders
The thing about mass murders is that there is a copy cat effect.
Like I said, New Zealand had a similar situation, did nothing and have less restrictive laws than than any Australian state, and had the same results.

[Oakenshield]

48. It's about GUN VIOLENCE.

Maybe you're lost, so I'll just direct you to the title of this subforum of Democratic Underground. Gun control & RKBA. The statement of purpose is the following "Discuss gun politics, gun control laws, the Second Amendment, the use of firearms for self-defense, and the use of firearms to commit crime and violence."

Maybe that cleared a few things up for you, but I doubt it so I'll elaborate. There's no connection between gun-violence and cases of arson. If you believe you have the solution to solve all violence, I encourage you to share it. Otherwise I think our time would be better served addressing violence on a subject by subject basis. As stated before, the subject here is gun violence. A type of violence that can be effectively treated with new gun regulations and more extensive background checks as demonstrated by the vast majority of the Europe Union and its more stringent gun-control measures.

[gejohnston]

52. again, post hoc ergo propter hoc

have you looked at Jamaica's gun laws? Greenland's? Brazil's? South Africa's? How come their gun laws, which are stricter than Europe's, but have astronomical murder rates?

A type of violence that can be effectively treated with new gun regulations and more extensive background checks as demonstrated by the vast majority of the Europe Union and its more stringent gun-control measures.

That is not why UK or anyone else in the EU have lower murder rates. Most of those laws were passed in the 1920s when crime was actually lower (mostly because of the large number of 17-25 year old males killed in WW1) because of the red scare. So again, your misinformation fails.
When UK had no gun control laws at all, their murder rate/gun violence rate was far lower than New York even after passing the Sullivan Law.
That is the problem with the gun control movement, people are not falling for appeals to emotion and other logical fallicies employed. With the elites who own the MSM no longer being the gatekeepers of information, it is falling apart. Mothers Demand Action is a fiction created by Voxpop Public Relations LLC, which Watts started after she left Monsanto as head PR flack. That is why they merged with MAIG, to avoid having to file an IRS 990. That is why it is top down astro turf, always was even in the 1920s (when the NRA and the KKK supported stricter gun laws, although for different reasons. Those are same state laws being eroded now). In 1959, according to Gallup, 60 percent would have supported a handgun ban. Now? Not so much.

[beevul]

63. Like hell it is.

Every time the pro-more-gun-control crowd leans on tragedies such as sandy hook or the Colorado theater shooting, in an effort to pass a law that would not have prevented or even effected said tragedy in any way shape size or form it makes crystal clear, for every person who is paying attention, that:

It has nothing to do with gun violence, and everything to do with the guns.

Theres no hiding from, or escaping that simple but elegant fact.

[Oakenshield]

67. And here we arrive at the conundrum.

There is a clear correlation between the number of guns, and the number of gun homicides. Red states with the most lax gun regulations are also the most crime ridden on the subject of guns. Now, on one hand we can try to pass more gun control regulations. Universal background checks being a step in the right direction, ending hopefully with our own gun license and registry system similar to the UK's model.

Or we can do....something.... which is about as specific an answer as we can get from the NRA. But you know, I'm constantly getting bombarded with questions whenever I discuss this subject so please by all means share your own solution to our gun-violence problem here in the States. Me, I'm one of those crazy pinko liberals who thinks we might actually be able to learn something from the rest of the world.

[beevul]

70. Be advised, this isn't my first rodeo.

Be advised, this isn't my first rodeo. That enables me to spot bullshit for the bullshit it is, and call it out as such:

"There is a clear correlation between the number of guns, and the number of gun homicides."

Which totally explains why, as the number of guns in circulation has gone up, the number of gun homicides has gone down.

" Red states with the most lax gun regulations are also the most crime ridden on the subject of guns."

Har har har. Only when the metrics used are "state" and "rate", and we're talking about places with low population which magnifies the rate. If what you said were true, the same status would be reflected in city sized areas large and small, and you guys wouldn't use "rate" or state". Of course, when we compare say Houston and Chicago, that all goes out the window.

" Now, on one hand we can try to pass more gun control regulations. Universal background checks being a step in the right direction, ending hopefully with our own gun license and registry system similar to the UK's model."

Federally, a gun registry is illegal per the FOPA of 1986, so sorry.

[Oakenshield]

73. Not sure if I should feel sympathetic or laugh.

You do realize that while gun control is strong in Chicago, the rest of Illinois is not? Not to mention a significant amount of the guns used illegally in Chicago are also from Indiana.

And if the myth that more guns equals less crime was true, please explain how this study is false which was published in the American Journal of Medicine back in 2013. It ranks gun-crime by country, so it shouldn't confuse you like the state comparison statistics obviously did.

[gejohnston]

77. just to stick my nose in

You do realize that while gun control is strong in Chicago, the rest of Illinois is not? Not to mention a significant amount of the guns used illegally in Chicago are also from Indiana.

Are you saying criminals are buying guns outside of Chicago with FOID cards? IL's gun laws are like some European countries.
https://www.atf.gov/sites/default/files/assets/statistics/tracedata-2012/2012-trace-data-illinois.pdf

And if the myth that more guns equals less crime was true, please explain how this study is false which was published in the American Journal of Medicine back in 2013. It ranks gun-crime by country, so it shouldn't confuse you like the state comparison statistics obviously did.

because it was published in a medical journal and not a peer reviewed criminology journal, and are often knocked by criminologists as full of shit as NRA propaganda, just pretending to be science. BTW, no one study debunks anything. There may be counters, but not debunked.

[beevul]

79. I would recommend something else - quit while you're behind.

"You do realize that while gun control is strong in Chicago, the rest of Illinois is not?"

I surely do. I also recognize the fact that the great majority of gun crime and gun violence in Illinois doesn't happen in "the rest" of Illinois, it happens in Chicago.

Do you?

"Not to mention a significant amount of the guns used illegally in Chicago are also from Indiana."

Strong gun control doesn't work, is what you're saying. Guns don't just magically teleport themselves from state to state. It takes people knowingly and willfully breaking numerous state and federal laws to get them from point A to point B. Whats that called? Oh yeah, gun control not working. Again.

Tell me again how its the guns and not the people breaking the numerous aforementioned state and federal laws that are the problem.

"And if the myth that more guns equals less crime was true, please explain how this study is false which was published in the American Journal of Medicine back in 2013."

For starters, if I want medical advice I'll ask someone in the medical field. If I want a study of criminality relating to firearms, I'll ask a criminologist.

Second, the study your link leads to, does NOT contradict what I said. The number of firearms in America grows every single day. Read that as many times as it takes for it to sink in. Its a fact. So if gun homicides decline - and they have - it shows quite clearly, that MORE GUNS DOES NOT MEAN MORE CRIME - which was the objective truth you're so inclined to ignore.

"It ranks gun-crime by country, so it shouldn't confuse you like the state comparison statistics obviously did."

A useless comparison. Incidentally, many of those nations do not have "due process" like we do. In Japan for example, they can flat out beat a confession out of you. And they have a suicide rate much higher than ours in spite of having ridiculously strict gun control. Yeah, what a great place to be compared to. Not.

Its so cute for you to attribute to me confusion, when in fact I understand quite clearly and completely what you and other anti-gun types are up to. I'm quite familiar with your tactics, since they're the same worn out tactics you and others like you have been using since the 90s.

You guys use "state" and "rate" because it serves your argument when there isn't a tragedy to exploit. When there is a tragedy to exploit, "state" and "rate" go right out the window, and its "bodies stacked like cordwood" and "the blood of children is on your hands" and the like from the pro-lots-more-gun-control crowd. Those also happen to be the times when you and those who believe as you do when it comes to guns want no part of discussing Chicago and its gun violence problems.

Imagine that.

But back to the rate game you guys are so fond of:

I live near a small town we'll just call bumfuck, for sake of discussion.

"Bumfuck" has a real, factual and true population of 34 people.

If theres a single death in "Bumfuck" with by gun, thats 1 in 34.

Thats a RATE of 2941 per 100k. If one were to look ONLY at that rate, it would seem bumfuck has a gun violence epidemic of monumental proportions on their hands, wouldn't it?

Gee, is there something in their water or what?

On the other side of the coin, a larger population example of say 20 million, with the same rate, would have 1188200 hypothetical gun deaths. For sake of discussion, well call it "megaville".

So say this hypothetical city of megaville DOES have a gun death epidemic. Say 100000 die by guns. Thats 200 per 100k. A rate roughly 14.5 times Roughly lower that Bumfuck. Without looking at the exact numbers, it sure looks like bumfuck has a huge problem on their hands, compared to megaville, doesnt it?

Put simply, the misuse of "rates" is an attempt to convince the reader that states with the loosest gun laws have the worst gun violence problems. Clearly, the objective truth isn't quite so simple. That's what we have here. Nothing more, nothing less.

Like I said, this isn't my first rodeo, I've seen this crap before.

When you use "rate" and "state" in Illinois, you drown out the actual conclusions that can be drawn by recognition of the fact that the clear overwhelming majority of gun violence in Illinois happens in Chicago. By switching it up to the state level and adding to the total the populace outside Chicago where no statistically significant amount of gun violence exists, it lowers the rate to paint a misleading picture.

And states with significantly low populations have their rates magnified. Behold:


Rates are how you make Illinois look like a low-gun-violence utopia with its 2.8 gun murders per 100k, and make Delaware look like the blood thirsty wild west, with its rate of 4.2 per 100k, even though Illinois had 364 gun murders compared to Delawares 38.


(using 2010 numbers because they're the first thing I found)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state

Clearly, one of those two states has a very large problem with gun violence, leading the nation in gun deaths annually or coming a close second, and one does not. In this case, its Illinois with its lower rate, which has a MUCH larger gun violence problem with 364 murders, while Delaware despite its high rate isn't even close with 38.

That methodology might fool the fence sitters on occasion, but everyone else recognizes it for the garbage it is.


P.S. How does Vermont fit in with its low gun violence numbers and loose gun laws eh?

[friendly_iconoclast]

28. Alert? Nonsense, that post was brilliant! How to count the ways?

Just in case you decide to self-delete, or it gets hidden:

My post will likely be alerted, but this needs to be said damn it. Every time Gun Control advocates point to Australia as a success and a platform to emulate, you people come crawling out of the woodwork. Using words like "prohibition" to imply not only that we want to take ALL of your guns, but that any attempt to more firmly regulate firearms will fail abysmally like the prohibition on liquor. This is Republican style ratfucking pure and simple. Twisting the language to suite your own selfish agenda.

Responsible gun-owners who are eager to support universal background checks, who understand that a civilian population shouldn't have access to military grade assault weapons, these are people we can work with. Ass-hole gun owners who immediately clutch their guns jealously at the mere mention of a tragedy involving a firearm, those kind of people really need to clear the fuck on out of here. We didn't win the 2008 and 2012 election by chanting the "ME! ME! ME!" of the conservatives. We're supposed to be the kind of people who are willing to make sacrifices in the pursuit of creating a society and infrastructure that benefits everyone.

In short, you have a shitty Republican attitude.

Juvenile insults, cultural bigotry, unwarranted assumption of superiority
self-appointment as political officer, loudly proclaimed ignorance of firearms technology
- this post has almost everything.

It's too bad you didn't add any reference to the genitalia of gun owners, since
if you had done so you just might have posted the perfect parody of an unreasonable gun control
advocate...

[Oakenshield]

30. Ignorance of firearms technology?

So I suppose the 1994 Congress and the President were ignorant when they passed the assault weapons ban? A ban, that would have denied the Sandy Hook and Aurora killers a key piece of their arsenal had it not been allowed to expire? But sure, go ahead and laugh.

[gejohnston]

31. yes they were

Actually not, because the gun used at Sandy Hook was not an "assault weapon" according that law, or CT state law.

[Oakenshield]

32. Highly unlikely.

The AR-15 was among the weapons affected by the assault weapons ban, and the Bushmaster was modeled after it. It too would have been banned.

[gejohnston]

34. no, the name was banned

not the operating system or anything else. The name AR-15 was banned. Just like the name Tec-9 was banned. The dim bulbs didn't think to define what those were. Change the name and remove a couple of cosmetic features, it was in full compliance. Functionally, they were no different than guns that were not banned.
http://www.assaultweapon.info/

[Oakenshield]

35. Blatantly disengenuous.

The ar-15 unlike a shotgun or double action revolver can accept magazines with an excess of 30 bullets. Using the bumpfire technique, you can fire those rounds almost as fast as a machine gun too.

[oneshooter]

37. During the time frame of the "ban" I bought 3 stripped lowers.

There was no ban, just feel good.

[Oakenshield]

38. If it was so ineffective, why did the NRA oppose it so furiously?

You can make a safe bet that if the NRA starts screeching then you're onto something.

[friendly_iconoclast]

40. Opposing ineffective, feel-good laws designed to appease the ignorant...

...is usually held to be a good thing, at least in the circles I travel in.
The NRA was having a stopped-clock moment. Good on them (in this case).

[Oakenshield]

44. Good on them? Welcome to my ignore list.

If anyone else wants to praise the NRA, please speak up so I can add you as well.

[friendly_iconoclast]

51. I'm fine with that. However, your posts are still gonna be thoroughly fisked...

...and you won't be responding.

[gejohnston]

41. seriously?

Given how easy and fast it is to change magazines, size doesn't matter. Bump fire? Seriously? Actually you can do it with any semi auto, but I doubt it is anywhere near as any machine gun. Bump fire is a parlor trick for mall ninjas that like to turn money into noise at the range. As the Wiki article suggests, hitting any target would be by accident. How many ARs are used in crime? According to the FBI UCR, we know about 312 homicides were committed with long guns, which ARs etc are a small subset of. Over 800 were killed with bare hands or feet (aka unarmed). How many were murdered by some clown using bump fire? Zero, which is about 7 fewer people than MAIG loses to the criminal justice system.
Here is some basic information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_fire

[Oakenshield]

42. The size of the magazine DOES matter.

As Rachel Maddow explains here. http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/51188139#51188139

Had the Sandy Hook shooter been restricted to ten round magazines, he would have to reload FOURTEEN times a instead of only four times to fire 152 bullets.

[gejohnston]

46. she didn't read the report

because she isn't a journalist, she is a commentator with a bias. That's too bad because she is bright enough to be a good journalist if she wanted to. She is actually the only one on MSNBC (or cable in general) I have any respect for.

had she actually read the report (which granted, was less than professional like NPD response, that's a different matter.) she would know that the reports say that he did not empty the magazines. IOW, it claims that he did "combat reloads". So, no it doesn't matter. Besides, if he only had three ten round magazines, everyone would still be dead. The rest were simply over kill.

BTW, what are your thoughts on gun control advocate Leland Yee's organized crime connections and gun smuggling charges? To me it sounds like Tim Sullivan reincarnated, who authored New York's Sullivan Law.

[Oakenshield]

57. Pay better attention.

In one instance of reloading his weapon six children escaped. How many more might have gotten away had he been forced to reload more often? So he didn't use all thirty rounds in each clip, he still used at least twenty. Could he have breached the window as quickly had he fired say seven rounds before performing a combat reload with a ten round magazine? Lives might have been saved.

Most gun owners understand that we don't need anything in excess of ten bullets. Anything more is just reckless.

[gejohnston]

59. I don't know if that is actually true

so much of it has contradicting information. Six kids escape in less than a few seconds? Much of what the media said is questionable. How do we know it was while he was reloading? Did one of the kids say that or was it media speculation?

Most gun owners understand that we don't need anything in excess of ten bullets. Anything more is just reckless.

who told you this? A gun owner? You made it pretty clear that you don't know anything about guns or the issue as a whole. BTW, what right does someone who knows nothing on a subject have to tell others who do on what they "need"?

[Oakenshield]

62. So full of questions.

Care to explain why you would "need" more than ten bullets? You seem convinced the contrary is true, so by all means enlighten me. Have the deer and boar started packing heat?

[friendly_iconoclast]

65. I don't recall you ever being confirmed as Secretary of Needs

Until you are, your opinion remains just that

And btw, that...

Care to explain why you would "need" more than ten bullets?

...is an argument from ignorance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

[gejohnston]

72. stupid argument

Wyoming and Florida hunting regulations limit you to five rounds in detachable box magazines. In Wyoming, that applies to any action bolt or semi auto. Like I said, it is arrogant and pompous to lecture someone on what they "need" on subjects they know nothing about.

[Oakenshield]

74. Oh, good.

You seriously considered my question of whether the deer were packing heat. This is the part where I'm supposed to feel assured?

[gejohnston]

76. just not slang from

1940s gangster movies. Since I prefer lever actions (which almost always have fixed tubular magazines) and stopped eating red meat, it isn't a practical issue for me either way.

[friendly_iconoclast]

50. Another argument from authority, this time by proxy

And then there's this:

Had the Sandy Hook shooter been restricted to ten round magazines, he would have to reload FOURTEEN times a instead of only four times to fire 152 bullets.

Unfortunately for that argument, the Virginia Tech shooter HAD only ten round magazines yet killed
more people- and reloaded at least SIXTEEN times:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho

I rather doubt Cho's victims are any less dead because he had to stop and reload...

[friendly_iconoclast]

39. *There's* the argument from authority you didn't use previously. You're getting better!

To answer your first question:

So I suppose the 1994 Congress and the President were ignorant when they passed the assault weapons ban?

Yes. They were.

A ban, that would have denied the Sandy Hook and Aurora killers a key piece of their arsenal had it not been allowed to expire?

Demonstrably untrue, as explained in reply #31

But sure, go ahead and laugh.

Gladly. I don't normally laugh at the ignorant and/or those suffering from
Dunning-Kruger effect- but when they persist in displaying both qualities
it in a rather obnoxious fashion, I certainly will.

[Oakenshield]

43. Post 31 utterly failed to contradict my point.

The Assault Weapons ban specifically targeted military style weapons like the AR-15 and Bushmaster.

[friendly_iconoclast]

47. Which were simply renamed and continued in production. And none were confiscated

Like I said, ignorance...

[gejohnston]

49. actually, I did

did you click on any of the links I provided? Should the Walther GSP be banned? If so, why?
or as a VPC press release put it, "Soon after its passage in 1994, the gun industry made a mockery of the federal assault weapons ban, manufacturing 'post-ban' assault weapons with only slight, cosmetic differences from their banned counterparts." AR-15 is a trade mark name owned by Colt.
This is a AWB compliant Eugene Stoner AR type rifle: Colt simply removed the flash suppressor and renamed it the Sporter.

[friendly_iconoclast]

53. Watch out, you'll be put on ignore and then we'll both be taking up...

...birdwatching:

[Oakenshield]

54. Yes, the gun industry doesn't like to be regulated.

Which is the same reason why the NRA furiously opposes all gun control legislation. They care less about the 2nd amendment and more about making money. Ideally, the law would have been amended each time the gun-industry would have attempted to cheat. Everyone knows full well the Assault Weapons ban was an attempt to remove from the general populace military style semi-automatics.

[gejohnston]

55. Actually, it is among the most regulated industries

in the US. So, do you think Yee is Sullivan reincarnated? But since this is a case of "don't bother me with the facts, I already made up my mind", which is how one of my high school teachers defined a conservative.

[Oakenshield]

56. Not regulated anywhere near enough compared to Europe.

As for Yee, I have no opinion on him beyond being disappointed to see a Democratic representative colluding with criminals.

[gejohnston]

58. actually, it is

I doubt you know anything about US or European gun laws.
So, nothing about him being a gun control advocate while being buddies with someone who sells guns on the black market and was part of a scheme to smuggle machine guns from Philippines to the US?
Disappointed? Yeah, but his defending shark finning "politicians that suck" list before this happened. Here is a tip in the real word from someone who has literally been around the world: stupidity, greed, corruption, hypocrisy, ignorance, bigotry are bi partisan. So are compassion, kindness, empathy, tolerance, etc.

[Oakenshield]

61. I first heard of Yee in passing, and that was from a Tea-Party type overjoyed at the prospet....

Excuse me for not being so enthusiastic about the whole thing.

[gejohnston]

66. He or she should be as outraged as I am

I'm not enthusiastic, just realistic. I am astounded, since his gun bills did not affect criminal use or access, only put stiffer restrictions on people who commit no crimes, while conspiring to sell weapons to those who do buy them to commit violence. I'm even more astounded that the reaction among gun prohibitionists in California. Paul Song's “If it wasn’t so sad it would be comical. But what we’re really worried about is that this will further destroy the momentum for gun control here in California.” just doesn't cut it. Their champion gets busted for trying to put machine guns in the hands of drug dealers and gangsters in the US and North Africa, and this clown is worried about it being harder to harass peaceful target shooters and hunters? I don't care what the letter is next to his name is, we all should be fucking outraged. The Tea Party type should have been as outraged as I am. If Yee were a Republican, I would be outraged, not overjoyed.

[Oakenshield]

64. Actually, it isn't.

Do we license all gun owners across the board? No. Do we at least register the guns? No again.

[gejohnston]

69. there is more to it than than that

can a 16 year old legally buy a gun in the US? France they can
can you legally buy a silencer and walk out the door just like you can a 30 round magazine? In UK and France you can walk out with both the same way.
Can a 12 year old buy ammo in the US? They can in Canada.
In Europe and Canada, a single shot rifle with a 15 inch barrel is regulated the same as one with a longer barrel. In the US, that missing one inch makes it a NFA weapon, which means it is regulated the same as a machine gun.
Each country in Europe have their own laws, although EU does have some basic regulations. For example, Finland raised their age to purchase from 15 to 18 to comply with EU.
Do you know why New Zealand ended gun registration in the 1980s? Because police officials lobbied parliament because it took cost a lot of money and manpower and did nothing in return. At best, registration will create a few public sector jobs and nothing else.
My attitude towards guns and anything else is simply this: If the State can't show a compelling State interest using rational, logical arguments, or show a cause and effect, then the restriction should not exist. There is no evidence anywhere than any criminologist can find that can show a cause and effect of gun restrictions on crime. There is a compelling State interest when it comes to violent felons and being in dive bars while armed, but not churches.

[Oakenshield]

71. I'm sure there is.

The bottom line however, is that we could learn a great deal about addressing gun violence from other countries if would only TRY to do so. But no. Instead most people would prefer that we do nothing apparently, because America is just so star spangled awesome that we could never learn anything from anyone else...EVER.

Now you've spent the last dozen posts attacking my views and arguments, without so much as once providing a solution of your own. This is your chance now.

[gejohnston]

75. not really

The bottom line however, is that we could learn a great deal about addressing gun violence from other countries if would only TRY to do so.

Not really, because of different cultures and different problems. For example most Australians are murdered in their own homes. Most of ours are criminals killing each other. All of those are subtle and complex. As I pointed out before, Europe had as low as, and lower, violence when they passed these laws.

But no. Instead most people would prefer that we do nothing apparently, because America is just so star spangled awesome that we could never learn anything from anyone else...EVER.

I would call yours doing nothing.

Now you've spent the last dozen posts attacking my views and arguments, without so much as once providing a solution of your own. This is your chance now.

Only because I spent time correcting the misinformation and logical fallacies.
First: a single or simple answer to complex problems are not solutions. Gun control is a simple answer, not a solution. If that were true, USVI would have a murder rate lower than Vermont's, and Wyoming would be like DC or Chicago. Yeah, the crime rate started to drop when NICS was put in place, and the spike started around the time the 1968 Gun Control Act was passed. Does either of them have anything to do with it? No. Two things: the number of males between 17-25 and lead in gasoline and paint. Check this out. BTW, the same correlation can be found in other countries too. http://grist.org/news/did-removing-lead-from-gasoline-cause-crime-rates-to-plummet/
Most of our gang and gun violence are concentrated in a few cities that are hubs in drug trafficking. I'm not talking about the black swan events that kill an average of 20 people a year the media likes to hype, I'm talking the real shit here. What do those cities have in common:
Political corruption and are hubs in the drug trade. See Chicago and NOLA.
What do the neighborhoods have in common:
no stores to buy real food
no decent jobs that offer alternatives
zoning ordnance that keep good paying jobs out
run down schools that tell kids "the adults and PTB don't really care about education"
when the people in those neighborhoods want something done, the politicians scapegoat people in rural areas (it's those rednecks in Montana bring in guns), while being in bed with the gangs (again, see Chicago)

My start list? How is this:
---end the drug war. You take away their money, you take away their guns.
---change funding for schools from local property taxes to even funding. Wyoming did this in the 1930s, which is how a small town can have nice state of the art technology and facilities. Like Alaska, we tax the shit out of big oil and coal. Unlike Alaska we fix roads and schools.
---repeal zoning ordnance that keep good paying jobs out and prevent the neighborhoods from being walk-able. Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have the lowest crime rates in Europe, definitely lower than UK, which is the most violent country in EU. They also have very high gun ownership rates, higher than Florida's. They also have a strong sense of community. People know their neighbors and are part of the community. Being able to just walk, bus etc to the jobsite and buy groceries, I mean real food, near where you live.
---educate parents on alternatives to corporal punishment, and ban it in schools. You don't teach kids how to be peaceful by being violent toward them.

This is by no means a complete list. Like I said, it is a complex problem. Each society is unique. UK's violence is not the same as ours (for one thing, even without gun control, the criminal element didn't, and largely still don't, use guns because it is taboo. Granted there are some that do drive by with machine guns, still guns are still largely "not macho&quot

[Oakenshield]

78. I applaud the effort you've made to explain your alternative solution.

It's terribly unlikely to ever be executed however. There's too much money in Oil, Coal, and the Drug War for any of those to be addressed swiftly. It'll take generations of Democratic victories, not to mention the repeal of Citizens United, to see those changes of yours to come to pass.

You'll have to forgive me if I stick with more timely, if more crude, methods of lowering gun violence.

[Bazinga]

80. I'm glad you're here.

You have a chance to do something here that SecMo, Loudly, rdharma, Hoyt, and any number of other gun control advocates have all failed to accomplish. Namely, learn a couple things.

The bulk of this thread has been devoted to correcting misinformation. Your opinions and your arguments will be stronger when based on all the facts, not just those that you think support them. It is unlikely that your stance will change, but discussions are always more productive when the outcome is not predetermined. Phrases like "You'll have to forgive me if I stick with..." are a bad sign.

Posts are fact-checked here, claims are challenged here, that's what makes this the best board there is to talk about the RKBA. For example, last summer an article from the Tampa Bay Times was posted regarding racism and stand your ground laws. I went to their site and did the math myself to figure out if what they were saying was true. You can see the results here.

So welcome, I hope you stick around.

[Oakenshield]

85. It helps to exchange arguments.

If only to better understand each other. In the end however we can't be allies on this issue if one side is vehemently opposed to additional gun regulations altogether. As I've stated before, I favor looking at the tried and proven successes of the European and Australian models on gun control for inspiration.

I believe the only unique quality we posses where gun violence is concerned, is that unlike most other developed countries we have refused to really tackle the issue. If that makes me un-american, fine. I don't hold any regard for the word anyway, certainly not in the spirit conservatives use when they throw it around.

[Bazinga]

87. Can't, or won't, be allies?

Have you seen anyone on this board claim they oppose all additional gun regulations? I haven't. I have seen many who oppose reactionary, feel-good, political theatre, like bans based purely on cosmetic features. I have also seen many who support universal background checks, though not necessarily as they were attempted last year. I am one of those.

You may think "gun-control" is "winning," but the truth is, you need allies.

[gejohnston]

82. the problem is, your more crude method won't change anything

because it isn't evidence based. Can we learn from Europe? Let's see. Europe, including UK, had low crime rate, no gun control, and concealed carry wasn't uncommon (especially when you look at the numbers of small pistols made and sold in Europe). In the 1920s, the elites passed gun control laws to curb the "red menace". Result? UK violence, including gun violence goes up and and everyone else stays the same. I'm missing the lesson. If anything, the lesson proves my point.

Japan always restricted weapons ownership, there is no before and after to look at either. Same with Australia. (BTW, notice where most of the mass shooting were, NSW, which had the strictest laws. Tasmania had the most liberal gun laws). Japan not only has no 2A, the fourth, fifth exist on paper only. No exclusionary rule, illegally obtained evidence is admissible, so are forced confessions, since you have no right to legal council being present either. You don't get an impartial jury, or any jury. The three judge panel acquits anyone, their career goes down the tubes. Oh, their murder/suicide within families rate is high, they list the murdered part as "involuntary suicide". Cold cases are often written off as suicides. So, we really don't know Japan's murder rate.

There is no evidence that licensing and registration will do anything. Safe storage, maybe because most guns enter the black market through theft. We know from the Wright/Rossi study back in the Carter administration, paid for by DoJ, that very few criminals went to FFLs, and none went to gun shows. They got their guns from fences, drug dealers, and "the street". Since NICS, I doubt they go to FFLs.
just a few more closing comments.

Maybe that cleared a few things up for you, but I doubt it so I'll elaborate. There's no connection between gun-violence and cases of arson.

Actually, there were. They were all rampage (other than the gang battles) killings. The only difference some used guns, others used fire. Actually, we were talking about rampage killers that happened to use guns. They all operate from the same mindset.

If you believe you have the solution to solve all violence, I encourage you to share it. Otherwise I think our time would be better served addressing violence on a subject by subject basis. As stated before, the subject here is gun violence.

The solution is in the why, not the how. Dealing with the how on a subject by subject basis is useless, especially when you are being guided by ideologues and bigots spouting propaganda and junk science, does nothing. If you can find a common thread in these people, that is the start. There is a unified theory to everything. There is a unified theory on rampage killings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

A type of violence that can be effectively treated with new gun regulations and more extensive background checks as demonstrated by the vast majority of the Europe Union and its more stringent gun-control measures.

As I pointed out earlier, that isn't what happened in Europe. But then, facts and reason isn't the gun control movement's (or anti "pit bull" movement for that matter) strong suit.
Like I said before, to people like Bloomberg and other elites, it is about the guns, not the violence.

[Oakenshield]

84. And I VEHEMENTLY disagree.

After Australia's buyback there was a marked improvement. I similarly see it as no coincidence that as gun ownership numbers fall, so too the number of gun-crimes, as can been seen by comparing the United States with other developed countries. We've gone around this circle before. You don't think their connected, you would sooner have us all chasing a half a dozen issues to solve an individual problem. Issues we'd be extremely lucky to properly address in my lifetime. You would side with the NRA's firm opposition of any additional gun regulations. You want to talk about Neocons? The NRA is chock full of them, they love the 2nd amendment fundamentalist crap.

Now I'm sure you'll prefer to have the last word, but I must quit this particular discussion. I can point to the statistics all day long with no hope of reaching you. Thank you for at least trying to provide your own views on addressing our staggering gun violence. Good evening to you.

[gejohnston]

86. Actually, Australia's gun ownership rate stayed the same

and private ownership is up to pre NFA levels.
So, why do countries with high gun ownership rates like Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Sweden, all have lower gun crimes, or any other crime, than UK, Japan, or Australia?
The only way to reach me is to shed the logical fallacies, misinformation, and dogma and use reason. These are a couple of my core principles:
individual over collective, reason over dogma,

So far, you managed to make me more certain of my position. You sound kind of young, and certainly naive. Do us all a favor, please don't be a left version of a dittohead. Some suggested reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Point-Blank-Guns-Violence-America/dp/020230762X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z

http://www.amazon.com/Armed-Considered-Dangerous-New-Second/dp/0202362426/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396357897&sr=1-3-fkmr0&keywords=robert+rossi+wright+gun+control

http://www.amazon.com/Under-Gun-Weapons-Violence-America/dp/0202303063/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396357897&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=robert+rossi+wright+gun+control

If nothing else, it will make you better informed. It is just a start.

[friendly_iconoclast]

68. European gun culture probably isn't what you think it is

Just for one example, take silencers (more accurately, suppressors)- in the US, they're
heavily regulated. However...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressor#Regulation

Legal regulation of suppressors varies widely around the world. In some nations, such as Finland, Norway and France, some or all types of suppressor are essentially unregulated and may be bought "over the counter" in retail stores or by mail-order, as they are considered a great help, along with hearing protection, to preserve the hearing of the user and any onlookers.

AR-15s are rather popular in France:



And then there's Switzerland:

http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/articles/swiss_teen_rifle_festival.html



The caption:
"This girl, one of 1,585 who competed, is being coached in sharpshooting with the Assault Rifle 90, the Swiss service rifle."



"The score card: Father and daughter, Swiss diversity."

[friendly_iconoclast]

60. You seem to have a rather casual attitude towards factual accuracy

Ideally, the law would have been amended each time the gun-industry would have attempted to cheat.

Interesting. I never knew that following the law as written was actually an
"attempt(ed) to cheat". By that logic, everyone who scrupulously fills out
their tax forms in the next two weeks is really attempting to cheat
the government.

Everyone knows full well the Assault Weapons ban was an attempt to remove from the general populace military style semi-automatics.

The law was passed, it was followed- and you lot are still whining about those
Awful Gun People who obeyed what the law said as opposed to what you thought it said
or "meant". Consider it a lesson on why technical details matter...

[beevul]

81. Aha. So the gun control movement doesn't want a conversation after all...

Ass-hole gun owners who immediately clutch their guns jealously at the mere mention of a tragedy involving a firearm, those kind of people really need to clear the fuck on out of here.

Aha. So the gun control movement doesn't want a conversation after all, it wants a monologue . "If you value your rights where firearms are concerned to the point of verbally disagreeing with anti-gun types, get the hell out".

I've got a better idea: If you can't agree with this part of the party platform, you have no business telling anyone to "clear the fuck on out of here", and in fact, belong here even less than the people you're telling to "clear the fuck on out of here":

"We recognize that the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans' Second Amendment right to own and use firearms."

And for what its worth, nobody "clutches their guns jealously at the mere mention of a tragedy involving a firearm". People like you react to a tragedy involving a firearm most often, by blaming everyone that didn't do it, and blaming the guns they own, and blaming the gun laws that don't forbid owning them.

Gun owners aren't reacting to the tragedy, they're reacting to you and/or people like you, and to the things you and/or people like you propose in the wake of such things, particularly when the things proposed in reaction to such tragedies wouldn't prevent said tragedy or effect said tragedy in any way. See Colorado and Sandy Hook for examples.

Those things are seen and dealt with as wrong headed - see the Colorado recalls and the civil disobedience in CT for examples. Right or wrong, like it or not, that's how people that value their rights react to wrongheadedness.

Get over it or don't, because those folks that value their rights where firearms are concerned aren't going away. They're the single most energized voting bloc in existence, particularly when people like you provoke them with harmful ineffective nonsensical laws.

[friendly_iconoclast]

88. Well said, but our latest seagull poster* has left the room

*derived from the term "seagull manager":

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=seagull%20manager

A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

[Adrahil]

23. If it's not voluntary, it sure is. NT

[gejohnston]

20. one is still greater than zero

A third of the guns in Australia were handed in to the government. Polls found that as much as 90 percent of the public approved of the stricter gun laws.

and the semi autos and pump actions have been replaced by bolt, lever actions, etc. Gun ownership has increased and the number of privately owned guns have increased since then. The polls were taken after a massive propaganda blitz by the Howard government and gun prohibition groups. I would also like to see the exact questions being asked.

There had been 11 gun massacres in the decade preceding 1996, but there have been no mass shootings since. This is a source of national pride, though statisticians still argue about what caused the change.

Not true. One of them were the combined casualties of biker gang battles. As you can tell from the link has been in fact one mass shooting since then. One is still greater than zero. There were three mass murder by arson since NFA. I don't know about you, being burned alive doesn't seem like a step up. New Zealand had the same phenomenon, passed no new gun laws and got the same result as Australia.

Philip Alpers, an adjunct associate professor at the Sydney School of Public Health and a specialist in firearm injury prevention, has documented that after the laws were changed, the risk of an Australian being killed by a gun fell by more than 50 percent. Australia’s gun homicide rate, 0.13 per 100,000 people, according to GunPolicy.org, is a tiny fraction of that of the United States (3.6 per 100,000 people). It should be noted that our gun homicide rates were already in decline, but the gun laws accelerated that slide.

Since the number of gun owners remained basically the same, and most states had pretty strict gun laws to begin with (Tasmania's laws were about as strict as IL), how did NFA did this? Since most Australian murders, then and now, are committed with knives, how significant was this? What difference does it make if you are shot or stabbed to death? Either way, the overall murder rate continued to decline at the same rate. It continues to drop even though private gun ownership has increased and there are more guns than before Port Author.

In a 2010 paper, economists Andrew Leigh and Christine Neill found that the law change had led to a 65 percent decline in the rate of firearm suicides. Firearm homicides fell by 59 percent.

Is this paper peer reviewed and has someone else replicated the study and got the same the same results? Notice what isn't said? It doesn't say the suicide rate fell by 65 percent, it says the gun suicide rate fell. In other words it really says (for the sake of simplicity) before NFA, 100 suicides were by firearm and 100 by other means. After NFA, 35 were by firearm and 165 by other means. I don't call that progress. If the overall suicide rate fell, I'm sure they would have mentioned it. As shown before, the homicide rate fell at the same rate as before. To quote the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention at Griffith University:

The implemented restrictions may not be responsible for the observed reductions in firearms suicide. Data suggest that a change in social and cultural attitudes could have contributed to the shift in method preference.

IOW, the suicide rate did not go down, just the use of guns.

This has what to do with the US? Our homicide rate is falling at almost the same rate (two point margin), without stricter laws. 61 percent of Australian murder victims are killed in their homes. How many are domestic violence vs home invasions gone bad, the Australian government doesn't mention. Most of ours is drug and gang related.

though statisticians still argue about what caused the change.

two words: copy cat.
Shooting massacres in Australia and other English-speaking countries often occurred close together in time. Forensic psychiatrists attribute this to copycat behaviour,[20[21] which is in many cases triggered by sensational media treatment.[22][23] Mass murderers study media reports and imitate the actions and equipment that are sensationalised in them.[24] The Monash shooting occurred at the height of publicity for the Beltway sniper attacks, which was extremely prominent from 3 October to the arrest of the perpetrators on 24 October 2002, three days after the Monash shootings. ]

[DesertFlower]

4. i'm in phoenix. a few nights ago

on the news it was reported that we had 6 shootings this month.

[DonP]

6. That's not even an average weekend in Chicago

This is just a partial overnight tally for Chicago from the Tribune

"Boy, 15, killed, 5 others injured in separate shootings "

"Two other 15-year-old boys were shot Sunday in separate North and West side shootings. At about 6:35 p.m. a 15-year-old boy sustained a gunshot wound to his shoulder on the 1400 block of West Pratt Boulevard, police said."

"Another 15-year-old boy was hospitalized Sunday morning after being shot in the Humboldt Park neighborhood"

"About 10:45 p.m., a 19-year-old man was shot in the stomach and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-1-shot-in-humboldt-park-neighborhood-20140126,0,6871825.story

Funny, how none of these ever make it to GD? Maybe because they all happen in minority neighborhoods or because Chicago is still a "gun free" zone?

[Common Sense Party]

7. Well, I guess to solve it you should come and confiscate my guns.

Doesn't matter that I'm sane, calm, and that my guns are safely locked away.

To solve the "unabated" tsunami of blood and carnage, you should take mine away.

Or something.

[SecularMotion]

8. How One Democracy Changed After Scrapping a Third of its Firearms

In recent years, several democracies have dramatically reduced the availability of firearms to private individuals. I emphasize the word democracies because, contrary to Internet chatter, the countries in which voters have supported gun amnesties and buybacks are not dictatorships. They include the United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia, which in recent years destroyed a third of its privately owned guns.

Many observers continue to cite the official tally of guns destroyed by smelting in the Australian National Firearms Buyback as 659,940 newly prohibited weapons (Australia, 2002). Yet the actual number of private weapons destroyed is now estimated at well over one million. As outlined in the essay by Rebecca Peters (in this volume), in the late 1990s all Australian states and territories agreed to new uniform legislation, the primary declared purpose of which was to reduce the risk of mass shootings. Owner licensing was tightened to require proof of "genuine reason" to possess a gun; the sale and transfer of firearms was limited to licensed dealers; rapid-fire rifles and shotguns were banned, bought back, and destroyed; and remaining firearms were registered to uniform national standards (Australia, 1996). Two nationwide, federally funded gun buybacks made the headlines, but until now the number of additional, voluntary, and unrecompensed surrenders for destruction remained unquantified.
- - - -

The Australian experience, catalyzed by 35 deaths in a single shooting spree, marked a national sea-change in attitudes, both to firearms and to those who own them. Led by a conservative government, Australians saw that, beliefs and fears aside, death and injury by gunshot could be as amenable to public health intervention as were motor vehicle-related deaths, drunk driving, tobacco-related disease, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. The obstructions to firearm injury prevention are nothing new to public health. An industry and its self-interest groups focussed on denial, the propagation of fear, and quasi-religious objections – we’ve seen it all before. But the future is also here to see (Mozaffarian, Hemenway and Ludwig, 2013). With gun violence, as with HIV/AIDS, waste-of-time notions such as evil, blame and retribution can with time be sluiced away to allow long-proven public health procedures. Given the opportunity and the effort, gun injury prevention can save lives as effectively as restricting access to rocket-propelled grenades and explosives or mandating child-safe lids on bottles of poison.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/cp/australia

[Common Sense Party]

9. So I only need to let you confiscate 1/3 of my guns?

I'm confused. Don't you want to eliminate ALL gun violence?

[friendly_iconoclast]

11. The "gradual" gun prohibitionists think we don't notice what they're trying to do.

And then they wonder why we won't work with them...

[SecularMotion]

14. Why do you think we call them gun nuts?

[friendly_iconoclast]

17. Because you're bigoted

Also, you'd like see guns seized from owners without being willing
to actually come out and say it.

Of course, most gun owners don't want to work with you- many, if not most, of
you are dishonest as well as being prejudiced

[Eleanors38]

21. Ah, yes. The School of Stigmata.

[pablo_marmol]

24. Because as friendly stated, you practice "respectable" bigotry.

From the masterful Don Kates - "Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda":

Fear and Loathing as Social Science

In stark contrast to this nuanced, sophisticated assessment, the spirit animating the health advocacy literature on firearms is illuminated by the frank admission of one outspoken advocate of its political agenda, Dean Deborah Prothrow-Stith of the Harvard School of Public Health: "My own view on gun control is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered and all other guns would be banned."[48] A review of the anti-gun health advocacy literature suggests that such unconstrained, unabashed emotive bias helps account for many of its anomalies and for the remarkable difference in tone and conclusion from the criminological scholarship on firearms issues.

Anti-gun health advocates seem blind or unconcerned about the danger that their emotions may preclude rational evaluation of gun ownership. Psychiatrist Emmanuel Tanay, who admits that he loathes guns to the point of being unable to look upon or touch them with equanimity, asserts that gun ownership betokens sexual immaturity or neuroticism.[49] As evidence of this, Dr. Tanay asserts that (p.529)gun owners actually "handle ... with obvious pleasure" these horrid objects which so repulse him, that collectors "look after" their collections, and that owners "clean, polish and pamper" their guns.[50] "The owner's overvaluation of his gun's worth is an indication of its libidinal value to him."[51] Further, Dr. Tanay invokes Freud's purported view of the sexual significance of firearms in the interpretation of dreams.[52] Invoking Freud is particularly ironic because Freud's comments were not directed at gun ownership. Insofar as Freud addressed the matter at all, he seems to have equated fear and loathing of guns with sexual immaturity and neuroticism.[53] We are emphatically not endorsing Freud's view as either applicable to Dr. Tanay or explanatory of his views. Our concern is with the effect fear and loathing of guns has on the intellect, not on the libido. The effect on Dr. Tanay is that he cannot recognize how gun collectors' tastes might differ from his own or how they might comprehend passages from Freud; in fact, he is unable to read them without imposing a meaning almost opposite of what they actually say. Dr. Tanay is by no means the only anti-gun health advocate to exhibit such an emotion-based reading disability (or "gun-aversive dyslexia" as we shall hereinafter call it).

Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann, one of the most prolific and influential health advocate sages, cites as supporting his view "that limiting access to firearms could prevent many suicides" an article expressly concluding the opposite.[54] An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) alleges: "Research examining the effectiveness of gun control in specific locales suggests that it can reduce violence." However, the authors cite articles whose only relevance is in support of the opposite conclusion.[55] Another JAMA (p.530)article attributes increased homicide to increased cocaine use and gun availability among New York City minority teenagers.[56] The article cites actual evidence to show increased cocaine use, but its citations, supposedly showing increased firearms availability, indicate the reverse.[57]

We do not suggest that these gun-aversive dyslexic errors have any great importance in and of themselves. Their importance lies in what they, and innumerable other errors we document, collectively say about the effect of having advocacy deemed (even hailed as) a norm, while scholarship receives only lip service. Error becomes endemic when the corrective effects of dissent and criticism are excluded. Lest our comments seem strident and extreme, recall that this is peer-reviewed literature. Each of the articles cited in the preceding paragraph were peer-reviewed, as were almost all of the other articles we cite. How did errors of easily establisbable fact--that a source is cited for something opposite to what it says--slip past reviewers? The short answer is that intellectual sloppiness prevails when political motivations reign and sagecraft displaces scholarship.

Worse yet, peer review, and the general process of criticism, actually exacerbates error in the atmosphere of intellectual lockstep which prevails among health advocates. For instance, it was not enough for the JAMA reviewer of Dean Prothrow-Stith's book that it unreservedly avowed her hatred for guns.[58] He reproached not her emotionalism, which he fervently endorses, but rather the lack of more space devoted to teaching health advocates how to mobilize support for laws to rid our society of these evil objects.[59] An atmosphere in which criticism in general, and peer review in particular, comes from only one perspective not only allows error, but promotes it. Recall how the CDC's principal researchers on firearms and violence characterized firearms as having "a central role in interpersonal violence."[60] This exemplifies the tendency of grossly inaccurate hyperbole slipping through any kind of editorial review process so long as it supports health advocacy's anti-gun bias. It could rightly have been said that guns are used in 60-65% of the approximately 23,000 murders committed annually.[61] But, though murder is the (p.531)gravest form of "interpersonal violence," numerically it is only a small part of that category and guns are used in less than 13% of the 6.7 million rapes, robberies, and assaults.[62] Locutional sloppiness and hyperbole reign in health advocacy literature, where advocacy has displaced scholarship and the only allowable peer review or criticism is that which arraigns authors for underemphasizing the baleful effect guns have on society.

[NYC_SKP]

25. Interesting...

To late to track down and read the Kates piece, but thankful that you pointed it out to us.

[pablo_marmol]

89. Here you go:

http://www.guncite.com/journals/tennmed.html

I actually spoke to Don once by phone, and complimented him on this essay. I couldn't believe it when he discounted it with language that I don't recall!

Recently I decided to get a clean used copy of "The Great American Gun War". (Kleck/Kates) When it arrived, much to my surprise and pleasure, it was autographed by Mr. Kates!

[mokawanis]

15. The perception among many

is that gun-lovers are extremists who insist we shouldn't do anything about gun-violence. Any suggestion of gun regulation is met with scorn, ridicule, and a stubborn insistence that the 2nd amendment means people should be allowed to amass whatever kind of arsenal they desire. I wonder what it would take to get the gunners to work with us? Is there any common ground at all? Can ANYTHING be done with gun regulation?

[blueridge3210]

16. What regulations would you propose?

What effect do you think they would have on gun crime?

This is where the breakdown seems to start IMHO.

When the country decided to address the issue of DUI the approach was not to demonize those who drove cars or consumed alcohol, but to increase criminal penalties to those who did both and put others in danger. Many of the current proposals to address "gun violence" appear to the be functional equivalent of attempting to address DUI by regulating the concentration of alcohol in various beverages or modifications to automobiles instead of addressing the actual criminal behavior.

Also, we seemed to do much more to reduce the level of impaired driving by addressing a culture that didn't see it as a big deal. Increased penalties alone would not do much to reduce DUI without a corresponding societal attitude that to deliberately operate a vehicle while impaired is not acceptable.

Much of the negative response to proposed gun regulation is based upon the perception that the intent of the regulation is not to reduce criminal activity but to make mere ownership of a firearm extremely expensive or inconvenient. When questioned about this many proponents of the regulation accuse those asking the question of "not caring" about those killed or injured by guns. This further causes a breakdown in the debate on what should be done to address the issue.

[Eleanors38]

22. The perception comes from#14 above..

One way to approach the problem is for those wishing to pass a law or enact regulations is to first clearly state a plausible reason for such enactions; what problems are addressed, how addressed, dangers of "unintended" consequences. Then, people can decide whether or not to pursue the law or regulation.

[beevul]

83. That perception is contrived and fostered with the intent of using it as a club...

That perception is contrived and fostered with the intent of using it as a club to beat the other side over the head with.

The perception among many is that gun-lovers are extremists who insist we shouldn't do anything about gun-violence. Any suggestion of gun regulation is met with scorn, ridicule, and a stubborn insistence that the 2nd amendment means people should be allowed to amass whatever kind of arsenal they desire. I wonder what it would take to get the gunners to work with us? Is there any common ground at all? Can ANYTHING be done with gun regulation?

Try ways of reducing gun violence that don't step on anyones toes, and you'll get a different response.

If you're asking what can be done to get "gunners" to work with you to reduce gun rights and gun ownership as a stated means of reducing gun violence, why should we work with you?

We have a metric ass-ton of gun laws already, that were passed into law with the word "compromise" attached to them. The problem is, compromise was defined as one side losing more than they wanted to, and one side not taking as much as they wanted to, with that side coming back time after time for more, and offering up nothing in return, and no acknowledgment of the one sidedness of the whole works.

The days of that happening are over.

[ileus]

18. And people want to take our ability to defend ourselves away...

[friendly_iconoclast]

19. Oh, you'll still be able to effectively defend yourself, if...

...you have the physiology of Vin Diesel or Gina Carano