U.S. Gun Violence

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I have been around guns from the day I was born. I was born into an extremely large family, most of which stems from the West Virginia foothills. The majority of my family are of the "end of civilization" and survivalist life philosophies. In my family, you learn to shoot before you learn to read. I grew up in areas where the two biggest hobbies were drinkin' and shootin' sh*t. My father collects firearms (although hoarding firearms might be a bit more accurate). My grandfather has always had two .22 on him for personal protection. I have several cousins who shoot competitively. The first time I got a break from guns was when I went into the military. Since the military, I have lived in poverty stricken parts of larger cities, where handguns are extremely common. I will admit that these days the only time I shoot is when I'm going to go hunting, but that does not invalidate my past experience. I have (and will again, if it makes you happier) admitted that you know more about those who frequent the range. I will still maintain that your experience does not somehow mean you know all about every type of gun owner, or that I know nothing.



^That is exactly it. I rarely lose my temper, but when I do it goes from "nothing" to "something must be destroyed" with no stops in between.



I have some issues. There are certain things that affect me (usually having to do with people talking/shouting/laughing too loudly or too quickly) in a very negative way that are not entirely rational. I apologize if that means I do not live up to your standards.

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If you want to read the last few pages of our exchanges, we have not been discussing gun control. I have been responding to your posts, not arguing about gun control. I have not really seen you address any of my earlier comments on regulations that I would support, so your condescending "you still can't justify" words could be thrown right back at you.

I will take this moment to re-iterate that I am in favor of sensible and realistic firearm regulation, but that to date, there have been no measures presented in any form that would meet both the sensible and realistic aspects. To assume that I am trying to ram gun control down your throat only further demonstrates your extremist mentality of if you disagree with a single word I say then you are my enemy. I just think that lines need to be drawn somewhere. If there are no lines, then why not let a 6 year old save up his lunch money and pick up a 9mm on the way to school? Anything else would be infringement on his rights, wouldn't it?

Remember: this is Ann's thread. We're supposed to talk about penises.

But, do carry on. I'll try to wait another 5 pages or so before I poke my nose in again.

At the end of the day, this is what it all comes down to. Politicians ignorant of the reality of firearms either come up with bad ideas, or they take good ideas and write legislation that doesn't actually solve the problem. And then they wonder why they don't have popular support from the gun owner community.

A perfect example: a while ago, Virginia state politicians wanted to ban guns in bars. The only problem is Virginia doesn't allow "bars" - everything from your local Fridays to the dive-bar are all classified as "restaurants that serve alcohol" in an attempt to force bars to serve a certain percentage of food so that (I'm assuming) people don't get drunk on an empty stomach.

So, when the state politicians enacted this law, it went a little something like this: "no one with a concealed carry permit can carry a concealed weapon into a restaurant that serves alcohol". Now, besides the obvious unintended side-effect that they prohibited anyone from carrying concealed into their local Chipotle, there's another problem with the law. It contained absolutely no restrictions whatsoever on anyone open carrying. So, you couldn't carry a concealed weapon into a Chipotle, but you could totally open carry into a bar.

This sort of thing has always been my big problem with the firearm regulation discussion in this country. Those who are most knowledgeable and would provide the most valuable perspective on legislation refuse to acknowledge any possible benefit of any regulation. So instead, at some point in the (likely near) future, firearm legislation is going to be ram-rodded through congress in an emotional response to a high profile isolated incident. And instead of improving things in any way shape or form, it will probably exacerbate the problems, because those shoving it through will be the ones least qualified to do so.

Not every type but a helluva lot of types come my way in herds.




If you have anger and control issues that serious maybe it's just you that needs these extra layers of gun control that you propose for all of us.


There's a lot of little things that deeply annoy (more like disturb) me about some types of people. Some more so than others and excessively loud talkers and outwardly aggressive people are definitely one of them. To be perfectly honest, I'd much rather be around dogs than people. But still, having spent my time at shooting ranges (not just ours), I cannot remember a time when the relatively few black helicopter people have been more than a mild annoyance that I could be away from in a few steps. I'm about out of enthusiasm for discussing the black helicopter people and shooting range people.

And all this time I thought I've been responding to your posts.

I do recall asking for justification, what value added they would be, and what would be the next step if they do not have the desired effect. And don't forget constitutionality, base and passé as it may seem to you.


Finally, back to the meat of the issue.
Like most other gun control advocates, you continue to labor under the illusion that there are no gun laws. I don't have the time or the inclination to find all of the applicable federal laws and the laws for your state and post them here. You should at least know that it is illegal to sell a 9mm or any other firearm to a six year old. And even jokingly implying otherwise says indicates you have little grasp of the law. The very small minority of people that would sell a gun, any gun, to a six year old even if there were no governing laws is too small to consider in the overall scheme of things. Most people have at least that much of a moral compass.
And registering all guns did not even go over well in Canada. What makes you think that it would get off the ground or be bloodlessly carried out in the USA?

In closing (for now) I note that you and your partners in crime like to accuse me of condescension. Admittedly, I do have a built in condescension dispenser that was a dealer installed option back when my parents ordered me. Having said that, I personally find people screeching and chanting MORE GUN CONTROL! CATCH UP WITH THE CIVILIZED WORLD! BE MORE PROGRESSIVE! DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN! ECT, ETC, ad nauseam, to be more than just merely condescending.

Last edited by Raptor on 24 Jan 2014, 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think this is necessarily true, I just think that the current solutions on the table are unworkable.

For example, I don't think Dox, Raptor, or anyone else in this thread would make the argument that laws against drinking and carrying wouldn't be beneficial. But no one is talking about that, and there are several states that don't actually have that codified - or have it codified in a really strange way that doesn't make it apply. It seems like pretty low-hanging fruit for the gun control crowd - but nobody is interested in it.

I think there are tons of gun owners that don't disagree with the *principle* of universal background checks (especially if it can be worked in trade for other concessions. Off the top of my head I think I would ask for the barrel length criteria to be removed from the NFA) - but the problem is none of the suggested implementations of such a check would actually work.

And the 1911 is still around after over 100 years. What a know-nothing "poofer" (without substance) statement. Even the most lethal hand gun round used, the .357 Magnum, has been around since 1935 (almost 80 years). So much for improvements in lethal-ness of handgun rounds through the years. someone even less knowledgeable might believe such drivel

At least someone arguing against guns could have the common courtesy to try to get their facts right beforehand and not pass along blatant untruths when in a forum of their peers, especially after the facts are explained. If it's that the poster is just afraid of guns regardless of the situation then perhaps it's time for that person to have a "moment of discovery" and admit this to themselves and use this as their guiding argument rather than known untruths.

denny

Do you happen to have any links that point to the truth of your contention??? Seems to me the phallic references I've heard of come only from women. I guess it's obvious from this it's definitely a phallic symbol primarily for women....which is understandable.

denny

FN Five-seveN. 'Nuff said.

Is it actually an improvement over the choices that existed before?
I'd be hard pressed to give up a 9mm, .40, or .45 for one since it appears to offer little in the way of stopping power than a .22 magnum. I believe it was developed more for penetration than anything. Maybe a select fire PDW in that caliber but I think I'll pass on the 5.7mm handgun.

It's an improvement in some ways, and not in others. Just like pretty much every other caliber round out there. There's less mass and it's shape isn't designed for stopping power - but what you lose in energy transfer you gain in penetration distance, as well as the trajectory of the bullet once it hits skin.

It's not a round that's designed to stop, it's a round that's designed to cause as much bleeding as possible - in short, it's designed to kill.

Every round is some kind of a tradeoff - that's why there's more than one.

About 10 years ago the anti-gun crowd was at the same point....and, in concession, magazines over 10 rounds and scary looking rifles were prohibited for a test period. After the test period, when virtually no changes in crime statistics were shown to have occurred, the test ended and the law was allowed to expire.

Did anti-gun hacks learn anything from this test????? If they did they weren't saying, and here they are again, as though nothing had happened.

But gun owners DID notice and were unwilling to sweep it under the rug. So now, when the anti-gun people start screaming and holding up pictures of dead children, we tell them to spend their time and money trying to fix the INSANE KILLERS (each and every one of these multiple killers were quite insane) instead of trying to force un-Constitutional actions on honest citizens. And some people are actually listening and, although slowly, mental health help is on the way.

But does this slow down anyone making their living from trying to ban guns(?)...............you guess. And the people who don't keep up with the present reality just continue to blather.

Oh sorry: And penises.

Whatever, but I don't see it as much more, in effect, than the .30 cal M1 carbine round revisited 70+ years later. Like the .30 carbine round, the 5.7's only practical use is in some kinda PDW or subgun and even then it's positive attributes are quite limited.



The antis said the streets would run red with blood if the AWB (or whatever it was called) was allowed to sunset in '04. Of course, no such thing happened as anyone with two brain cells to rub together already knew.


A few things these past few nationwide gun buying and hoarding surges has done is create more gun owners and place several million more guns and billions of rounds of ammo in private hands. It makes the legislative hill that the antis have to climb steeper and more perilous for them which is always a good thing.

I agree with you 100%, but I've also come around on Raptor's approach for certain situations/individuals, as after 6 years and thousands of posts on the subject, I'm really tired of being polite and informative to people whom both are wasted on. Raptor just got there sooner than I did, and might tend to use a little more suppressive fire where I'd favor aimed shots to the credibility.

I think that everyone is to pre-occupied with debating about the points that we don't agree on that we assume that we don't agree with anything. I don't necessarily think that's true. I think if we want to have a meaningful discussion about gun control issues we have to start at the absolute top and work our way down from there to figure out where different people diverge in their thinking, and why.

I don't exactly know how to structure that kind of discussion, but I think it would definitely be interesting.

^

I tried something kinda like that a while back with my 'gun control challenge' thread, asking people who believed in gun control to explain why they thought it would work and to provide examples of it having done so, but a lot of people thought I was trying to trick them in some way, or didn't like the way I insisted on apples to apples comparisons. I also don't think most gun control proponents are used to bein put on the spot and being asked to justify their beliefs, rather than just stating them as if they were self evident. I don't mean this (entirely) as a dig, but I've found that a lot of gun control supporters have not critically thought through their positions, hence the commonality of appeals to "common sense" and emotion in lieu of stats and research, the attempts to control the language of the debate, the fear/scare mongering, etc.

I'm a convert myself, having been raised by a parent that feared and disliked firearms and coming to my current beliefs through personal research and analysis, so I'm a bit more familiar with both sides of the argument than most, and also with both sets of culture, living in Seattle but attending gunsmithing school in Denver. Personally, a large part of my switch of positions had to do with realizing the extent of the deception on the gun control side, from the loaded language to the abuse of statistics to the hysterical hyperbole, and much like the kids who tried drugs and didn't immediately die/become addicted like the government said, I started to wonder just how much of what I'd been told as gospel was really BS (most of it).