Bickering over gun control and what it MAY cost you...

[occupied]

One. The assault weopons are created for one purpose only, to kill a large number of people rapidly. Require the same license for a semi-automatic rifle as for a fully automatic one. After all, what is the differance? 30 shots in under ten seconds with a semi-auto in a crowded mall or a school room is hardly any differant that a fully automatic. If someone is caught outside their home with an AK or AR with no license, the weopon is confiscated and destroyed, and the person faces jail time.

Two. If you store you guns, of any type, carelessly, and someone takes one and uses it in a crime, you own that crime.

Three. Somehow, we have to address the problem of the mentally ill in our population. After they have committed a crime, it is far too late. Too late for the victim, too late for the mentally ill person.

First, if preservation of life is a primary concern let's shift focus from firearms to recreational and unnecessary automobile use which happens to be responsible for infinitely more death and maiming than guns are. An analytical poll would reveal that less than half of all automobile use in the U.S. is necessary and if all this unnecessary automobile use were prohibited the rate of highway death and maiming would be proportionally reduced.

Every day of every week a substantial number of drunks, incompetents, and temperamental screwballs manage to kill or maim hundreds of innocents, many of them children, by unnecessarily bringing automobiles into the traffic stream and colliding with or diverting others into collision. But there is no agitation to prohibit the unnecessary use of automobiles. Why? Because every American with a driver license either frequently or occasionally makes unnecessary use of a motor vehicle of some kind. And in doing so they voluntarily participate in the ongoing game of highway mayhem which collectively kills or maims thousands of innocent others every year.

The situation is analogous to the vigorous prohibition of recreational drugs while the use of beverage alcohol is responsible for infinitely more death and malicious violence than all recreational drugs combined. Yet that circumstance is as casually ignored as is that of highway deaths.

There is no other issue in this country quite like the gun issue, so analogies do not really work. I like to describe gun nuts as animistic totemists, meaning their weapons represent an almost mystical symbol imbued with power, much the same as primitive hunters did with their spears and slings. You cannot fight that kind of thing with rationality as it is ingrained within our genes along with territoriality and xenophobia.

 

[oldernwiser]

One. The assault weopons are created for one purpose only, to kill a large number of people rapidly. Require the same license for a semi-automatic rifle as for a fully automatic one. After all, what is the differance? 30 shots in under ten seconds with a semi-auto in a crowded mall or a school room is hardly any differant that a fully automatic. If someone is caught outside their home with an AK or AR with no license, the weopon is confiscated and destroyed, and the person faces jail time.

Two. If you store you guns, of any type, carelessly, and someone takes one and uses it in a crime, you own that crime.

Three. Somehow, we have to address the problem of the mentally ill in our population. After they have committed a crime, it is far too late. Too late for the victim, too late for the mentally ill person.

First, if preservation of life is a primary concern let's shift focus from firearms to recreational and unnecessary automobile use which happens to be responsible for infinitely more death and maiming than guns are. An analytical poll would reveal that less than half of all automobile use in the U.S. is necessary and if all this unnecessary automobile use were prohibited the rate of highway death and maiming would be proportionally reduced.

Every day of every week a substantial number of drunks, incompetents, and temperamental screwballs manage to kill or maim hundreds of innocents, many of them children, by unnecessarily bringing automobiles into the traffic stream and colliding with or diverting others into collision. But there is no agitation to prohibit the unnecessary use of automobiles. Why? Because every American with a driver license either frequently or occasionally makes unnecessary use of a motor vehicle of some kind. And in doing so they voluntarily participate in the ongoing game of highway mayhem which collectively kills or maims thousands of innocent others every year.

The situation is analogous to the vigorous prohibition of recreational drugs while the use of beverage alcohol is responsible for infinitely more death and malicious violence than all recreational drugs combined. Yet that circumstance is as casually ignored as is that of highway deaths.

There is no other issue in this country quite like the gun issue, so analogies do not really work. I like to describe gun nuts as animistic totemists, meaning their weapons represent an almost mystical symbol imbued with power, much the same as primitive hunters did with their spears and slings. You cannot fight that kind of thing with rationality as it is ingrained within our genes along with territoriality and xenophobia.

I don't know if I'd go THERE exactly. But the issue doesn't seem to be gun enthusiasts going over the edge and so I can't fully get behind limiting their access to whatever equipment they get their jollies from. Like I said above, it's too difficult to know that the person you're selling a weapon to has the intent to use that weapon on a crowd of innocents. And the ramifications of tightening weapon access is tantamount to punishing the law abiding majority in order to get a leash on a miniscule minority. This is simply addressing a single symptom of very large disease.

 

[9thIDdoc]

One. The assault weopons are created for one purpose only, to kill a large number of people rapidly. Require the same license for a semi-automatic rifle as for a fully automatic one. After all, what is the differance? 30 shots in under ten seconds with a semi-auto in a crowded mall or a school room is hardly any differant that a fully automatic. If someone is caught outside their home with an AK or AR with no license, the weopon is confiscated and destroyed, and the person faces jail time.

Two. If you store you guns, of any type, carelessly, and someone takes one and uses it in a crime, you own that crime.

Three. Somehow, we have to address the problem of the mentally ill in our population. After they have committed a crime, it is far too late. Too late for the victim, too late for the mentally ill person.

First, if preservation of life is a primary concern let's shift focus from firearms to recreational and unnecessary automobile use which happens to be responsible for infinitely more death and maiming than guns are. An analytical poll would reveal that less than half of all automobile use in the U.S. is necessary and if all this unnecessary automobile use were prohibited the rate of highway death and maiming would be proportionally reduced.

Every day of every week a substantial number of drunks, incompetents, and temperamental screwballs manage to kill or maim hundreds of innocents, many of them children, by unnecessarily bringing automobiles into the traffic stream and colliding with or diverting others into collision. But there is no agitation to prohibit the unnecessary use of automobiles. Why? Because every American with a driver license either frequently or occasionally makes unnecessary use of a motor vehicle of some kind. And in doing so they voluntarily participate in the ongoing game of highway mayhem which collectively kills or maims thousands of innocent others every year.

The situation is analogous to the vigorous prohibition of recreational drugs while the use of beverage alcohol is responsible for infinitely more death and malicious violence than all recreational drugs combined. Yet that circumstance is as casually ignored as is that of highway deaths.

There is no other issue in this country quite like the gun issue, so analogies do not really work. I like to describe gun nuts as animistic totemists, meaning their weapons represent an almost mystical symbol imbued with power, much the same as primitive hunters did with their spears and slings. You cannot fight that kind of thing with rationality as it is ingrained within our genes along with territoriality and xenophobia.

Odd, I like to discribe those who spout psyco-babble to no useful purpose as fucking idiots.

 

[MikeK]

Would you note that I did not say ban. I said that you have to pass some stringent requirements to own or purchase one. And if you are caught without that license with one of these weopons, the weopon is confiscated and destroyed, and you face jail time.

These pistols with 15 shots or more should have the same laws as we do for hunting shot guns. You plug the magazine so that there is a maximum of six shots. If you cannot defend yourself with that amount, you should not have the weopon.

"They who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." (Santayana)

The history many who advocate bans in the category of currently legal firearms is that of alcohol prohibition and the utterly shameful failure called the War on Drugs. What these well-meaning individuals fail to understand is bans constrain only the law-abiding. The only effect the bans you've proposed will have is to create another black market. Because anyone who wants a semi-auto weapon and is willing to pay the price will have one.

Gun laws serve only to disarm the law-abiding.