Gun Violence, Mass Shootings & Gun Reform

[gwilson]

Holy crap. I cannot believe some of the posts in this thread.

Technology a weapon against a fascist dictatorship? Do you really think that EMAILS could have brought down Hitler with no way to PHYSICALLY depose him? And do you think that he would not put limits on the ability of the people to communicate to organize opposition?

The only form of gun control that should ever be considered is background checks. If someone is a felon or a diagnosed mentally ill person (that doesn't mean just depression), they should not be allowed to purchase firearms. Even that I'm not certain would stop crime. The felon or mentally ill person, if they wanted to kill someone, would just kill them another way.

Gun control is unconstitutional. It is that simple. The populous is expected to maintain it's own defenses as a check against the government so that the government knows it cannot operate without possible recourse. Simply put we are expected by the Constitution to depose our government if it starts violating the Constitution.

There are a plethora of one liner arguments against gun control, and all of them are valid for the most part.

Gun violence at the hands of criminals is not a reason to remove firearms from the hands of law abiding citizens. It is counter intuitive.

I guess Mr. Perry has forgotten that the guy who killed my friend and boss Chris Marshall in the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 1, 1990 was a "law abiding" former lawyer, who would have qualified for a concealed handgun permit had they been available in 1990.

Do you seriously believe that this guy wouldn't have used other means to carry out the act if he couldn't get his hands on a gun? Knifings are pretty dern common too.

[RedScare]

Gun control is unconstitutional. It is that simple.

Actually, you are wrong. Completely wrong. It is that simple.

However, I have better things to do than explain Constitutional Law to an obsessed gun freak.

[dbigtex56]

Had the Brady Bill been renewed, Mr. Cho would not have had the access he did to the weapons with which he did his killing. Unfortunately, President Bush lied (again) when he said that he would support the renewal of the Brady Bill.

[CDeb]

Had the Brady Bill been renewed, Mr. Cho would not have had the access he did to the weapons with which he did his killing. Unfortunately, President Bush lied (again) when he said that he would support the renewal of the Brady Bill.

You mean a guy intent on killing as many people as he could would have changed his mind because he would have been breaking another law?

[musicman]

Had the Brady Bill been renewed, Mr. Cho would not have had the access he did to the weapons with which he did his killing. Unfortunately, President Bush lied (again) when he said that he would support the renewal of the Brady Bill.

i'm not sure if his ebay purchases would have been prevented.

[TheNiche]

i'm not sure if his ebay purchases would have been prevented.

Yeah, I once purchased a high-capacity magazine over Ebay for my Ruger from a state in which they could not legally be sold. It was marketed and shipped as a "Capsule Container".

[TheNiche]

Had the Brady Bill been renewed, Mr. Cho would not have had the access he did to the weapons with which he did his killing. Unfortunately, President Bush lied (again) when he said that he would support the renewal of the Brady Bill.

You clearly aren't an "obsessed gun freak," as Red might label me. If you were, you'd know that the Brady Bill had no teeth. It is a ban on the manufacture of assault weapons, which defined by the law were as follows:

The bill bans, by name, the manufacture of 19 different weapons:

Norinco, Mitchell, and Poly Technologies Avtomat Kalashnikovs (all models);

Action Arms Israeli Military Industries UZI and Galil;

Beretta Ar70 (SC-70);

Colt AR-15;

Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR, and FNC;

SWD M-10; M-11; M-11/9, and M-12;

Steyr AUG;

INTRATEC TEC-9, TEC-DC9, AND TEC-22;

revolving cylinder shotguns such as (or similar to) the Street Sweeper and Striker 12

The bill did not ban the sale of such weapons, and existing weapons could still be sold; they are marketed at gun stores and in magazines as "pre-ban". So the VT shooter could still have purchased them, although at a slightly higher price. If you think that a few hundred dollars, at most, would've motivated a lunatic not to go through with a suicidal plan, you're more insane than he.

But it doesn't end there! The Brady Bill is even more worthless because it bans the import or manufacture only of weapons that look mean, IMO. It is not a ban on firearms based upon their destructive capacity. For instance, a Ruger Mini-14 or Mini-30 semiautomatic magazine-fed gas-powered rifle chambered in 5.56mm or 7.62mm, respectively, remained perfectly legal. These are the same types of weapons and types of ammunition that are used, M-16/AR-15 and AK-47s, and all variants thereof. There are also no shortage of semiautomatic magazine-fed pistols chambered in 9mm, which is the same as UZI, TEC-9, and M-10, and their variants. There are semi-automatic magazine-fed shotguns manufactured in eastern Europe that basically eliminate the desireability of shotguns that use revolving cylinders.

Even more ludicrous:

The 1994 law also prohibits manufacturers from producing firearms with more than one of the following assault weapon features:

Rifles

Folding/telescoping stock

Protruding pistol grip

Bayonet mount

Threaded muzzle or flash suppressor

Grenade launcher

Pistols

Magazine outside grip

Threaded muzzle

Barrel shroud

Unloaded weight of 50 ounces or more

Semi-automatic version of a fully automatic weapon

Shotguns

Folding/telescoping stock

Protruding pistol grip

Detachable magazine capacity

Fixed magazine capacity greater than 5 rounds

When was the last time that you heard about someone that got bayonetted!? Or that someone launched a grenade (which was/is already an illegal munition) at someone...or a bird bomb, flare, or smoke grenade for that matter? Perhaps we need to ban 37mm flare launchers, since those are evidently a tool of the criminal element? The brady bill bans pistols that weigh too much! Why are we banning guns that are heavy to tote around? Wouldn't criminals gravitate to lighter more concealable weapons? I submit to you that it is because they look mean. My opinion is bolstered by the last bit on pistols. But none of this mattered anyway; do you know why? Because everything bannable about rifles and shotguns, and most things bannable about pistols were available as inexpensive after-market accessories. If I were really that motivated to have a mean-looking firearm when I went on my rampage, I could buy the basic gun and an accessory kit, and upgrade it at home, illegally. If I were going on a suicidal rampage, what would stop me from breaking an unenforcable law in the privacy of my own home!?

Bottom line is that there were functional equivalents of each of the firearms that were banned, and that the firearms that were grandfathered in could still be sold. The Brady Bill was a highly-publicized annoyance. Those who support it clearly do not understand the market for firearms well enough even to legislate what they really seem to want; why should we believe that they have any idea what the motivations of gun buyers are, much less criminals?

Btw, you're always so critical with me about citing sources, bigtex. Everything that I've quoted here is from the website you linked to. Did you even read it, or are you just that ignorant on the realities of an issue in which you believe that the best solution is to deprive law-abiding people of their freedoms? ...and I emphasize the phrase "law-abiding" because the law was configured so that any criminal could easily get around it in a time and place that there was no way to enforce the law!

Edited May 2, 2007 by TheNiche

[krix]

Just let me mention one less known fact: prior to the Virginia Tech shootings, the school shooting with the highest number of casalties was in Germany, the Erfurt massacre, a country with extensive gun-control laws (the perpretator mainly used a Glock 17). But if you compare statistics across the industrialized world, there still seems to be a trend that tighter gun laws lead to less victims in general (do not forget the victims from accidents involving guns, and also suicides). After all, in a country like Japan, where guns are even more restricted than in Germany, most school massacres are carried out with knives.

[RedScare]

The Bath massacre in Michigan was actually higher at 45 dead. However, it was not committed with firearms at all. While you are correct that gun restricted countries experience fewer homicides in general, it would take decades, if ever, for the US to have few enough firearms to make a difference. The underground trafficking in firearms would likely cause an escalation in violence (if the War on Drugs is an indicator), leading to the exact opposite result desired.

The only way for a REAL and effective decrease in US gun violence is for a marked change in the culture of violence that exists in this country, even among the law abiding citizenry. I have no idea whatsoever how or when that might occur.

[musicman]

The only way for a REAL and effective decrease in US gun violence is for a marked change in the culture of violence that exists in this country, even among the law abiding citizenry. I have no idea whatsoever how or when that might occur.

with the violence on movies/tv/video games, i only see it heading in the same direction.

[Houston1stWordOnTheMoon]

I am an owner of firearms. I am a hunter and life long member of the NRA. I firmly believe that more gun control is stupid. Gun control punishes only the people that would abide by the law in the first place. Any bastard clown of a politician that speaks in support of further gun control in this country should be slapped and run outta office. I really do not wish to give any politician anymore control over the private affairs of law abiding citizens than they already have.

[krix]

The Bath massacre in Michigan was actually higher at 45 dead. However, it was not committed with firearms at all. While you are correct that gun restricted countries experience fewer homicides in general, it would take decades, if ever, for the US to have few enough firearms to make a difference. The underground trafficking in firearms would likely cause an escalation in violence (if the War on Drugs is an indicator), leading to the exact opposite result desired.

The only way for a REAL and effective decrease in US gun violence is for a marked change in the culture of violence that exists in this country, even among the law abiding citizenry. I have no idea whatsoever how or when that might occur.

Yeah that's why I wrote "shootings" (and wasn't there some accident in Texas some 60 years ago that stands out as the school tragedy with most casualties, at least in the US? I think I read an article in Texas Monthly about it). Anyway, I think I agree with you that restricting gun laws wouldn't help much here. I don't really know what the right answer would be....

[krix]

Oh one more thing about the argument that gun laws contributed to the Holocaust.... I would really recommend reading up on your history.

1. the Weimar Republic was an era full of street fights between the troops of the Nazis, Communists and the Social Democrats, they were all armed. However, after Hitler's ascent to power, with the full state apparatus available to him, the Communists were either arrested or went into hiding, and the Social Democrats were left unharmed unless they didn't speak up. You know if you're a party trooper bent on taking over the state (which was true of the Nazis and the Communists), the last thing you cared about were the gun laws.

2. the great tragedy of the German Jews is that they had become assimilated to such an extent that they refused to believe that the German government would ever even consider killing them. The vast majority were law-abiding citizens, and many of them even war veterans of WWI, fervently patriotic. Thus until 1938, when it was relatively easy to leave the country, many refused to do so. The step by step approach taken by the government contributed to this I suppose. I mean they were deported to camps outside of Germany proper, and many of them followed the deportation orders voluntarily.

3. in the Ghettos in Poland, this was different, it was clearer what was going to happen to them, but as you might be aware, there was an armed uprising, you can read about it here. However, I don't know about gun laws in Poland and what kind of factor this might have played there. I do think that once you have become a fascist dictatorship the very notion of gun laws has become preposterous.

[RedScare]

Sorry, krix. I looked for the word 'shooting' to make sure I was not misquoting, yet I STILL missed it.

[TJones]

Had the Brady Bill been renewed, Mr. Cho would not have had the access he did to the weapons with which he did his killing. Unfortunately, President Bush lied (again) when he said that he would support the renewal of the Brady Bill.

1 question, when did the Brady bill extention reach the President's desk for him to veto it ?

1 point, the Brady Bill would have stopped Cho from "possibly" buying from a Gun store in Virginia, not a Gun Show though, and it would seem that an Immigrant Senior Classman at VT with a Temporary Visa would probably read up on where he could purchase a gun. The NCIS list is incomplete apparently, and lots of immigrants, even illegal ones, have been able to purchase a gun from stores all over the U.S when the Brady Bill was in place.

I myself WOULD like the Brady Bill in place.

Edited May 2, 2007 by TJones

[houstonmacbro]

I really do not wish to give any politician anymore control over the private affairs of law abiding citizens than they already have.

Wonder if that viewpoint also extends to gay marriage and abortion?

[CDeb]

The only way for a REAL and effective decrease in US gun violence is for a marked change in the culture of violence that exists in this country, even among the law abiding citizenry. I have no idea whatsoever how or when that might occur.

Concur with the first sentence. Got a few ideas about the second, but they would never fly.

Wonder if that viewpoint also extends to gay marriage and abortion?

<cough, cough> red herring <cough, cough>

[musicman]

1 question, when did the Brady bill extention reach the President's desk for him to veto it ?

1 point, the Brady Bill would have stopped Cho from "possibly" buying from a Gun store in Virginia, not a Gun Show though, and it would seem that an Immigrant Senior Classman at VT with a Temporary Visa would probably read up on where he could purchase a gun. The NCIS list is incomplete apparently, and lots of immigrants, even illegal ones, have been able to purchase a gun from stores all over the U.S when the Brady Bill was in place.

I myself WOULD like the Brady Bill in place.

Someone with a plan, like Cho, would have done whatever is necessary to obtain weapons. He bought some of his supplies on ebay. The brady bill may have stopped a few purchases, however he still would have obtained weapons.

[TheNiche]

Oh one more thing about the argument that gun laws contributed to the Holocaust.... I would really recommend reading up on your history.

I fully acknowledge that most German Jews went to the camps without putting up resistance. That doesn't mean that there weren't grumblings. It doesn't mean that there was some sense that something was wrong with the picture. And certainly some did have an idea what was coming and wanted very much to avoid it; otherwise, there wouldn't have been hideaways like Anne Frank. If they and the rest of the German population had had easy access to an array of weaponry, perhaps the outcome may have been less bleak. At the very least, isolated cases of organized violence would've caused some of the German population to give real consideration to what was going on. As you pointed out, the Germans were not all a bunch of sheep; they did have a brain and they did have individual thoughts, but they were suppressed by facism with effectively no way out past a certain point. The basis of my argument is to start with what was and ponder what could have been.

Poland was subject to some similar gun control laws, by the way. Coming up with adequate firepower was a limiting factor in the revolt at the Warsaw ghettos.

I myself WOULD like the Brady Bill in place.

DUDE!!! Did you even read my response to Bigtex?

The only way for a REAL and effective decrease in US gun violence is for a marked change in the culture of violence that exists in this country, even among the law abiding citizenry. I have no idea whatsoever how or when that might occur.

Concur. That's the bottom line to the whole matter.

Edited May 2, 2007 by TheNiche

[houstonmacbro]

Concur with the first sentence. Got a few ideas about the second, but they would never fly.

<cough, cough> red herring <cough, cough>

We love to pick and choose.

[TJones]

DUDE!!! Did you even read my response to Bigtex?

Well of course I did, doesn't mean I see it the same way you do.

I myself don't feel the need for an assault rifle. Although, I do understand the obsession some have over owning a "mean looking" gun. I own a Desert Eagle .44 , do I need it, I don't know, does it look cool, hell yeah. I bought it for protection though. I will admit that the Brady Bill has some kinks that need ironing out, I like the fact that it tries to keep ANY Joe Schmoe from obtaining a gun of any sort from a dealer, but it needs to be extended to the gun shows as well. The biggest problem I have with the Brady Bill though, is that it basically was providing a list of who owned what kind of weapons to the Government. It is a very complexed explanation, and I know how it works in my mind, but I don't think I could extrapolate it into words here for everyone to understand.

[CDeb]

We love to pick and choose.

Well, for those of us that use our brains, we can understand the difference in each, but that's for another thread.

[musicman]

Well, for those of us that use our brains, we can understand the difference in each, but that's for another thread.

lol

[krix]

I fully acknowledge that most German Jews went to the camps without putting up resistance. That doesn't mean that there weren't grumblings. It doesn't mean that there was some sense that something was wrong with the picture. And certainly some did have an idea what was coming and wanted very much to avoid it; otherwise, there wouldn't have been hideaways like Anne Frank. If they and the rest of the German population had had easy access to an array of weaponry, perhaps the outcome may have been less bleak. At the very least, isolated cases of organized violence would've caused some of the German population to give real consideration to what was going on. As you pointed out, the Germans were not all a bunch of sheep; they did have a brain and they did have individual thoughts, but they were suppressed by facism with effectively no way out past a certain point. The basis of my argument is to start with what was and ponder what could have been.

Poland was subject to some similar gun control laws, by the way. Coming up with adequate firepower was a limiting factor in the revolt at the Warsaw ghettos.

I wrote about party troopers from other parties such as the Communists and the Social Democrats actually having access to weapons. But after the Nazis came to power it quickly became clear to them that theirs was a doomed battle, so the Communists went into hiding and the Social Democrats became passive citizens of the new state. Anyway, also Poland was a military dictatorship before being occupied by Nazi Germany. You know, the first order in most dictatorships is to restrict the gun laws, so anybody not complying can simply be arrested as criminals. There were also isolated cases of resistance, the White Rose (nonviolent) or the group around Stauffenberg (violent) are but two examples. However, these were decried as criminals. I just don't see where the gun thing comes into play here.

It is not so much about access to guns here, it is in my opinion more to do with the legal theory of positivism preventing too many people from taking up armed resistance. (Positivism in a nutshell states that laws have to be followed no matter their intent and the government has to be obeyed if it can legitimize itself through laws; and usually fascist regimes try to retain a semblance of legality). This doctrine has been superseded by legal scholars after WWII, this is why the East German border guards were convicted for shooting refugees at the inner-German border despite their actions being fully legal according to the East German laws, and this is why the German constitution now gives any citizen the right to take up armed resistance to protect the democratic order of the state.

[Houston1stWordOnTheMoon]

Wonder if that viewpoint also extends to gay marriage and abortion?

Wonder if the gay stuff will ever stay in the threads started for that sort of talk?

[Highway6]

http://politicalblog.abc13.com/2009/10/hpd-yea-no-murders-in-10-days.html

Why would the city celebrate this and make a big deal of this? I for one was blissfully ignorant of that statistic. Celebrating and pointing out to Houstonians what a rare treat for us it is that we've reached this rare milestone in lack of murders only highlights how crappy our crime rate is 99% of the time.

[brijonmang]

http://politicalblog.abc13.com/2009/10/hpd-yea-no-murders-in-10-days.html

Why would the city celebrate this and make a big deal of this? I for one was blissfully ignorant of that statistic. Celebrating and pointing out to Houstonians what a rare treat for us it is that we've reached this rare milestone in lack of murders only highlights how crappy our crime rate is 99% of the time.

The glass is half full dammit!

[HoustonMidtown]

Didnt make it to 11 days though:

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou091021_mh_woman-murdered-downtown.23b43a77a.html

[kylejack]

Those of us who watched The Wire know that the bodies are actually piling up in abandoned houses.

Edited October 21, 2009 by kylejack

[gto250us]

Come on folks. We don't want to lay off any homicide cops in this economy.