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This thread is for the discussion of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians; both in the United States and around the world. Some useful terms when classifying how different countries handle gun control include the following:
The United States is so permissive that we don't fully fall into the most lenient category here -- some of our states are shall-issue, while others allow possession without any permit whatsoever. However, most countries do allow civilians to own firearms, albeit with varying levels of restriction. Check here for a good summary of the information we have. Scholars considered our state of knowledge on the effects of gun control policies poor in the 2000s, which contributes to political deadlock on the issue[link]. However, in the time since then, studies by the UN[link] and others[link] have shown that gun control laws are associated with fewer firearm-related deaths. There are other studies which compare US states with stricter laws to others, as well as laws that compare suicides or injuries rather than gun deaths in general, and all of them point in the same direction of gun control causing a reduction. If there are studies that contradict this, please post them in the thread. However, opponents would argue that even if if gun control policies have benefits, they aren't worth giving up the benefits brought by gun ownership in general, or more permissive gun ownership in particular. These would include the ability to rely on oneself rather than police for safety, or guns acting as a check toward oppressive actions by the government toward citizens. Others point instead to potential problems with stricter laws, such as enforcement only targeting certain groups of citizens, or being ineffective in confiscating guns when a culture of ownership is already well-established. The merits of all of these arguments are, of course, still the subject of intense debate. Koos Group fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jun 2, 2022 |
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Jun 2, 2022 05:05
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 07:32 |
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Guns bad. Leftists cool (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 2, 2022 05:17
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Thanks for making the thread. I have a whole laundry list of thoughts regarding guns. Succinctly: massive reform is needed, but with the goal to keep RESPONSIBLE civilian ownership of firearms feasible. It's midnight, so I'll post more later, but I hope we can have good healthy and productive discussion on this, because as it stands, the firearm situation in the u.s. is untenable -- and it has been for a while now.
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Jun 2, 2022 06:26
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We will never have adequate gun control until we can change or eliminate the second amendment.
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Jun 2, 2022 07:03
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Quick question before I type up a more effort-filled post: Does this thread include restrictions on crossbows? They are legal for firearm season in 11 states, so they should qualify, I think.
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Jun 2, 2022 08:31
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Freakazoid_ posted:We will never have adequate gun control until we can change or eliminate the second amendment. That's never going to happen unless there's a constitutional conventions. And probably not then. The 2nd amendment doesn't prohibit gun regulation at all, and the idea that it does is a recent invention. You're far more likely to swing the court into more sensible interpretations than the eliminate the 2A. Even if both options don't' seem especially likely anytime soon.
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Jun 2, 2022 08:44
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The US has very weird gun laws. Most of the proposed legislation responding to the past decade of mass shootings as well as ATF rulings focus on restricting rifles by disallowing various features or imposing other forms of inconvenience on owning a rifle. Overwhelmingly, however, shooting deaths are the result of handguns, not rifles, and there is almost never any pistol regulation. The FBI's 2020 statistics list 8029 handgun fatalities, 4863 unspecified gun deaths, and 455 rifle deaths. Compared to other forms of homicide ( knives ~2k, unknown 1k, unarmed 600, clubs 400 etc.) this strongly suggests that the way to reduce gun violence in the US would be to regulate pistols, but at both the state and federal level this is largely not what is happening. Why are pistols much more utilized in killing than rifles? A few reasons. First, they're small. Yes, it's obvious, but if you are walking around in public with a rifle people will notice, and you attract attention. Pistols are easily held in a pocket or nearby in a glovebox for example. Second, there is relatively little difference in killing power between a pistol and a rifle when you are at close range and you are not shooting an armored person. Finally, pistols tend to be cheaper (though this isn't universal - you can assemble a reasonably functional AR for 200 dollars, if you are willing to build it yourself and shop for bottom of the barrel parts). So it's been baffling to me to see the major pushes towards inhibiting rifle ownership when statistically, it's not what kills people.
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Jun 2, 2022 09:18
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aniviron posted:The US has very weird gun laws. Most of the proposed legislation responding to the past decade of mass shootings as well as ATF rulings focus on restricting rifles by disallowing various features or imposing other forms of inconvenience on owning a rifle. Overwhelmingly, however, shooting deaths are the result of handguns, not rifles, and there is almost never any pistol regulation. The FBI's 2020 statistics list 8029 handgun fatalities, 4863 unspecified gun deaths, and 455 rifle deaths. Compared to other forms of homicide ( knives ~2k, unknown 1k, unarmed 600, clubs 400 etc.) this strongly suggests that the way to reduce gun violence in the US would be to regulate pistols, but at both the state and federal level this is largely not what is happening. Rifles (especially AR/AK types) are disproportionately used in the mass shootings that make headlines because, well, murdering a pile of kids at once is a big deal to most people. Mass shootings are a tiny fraction of gun deaths overall, so on paper should be a low priority, except the incidence of maniacs who can buy a bunch of semiautomatic rifles with no effort and murder a school really feels like it should be loving zero.
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Jun 2, 2022 11:34
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Freakazoid_ posted:We will never have adequate gun control until we can change or eliminate the second amendment. Does it need to be changed ?. Just apply the "as part of a well regulated militia" section. Weapons & ammo stored in the militia's armoury, militia has to pass stringent checks to be classed as well regulated. Well regulated should mean accountable and responsible for checking members suitability for firearm access.
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Jun 2, 2022 11:50
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Morningwoodpecker posted:Does it need to be changed ?. Yeah, the 2nd Ammendment is a red herring and saying it makes gun control impossible is to buy into the gun freak framing of things. It maybe prevents total gun bans but not 1,000 other gun control measures short of that. Well, if the Supreme Court wasn't psychotic, but that's not just a gun thing, it's an everything thing. 
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Jun 2, 2022 12:24
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Pass a federal gun law that says that weapons can only be sold to a well-regulated militia, with a set of requirements for what a militia is.
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Jun 2, 2022 13:01
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Even the clerks who wrote Heller (both the opinion and its dissent) think that it allows for much much more gun control than is currently enacted. They just jointly wrote an NYT opinion piece stating as much: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/supreme-court-heller-guns.html Quoting the meat of the opinion piece, since it is a bit long: The authors of DC v Heller posted:Justice Scalia — the foremost proponent of originalism, who throughout his tenure stressed the limited role of courts in difficult policy debates — could not have been clearer in the closing passage of Heller that “the problem of handgun violence in this country” is serious and that the Constitution leaves the government with “a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” Heller merely established the constitutional baseline that the government may not disarm citizens in their homes. The opinion expressly recognized “presumptively lawful” regulations such as “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” as well as bans on carrying weapons in “sensitive places,” like schools, and it noted with approval the “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” Heller also recognized the immense public interest in “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.”
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Jun 2, 2022 13:17
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Part of the problem goes back to the 70s, when the NRA was taken over by extremists who would not support any gun legislation. These are the people who believe that any gun legislation is bad, and these are the people who have influence on the GOP.
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Jun 2, 2022 13:43
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Freakazoid_ posted:We will never have adequate gun control until we can change or eliminate the second amendment. There's actually a pretty good short documentary about the second amendment and its relevance to private gun ownership: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM-e46xdcUo The interpretation that folks cling to was a fringe legal theory bandied around in the seventies which was then popularized slowly over the next few decades. You almost certainly have been alive longer than this has been a mainstream political position. Baronash fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jun 2, 2022 |
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Jun 2, 2022 13:55
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aniviron posted:The US has very weird gun laws. Most of the proposed legislation responding to the past decade of mass shootings as well as ATF rulings focus on restricting rifles by disallowing various features or imposing other forms of inconvenience on owning a rifle. Overwhelmingly, however, shooting deaths are the result of handguns, not rifles, and there is almost never any pistol regulation. The FBI's 2020 statistics list 8029 handgun fatalities, 4863 unspecified gun deaths, and 455 rifle deaths. Compared to other forms of homicide ( knives ~2k, unknown 1k, unarmed 600, clubs 400 etc.) this strongly suggests that the way to reduce gun violence in the US would be to regulate pistols, but at both the state and federal level this is largely not what is happening. It's because there's reasons to own a handgun that are seen as legitimate. The intention behind most national-scale American gun laws isn't to target the most dangerous guns, but rather to target the guns with the least political support. Broadly speaking, gun owners fall into three general political groups: people who want a compact and portable weapon for self-defense (and/or crimes), hunters and sport shooters, and gun nuts (and militia types) who start shouting about the Constitution when you ask them what practical use they could possibly have for automatic rifles with high-capacity magazines. National-level gun legislation, such as the Assault Weapons Ban, generally seeks to split the gun lobby by exclusively targeting that last group while going to great lengths to avoid offending the other two groups. It was a strategy that worked great up until the political realignment of the 70s and 80s, when the NRA (traditionally concerned mostly with hunters and sport shooters) was taken over by that group.
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Jun 2, 2022 14:15
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I don't think the Second Amendment needs to be repealed, because I think the thing with the Second Amendment is that its language inherently invalidates its application in most cases. As part of the Constitution, the Second Amendment uniquely moot. The Fifth Amendment is obviously very specific to the time in which it was drafted of course, but the Second Amendment is just founded on a whole other conception of how the country would work. The Revolutionary War was won through a confederation of local militias. The early United States originally resembled something closer to something like the EU. I think it's fair to say the intent of the Amendment was to ensure that each state had the ability to defend itself (And also kill Indians and stomp down slave rebellions). But the US military has became nationalized over time, we border only two other nations which are our allies. I think when people play at the Originalism game, there is a lot of trying to piece together a consensus on the intent of the Constitution. Some parts like the 5th Amendment are easy to connect the historical dots. Some like the Establishment Clause are more ambiguous. I've heard people argue the intent of the Establishment Clause was to stop infighting between Christian sects and persecution of Jews as it existed in Europe more than create a separation between religious concepts and the US. I disagree with the reading, but the first amendment is not clear on its intent, only the rights it lists. So, Originalists read the tea leaves and try to pull at historical context to stretch the meaning of those words. The Second Amendment actually names its intent, and it's clear that on that level that the United States as a nation is in fundamental opposition to that premise. We can look at precursor documents from both North Carolina, Vermont, Maryland, and Pennsylvania that clearly state that the concept of local militias that form in times of need wasn't just a practical manner, but the founders were suspicious of the idea of a standing army at all, and saw it as a potential evil. And like hey dead slave owners, samesies! While the US Constitution does give the federal government military powers, commentary from the founders leads us to believe it to be more supplementary with militias maintaining the main defensive force. And like look, if we wanted to say that the US Military should be dissolved, maybe I can get on board with the Second Amendment, but as it stands, we as a nation are having our cake and eating it too. We're dogmatically allowing people to have guns while also having the very standing armies that the Second Amendment was intended to be an alternative towards. The purpose of having arms (Not singularly guns, but arms) is to offer an alternative to a standing army. But the Constitution itself gives military powers to the Federal government even if its modern scale is greater than what some founders imagined. The intent of the Second Amendment is somewhat contradicted in the Constitution itself, and it's clear that militias are just a vestigial part of US defense... and ya know, imperialism. Don't get me wrong, I agree with the premise that the second amendment does indeed guarantee the rights to arms for individuals, but only on the premise that militias and civil defense coming from the people as opposed to solely the federal government are necessary. If militias aren't necessary and the original intent of the Constitution clearly doesn't reflect modern realities than it can't be taken seriously. The Second Amendment isn't an issue in of itself. The issue is that we've allowed capital interests to run a propaganda campaign with the idea that one specific type of weapon--its modern version made a generation after the Bill of Rights--is very special and protected by the Amendment.
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Jun 2, 2022 14:27
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aniviron posted:The US has very weird gun laws. Most of the proposed legislation responding to the past decade of mass shootings as well as ATF rulings focus on restricting rifles by disallowing various features or imposing other forms of inconvenience on owning a rifle. Overwhelmingly, however, shooting deaths are the result of handguns, not rifles, and there is almost never any pistol regulation. The FBI's 2020 statistics list 8029 handgun fatalities, 4863 unspecified gun deaths, and 455 rifle deaths. Compared to other forms of homicide ( knives ~2k, unknown 1k, unarmed 600, clubs 400 etc.) this strongly suggests that the way to reduce gun violence in the US would be to regulate pistols, but at both the state and federal level this is largely not what is happening. This was an central issue for me and as a previous gun owner (though never an owner of a semiautomatic rifle) a great annoyance -- all the talk focuses on banning sufficiently scary looking guns, and it won't notably reduce gun violence, and I doubt it will really change mass shootings that much because one can do an incredible amount of damage with a couple handguns in a close-quarters environment (see VATech). It's harder for someone totally untrained with a new handgun to be as lethal, but it's not as big of a difference as people tend to think. It's largely passing something to create the illusion of doing something because it's the only thing you can actually get the public on board with, but the primary effect is just to annoy hobbyists. The real purpose is to just gradually chip away at what's allowed. As time has gone on, I've become completely alienated from American gun culture and the refusal to make the slightest changes, so now my view is "gently caress it." Now I want all semiautomatic guns banned, and I really don't give a poo poo about the logic. BRAKE FOR MOOSE fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Jun 2, 2022 |
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Jun 2, 2022 14:31
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Mormon Star Wars posted:Quick question before I type up a more effort-filled post: Does this thread include restrictions on crossbows? They are legal for firearm season in 11 states, so they should qualify, I think. I feel like until a crossbow is used in a mass shooting or comes close to the lethality of a gun it isn't really anywhere on the same level.
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Jun 2, 2022 14:43
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Isn't gun ownership so embedded in American culture that a post apocalyptic comedy forum from 2003 filled with leftists literally have a gun subforum? I've never visited it but I'm sure they have their justifications, debates and reasons for their hobby/past time. And I am sure there are some lovely posters there. But why facilitate discussion about gun ownership by gun owners? What's the incentive to endorsing such a hobby? Serious q from a not-American.
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Jun 2, 2022 14:55
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Lampsacus posted:Isn't gun ownership so embedded in American culture that a post apocalyptic comedy forum from 2003 filled with leftists literally have a gun subforum? I've never visited it but I'm sure they have their justifications, debates and reasons for their hobby/past time. And I am sure there are some lovely posters there. But why facilitate discussion about gun ownership by gun owners? What's the incentive to endorsing such a hobby? Serious q from a not-American. None of the boards on this site were created with the intent of endorsing anything. At some point in the past the owner and or admin decided there were enough people who wanted to discuss guns to sustain a sub board, which is also kinda inherently enough to swamp the general board. Lacking a compelling-to-them reason to just ban the subject, they created TFR. Edit: I lost track of which tab I was in and posted this in Current Events. Reposting here in case anyone finds it interesting, illuminating, or whatever the gently caress. Blue Footed Booby posted:According to the all-knowing oracle the US has twice as many civilian-owned guns per capita (120.5) as the next gunniest place, which is....the Falkland Islands (62.1), apparently. Then Yemen, New Calidonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Canada (respectively, 52.8, 42.5, 39.1, 39.1, 34.7). Blue Footed Booby fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jun 2, 2022 |
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Jun 2, 2022 15:10
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Professor Beetus posted:There aren't any with higher gun ownership rates either, so even here your initial assertion is false and it's really on you to show that gun ownership isn't the problem in the country with the most mass shootings, the most guns, and the highest rate of gun ownership. cross posting this because it's a great example of how suddenly everyone seems to be forgetting that correlation is not causation. If you forced all the collectors to go down to five gun max each we'd still have a mass shooting problem. Also worthing that the mass shooting problem is recent while we've been gun nutty forever. I fully support a national handgun ban. I don't think we'll ever get it, but it's what we need. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jun 2, 2022 |
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Jun 2, 2022 16:41
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Harold Fjord posted:cross posting this because it's a great example of how suddenly everyone seems to be forgetting that correlation is not causation. If you forced all the collectors to go down to five gun max each we'd still have a mass shooting problem. This is an unproveable simplification. Many mass shootings are done by people who have purchased firearms very recently, for the explicit purpose of doing a shooting. As much as the gun weirds with millions of dollars of guns in their 10,000 trailers make tempting targets, the continued easy availability of firearms is absolutely a causal factor in these shootings. That's not even getting into the fact that most gun violence period is committed with hand guns and usually not done as a terrorist act. re: your second line there, you can trace mass shootings back to the mid 20th century. There's undoubtedly a number of factors at play, e: Unfortunately there's no data going back past 1972, so my supposition about gun ownership in the early-mid 20th century doesn't really hold water. Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jun 2, 2022 |
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Jun 2, 2022 16:48
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What is an unprovable simplification? That stockpiles of guns correlate but do not cause the mass shootings? Your own point about recently purchased guns supports this. Easy availability, not existing stockpiles.
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Jun 2, 2022 16:55
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Harold Fjord posted:What is an unprovable simplification? That stockpiles of guns correlate but do not cause the mass shootings? Your own point about recently purchased guns supports this. Easy availability, not existing stockpiles. I suppose you're correct re: mass shootings, but mass shootings are only a very small fraction of gun deaths in the United States, and there's all kinds of sources that are undoubtedly exacerbated by the existing amount of guns due to things like gun theft and straw sales. Removing guns from circulation still needs to be a part of an overall solution, imo. e: More than 135 million dollars worth of guns were reported stolen in 2020.
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Jun 2, 2022 17:00
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Professor Beetus posted:I suppose you're correct re: mass shootings, but mass shootings are only a very small fraction of gun deaths in the United States, and there's all kinds of sources that are undoubtedly exacerbated by the existing amount of guns due to things like gun theft and straw sales. Removing guns from circulation still needs to be a part of an overall solution, imo. Absolutely, but I don't see a path there that doesn't start with some political yak shaving. Look at measures to fight smoking: it started with regulations against targeting children, then proceeded to broader restrictions on advertising, then outright anti smoking propaganda once tobacco companies were reigned in enough they couldn't just outright stop openly hostile advertising.
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Jun 2, 2022 18:14
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Harold Fjord posted:cross posting this because it's a great example of how suddenly everyone seems to be forgetting that correlation is not causation. If you forced all the collectors to go down to five gun max each we'd still have a mass shooting problem. I don't think anyone is saying that large gun stockpiles are directly causing mass shootings. However, large gun stockpiles are an easily-quantified symptom of America's uniquely permissive gun laws, as well as a symptom of the rather unique existence of a gun-obsessed cohort that blocks political action even when classrooms full of kids are shot up.
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Jun 2, 2022 18:18
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3% of Americans own half the guns, averaging 17 a person. I don't think that directly causes mass shootings, but it's pretty clearly a symptom of a ridiculous culture.
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Jun 2, 2022 18:20
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Close the "gun show loophole" by opening NICS to the public and requiring a check for all transfers. Opening up NICS requires no legislation and basically no additional funding. Institute a handgun license similar to an FFL03. Those two steps basically strangle the pipeline that like 99% of crime guns go through. Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jun 2, 2022 |
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Jun 2, 2022 18:25
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Most of the high-visibility mass shootings (i.e. when kids/middle class people get killed) seem to be done with legally purchased guns. But getting killed in a shooting like this is about as probable as by lightning. Not saying this to justify doing nothing, just that this would be addressing a very small fraction of all cases. The AR15 got really popular for these but frankly I don't see banning it specifically or all "assault weapons" achieving much. I'm not a mass shooter but I'd think an SMG like MP5 would be even better for this purpose, and a pair of handguns would do as well. You could argue about "stopping power" and penetration but what makes all of these about equally good for shooting kids is that they're semi-auto and have large magazines. Hence this should be the aim of any attempts at gun control. This will also somewhat address the rest of the gun problem, which is like 90% handguns. Broadly I think you could copy the rules from a number of other countries, in most of Europe they're not at all outlawed, you just have to jump through some hoops. Split into categories from least to most restricted, something like this: Single shot shotguns, bolt action rifles; Semi-auto rifles; semi-auto handguns, SMGs. Maybe except category 1 from most of these:
Guns are a fun hobby but holy poo poo the culture around it is insane. So I think the chance of something like this passing is 0% even though it would let most people keep their toys. But I think this could limit the access of crazy mass shooters as well as the general availability of guns on the street after theyr'e stolen or sold at a show/privately.
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Jun 2, 2022 18:34
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Jaxyon posted:3% of Americans own half the guns, averaging 17 a person. Well, that's probably also true for other collectible items.
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Jun 2, 2022 18:43
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Koos Group posted:Well, that's probably also true for other collectible items. Most collectible items aren't closely tied with fantasies of violence. Except possibly My Little Ponies.
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Jun 2, 2022 18:47
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Jaxyon posted:Most collectible items aren't closely tied with fantasies of violence. isn't pokemon just collectible cock fighting?
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Jun 2, 2022 18:49
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:isn't pokemon just collectible cock fighting? Pokemon actually want to be caged and fight each other they love it. That is canon. We're just helping them live their best lives.
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Jun 2, 2022 18:55
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collecting would be if someone were trying to build a set of something, like every american military service rifle or a sampling of prohibition era gangster guns. the common thread here is that the set of items holds some value beyond each item in isolation, and that pursuit of a set is the goal of owning the items gun people who just compulsively buy generic handguns and AR pattern rifles are much closer to hoarders than collectors
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Jun 2, 2022 19:05
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:collecting would be if someone were trying to build a set of something, like every american military service rifle or a sampling of prohibition era gangster guns. the common thread here is that the set of items holds some value beyond each item in isolation, and that pursuit of a set is the goal of owning the items I think that it's not a useful distinction because often people who describe themselves as "collectors" are pretty close to hoarders.
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Jun 2, 2022 19:08
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Koos Group posted:Well, that's probably also true for other collectible items. If someone manages to somehow commit a mass killing using only Yugioh cards and Pokemon plushies, then I don't want to imagine how many thousands of people they could have killed using actual weapons.
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Jun 2, 2022 19:12
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Main Paineframe posted:If someone manages to somehow commit a mass killing using only Yugioh cards and Pokemon plushies, then I don't want to imagine how many thousands of people they could have killed using actual weapons. What do you think Hitler used to do in his spare time
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Jun 2, 2022 19:36
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At a certain point talking about gun control in the United States feels a bit masturbatory. It's been almost 25 years since columbine and it's only getting worse. I'm not saying it's hopeless, but I think the question of "what" to regulate is far less important than the "how". For example, there is a large bipartisan consensus for universal background checks and yet there doesn't seem to be a way to get it passed. What mechanisms can feasibly be used to curb gun violence and how can more be created or exploited?
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Jun 2, 2022 19:50
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I think the question of "what" to regulate is far less important than the "how". It worked in CA to produce some of the strictest gun laws on the country passed by none other than Republican Jesus himself.
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Jun 2, 2022 20:09
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 07:32 |
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Publicly arm a bunch of Black people. The only outcome of the NFAC protests was they ended up accidentally shooting each other
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Jun 2, 2022 20:10
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