Guns

[Ardius]

There's a human being behind pushing a button too, yet we seek the need to restrict and/or ban nuclear weapons.

You can't just buy a fully functional helicopter gunship either. Or buy cocaine in the average newsagents.

I mean really here we're not talking about guns but a fundamental difference in view on liberalism versus authoritarian. Should society encourage individual or personal decision to dictate what we should or shouldn't do, or should society actively look to control what we can or can't do by limitation or bans?

Personally I feel pretty central on this issue, while I agree that personal choice/"freedom" should be encouraged and common sense applied...equally there is a case for some items/weapons/whatever to be regulated and/or banned - for the greater good of everybody.
I don't feel I want to live in a society where everyone lives like cowboys with self-enforced laws..but I equally don't want to live in a society where the government tells us everything and choices are punished rather than encouraged. But I'm sure everyone feels that way, so its kind of funny that some people seem to fall quite close to either extreme (or at least talk very little about the the potential in the opposite's view).

As I've said before, I feel quite biased on this issue being in the UK so I'll inevitably always tend to the side of banning guns...but I try to keep myself open-minded and I'm enjoying reading a lot of the opposite views.

 

[arora]

I could literally write a book on this subject but I'll refrain for now. If you can give me ONE legitimate reason to take guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens like myself who don't abuse them, please feel free to let me know.

Because Obama + spin machine 👍

 

[fubar214]

You can't just buy a fully functional helicopter gunship either. Or buy cocaine in the average newsagents.

I'm glad that you have inadvertently helped me prove my point. No, you can't buy a gunship. Most people would agree they are far too dangerous so on and so forth. Yet 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 without a gunship, without a machine gun, without a gun period. The only 'weapon' used to kill 3,000 people was a pair of box cutters. Perhaps they are far too dangerous to be sold to the public as well.

My point here is the tool used is 100% irrelevant. It is all about the individual. No laws or restrictions can be put in place to stop a determined killer. Why? Because if you plan on committing mass murder, you clearly don't care about legislation. Bombs can easily be made out of almost anything. If you don't believe me just do a couple of Google searches, it's scary. In China 20 people were just killed in a mass stabbing. How many times have people used a vehicle as a weapon, or a hammer, a wrench or even their bare hands? Where there's a will there's a way, and attempting to stop murder through banning guns simply won't work because of that principle alone. Murder is already illegal, so if someone is willing to break that law, why would they obey a law that says they can't have a gun?

As with the cocaine once more you have helped prove my point. Cocaine has been illegal for how many decades? Have those who seek to get it been stopped from doing so? Absolutely not. Drugs and crime related to drugs has not gone down at all despite it being illegal and the prison sentences associated with it. If anything making drugs illegal has caused a lot MORE crime. Again, I could write a book on the subject, but I'll refrain.

Personally I feel pretty central on this issue, while I agree that personal choice/"freedom" should be encouraged and common sense applied...equally there is a case for some items/weapons/whatever to be regulated and/or banned - for the greater good of everybody.

What exactly is the greater good of everybody? The woman who now isn't allowed to carry a gun to protect herself and winds up getting raped and murdered. Is banning guns good for her? How about me? If I am ever attacked I am capable of protecting myself, but according to you, me no longer having a gun is better for everybody. Well it wouldn't be better for me should I be attacked would it?

When you say 'for the greater good of everybody' when referring to gun control it simply means 'for the greater good of the criminals'. Criminals are criminals for a reason. Put a law in place and they'll break it. Law abiding citizens will obey the law. Now the criminals are still armed and the good guys aren't. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it?

I don't feel I want to live in a society where everyone lives like cowboys with self-enforced laws..

I'm not exactly sure what you meant by this. Live like cowboys? Do you think people who have/carry firearms legally just walk up and down the street with their gun on their hip challenging people to duels? Self enforced laws? Such as what? I feel like I've missed something here.


I'll let it be known to all that I'm very passionate on this subject. I assure you 100% no matter how strongly I may disagree with your opinions I'm not attacking anyone personally. I'm not going to bash people because they don't agree with me, but I will speak strongly to make my case. Again, I see why people could THINK gun control COULD be a good idea. Most of those who support it think the problem is this simple; get rid of guns and it will significantly decrease crime. I'll admit, that would be a dream worth pursuing if it actually would work, sadly it just doesn't.

 

[JJSCHMITTY2000]

I'm glad that you have inadvertently helped me prove my point. No, you can't buy a gunship. Most people would agree they are far too dangerous so on and so forth. Yet 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 without a gunship, without a machine gun, without a gun period. The only 'weapon' used to kill 3,000 people was a pair of box cutters. Perhaps they are far too dangerous to be sold to the public as well.

*snip*


I'll let it be known to all that I'm very passionate on this subject. I assure you 100% no matter how strongly I may disagree with your opinions I'm not attacking anyone personally. I'm not going to bash people because they don't agree with me, but I will speak strongly to make my case. Again, I see why people could THINK gun control COULD be a good idea. Most of those who support it think the problem is this simple; get rid of guns and it will significantly decrease crime. I'll admit, that would be a dream worth pursuing if it actually would work, sadly it just doesn't.

This.

You shan't underestimate the intellegance of stupidity. If somebody stupidly wants to kill somebody, they will generally go about it very intellegantly.

 

[Ardius]

I'm not exactly sure what you meant by this. Live like cowboys? Do you think people who have/carry firearms legally just walk up and down the street with their gun on their hip challenging people to duels? Self enforced laws? Such as what? I feel like I've missed something here.

I was talking about extremes - I didn't mean that allowing guns = cowboys. I was referring to the to two opposite sides of a scale between liberalism and authoritarianism. Not all of that post was directed at you, but more just a general "thinking aloud".

My point here is the tool used is 100% irrelevant. It is all about the individual.

And my point was simply that there are items/weapons/tools that we as a society feel we need to remove. So clearly it isn't "all about the individual".

I think the tool used is pretty relevant. Give a maniac a machine gun and he's going to do a lot more damage than if you give him a baseball bat. Sure - you're arguing that he is a maniac either way and that should be dealt with...but equally there is a valid point about the accessibility of certain weapons/tools.

I could easily just counter-argue that "there will always be bad people". Then where are we left? That we should just do nothing and accept that bad people with powerful weapons can just rampage..and leave it down to personal defense?
Like I said I think it all comes back to what you really think society should be - should it be based on individual choices or should governments/society tell the public whats good for them?



Let me also make clear that while I admit I have bias to one side over another. I'm not arguing one is better than the other - I just wanted to point out that I don't agree that it is simply "down to the individual". I don't think its so easy to just cast off any social responsibility for certain weapons or tools.

I can certainly agree that steps should always be taken to deal the with the human being - mental care and proper rehabilitation into society. But I think there is a place for also preventing the person getting hold of certain tools and limiting what damage they do eventually manage.

 

[fubar214]

And my point was simply that there are items/weapons/tools that we as a society feel we need to remove.

First of all, you CAN'T remove them. This is the biggest problem with gun control. You can write up a law and say 'poof', make all guns disappear. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in America alone. Do you think the millions of violent criminals are just going to throw their guns away? If a law was passed today making all firearms illegal people would still be getting killed with firearms 1,000 years from now. There are just too many already in circulation and that isn't coming to an end anytime soon.

Considering many more people are killed each year by the misuse of tobacco products than guns, perhaps we should remove those from society too. More people are killed by cars than by firearms each year, perhaps the GT5 forum will join me in my fight to rid the world of those dangerous cars.

I think the tool used is pretty relevant. Give a maniac a machine gun and he's going to do a lot more damage than if you give him a baseball bat. Sure - you're arguing that he is a maniac either way and that should be dealt with...but equally there is a valid point about the accessibility of certain weapons/tools.

This is a very common mistake that the gun control supporter makes. The old gun vs baseball bat debate. Now I could sit here and argue that neither the gun or the baseball bat is dangerous, and that it's about the guy who decides to misuse it, but I won't go there. Instead I will just present you with the reality of it all.

If a man has it in his mind that he wants to murder as many children as he possibly can, there are no laws that can prevent that. He's already breaking a physical law and a moral law as well called murder. Say he wants to use an AR-15 like the most recent school shooter. He walks into a gun store and asks to buy an AR-15, he finds out they're banned. Is this where all of a sudden the guy who wants to murder children just has a change of heart and decides not to go through with it?

Okay, so lets say he tried to legally buy the gun and couldn't because they've been banned. Next step, get one off the street. This is just as easy as getting drugs. There is no official statistic but 'experts' have estimated that there are just as many illegal guns in America as legal ones. If this guy really wants the gun, he'll get it. Perhaps he'll just say screw it and instead of getting an AR-15 and killing 20 people with it, he'll get smarter and build a bomb that is capable of killing hundreds. And yes, making a bomb capable of doing that is extremely easy. I'm an 0351 in the Marines, I have demolitions training, including improvised demolitions training.

Back to the baseball bat. You do realize there were serial killers LONG before firearms. What is the difference between a person killing 30 people with a knife or baseball bat over the course of 10 years and a guy who shoots 30 in one day? Nothing. The same amount of lives were lost they just went about it differently. Once more proving the tool is irrelevant.

But I think there is a place for also preventing the person getting hold of certain tools and limiting what damage they do eventually manage.

I've covered most of this. The absolute truth is you CAN'T prevent it and you CAN'T limit it. I know that's not what people want to hear but it is the absolute truth. The police and the government are there to help when they can, but they can't be everywhere. Police are a reaction force, they show up AFTER the crime has occurred, very rarely do they actually stop it.

Do you realize how many crimes are prevented and how many lives are saved from those who legally own firearms? Most of the time they don't make the news because the media would much rather put the pictures of 20 dead children on TV. I just don't understand how a person can leave themselves and their family unprotected just because they view guns as 'bad'. The way I look at it is if someone breaks into your home and kidnaps your child, rapes or wife or kills the whole family you have failed as a man for not protecting your family. Most people who scream 'ban guns' would wind up praying to God for a gun should their life ever be threatened.

Here's what it comes down to for me, if you don't think your life and the life of your family is important enough to protect, that's fine. Just don't tell me I'm not allowed to do it.

And Ardius, those two paragraphs above aren't directed at you. I say 'you' a lot but I'm generalizing.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Anybody know how many murders in the USA are committed with Guns that were originally bought legally?

 

[Crispy]

I hate the argument that a gun's sole purpose is to kill. If that were true then anyone who shoots paper targets or clay pigeons is misusing a gun. A gun's purpose is to fire a projectile at high speed towards a target.

Anybody know how many murders in the USA are committed with Guns that were originally bought legally?

If you mean by the original gun owner, than very few. If by any legally purchased weapon, then most murders occur with a legally purchased weapon, the only difference is usually the murderer never purchased this weapon legally. Someone else did and gave it to them, or they stole it.

 

[MatskiMonk]

If you mean by the original gun owner, than very few. If by any legally purchased weapon, then most murders occur with a legally purchased weapon, the only difference is usually the murderer never purchased this weapon legally. Someone else did and gave it to them, or they stole it.

That's what I figured, but people have previously mentioned illegal weapons coming over the northern and southern borders of America.

Perhaps the focus on gun control shouldn't be at the point of original purchase, but on what you do once you've bought it. If every weapon that was sold to a law abiding citizen stayed in the hands of a law abiding citizen, there would surely be less of a problem.

 

[FoolKiller]

That's what I figured, but people have previously mentioned illegal weapons coming over the northern and southern borders of America.

This refers to guns that are illegal to own at all, such as when we did have a federal assault weapons ban. It also is based on examples of other things that are illegal to posses, such as drugs. Even Canadian politicians have blamed crimes involving guns that are illegal to own on US guns.

Perhaps the focus on gun control shouldn't be at the point of original purchase, but on what you do once you've bought it. If every weapon that was sold to a law abiding citizen stayed in the hands of a law abiding citizen, there would surely be less of a problem.

There are three problems I see here. The first is enforcement. You would have to require some sort of home search to ensure that the guns are in a secure location.

Second, you can't guarantee what happens when they take the gun to the range or carry it on them. If they carry it and then stop at a place with a gun free policy they then need to leave it in the car.

Finally, every home robbery at the home of a gun owner that I know of (when the owner wasn't home) usually involves the guns being stolen, even if they were locked up. Many robberies are for getting drug money and guns have a street value that is as good as jewelry. Short of a massively heavy, explosive resistant multiple thousand dollar safe there is no way to lock it up to ensure that it won't be stolen. Anything smaller is designed to keep kids from playing with them but can easily be gotten into by expert criminals or determined individuals and/or carried away.

 

[HELLAFLUSH240SX]

There is no way of telling who is a law abiding citizen though

 

[Nicksfix]

So what is going on in Washington lately ?

They are moving towards a broader gun control

and
Diane Feinstein's gun ban bill will be introduced on Jan. 22nd.

 

[BrutherSuperior]

Anybody know how many murders in the USA are committed with Guns that were originally bought legally?

It's somewhere between 2-3%. And by "legally" we're talking about private sales.

I've never run across anything mentioning the % of guns from new sales at FFLs. Basically, someone goes to the store, passes a NCIS check, and leaves. I can only assume that the number of guns bought like this and then used in a criminal way is a statistical 0. The Virgina Tech shooter did do this but the millions of other gun buyers that year did not.

Using Chicago as an example (where I was born & bred and #1 in murdering for 2012), all guns are illegal. No handguns, long guns, or anything. No gun stores, ranges, or places to buy ammo. The few who do have permission from the city are the rich & famous, politicians, and their cronies. That's it.

Where do the guns come from? Friends or relatives buy them, essentially making it a straw purchase (illegal) or give away their legally purchased gun to someone with a known criminal history, no FOID, and no record of transaction as mandated by the state. Also illegal. Then you have stolen guns, which were originally purchased legally, from breaking and entering into someone's home. Even if you have a safe, with enough time you can cut thru it. Last I checked; robbing someone's home is illegal. Lastly, you have the drug trade. Millions of pounds of drugs cross into the USA b/c there is demand. Same can be said for guns.

The common weapon used "on the streets" isn't a big black scary rifle; it's a piece of crap $50 rusty pistol. They're cheap, they're plentiful, and they're easily concealable. If your MO is mugging bystanders and maybe holding up a liquor store; they're the perfect low investment tool.

The majority, and we're talking 99% of urban crime, of the problem isn't what is used during the crime but the culture of the criminal. The "hood rat" chooses not to participate in society or respect other people. It has nothing to do with education or money either. Remember a few years back when some NBA players had a fight in the locker room and they all pulled guns on each other? College educated, wealthier than I will ever be, and they resort to that. There's plenty of other NFL/NBA players who have been indicted on weapons charges, negligent discharges inside a nightclub, trafficking drugs/guns, etc (actually, all that can be traced to just Chicago pro athletes).

These are guys filthy rich and came up thru college to make pro. Money + education and they're still acting like animals.

People only talk about this in hushed tones; it's a black problem. 90% of crimes involving a gun are perpetrated by blacks in Chicago. Fear of being labelled a "racist" cripples any attempt to really make the city safer. It's a cultural problem and a problem that exists in parts of the city where politicians, their friends, and donors do not live in. If it's not in their back yard, they really don't care.

Mass shootings are a rare occurrence. Someone getting shot in a black neighborhood is a daily occurrence. Rationally speaking; which problem do you think is more important to solve in order to make the largest impact on protecting people's lives?

Gun bans don't work. But it makes for some good face time for politicians. Will they ever address "Ghetto Culture"? Hell no.

 

[JJSCHMITTY2000]

Guns are a lot like late assignments in school. They will always be there. You can ban them, and then they'll still be there no matter what. You can even punish ownership of them, and they will still exist. You can even attempt to get rid of them entirely, but they will be there. Can you stop them? No, you can't. If the law abiding citizens don't have guns to protect themselves agaisnt people who are good at mugging people with a gun, what do they have? Even if there were no guns at all, throwing knives are easy to throw. A sharp piece of metal is almost as dangerous as a murder tool as a gun, because the metal is silent.

 

[hogger129]

Guns are a lot like late assignments in school. They will always be there. You can ban them, and then they'll still be there no matter what. You can even punish ownership of them, and they will still exist. You can even attempt to get rid of them entirely, but they will be there. Can you stop them? No, you can't. If the law abiding citizens don't have guns to protect themselves agaisnt people who are good at mugging people with a gun, what do they have? Even if there were no guns at all, throwing knives are easy to throw. A sharp piece of metal is almost as dangerous as a murder tool as a gun, because the metal is silent.

+1

I am really doubting that if our Congress destroys gun ownership in this country, that very many people would comply with the law anyway. It happened in the UK and Australia, but in this country, people take a lot more pride in their rights and country. I know that unless my family were put in danger by me not handing mine over, I wouldn't turn them in.

Once guns are gone, people will just turn to other weapons like bows & arrows or swords. Then once those are banned, they'll turn to other weapons like improvised ones. That's considering that guns are completely removed from society. I'd imagine people who already have them who aren't supposed to are not going to turn them in. It'll turn most of America into sitting ducks for them.

I don't even think this proposed "gun control" is going to get very far. It has to pass through the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans. Even in the Senate, many of these guys are up for re-election in another two years, many of them from areas with many pro-gun voters. Why would they support something that will cost them their jobs? It's a liberal pipe dream. Even if anything does get passed, it will most likely be another watered-down ban of some sort, probably on scary-looking rifles and magazines that hold over ten rounds. Not to mention, a repeal of the Second Amendment or the very strict restriction of gun rights could trigger states to secede.

 

[a6m5]

diane feinstein's gun ban bill will be introduced on jan. 22nd.

That's the intel I've been waiting for. 👍

New Gun-Ban Bill Likely to be Introduced January 22

Contact your members of Congress and urge them to oppose any "assault weapon" or magazine ban

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)--author of the federal "assault weapon" and "large" ammunition magazine ban of 1994-2004--has said for weeks that she will soon introduce an even more restrictive bill. Leaders in the U.S. Senate have stated that January 22 will be the first day on which new Senate legislation can be proposed, so that is the most likely date for the new, sweeping legislation to be introduced.

On Dec. 17th, Feinstein said, "I have been working with my staff for over a year on this legislation" and "It will be carefully focused." Indicating the depth of her research on the issue, she said on Dec. 21st that she had personally looked at pictures of guns in 1993, and again in 2012.

According to a Dec. 27th posting on Sen. Feinstein's website and a draft of the bill obtained by NRA-ILA, the new ban would, among other things, adopt new definitions of "assault weapon" that would affect a much larger variety of firearms, require current owners of such firearms to register them with the federal government under the National Firearms Act, and require forfeiture of the firearms upon the deaths of their current owners. Some of the changes in Feinstein's new bill are as follows:

• Reduces, from two to one, the number of permitted external features on various firearms. The 1994 ban permitted various firearms to be manufactured only if they were assembled with no more than one feature listed in the law. Feinstein's new bill would prohibit the manufacture of the same firearms with even one of the features.
  
• Adopts new lists of prohibited external features. For example, whereas the 1994 ban applied to a rifle or shotgun the "pistol grip" of which "protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon," the new bill would drastically expand the definition to include any "grip . . . or any other characteristic that can function as a grip." Also, the new bill adds "forward grip" to the list of prohibiting features for rifles, defining it as "a grip located forward of the trigger that functions as a pistol grip." Read literally and in conjunction with the reduction from two features to one, the new language would apply to every detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifle. At a minimum, it would, for example, ban all models of the AR-15, even those developed for compliance with California's highly restrictive ban.
  
• Carries hyperbole further than the 1994 ban. Feinstein's 1994 ban listed "grenade launcher" as one of the prohibiting features for rifles. Her 2013 bill goes even further into the ridiculous, by also listing "rocket launcher." Such devices are restricted under the National Firearms Act and, obviously, are not standard components of the firearms Feinstein wants to ban. Perhaps a subsequent Feinstein bill will add "nuclear bomb," "particle beam weapon," or something else equally far-fetched to the features list.
• Expands the definition of "assault weapon" by including:
  
  --Three very popular rifles: The M1 Carbine (introduced in 1941 and for many years sold by the federal government to individuals involved in marksmanship competition), a model of the Ruger Mini-14, and most or all models of the SKS.
  
  --Any "semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle that has a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds," except for tubular-magazine .22s.
  
  --Any "semiautomatic, centerfire, or rimfire rifle that has an overall length of less than 30 inches," any "semiautomatic handgun with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds," and any semi-automatic handgun that has a threaded barrel.
  
• Requires owners of existing "assault weapons" to register them with the federal government under the National Firearms Act (NFA). The NFA imposes a $200 transfer tax per firearm, and requires an owner to submit photographs and fingerprints to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), to inform the BATFE of the address where the firearm will be kept, and to obtain the BATFE's permission to transport the firearm across state lines.
• Prohibits the transfer of "assault weapons." Owners of other firearms, including those covered by the NFA, are permitted to sell them or pass them to heirs. However, under Feinstein's new bill, "assault weapons" would remain with their current owners until their deaths, at which point they would be forfeited to the government.
• Prohibits the domestic manufacture and the importation of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The 1994 ban allowed the importation of such magazines that were manufactured before the ban took effect. Whereas the 1994 ban protected gun owners from errant prosecution by making the government prove when a magazine was made, the new ban includes no such protection. The new ban also requires firearm dealers to certify the date of manufacture of any >10-round magazine sold, a virtually impossible task, given that virtually no magazines are stamped with their date of manufacture.
• Targets handguns in defiance of the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects the right to have handguns for self-defense, in large part on the basis of the fact handguns are the type of firearm "overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose." Semi-automatic pistols, which are the most popular handguns today, are designed to use detachable magazines, and the magazines "overwhelmingly chosen" by Americans for self-defense are those that hold more than 10 rounds. Additionally, Feinstein's list of nearly 1,000 firearms exempted by name (see next paragraph) contains not a single handgun. Sen. Feinstein advocated banning handguns before being elected to the Senate, though she carried a handgun for her own personal protection.
• Contains a larger piece of window dressing than the 1994 ban. Whereas the 1994 ban included a list of approximately 600 rifles and shotguns exempted from the ban by name, the new bill's list is increased to nearly 1,000 rifles and shotguns. But most of the guns on the list either wouldn’t be banned in the first place, or would already be exempted by other provisions. On the other hand, the list inevitably misses every model of rifle and shotgun that wasn’t being manufactured or imported in the years covered by the reference books Sen. Feinstein’s staff consulted. That means an unknown number of absolutely conventional semi-auto rifles and shotguns, many of them out of production for decades, would be banned under the draft bill.
  
  *snip*
  
  Call Your U.S. Senators and Representative: As noted, Feinstein will most likely introduce her bill on January 22nd. President Obama has said that gun control will be a "central issue" of his final term in office, and he has vowed to move quickly on it. And yesterday, a story from The Blaze noted that Obama's point man on gun control--Vice President Biden--has promised that Obama will pass a gun control bill by the end of the month.
  
  Contact your members of Congress at 202-224-3121 to urge them to oppose Sen. Feinstein's 2013 gun and magazine ban. Our elected representatives in Congress must hear from you if we are going to defeat this gun ban proposal. You can write your Representatives and Senators by using our "Write Your Representatives" tool here: http://www.nraila.org/get-involved-locally/grassroots/write-your-reps.aspx
  

Personally, I think this could really go either way. I hope the American people will stop this country from getting another step closer to socialism. If 75% of this bill go into effect, it would be devastating for the firearms related industries & firearm ownership. Another considerable amount of freedom will be stripped from the Americans. And even a foreigner who live there like me.

 

[hogger129]

I like the part about "protects the rights of legitimate hunters."

As if the Second Amendment has anything to do with hunting or sports.

 

[arora]

Feinstein want's credit for trying, she reminds me of the crazy hippy at my kid's school that gave out purple ribbons to all the participants.

 

[a6m5]

Feinstein want's credit for trying, she reminds me of the crazy hippy at my kid's school that gave out purple ribbons to all the participants.

And I hope that's all it is. Unfortunately, scaremongering really does work.

 

[arora]

Only in a democracy, that's why our fathers formed a republic. But anyway... I never get tired of posting this

 

[Xavier2342]

 

[arora]

That is what Brothersuperior was talking about, but hey now, how dare you challenge Chicago politics?

 

[hogger129]

I really don't think this bill is going to pass. Even a Democrat Senator (I forget who) said many of these proposals are in the extreme. Besides, many of these Senators and Reps are up for re-election in 2014, some of them in very pro-gun districts. I don't think they want to risk getting voted out.

 

[FoolKiller]

I really don't think this bill is going to pass. Even a Democrat Senator (I forget who) said many of these proposals are in the extreme. Besides, many of these Senators and Reps are up for re-election in 2014, some of them in very pro-gun districts. I don't think they want to risk getting voted out.

I agree. From a political standpoint I don't see this getting the support necessary to pass the House, and will be close in the Senate. If this were within a week or two of the shooting, maybe, but its been too long now.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if even Democrats in Kentucky voted for this. We had a Democrat propose an amendment to our state constitution guaranteeing the right to hunt. He was from a very rural district. It passed in a public vote with a sweeping majority. No one from this state who wants to stay in office will vote for Feinstein's bill.

 

[hogger129]

I agree. From a political standpoint I don't see this getting the support necessary to pass the House, and will be close in the Senate. If this were within a week or two of the shooting, maybe, but its been too long now.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if even Democrats in Kentucky voted for this. We had a Democrat propose an amendment to our state constitution guaranteeing the right to hunt. He was from a very rural district. It passed in a public vote with a sweeping majority. No one from this state who wants to stay in office will vote for Feinstein's bill.

If anything passes, it will be a really watered-down version. Probably a reinstatement of the '94 Assault Weapon Ban, which I guess if they grandfather in weapons already owned, isn't THAT big of a deal. I could live with it.

All I'm afraid of is Democrats changing the voting rules so that they don't have to get Republicans' support, or Republicans selling us down the river in order to get their own agendas passed.

Hopefully they don't do like they did on the fiscal cliff stuff. I don't think they will though. These are our Constitutional rights they're messing around with.

It also surprises me how idiots like Feinstein keep getting elected out in California. If her and people who share her ideas about gun ownership really don't like guns, then they're free to go to somewhere that there are no guns. I just hate when they take California or New York's liberal politics and try to apply it onto the rest of the country.

 

[sumbrownkid]

I think that's the most likely scenario. Not grandfathering in will only lead to property rights infringements or trampling or whatever it's called nowadays. And I doubt Congress will make it any better when they haggle over it.

 

[Keef]

The main problem with Feinstein's new legislation is the previously law-abiding people like myself will simply stop abiding by the law and will buy and sell their guns secretly, like marijuana. I'm not keen on abiding stupid laws. Does that make me a bad libertarian?

 

[Pako]

Legislation will not stop the buying and selling of guns, I just don't see it happening. Like you said Keef, even if a law is passed, honest gun owners will continue to buy and sell arms as they always have.

The biggest problem I see with gun control laws is the focus to stop gun crimes. When was the last time that you know of a criminal that was concerned about the law? Educate gun owners. Support NRA and other gun clubs that promote and teach safe gun handling practices. Teach kids at a young age to respect firearms. A family that shoots together, stays together.

 

[Joel]

BrutherSuperior is right on the money. People look at the statistics "10000 gun deaths in USA vs. 200 in Canada", and think it's the gun owners' fault. The reality is it's gang violence in Chicago, LA, NYC, etc. We have the same thing in Canada, every now and then there's shootings in Toronto, and the majority center around the rough neigbourhoods downtown. It's all gang-related violence, from people who have utter disregard for the laws already. The sheer fact of the matter is there's 300 million people in the US, and there's far more rough neighbourhoods than there are in other countries. There's just more gang activity than there is in Canada, the UK, Australia, etc. A gun ban won't prevent any of these shootings, and despite what the media wants you to believe, Newtown-esque shootings are incredibly rare.

 

[David]

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