Las Vegas Terror Attack

[RoyalShock]

I strongly disagree. I don't think any of the liberal minded folks that I know, want the second amendment repealed. Like at all. Granted, I don't hang out in Berkeley.

Why is "assault" in quotation marks? That is literally what they are named and they are built for that purpose exactly. That's the main flaw in the argument of "well someone could use a truck to kill a bunch of people". Well, yea, they could but trucks aren't designed to mutilate and maim. Assault rifles are.

The Google definition of assault rifle - "a rapid-fire, magazine-fed automatic rifle designed for infantry use."

Those rifles are not legal for civilians to own (post 1986), hence, "assault".

[wsushox1]

It is not a magical interpretation. It is a very logical one based on what the founding fathers were trying to accomplish.

We could reduce the chances of drunk driving deaths by outlawing cars. That doesn't mean we should do it. This terrible person also had ammonium nitrate in his possession. We might be lucky he picked assault rifles instead, he could have killed thousands more with a bomb.

Cars aren't made to be used to murder. Neither is ammonium nitrate, but yet we heavily regulate the sale and transport of that?

[ShockCrazy]

The firearm ownership rate in the US, versus the rate of homicide in the US, are literally inversely proportional over the last 30-ish years. One can cherry pick statistics, or play semantics, but the above inverse correlation is easily found invoking a fairly basic level of Google-fu.

Your are entirely wrong. See my link above. Ownership has universally declined the last 40 years (not the number of guns owned but the number of people who own them) according to almost all surveys. Also I love when people say it's easy to find but can't be bothered to post links.

[wsushox1]

Your are entirely wrong. See my link above. Ownership has universally declined the last 40 years (not the number of guns owned but the number of people who own them) according to almost all surveys. Also I love when people say it's easy to find but can't be bothered to post links.

Exactly. Please post a link.

[SHOCKvalue]

The reason gun peeps mock the assault rifle term is very simple: A couple decades ago when the assault rifle ban was enacted, many components of the legislation were predicated on the appearance of the firearms, rather than functionality. Scary looking so-called assault rifles were banned, all the while their more agricultural looking, but nonetheless mechanically and functionally-identical, paternal twins with wood stocks were left unharmed.

It was akin to banning cars based on appearance rather than performance or capability. Drive around in your VW Beetle and it's all good, but put that 75 HP powerplant into Ferrari chassis and oh hell no.

[boltforge]

If you're going to magically interpret the founding fathers language than I will as well. I don't think they intended citizens to have unfettered access to legitimate weapons of mass destruction.

People are so sure, me included, that their respective interpretation of something written 200 years ago is correct and makes them 'righteous' because of it. Maybe we should focus on making sure our citizens aren't slaughtered?

I've asked this question to my many, assault rifle owning friends: if we could reduce the chances of mass shootings by just 10%, is that something you could be proud of?

Gun owners are focused on everyone not being slaughtered. It's just one reason they have a gun.

I don't believe you could decrease mass killings by 10% with a law. But, lets say you could ... Would you be willing to reduce mass killings by 10% and have the murder, rape, and crime rates of Chicago everywhere in the US?

Consider that women protect themselves over 100,000 times a year from sexual assault by using a gun. That guns are used over a million times a year in the US for self-defense. And obviously over 99% of the time (because we don't have a million shootings a year) the gun is never fired. Just a presentation of overwhelming force is enough for self-defense.

Are you SURE that your law (whatever it is) would actually be net positive? What if your 10% reduction of 100 deaths will also take the million stopped rapes/assaults/murders and have 0.1% of them turned into ACTUAL rapes/assaults/murders?

The problem is evil people who don't give a crap about our laws. And pretty much just mainly evil men. Maybe we should take Penn and Tellers gun advice and give every women a taxpayer funded pink gun + training.

[SHOCKvalue]

Your are entirely wrong. See my link above. Ownership has universally declined the last 40 years (not the number of guns owned but the number of people who own them) according to almost all surveys. Also I love when people say it's easy to find but can't be bothered to post links.

Exactly. Please post a link.

National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

Premeditated mass shootings in public places are happening more often, some researchers say, plunging towns and cities into grief and riveting the attention of a horrified nation. In general, though, fewer Americans are dying as a result of gun violence — a shift that began about two decades ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/weve-had-a-massive-decline-in-gun-violence-in-the-united-states-heres-why/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.18b82e3abbb1

How Many Guns Are in the United States?

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) reported in a national survey that in 1994, 44 million people, approximately 35% of households, owned 192 million firearms, 65 million of which were handguns. Seventy-four percent of those individuals were reported to own more than one firearm. According to the ATF, by the end of 1996 approximately 242 million firearms were available for sale to or were possessed by civilians in the United States. That total includes roughly 72 million handguns (mostly pistols, revolvers, and derringers), 76 million rifles, and 64 million shotguns. By 2000, the number of firearms had increased to approximately 259 million: 92 million handguns, 92 million rifles, and 75 million shotguns. By 2007, the number of firearms had increased to approximately 294 million: 106 million handguns, 105 million rifles, and 83 million shotguns.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32842.pdf

[boltforge]

Exactly. Please post a link.

http://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-more-guns-less-gun-violence-between-1993-and-2013/

One problem with the linked data is the increase in murder the last couple of years due to the Ferguson Effect. But, if the existence of guns in the US is directly proportional to the murder by guns in the US, then the data is a simple counterexample to that belief.

[SHOCKvalue]

Presented without further comment, to preserve ironic purity:

Your are entirely wrong. See my link above. Ownership has universally declined the last 40 years (not the number of guns owned but the number of people who own them) according to almost all surveys. Also I love when people say it's easy to find but can't be bothered to post links.

I understand the desire to own guns, but at a certain point we have to take a hard look at ourselves, ask some questions. How much is accessibility affecting lives? Why is it countries with more lax gun laws have more mass shootings than those with stricter laws? Why is it that gun accessibility correlates fairly well with homicide rate in modern industrial countries? Why is it that states with stronger gun laws show these same trends and in fact show lower rates of suicide, almost exclusively because suicide rates with firearms decrease with better control? I'm not suggesting we take all guns away but we really need to take a look at what we find important. Many studies have been done that disprove that armed citizens deter crime, likely reasons I would guess is most people aren't equipped to handle the situation appropriately and it escalates the situation where one way or another criminal or defender now feels the need to use their weapon. I understand the desire to protect one's self or even to help others, but I know for more people aren't equipped to deal with it(myself included). I have been in a situation involving gun violence, and I in hindsight recognize I did the wrong thing, and potentially escalated the situation, fortunately things turned out, but it was through shear luck.

[ShockCrazy]

Presented without further comment, to preserve ironic purity:

So you are going to ignore all the links I've posted in this thread? Yeah? Cool story bro.

[ShockCrazy]

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/...ublic-unaware/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/weve-had-a-massive-decline-in-gun-violence-in-the-united-states-heres-why/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.18b82e3abbb1

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32842.pdf

Congrats on underlining that number of guns owned is up. I have said that again and again. That is not an indicator of ownership being up(people can own more than one gun shockingly enough). And the link I posted above indicated that also with other referring research as links in it of the number of guns going up while the number of owners has gone down because the average number of guns owned by a gun owner has increased from 4 to 6.6 or 8 depending on the study.

[SHOCKvalue]

So you are going to ignore all the links I've posted in this thread? Yeah? Cool story bro.

You've posted five links in this thread. Two of them are relevant and support your particular stance, whereas three of them are akin to me going to moveon.org and supporting my position with links from dailycaller and brietbart. So yes, excuse me why I ignore those, and focus on the fact that your initial forey into this thread was a wall of speculative text, sans paragraph breaks and such, but yet you call me out for a lack of substance.

[SHOCKvalue]

Congrats on underlining that number of guns owned is up. I have said that again and again. That is not an indicator of ownership being up(people can own more than one gun shockingly enough). And the link I posted above indicated that also with other referring research as links in it of the number of guns going up while the number of owners has gone down because the average number of guns owned by a gun owner has increased from 4 to 6.6 or 8 depending on the study.

I guess you skipped the first two links entirely, eh? Because they lack a certain degree of confirmation bias you seek, perhaps?

[shockfan89_]

Congrats on underlining that number of guns owned is up. I have said that again and again. That is not an indicator of ownership being up(people can own more than one gun shockingly enough). And the link I posted above indicated that also with other referring research as links in it of the number of guns going up while the number of owners has gone down because the average number of guns owned by a gun owner has increased from 4 to 6.6 or 8 depending on the study.

And yet gun deaths are declining. In other words, guns aren't the problem, people are. So how will gun control change people?

[ShockCrazy]

I guess you skipped the first two links entirely, eh? Because they lacked a certain degree of confirmation bias you seek?

I didn't ignore them you said an inverse relation ship with gun ownership I said it is false because it is. Deaths have declined but as has ownership. I disputed your point. And proved you wrong. You have yet to provide evidence of gun ownership increasing. Again NOT THE NUMBER OF GUNS OWNED, the number of people who own guns.