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Thread: Gun control

  1. #1101
    Consultant KillerB's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by KillerB View Post
    Everyone seems to go round and round on the gun buyback in Australia, but here's some basic things that need to be considered:

    - Australia's gun buyback netted somewhere between 600,000 and 1 million guns (I say between because I've seen both numbers in various sources), while there are over 300 million guns in the United States.
    - The current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution is the Supreme Court case, District of Columbia vs Heller, which holds that an individual has a right to "possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."
    - It is extremely difficult to amend the Constitution - an amendment must either pass with a 2/3 majority in Congress and ratified by the state legislatures of 3/4 of the states, or a 2/3 majority vote of a Constitutional Convention called by Congress at the request of the state legislatures of 2/3 of the states.

    This is why, even though a majority of US citizens would like to see some reform, that it's extremely difficult. Gun control laws WILL be challenged in court, and the current Supreme Court, when it chooses to hear those challenges, will likely stick to the Heller precedent, which was mostly but not entirely concerned with Washington DC's handgun ban.

    The easiest path to gun control reform will be to nominate Supreme Court justices that will uphold gun control laws in court. This will take many years. Even then, I don't expect we'll ever have a majority of justices on the court that will read the 2nd Amendment differently enough to completely overturn the Heller precedent. What you may see is regulation of devices like bump stocks that allow poorly-aimed near-automatic-fire rates from semiautomatic rifles, which it's increasingly looking was used in the Vegas shooting. I think that we'll probably see universal background checks in my lifetime; we already have them here in California, and I didn't find it to be particularly onerous. Of course, I've never been convicted of any misdemeanor or felony, and I've never been committed to a mental health institution - I might feel differently if I had.

    However, the vast majority of gun violence is perpetrated using handguns. There is very little political will, even on the left, to ban these, and the Heller precedent came down strongly against outright bans of an entire class of guns.

    tl;dr version: A gun buyback like that in Australia is not politically feasible in the United States at this time, and likely will not be unless or until gun violence becomes such a problem that it becomes THE primary voting issue in the country. Constitutional amendments are nearly impossible to pass in this country, and turning over the Supreme Court will take a generation.
    Point still stands.

  2. #1102

  3. #1103
    Member Member 21Kid's Avatar
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    Sure, the vast majority are handguns... and the majority of those are suicides. But, why do we allow Assault Rifles to be sold to civilians? They seem to be the murder weapon of choice, when you want to kill a lot of people quickly. There's no need for such a powerful weapon in any situation other than mass killing.


    June 20, 2012: James Eagan Holmes, 24, used an AR-15-style .223-caliber Smith and Wesson rifle with a 100-round magazine, a 12-gauge Remington shotgun and two .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic pistols to kill 12 and injure 58 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.
    Dec. 14, 2012: Adam Lanza, 20, used an AR-15-style rifle, a .223-caliber Bushmaster, to kill 27 people — his mother, 20 students and six teachers — in Newtown, Conn., before killing himself.
    June 7, 2013: John Zawahri, 23, used an AR-15-style .223-caliber rifle and a .44-caliber Remington revolver to kill five and injure three at a home in Santa Monica, Calif., before he was killed.
    March 19, 2015: Justin Fowler, 24, used an AR-15 to kill one and injure two on a street in Little Water, N.M., before he was killed.
    May 31, 2015: Jeffrey Scott Pitts, 36, used an AR-15 and .45-caliber handgun to kill two and injure two at a store in Conyers, Ga., before he was killed.
    Oct. 1, 2015: Chris Harper Mercer, 26, used an AR-15 and five pistols to kill nine and injure seven at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., before he killed himself.
    Oct. 31, 2015: Noah Jacob Harpham, 33, used an AR-15, a .357-caliber revolver and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol to kill three on a street in Colorado Springs, Colo., before he was killed.
    Dec. 2, 2015: Syed Rizwyan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, 28 and 27, used two AR-15-style, .223-caliber Remington rifles and two 9 mm handguns to kill 14 and injure 21 at his workplace in San Bernardino, Calif., before they were killed.
    June 12, 2016: Omar Mateen, 29, used an AR-15 style rifle (a Sig Sauer MCX), and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol to kill 49 people and injure 50 at an Orlando nightclub before he was killed.
    Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock, 64, used a stockpile of guns including an AR-15 to kill 58 people and injure hundreds at a music festival in Las Vegas before he killed himself.
    Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Kelley, 26, used an AR-15 style Ruger rifle to kill at least 26 people at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, before he was killed.

  4. #1104

  5. #1105
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    Solution seems simple. Ban AR-15 style rifles... so that we can most likely minimize deaths in mass shootings and such ban should only impact gun lovers minimally as well.

    Otherwise, might as well allow us citizens to be able exercise our right to bear nuclear arms as well... just so that we can defend ourselves against NK or perhaps our own leader.

    Banning guns may not be feasible for US, but we absolutely need to draw a line to ban weapons with too much fire power. If you must play with that much firepower... join the military and make sure you pass all their tests.

  6. #1106
    Member Member 21Kid's Avatar
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    I know, Joe. Hey, I'm for banning all those other guns too.

    Honestly though, it's still a start. Why not try to avoid those 3%, if we can? Considering those are the Mass Murder type of killings usually.

  7. #1107
    What does the Bat say? Jason's Avatar
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    Because those people's lives don't matter as much as profits for gun manufacturers.

  8. #1108
    Consultant KillerB's Avatar
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    Why not focus on handguns, which accounted for 68% of all firearms murders in 2014?

  9. #1109
    Member Member 21Kid's Avatar
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    Yes please.

    <3

    Or rather, why not ALL guns?

  10. #1110
    What does the Bat say? Jason's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Because those people's lives don't matter as much as profits for gun manufacturers.
    ...

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