Gun Control thread (merged many)

[CaptainMattJ.]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

That's the whole point of the Bill Of Rights. You don't have to justify owning anything. The government has to justify taking it away from you. The British governor of Massachussetts didn't see any justification in common citizens owning cannons either, so he sent troops to confiscate them. That's what Lexington and Concorde were about.

The quote standing alone is a different thought altogether than my overall post. I said that I personally have yet to hear a reasonable argument for the owning of an assault rifle, considering the only practical application it has, the potential for so much damage. I also went on to say that this bill is absurd and the assault rifle is, through current regulations, adequately difficult to own already, thereby putting it still legal and available, though regulated. To summarize the point i was trying to get at, there may be no reason to have such a potentially dangerous weapon, but it is a non-issue considering how many hoops you have to go through to get it and therefore it is not a reasonable public safety threat and should not be banned. If any legislation is truly necessary, it should be background checks that include closer evaluation of any documented cases of mental instability, such as being on anti psychotic drugs, stays at mental institutions, diagnosis of mental disorders, ect.

Originally Posted by August

Psychiatric evaluation to exercise a constitutional right? Lovely.

You're Right, lets give back all the mentally unstable lunatics their right to own a firearm. I'm not saying that everyone should go to a shrink (god knows how that would turn out), i meant that the background checks for previous documented cases of mental instability should be evaluated more closely and thoroughly before giving a go-ahead for the purchase of firearms.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Oh, here's a new one:

I think that guys sarcasm might go over a few heads.Funny though if you get it.

@CaptainMattJ what is a "no go" mental disorder and what is a "go" then? What if you have depression?

[CaptainMattJ.]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I think that guys sarcasm might go over a few heads.Funny though if you get it.

@CaptainMattJ what is a "no go" mental disorder and what is a "go" then? What if you have depression?

Well antisocial disorders shoudl be a no go (aspergers, for example), those with schizophrenia, moderate to severe autism, i am unsure about depression though. Would you prefer allowing paranoid schizophrenics to own a firearm, what about those with aspergers, such as a newtown shooter. Personally i do not think that someone in such an unstable condition should be allowed to carry, but the debate must be expanded upon further.

[Aramike]

You're Right, lets give back all the mentally unstable lunatics their right to own a firearm. I'm not saying that everyone should go to a shrink (god knows how that would turn out), i meant that the background checks for previous documented cases of mental instability should be evaluated more closely and thoroughly before giving a go-ahead for the purchase of firearms.

There's a huge problem in your logic that you're missing: the idea of banning any individual from anything due to a "disorder" is that it is highly contingent upon who is DEFINING "disorder" but what criteria.

You're right - I don't want any nutjob neighbor to own a gun anymore than the next guy. But such is the risk of a free society. Do we stop them from owning cars they could drive into a parade as well? Are strong opinions outside of the mainstream a "disorder" or simply an exercise of free speech/thought?

I don't have answers to these questions, sorry. But I can tell you this: we are well past the point of this discussion mattering all that much. We are a gun-prevailant society - the weapons are to be had should someone want them. And should someone "unstable" want them in order to commit some atrocity ... well ... there is little stopping them (even laws, which they are intending to break anyway).

So let's stop trying to enact rules for those of us who follow the rules to acede to, and accept that bad people easily find easy ways to do bad things. Furthermore, let's stop trying to find some arbitrary line for law-abiding citizens to toe even though they aren't the problem in the first place.

Any good discussion on gun control involves a simple quesition we don't ever want to address: we already have laws that control behaviors around weapons use ... if they aren't already working, why do we believe that MORE laws would make a difference?

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.

Well antisocial disorders shoudl be a no go (aspergers, for example)

So if I ever became an American citizen and wanted to arm myself I couldn't? LAME.

[Spoon 11th]

Here's another humorous Piers Morgan related video.

[Ducimus]

[Ducimus]

So, I have for you, a video, by a fellow in Australia. He's a singer, and gun enthusiast. You'll see him shooting a whole lot of stuff you can't get in the US or Australia. I dug around his channel once and apparently he took a tourism trip to Thailand or somewhere thereabouts where they have bunch of stuff you can rent, which he obviously did.

Anyone who loves to stereotype gun owners will have a field day with this one. Otherwise, its good for a laugh.

[tater]

^^^

Yep.

At the time the 2d was written, the US government would happily (in time of war) have written a letter of marque for a privateer that was a 1st Rate line of battle ship had anyone offered up such a vessel. No one would have so much as batted an eye. That's a privately owned aircraft carrier or battleship in modern terms (or boomer, for that matter). The Founders had no sense of limitation at all to what weapons a private citizen could own (and naval artillery was far larger and more powerful than what could be drawn by horses for use vs infantry).

There is a mechanism to correct this, should anyone think that people should not be allowed to own warships, or even artillery. Amend the Constitution, because the 2d protects even that level of armament. It's not about hunting, it's the last of a series of checks and balances put forth by men who believed even having a standing army was tyranny---I can imagine it as a counter to Federalist desires for such a standing army.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.

Well antisocial disorders shoudl be a no go (aspergers, for example), those with schizophrenia, moderate to severe autism, i am unsure about depression though. Would you prefer allowing paranoid schizophrenics to own a firearm, what about those with aspergers, such as a newtown shooter. Personally i do not think that someone in such an unstable condition should be allowed to carry, but the debate must be expanded upon further.

So Jamie Hyneman the guy from Mythbusters that has clearly handled firearms many times and never shot anyone according to you cant own a firearm? Neither can Keith Olbermann or Bob Dylan or Bill Gates or Al Gore or Robin Williams.They all have Aspergers Syndrome. It is believed that Abraham Lincoln also had Aspergers so he cant own one either.

People with Aspergers have difficulty with social inaction they however are not anti social.

You seem to be thinking of a person with an Antisocial Personality Disorder this type of of person truly lacks a moral compass and would have no issue murdering someone or many people.

I agree that people with certain issues should not have access to any form of weapon just not what you suggested.But it is a touchy issue because what is or is not "dangerous" not so easy to say.And still a person must have acted in an alarming manner and have been diagnosed.People can hide how they truly feel and not get on a list for a metal illness the they commit their act and you did not know anything was very wrong until it happened.Or people close to that person never notice or don't feel that the person in question is becoming a danger.

The Sandy Hook kid something else was going on with him that did not get noticed or maybe he was just a POS. People like to say when something happens X person was "nuts" maybe just maybe that person was just a jerk at the maximum level and they knew what they where doing and knew it was wrong.

[tater]

"... shall not be infringed." (my emphasis).

Infringed is a pretty GD low bar. Not so much as a speed bump, and that applied to warships and artillery as written, when written.

[Ducimus]

(He makes a good illustration about how silly the Assault weapon criteria are, though I would maintain "Assault Rifle" is a classification as defined by the US armed forces - A selective fire rifle using an intermediate cartridge, feed from a box magazine. Of which a rifle derived from the civilian model AR-15 platform is not)

[Stealhead]

In my opinion the only "assault weapon" ever named as such is the STG.44 named the "Sturmgewehr"(Assault rifle) by Hitler (or Joseph Goebbels some say) it was given this name purely for political reasons. The weapon had another name and was changed to Sturmgewehr.


In western military vernacular you will not find any weapon being called an assault rifle you will hear the term rifle and in it description it will say
"Selective fire" if that weapon has such a feature.Selective fire means more than one mode of operation when the trigger is pressed "safe" is not a mode of operation.
I never once heard the term assault rifle used in the military I don't know anyone else that served use the term in relation any military weapon either.

Description page from the M16 manual;http://archive.org/stream/OperatorsM...e/n27/mode/2up

I would rather point out that the term is not even used by the military this better points out it origins and current use (by some).

AK47 (the evil gun) its name is Avtomat Kalashnikova Kalashnikov Automatic Rifle.

Assault Rifle (Weapon) started as a purely political term and will remain so in my eyes though interestingly enough the term was originally coined by fascists.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

In my opinion the only "assault weapon" ever named as such is the STG.44

Well, i definitely agree that the term is a media and politician coined term. Ever notice how the ? And why am i still posting about this subject? Because it is

[geetrue]

All the gov has to do is put the VA in charge of who can own an assault weapon and who can not own one.

At the present time the VA has a backlog of 900,00 claims that can take up to a year to settle:

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...4213943&rank=3

Currently, the average wait times for new veteran claimants to see a VA doctor can be up to 600 days, and more in some parts of the country.

Joe Klein blasted VA Secretary Eric Shinseki over the backlog, which now stands at about 900,000, and said he should quit.