A discussion about gun ownership

[bigt8261]

There is no evidence whatsoever, none, that introducing more guns into a society will make it safer or less volatile. If you have an ACTUAL example of this happening I would love to see it. I have asked for this piece of evidence many times on this forum and have been ignored.

You would know a little something about ignoring, but anyway.

As for the evidence, I guess you are ignoring the most peer reviewed research on the subject in the world. Here is a reference: http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Univ_of_Maryland_Law_Review_Lott.pdf
No other research on the topic is as peer reviewed (and confirmed I might add) as that one.

While you are at it, read this one too. http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

[bigt8261]

1. Fully fund the ATF so that they can do the job we charter them for, which is tracking illegal gun sales and prosecuting corrupts FFLs.

You mean that agency that is responsible for killing dozens, if not hundreds of innocent people, including more children at Waco than at Sandy Hook? You mean that agency that has repeatedly been caught using mentally disabled people in unlawful stings? You mean that agency that has repeatedly run guns into the hands of drug cartels leading the to deaths of multiple Americans and likely thousands of Mexicans?

You say fully fund. I say put in jail.

2. Track the registration numbers of all firearms so that we can identify the conduits by which guns pass from legal hands to illegal hands and shut them down.

Using registration to do what you propose is a pipe dream. Let's use Michigan as an example. As an alleged gun owner in Michigan, you should know that we not only have the equivalent of a "universal" background check on pistols, we also have registration for pistols too. Is our crime rate any lower? No. Do our police solve crime at a higher percentage? Nope. Essentially, there is no measurable positive effect from these systems.

In 2012, the MSP was asked in a committee hearing if they had ever used the pistol database to solve a crime. They were unable to come up with a single example. Not one. Canada recently got rid of a database for the exact same reason.

Your intent may be good here, but the practical effects are not what you are looking for. Add in the down sides of registration like cost and confiscation, and it's easy to see why so few actually do it.

You can read many more examples here: http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/licensing-and-registration/

3. Hold all gun owners responsible for their weapons, to include law enforcement officers. If you fail to secure your weapon properly and it is stolen and used in a crime, you as the owner are on the hook for your inadequate storage.

Gun owners are already held responsible for negligence. You can find enough examples with a simple Google search. However, what you are suggesting is not about negligence of gun owners, it's about punishing gun owners for the illegal activities of criminals. This flies in the face of any common sense.

If I steal your car and use it to drive through a parade of people, should you be prosecuted for each death I cause?

Should negligent people be prosecuted? Sure, and they already are.

4. Mandatory firearms training. Basic safety and competency training before you buy a firearm, similar to the CPL requirements in many states. If you want to conceal or open carry, we raise the bar a bit and require that you attend a tactical shooting course to learn the skills you would need to safely engage targets. Despite our best intentions, none of us are natural born shooters. Therre are very specific skills and techniques to learn in order to engage a bad guy in a public venue, either to defend yourself or others. By sheer volume of applicants the cost of these courses would be kept much lower than today's costs.

First, no. What you suggest is antithetical to the free exercise of a right.

Second, I think you fundamentally don't understand the aspects of a defensive scenario and how it differs from an offensive one. According to research conducted at the University of Chicago, officers shot roughly 5.5 times as many innocent bystanders as armed citizens. Add in the fact that officers were engaged in half as many encounters and that means officers were 11 times as likely to shoot an innocent bystander as an armed civilian. The biggest reason for that is citizens engage in almost entirely defensive encounters. They don't have to enter an unknown volatile situation. Defensive encounters are almost entirely at short distances, where offensive encounters may not be.

Third, if you wish to push something, then the burden is on you to prove its value. If you do the research I think you will find out that "basic" training doesn't have the effect you think it has. Michigan's standards are rather high when compared nationally. However, other states don't have a higher accident rate or crime rate amongst gun owners. The number of states that do not require any training or licensing is up to 7. Are those states worse off because if it? Nope.

So again, I say the burden is on you here.

[bigt8261]

We WANT people to be skilled marksmen and women. We WANT people to be able to safely and effectively be that good guy with a gun. We WANT to get the criminals, the crazies, and the sheer idiots away from firearms. And best of all, we WANT to send a message to potential tyrants that US citizens are armed, are trained well, and are ready to face down any tyranny.

I agree with everything there. Not only do I agree, I'm actively personally working to make it happen. What I'm telling you is that your ideas do not lead to the above.

I took time to sit down 1-on-1 with George Heartwell, the mayor of Grand Rapids. Mayor Heartwell is a well known anti-gun zealot. We chatted in a friendly manner about the overall topic and our disagreements. I then presented a list of things that I considered "common ground", essentially things I thought we could both agree on without having to compromise to get there. Things like enforcing our existing laws to actually punish people who do bad things with firearms, something the state and especially the federal government is not good at doing. He refused to stand with me and push for things we agreed upon. It became clear that he was not interested in safety as he had claimed. Guns are bad and that's all he cared about.

Will Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell accept gun-rights advocate's request to join his Coalition for Gun Control?
Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell on guns: 'I am not interested in finding a middle ground'

[gryphon]

There is no evidence whatsoever, none, that introducing more guns into a society will make it safer or less volatile. If you have an ACTUAL example of this happening I would love to see it. I have asked for this piece of evidence many times on this forum and have been ignored.

No, you haven't.  Many have replied to you on this point, including me.

Crimes rates are correlated to birth rates and other demographic factors, economics, social factors...

While there may be other contributing factors as well, that doesn't mean that guns aren't one of them.  You seem to be looking for something that states "guns are the sole reason that society is becoming safer."  Society isn't some science experiment where you control only one variable to see its effect.

And as far as economics and poverty, there was a time in this country (many times) when people were much poorer and yet they didn't commit violent crime to steal.

1. Fully fund the ATF

I think we should abolish the ATF.

2. Track the registration numbers of all firearms

No, no registration database of guns and gun owners in the US!  Period!

3. Hold all gun owners responsible for their weapons, to include law enforcement officers. If you fail to secure your weapon properly and it is stolen and used in a crime, you as the owner are on the hook for your inadequate storage.

I've asked you repeatedly what SPECIFICALLY you want here?  Each gun owner must have a certain security level minimum gun safe or they are committing a felony and will be prosecuted and put in prison?  Or do you just want to prosecute someone if a criminal breaks into their house, otherwise no harm, no foul?  If someone doesn't practice "safe storage" as defined by you, there are no consequences?  That's like saying, "the speed limit is 45 MPH here and violation is subject to citation, however you can essentially drive as fast as you want and we'll only ticket you if you end up getting in or causing a wreck."  Or do you want mandatory firearms inspections like some countries have?  A gun owner can already be prosecuted or even sued civilly for negligence (letting a prohibited person--which can be a child--have access to their guns).

[MuffDiver]

Mr muffdiver: the cars to gun analysis keeps coming up as an example of trend data and its directions. The overall number of cars in the US continues to go up, not down, yet car deaths decrease.

It's not the number of cars, it's the number of drivers....birth rates are down and younger people are not taking to cars the way previous gene did. Even the auto makers are recognizing this trend. The U.S. Federal highway administration has seen this..."As the average age of licensed drivers shifts upward, we see that the 35-39 and 40-44 year old age groups contain the largest share of drivers.

The number of age 70 and over drivers holding a valid license has continued to increase. In 1980, drivers 70 years and over was 8.8 million. And rose to 18.9 million in 2000. This is a 111% increase in older driver since 1980." It's a flash argument meant to confuse/divert the issue.

The number of gun deaths continues to rise, which I would consider a negative trend. Mass shootings continue unabated and we are all worried about the transfer of firearms into the hands of criminals. There is no evidence whatsoever, none, that introducing more guns into a society will make it safer or less volatile. If you have an ACTUAL example of this happening I would love to see it. I have asked for this piece of evidence many times on this forum and have been ignored. Not speculation about US crime rates versus guns because there is no clear cause and effect between gun ownership and crime rates. Crimes rates are correlated to birth rates and other demographic factors, economics, social factors such as the general acceptance of guns (more in white families versus black or Hispanic families, for example). So until there is a proven correlation between gun ownership and crime rates, it remains only wishful thinking.

"The FBI Crime in the United States report found 8,124 murders committed with firearms in 2014, down from 8,454 in 2013. That represents a 3.9 percent drop year over year and the lowest rate of any year included in the report.

The report found that, as in previous years, the vast majority of gun murders were committed with handguns, but all categories of gun murders declined.

Rifles were involved in 248 murders last year, fewer than the number committed with knives, blunt objects, and fists or feet. Three percent of gun murders involved rifles.

The overall murder rate declined by 1.2 percent year over year." https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/cius-home

How is this poosible with the veritable explosion in the number of guns and ever increasing number of not only gun owners but concealed carry persons? Perhaps instead of us having to prove that more guns makes things safer, you should prove it doesn't. ... According to the CDC, in 2013 63% of firearm deaths were suicides. Some would argue that getting rid of or restriction gu s would change this and "save so many lives".....sadly, that is not proveable and is just supposition. In Japan firearms for non police, military or security of ALL kinds are BANNED and yet their suicide rate is DOUBLE ours.....how is that?

As far as criminals always having guns, I beg to differ. What we are talking about is choking off that supply of guns so that guns become harder to obtain, and thereby more expensive to the criminal. Choking off that supply can be done in multiple ways.

Please, people in Pakistan can make near original looking, and functional AK copies in dirt floor huts...I can go to my hardware store and make a functional zip gun for 20-30 dollars, and that's if I want a fancy one. We can't even keep drugs or phones or weapons out of prisions...places that are designed to keep those things away from very bad people.... You are living in a fantasy land.

Here are the specific proposals you asked for:
1. Fully fund the ATF so that they can do the job we charter them for, which is tracking illegal gun sales and prosecuting corrupts FFLs.
2. Track the registration numbers of all firearms so that we can identify the conduits by which guns pass from legal hands to illegal hands and shut them down.
3. Hold all gun owners responsible for their weapons, to include law enforcement officers. If you fail to secure your weapon properly and it is stolen and used in a crime, you as the owner are on the hook for your inadequate storage.
4. Mandatory firearms training. Basic safety and competency training before you buy a firearm, similar to the CPL requirements in many states. If you want to conceal or open carry, we raise the bar a bit and require that you attend a tactical shooting course to learn the skills you would need to safely engage targets. Despite our best intentions, none of us are natural born shooters. Therre are very specific skills and techniques to learn in order to engage a bad guy in a public venue, either to defend yourself or others. By sheer volume of applicants the cost of these courses would be kept much lower than today's costs.

The ATF is more than adequately funded. Perhaps if they actually spent their time PROSECUTING straw buys and smugglers and those who are caught lying on transfer forms w'd see better results..."Mr. Jones acknowledged in questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, that of 48,321 cases involving straw buyers, the Justice Department prosecuted only 44 of them — saying that “hard decisions” to prosecute were made based on “limited resources.” He also acknowledged that as the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, he never prosecuted anyone accused of being a straw buyer." They also seem to have the time and resources to run large operations to smuggle weapons into Mexico that have now killed who knows how many..... The problem is that prosecuting such cases isn't  "sexy" or high profile and those in power want big headlines and programs with equally large budgets and staff. Making progress isn't as important when you can make headlines or your name know in power circles...

Any then let's not get into the number of weapons that are stolen or lost from federal, state, and local agencies that are never accounted for and for which people are rarely held accountable and when they are some underling gets fired or some one gets a "reprimand".

Looking at your proposals , I think you have some great ideas. The idea is to fundamentally change our gun culture from the ground up while not penalizing gun owners. This should be an investment in people, similar to other educational programs. We WANT people to be skilled marksmen and women. We WANT people to be able to safely and effectively be that good guy with a gun. We WANT to get the criminals, the crazies, and the sheer idiots away from firearms. And best of all, we WANT to send a message to potential tyrants that US citizens are armed, are trained well, and are ready to face down any tyranny.

Hope those answers were what you are looking for.

We both want the same thing, in the end, but have some very significant differences in how to get there.

[freediver]

Mr muffdiver: You called it. We both want the same thing. We just differ on how to get there. So, why not take some of your ideas and some of my ideas, work them into a manageable program, and put them out there to see what works. Then over time we scrap what doesn't work (gun bans, for example) and keep what works. Simple compromises, which is the only thing that will allow democracy to flourish. You don't get everything your way, I don't get everything my way. But we skip the ideology and move straight to practical solutions.

Unfortunately that has a snowball's chance in hell of working. The various gun lobbies, such as this organization, insist on doctrinal purity and not giving an inch. Liberal gun haters aren't much better. So here we sit in a quandary, with no solutions and no end in sight.

Sad and wasteful, in my mind.

[MuffDiver]

Mr muffdiver: You called it. We both want the same thing. We just differ on how to get there. So, why not take some of your ideas and some of my ideas, work them into a manageable program, and put them out there to see what works. Then over time we scrap what doesn't work (gun bans, for example) and keep what works. Simple compromises, which is the only thing that will allow democracy to flourish. You don't get everything your way, I don't get everything my way. But we skip the ideology and move straight to practical solutions.

Unfortunately that has a snowball's chance in hell of working. The various gun lobbies, such as this organization, insist on doctrinal purity and not giving an inch. Liberal gun haters aren't much better. So here we sit in a quandary, with no solutions and no end in sight.

Sad and wasteful, in my mind.

Quite honestly, I don't want any of your ideas because once something becomes law or a liberty/right is restricted, it is rarely returned/overturned. It's turns people into sheep and conformists. I'm not willing to comprise on rights. My suggestions are very practical and have zero downside and only benefits, your way gives government a backdoor to limit and reduce/remote a basic human right of defense from fellow citizens and overbearing and authoritative government.

Organizations like this should insist on doctrinal purity and are needed because without them others will whittle down or dilute what you say you want to preserve until nothing is left....like boiling a frog, it doesn't know it's over until it's to late. Liberals and freedom haters don't even have compromise in their vocabulary when it comes to what they want and they insist on "doctrinal purity", why should we be the ones to always have to give up something.

Liberal gun haters aren't much better? They aren't ANY better, they are much worse!....  This response of yours makes me believe the rift between the groups, as well as you and I are bigger than I even thought.... Now, I'm not sure if we want the same things. I'll happily take a dangerous freedom over safe serfdom.

[gryphon]

Any then let's not get into the number of weapons that are stolen or lost from federal, state, and local agencies that are never accounted for and for which people are rarely held accountable

Yep.  Just this week the San Jose PD admitted that their own force had stolen over 300 guns out of the department. Well, they actually just admitted that over 300 guns were "missing."  The chief said, "These things happen."  No accountability.  Our own Flint PD has admitted to having department-issued guns missing.

[gryphon]

Simple compromises...You don't get everything your way, I don't get everything my way.

1934 National Firearms Act
1968 Gun Control Act of 1968
1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act
1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban
1995 Gun-Free School Zones Act

We have compromised enough already.

[gryphon]

I want the National Firearms Act, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Firearm Owners Protection Act, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and the Gun-Free School Zones Act abolished.  I also want the ATF abolished.

But I'm willing to compromise with the Left.  Pick three out of the six to abolish.  There, 50/50 compromise.

[CitizensHaveRights]

But I'm willing to compromise with the Left.  Pick three out of the six to abolish.  There, 50/50 compromise.

Sounds like the same sort of compromise we've been giving up for 80 years. They propose taking this, that and the other thing from us, then we compromise and they only get this now and that in a year or two, while we keep the other thing for the time being.

[bigt8261]

So, why not take some of your ideas and some of my ideas, work them into a manageable program, and put them out there to see what works. Then over time we scrap what doesn't work (gun bans, for example) and keep what works. Simple compromises, which is the only thing that will allow democracy to flourish. You don't get everything your way, I don't get everything my way. But we skip the ideology and move straight to practical solutions.

Gun owners have fallen for that for over a hundred years. By now we have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't. Everything that you've proposed can either be proven to not work, or proven to actually be a detriment.

Again I say the burden is on you.

[gryphon]

There is no evidence whatsoever, none, that introducing more guns into a society will make it safer or less volatile. If you have an ACTUAL example of this happening I would love to see it.

How about the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the United Nations International Study on Firearms Regulation?

[Ultra]

I think the rights to free speech are a problem.  They allow idiots to keep repeating mantras that are intended to infringe on the rights of others.  I think we need to control speech and it needs to be limited, vetted and approved before it can be published.

Let's start with Freediver....

[part deux]

How about a discussion about knife ownership?

[gryphon]

How about a discussion about knife ownership?

Does the knife have a shoulder thing that goes up?

[gryphon]

As freediver has opined, our current 2A protection allows too many bad people to obtain guns.  The goal is to abolish laws and freedoms in the name of preventing and catching criminals.

Therefore, I propose we make some changes in law that hinder us from catching criminals.

First, we abolish the First Amendment.  We can't have people speaking their minds and assembling, rabble sousing.  But that's a minor thing,  We really need to...

...abolish the  Fourth Amendment.  Clearly this is hindering the police from making searches that any reasonable person knows should be allowed to capture criminals.  If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide.  The only people who would be against this are criminals!

...abolish the Fifth Amendment.  Clearly this is hindering the justice system from convicting criminals!  We allow criminals to refuse to answer questions, we mandate a Grand Jury be assembled for "serious" crimes, we even pay people for taking their land in the name of the betterment of society!  #WhitePrivelege #BlackLivesMatter

...abolish the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  Again, more laws that hinder law enforcement from keeping us safe!

[bigt8261]

As freediver has opined, our current 2A protection allows too many bad people to obtain guns.  The goal is to abolish laws and freedoms in the name of preventing and catching criminals.

Therefore, I propose we make some changes in law that hinder us from catching criminals.

First, we abolish the First Amendment.  We can't have people speaking their minds and assembling, rabble sousing.  But that's a minor thing,  We really need to...

...abolish the  Fourth Amendment.  Clearly this is hindering the police from making searches that any reasonable person knows should be allowed to capture criminals.  If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide.  The only people who would be against this are criminals!

...abolish the Fifth Amendment.  Clearly this is hindering the justice system from convicting criminals!  We allow criminals to refuse to answer questions, we mandate a Grand Jury be assembled for "serious" crimes, we even pay people for taking their land in the name of the betterment of society!  #WhitePrivelege #BlackLivesMatter

...abolish the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.  Again, more laws that hinder law enforcement from keeping us safe!

He has a point you know.

[Ultra]

If this were a democracy, this would be a troubling poll:

Poll: 40 Percent Of Millennials Want Speech Censored

A new Pew Research Center poll shows that 40 percent of American Millennials (ages 18-34) are likely to support government prevention of public statements offensive to minorities.

It should be noted that vastly different numbers resulted for older generations in the Pew poll on the issue of offensive speech and the government’s role.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/21/poll-40-percent-of-millennials-want-speech-censored/

However, this isn't a democracy.  Our country is structured as a republic, in order to prevent ill informed masses from taking rights away from the populace. 

------------

I know, this entire post just went over Freedivers head.

[gryphon]

Good article, Ultra.  Thanks.