Arapahoe HS Shooting

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Cricket2 said:
Yes, yes guns don’t kill people do. But I sure have a better chance if the thug after me does not have a gun. Cars don’t kill either, drunk drivers do, or drugged drivers. But we do have traffic laws to help keep things safer for all. I simply want stricter control of gun purchasing and use. Background checks and a waiting period prior to purchase just is not that big of a deal, unless you have something to hide.
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What make you think the thug wouldn’t still have a gun even with stricter gun control laws? Criminals obey the law now? You already have to get a background check to purchase a gun in the US.
 
Mumbles140 said:
  1. The fact that it doesn’t bother you is why neither of us will progress in this debate.
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I respect freedom; you are terrified of it.
  1. Since when did something being ‘evil’ have to do with it being ‘illegal’. It isn’t ‘evil’ of me to drive without a seat belt, but it sure is illegal.
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And why is is it illegal?
  1. With cleaning chemicals, you are talking about the abuse of something other than its intended purpose. That’s like trying to ban cars because some drunk idiot suffering from a fake syndrome used one to drive into a crowd of people. THAT is the common sense ‘why’ portion that people like you don’t get.
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I did not bring up cleaning chemicals; you did.
Anything can be weaponized - you look at the purpose, and whether the proper use exceeds the likelihood of illicit use (and the harm caused by such). Probably every household in America used some form of Windex, so while the number itself may be high, the percentage of people abusing it is probably pretty low. Take some of these high-powered or highly-destructive military weapons and ask what their purpose is - death or severe injury of another human being is probably the most typical answer. So why should ordinary citizens have the rights to own these weapons?
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The purpose of guns is to kill or wound. Sometimes this is an unfortunately necessary task to undertake, so why not do it with the maximum efficiency and lowest risk to ones self?
Shotgun, that’s perfectly reasonable for hunting, home defense, and sport shooting. People use them for wrong - a tragedy, but don’t hold it against the guns because the main purpose of a shotgun is not to kill someone. Can you say the same about some of the weapons the military possesses and uses in war?
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I’d rather use my AK in a life or death situation than my shotgun. Much better rate of fire, range, ammo capacity, reload speed, bullet penetration and accuracy. However accepting the risk to others inherent of using it in my home I would not grab it. However I like having it all the same “just in case”.
  1. The Catholic Church is comprised of sinners, therefore flawed, so let’s just disband that institution also. Throw in any government (especially the DC government!) since they all have corruption of some sort, pretty much all Fortune 500 companies (come on, at some level, they must be doing something), and pretty soon, we are living in an anarchist society. If an institution is flawed, you bring transparency to it, you hold it accountable, you prosecute those held to a higher standard who fail to act according to that standard. Why do you have the need to instead stockpile arms against it in case it ever turned on its citizens?
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Don’t recall the Catholic Church attempting to/plotting to tyrannize me.
  1. Your thoughts that you can do as you please and deal with the consequences later means we should be a solely reactionary state. We don’t need to guard the President - if someone assassinates him, we’ll just catch them and punish them later. We don’t need to screen at the airport - if someone tries to blow up the plane, we’ll start a war in a foreign country where his terrorist group is known to operate. We don’t need to have the Coast Guard patrol for drug boats - we’ll let all the users OD and fill up our prisons arresting those who don’t die.
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In addition to putting words in my mouth, you seriously underestimate the power of free will. An individual truly can do whatever they want and deal with the consequences later. I can get up during Mass and start handing out nail clippings. I can strip naked. I can dance up and down the aisles. I can give a lecture on cellular respiration. I can do any of these things if I choose to irregardless of any law/social decorum against it because I can.
 
Cricket2 said:
I simply want stricter control of gun purchasing and use. Background checks and a waiting period prior to purchase just is not that big of a deal, unless you have something to hide.
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Cricket,

I have made several firearms, mostly flintlocks, one wheellock. One of the flintlocks was entirely from scratch, machined all the pieces for the lock, carved the stock, drilled and rifled the barrel.

I am NOT a gunsmith, just a guy to paid attention in high school shop class.

If I so desired, I could turn out revolvers or yes, even sub-machine guns in my garage using tools I can get a Lowes, and steel from my local junk shop.

The only think keeping me from doing so is that I am a law abiding citizen.

But there are tens of thousands, if not hundred of thousands, of people like me, how paid attention in shop class, and know where the local Lowes is.

What will keep them from making firearms under your system? And who would the sell them too?

I’ll give you a hint, Marijuana is illegal under Federal law. How many people in the US do you think are growing it or selling it?
 
Cricket2 said:
But I sure have a better chance if the thug after me does not have a gun. .
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The US Dept of Justice did a study of over 200,000 criminals. What would constitute legal sales only accounted for 14% of the firearms used.

The other 76% came either from black-market street sales, theft or ‘straw purchases’ (where the criminal contracts with a person who is capable of passing a background check make the actual purchase and then transfer the firearm to the criminal.

bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf

Table 8 has the relevant data

So given that the thug you refer to gets his gun via theft, on the street or via illegal straw purchases from associates. How exactly would anything that you propose affect the thug’s ability to get ahold of a firearm?
 
Brendan said:
Cricket,

I have made several firearms, mostly flintlocks, one wheellock. One of the flintlocks was entirely from scratch, machined all the pieces for the lock, carved the stock, drilled and rifled the barrel.

I am NOT a gunsmith, just a guy to paid attention in high school shop class.

If I so desired, I could turn out revolvers or yes, even sub-machine guns in my garage using tools I can get a Lowes, and steel from my local junk shop.

The only think keeping me from doing so is that I am a law abiding citizen.

But there are tens of thousands, if not hundred of thousands, of people like me, how paid attention in shop class, and know where the local Lowes is.

What will keep them from making firearms under your system? And who would the sell them too?

I’ll give you a hint, Marijuana is illegal under Federal law. How many people in the US do you think are growing it or selling it?
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Just to add to your comment about making your own firearms with no training (not a gunsmith) and cheap easy to get parts and equipment- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten
 
What if we compromised and only took away the gun ownership rights from those who believe they should be taken away? For example, Dianne Feinstein (D) could give up her gun.
 
livingwordunity said:
What if we compromised and only took away the gun ownership rights from those who believe they should be taken away? For example, Dianne Feinstein (D) could give up her gun.
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But comrade livingwordunity, do you not realize that our glorious masters are only doing this for our security? :rolleyes:
 
Cricket2 said:
Yes, yes guns don’t kill people do.** But I sure have a better chance if the thug after me does not have a gun. ** Cars don’t kill either, drunk drivers do, or drugged drivers. But we do have traffic laws to help keep things safer for all. I simply want stricter control of gun purchasing and use. Background checks and a waiting period prior to purchase just is not that big of a deal, unless you have something to hide.
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You honestly think that more gun laws will stop criminals from carrying out crime? I point to the city of Chicago as proof of that not being true.Like it or not Cricket all that more gun laws do is keep guns out of the hands of people you don’t have to worry about to begin with.Guns can be obtained very easily in the cities with the strictest gun laws.Trust me on this.
 
Thomas_Peter said:
You honestly think that more gun laws will stop criminals from carrying out crime? I point to the city of Chicago as proof of that not being true.Like it or not Cricket all that more gun laws do is keep guns out of the hands of people you don’t have to worry about to begin with.Guns can be obtained very easily in the cities with the strictest gun laws.Trust me on this.
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I think better gun laws will. Not necessarily more… just better. The UK has very strict gun laws… do you know how many school shootings they’ve had??? 1… that’s it.
 
SeannyM said:
I think better gun laws will. Not necessarily more… just better. The UK has very strict gun laws… do you know how many school shootings they’ve had??? 1… that’s it.
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Perhaps some places might need stricter gun laws, but most gun crimes are probably committed by criminals who got their guns illegally. So, focusing only on making stricter gun laws is avoiding the root of this which is mental illness and societal moral breakdown. We live in a society where more and more people think that good and evil are merely arbitrary, meaningless concepts.
 
SeannyM said:
I think better gun laws will. Not necessarily more… just better. The UK has very strict gun laws… do you know how many school shootings they’ve had??? 1… that’s it.
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Chicago has very strict gun laws. It is illegal for someone to possess a gun in the city of Chicago. Do you know how many gun homicides they have a year? One of the highest in the US.
 
SeannyM said:
The UK has very strict gun laws… do you know how many school shootings they’ve had??? 1… that’s it.
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Or, we could follow the Swiss model. They issue fully automatic assault rifles, plus 200 rounds of ammo, to just about every adult male. And has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in world

And they haven’t had a single school shooting.

Zero is better than one in this regard, so I would say that the Swiss model of gun control would be superior to that of the UK!
 
livingwordunity said:
What if we compromised and only took away the gun ownership rights from those who believe they should be taken away? For example, Dianne Feinstein (D) could give up her gun.
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Then we could give them free signs to post prominently on their doors, cars, businesses, saying:

**
“ATTENTION burglars, robbers, and psychopaths! NO guns here! You may safety enter!”**

😃
 
SeannyM said:
I think better gun laws will. Not necessarily more… just better. The UK has very strict gun laws… do you know how many school shootings they’ve had??? 1… that’s it.
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The UK (which by the way has a higher violent crime rate then the US) example is getting old. Comparing the effectiveness of gun laws between the US and the UK would only work if we both shared similar social histories and norms. Gun violence and gun crime rates have always been lower in the UK. Even when the UK had little to no gun control.
 
livingwordunity said:
Perhaps some places might need stricter gun laws, but most gun crimes are probably committed by criminals who got their guns illegally. So, focusing only on making stricter gun laws is avoiding the root of this which is mental illness and societal moral breakdown. We live in a society where more and more people think that good and evil are merely arbitrary, meaningless concepts.
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We do have a huge problem with mental illness, obviously. It’s also true that our gun control laws don’t really take mental illness into account as much as they should.

There’s a long, well-researched story in today’s New York Times about this very issue (guns and the mentally ill). In the story there are a number of examples of instances where the authorities had to return guns to demonstrably severely mentally ill people because the law (in some jurisdictions) does not prohibit people diagnosed with schizophrenia (for example) from possessing guns. Lots of guns. The reporter even interviewed some clearly delusional people who had had their guns returned to them after the authorities had seized them.
 
The mentally ill are victims of violence and abuse far more often than the perpetrators of it.
 
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