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cynic
Guest
issueing gun-permits doesn’t mean there can’t be licensing and gun registration first.
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On another note though, I think the cynic here has failed to answer for how exactly he thinks a criminal will follow stricter gun laws.
Perhaps he conveniently overlooked the question…
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vern_humphrey
Guest
No, smuggled in, en masse.
Enough to make a difference, as the results show.
It is, indeed.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
And why would we need that?
What is this compulsion Europeans have with coming on American forums and telling us how to run our country?
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Wolseley
Guest
Vern pretty much covered it, but I’ll throw in a few comments here, knowing fully well that nobody’s mind is going to change:
cynic:
What a strange world you inhabit. That makes about as much sense as putting a used-car dealer in jail because he sells a car to someone who uses it to run down and kill somebody else. Listen: it doesn’t make any difference WHO the gun is registered to; what matters is what the person who was in possession of the gun at the time did while he had it. Whether the gun was legal, illegal, bought, borrowed, bartered, stolen, or manufactured with a pipe and a potato is irrelevant. It’s what you do with the gun that matters, not the fact that the gun exists to begin with.
You’re not seeing my point. What I said was, if guns are banned, then the Colombian drug dealers would simply go into a sideline of supplying guns to the burglars, armed robbers, homeboys, and gangbangers.
Again: wouldn’t it be more sensible to ban the criminals instead of the guns?
So the whole idea behind gun registration, in your mind, is that when the law-abiding citizen sells his old gun at a gun fair, and the buyer uses it to commit a crime, then the seller should be punished because the buyer committed a crime with it?
What a strange world you inhabit. That makes about as much sense as putting a used-car dealer in jail because he sells a car to someone who uses it to run down and kill somebody else. Listen: it doesn’t make any difference WHO the gun is registered to; what matters is what the person who was in possession of the gun at the time did while he had it. Whether the gun was legal, illegal, bought, borrowed, bartered, stolen, or manufactured with a pipe and a potato is irrelevant. It’s what you do with the gun that matters, not the fact that the gun exists to begin with.
I think you’ve just about summed it up here, Vern; this is what they never seem to get through their heads.Well, you see, gun bans work because people who would murder, steal and rape would never break the law and carry a gun.
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Brendan
Guest
Which is easier to manufacture, crack cocaine, or a firearm.
I’ll give you a hint, one can be made from metal you buy at a scrape shop with tools you can buy at a local hardware shop.
I’ve made a firearm from scratch before, a rifle that I regularly hunt with. I machined the lock mechanism and carved the stock by hand. It’s not all that hard, especially if you paid attention during High School shop class.
If the laws you describe are enacted, what will prevent criminals from getting a hold of guns made in garage shops, even more easily than they can get a bag of marijuana?
Of course, anyone who actually chooses to obey the law will be disarmed, but the impact on those who don’t care about following the law will be minimal at best.
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Al_Masetti
Guest
There was a program on the History Channel and it showed a very small underground workshop where in the 1940’s rebels used to make machine guns and ammunition. Not difficult to do at all. And in Pakistan all around the Kohat and Peshawar area, there are very small workshops that build any kind of rifle, pistol or machine gun with hand tools.Which is easier to manufacture, crack cocaine, or a firearm.
I’ll give you a hint, one can be made from metal you buy at a scrape shop with tools you can buy at a local hardware shop.
I’ve made a firearm from scratch before, a rifle that I regularly hunt with. I machined the lock mechanism and carved the stock by hand. It’s not all that hard, especially if you paid attention during High School shop class.
If the laws you describe are enacted, what will prevent criminals from getting a hold of guns made in garage shops, even more easily than they can get a bag of marijuana?
Of course, anyone who actually chooses to obey the law will be disarmed, but the impact on those who don’t care about following the law will be minimal at best.
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cynic
Guest
That seems pretty far fetched, that South American drug dealers would be able to supply the whole country’s criminals with guns, as cheaply and as easily as if they were bought in the U.S. Oh but if you say so…
In my country, what gun related crime exists is ussually committed with sawn-off shotguns, sawn-off .22’s. In yours it’s with semi-automatic handguns, or even military style rifles. There’s a big difference in firepower - how many people you can kill. This is a direct result of restrictive gun laws, far more restrictive than the ideas I threw out there. And you don’t think even trying to limit the availability of these kind of guns is worthwhile because law abiding citizens have to jump through a few hoops?
He’s not resposnsible for the crime, you misinterpret my point. However if you are selling a deadly weapon to someone, shouldn’t you do your best to know what kind of person is buying? If the buyer had to be licensed then it would clear things up and the seller could make a responsible choice about who he passes these things on to.
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cynic
Guest
How many guns made in garages have high capacity magazines. How many can fire accurately as fast as your finger can pull the trigger.
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Al_Masetti
Guest
An AK-47 is very cheap and easy to make. It has only about five parts.
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cynic
Guest
but not handguns. So why isn’t there a high use of these things in (developed) countries with restrictive gun laws? Anecdotal. It’s possible to make a gun, therefore that happens a lot. Except it doesn’t.
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Brendan
Guest
Gimme a few weeks and I’ll have one done, then after than, I could just crank them out. It’s 100+ year old technology.
The British outsourced Sten gun manufacturing to garage shops in WW-II .
The Jewish activists in post WW-II produced them (Sten guns) in a the basement of a laundry shop that washed the uniforms of British soliders.
The sounds of the washers and dryers hid the sound of the machine shop below from the British
In fact, since the Sten in so easy, I’d probably just do that one. It just stamped sheet metal, no forming needed. Heck, if I spent a a ten grand or so and bought a water cutter, I could probably turn out a few a day.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Next in line would probably be the Russian PPSh, but do it in 9mm, the casings are easier to make.
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Brendan
Guest
Because it’s still easier to smuggle them in. Like the Russian guns that are smuggled into the UK
mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/08/25/flood-of-russian-guns-89520-19686056/
(of course, the Mirror gets one thing wrong. ‘Baikal’ is the name for the armory in Russia that produces many different types of guns, from the AK to shotguns to pistols. The pistol they ( +China and most every Eastern Bloc nation) produced was the Makarov
)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makarov_PM
That’s kinda like calling a Vauxhall Vectra a “Luton”
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cynic
Guest
You’re smart enough and prepared to put in the effort. And I doubt you could churn out something akin to a Glock.
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cynic
Guest
\Because it’s still easier to smuggle them in. Like the Russian guns that are smuggled into the UK
mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/08/25/flood-of-russian-guns-89520-19686056/
(of course, the Mirror gets one thing wrong. ‘Baikal’ is the name for the armory in Russia that produces many different types of guns, from the AK to shotguns to pistols. The pistol they ( +China and most every Eastern Bloc nation) produced was the Makarov
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makarov_PM
That’s kinda like calling a Vauxhall Vectra a “Luton”
“Ban guns and they’ll just smuggle them in” you all say. Some crims in the U.K currently smuggle in guns, so it follows that limiting access to firearms is pointless. That is specious reasoning. Britain has a lower incidence of gun related crime, same in NZ, and that’s a direct result of gun control. Because it’s possible to smuggle in guns, because *some *criminals will go to that length, or make crude replicas, doesn’t mean that this is going to happen enough to replace all the guns bought legally and currently in use by crims. There will be less guns about, and some might think that that’s a good enough reason for gun control.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
So how come Britain has a higher crime rate today than it did before banning guns?
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Brendan
Guest
I’m a lot less smart that the chemists who churn out crack cocaine.
The skill set is a LOT less, they teach the necessary skills in most high schools and the materials are avaible in any scrap metal yard.
In an industrial town, like Detroit where I live, the people with the skills to do this number in the 100,000’s.
And why do you consider a Glock to be more dangerous than a Sten?
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Brendan
Guest
Yes, the people who actually care about following the law will turn theirs in.
The people who don’t care about the law will keep theirs.
So WHO exactly are you trying to disarm?
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Al_Masetti
Guest
The apparent “problem” is that folks who are anti-gunners seem to have limited mechanical skills. They can drive a car, but can’t fix one. So to them, the idea of a gun is something majickal. Point and shoot. But figuring out how to make one is totally beyond their ability … and even beyond their frame of reference.
When I was a kid, I took my life savings and went out to the local airport and took flying lessons. My parents were opposed but I had my fat-tire bike and off I went. I wanted to experience the freedom of flight. The navigation and the aerodynamics and the weather were so easy for me, I didn’t even study for the written tests and aced them. All that technical stuff was very easy.
Some of my friends later in life, who didn’t fly, were stunned that I was so meticulous with technical stuff … for me it was normal, for them it was very difficult.
Recently a newer friend of mine, my age, said that he had also pursued flying, but for a totally different reason. He lived in a “squishy world” of feelings and politics and he wanted to experience some rigor and discipline. And, in flying, you HAVE to be rigorous. For him, the navigation and aerodynamics and weather were very difficult, but he took their study and application as a challenge and with some effort, mastered them.
So there you have different “personality types” looking at technical issues from totally different approaches.
One looks at technical stuff as fairly routine. The other looks at technical stuff as being so difficult as requiring herculean effort … almost impossible … and certainly not intuitive.
Years later, I took a statistics course and the other “kids” [all of us in our 50’s] were in dread of it; but for me it was pretty basic stuff … for “show and tell” I even introduced some new elements into it … that were normal in my “day job”.
So for some folks, the idea of making guns is fairly straight forward. For other folks, the idea … even just the thought … of making guns is about impossible.
When I was a kid, I took my life savings and went out to the local airport and took flying lessons. My parents were opposed but I had my fat-tire bike and off I went. I wanted to experience the freedom of flight. The navigation and the aerodynamics and the weather were so easy for me, I didn’t even study for the written tests and aced them. All that technical stuff was very easy.
Some of my friends later in life, who didn’t fly, were stunned that I was so meticulous with technical stuff … for me it was normal, for them it was very difficult.
Recently a newer friend of mine, my age, said that he had also pursued flying, but for a totally different reason. He lived in a “squishy world” of feelings and politics and he wanted to experience some rigor and discipline. And, in flying, you HAVE to be rigorous. For him, the navigation and aerodynamics and weather were very difficult, but he took their study and application as a challenge and with some effort, mastered them.
So there you have different “personality types” looking at technical issues from totally different approaches.
One looks at technical stuff as fairly routine. The other looks at technical stuff as being so difficult as requiring herculean effort … almost impossible … and certainly not intuitive.
Years later, I took a statistics course and the other “kids” [all of us in our 50’s] were in dread of it; but for me it was pretty basic stuff … for “show and tell” I even introduced some new elements into it … that were normal in my “day job”.
So for some folks, the idea of making guns is fairly straight forward. For other folks, the idea … even just the thought … of making guns is about impossible.
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Wirraway
Guest
the government has the power to impose reasonable limitations on the ownership of firearms. at the moment, the line is drawn at automatic weapons (for the most part), barrel length, caliber and a few other items.
I don’t see this as a nanny state, but as the result of vigorous debate and compromise among gun owners and gun grabbers.
I don’t see this as a nanny state, but as the result of vigorous debate and compromise among gun owners and gun grabbers.
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