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How about people who are crazy but have no access to guns on the black market? Do you think unrestricted access is a solution just because gangs? Seems a bit d

How about people who are crazy but have no access to guns on the black market? Do you think unrestricted access is a solution just because gangs? Seems a bit dimwitted to me but that's subjective of course, I'd never ever have the desire to own a weapon, let alone shoot one. I have different hobbies, you know... Also I understand the self defense stance, but why would anyone be able to own machine guns and weapons of mass destruction? It's beyond me. And not wanting to restrict crazy people from having this ability is starting to make me suspect gun proponents are a lil crazy themselves. They have and agree on no limits on what one can own. But when it comes to weed or prostitution or abortion they're the first ones to scream murder.

lax4ever 4y ago
And people who legally and respectfully own guns don't have different hobbies? All they can possibly think about is going out a shooting? Beyond that, clearly taking away guns doesn't stop violent crime. Domestic abuse is still a major issue even without guns. Knife, club, and acid attacks have taken the UK by storm. Robbery, rape, looting, arson, all things that can and in many cases are done without a firearm.
- krapp 4y ago
  I don't think anyone has ever suggesting that gun control prevents all forms of violent crime. Rather that gun control prevents gun crime by virtue of not providing access to the guns with which to commit said crimes.
  - lax4ever 4y ago
    At the cost of otherwise disarming a much, much larger segment of the population who have never committed a crime with a firearm and are much better protected against crimes of many various types, including those with firearms.
    - krapp 4y ago
      No, at the cost of disarming everyone, including the population intent on committing a crime with a firearm.
      - lax4ever 4y ago
        That's a pretty big assumption, considering someone intent on committing a crime isn't exactly pre-disposed to follow the law in the first place and all you are really doing is disarming someone who does follow the law and placing them at a greater disadvantage.
        krapp 4y ago
        I suspect harsher sentencing for possession of a gun during a crime is a deterrent, but I'm not invested enough in this conversation to try to find stats. I would also point out that in other countries with effective gun control - which is to say the rest of the civilized world - there isn't the expected rampage of gun crime your comments imply should be taking place due to gun laws only being effective against citizens but not potential criminals.
        lax4ever 4y ago
        Harsher sentencing for violent crimes with a weapon already exist and I would love if they were applied more often. But that's a different discussion. It's not about an expected rampage, of which I doubt there would be because we are not facing a rampage of gun crime as it is. On average in the US, of the approximately 35,000 gun related deaths every year (and considering an estimated 8 out of 10 Americans owns a firearms less than 0.01% of the population is killed in a firearm related death is another thing), on average 60% of that is suicide, not homicide. Roughly 14k. This doesn't even break the top 10 causes of death in the US and of the 805k deaths by other causes per the CDC [1] we're talking 2%. That's not exactly a rampage despite the voluminous amount of media attention this gets. No, the point is that the volume of those killed by guns (even if you include suicides in that number) is miniscule compared to the potential of a firearm to stop a violent crime in process, even without the firearm being discharged. There is an estimated 300,000 to 3,000,000 defensive uses of firearms in the US. Even if you attribute all gun homicides (including suicide) to defensive firearms uses (which is absolutely not the case), death by firearms would be a mere 12% of even the smallest estimated number. This is why you allow firearms with as minimal restrictions as possible, because the number of people who will properly use them vastly dwarfs the number of people who will misuse them. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db427-tables.pdf#4 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db427-tables.pdf#4
  - refurb 4y ago
    I don't think any pro-gun people have issues with stopping criminal and the mental ill from getting guns. The thing is, we have laws on the books now that would do a pretty good job. However, they aren't enforced at all or only enforced during egregious cases. Why not start enforcing the laws we have now and see how that goes before creating new laws for the people who never broke the existing ones?
- tacheiordache 4y ago
  Not the ones who legally own 34 weapons. I've seen some folks whose main hobby is collecting and shooting weapons. Sure, not everyone has that obsession with weapons but my point was different. The choice of collecting weapons when one or two handguns would be sufficient for self defense implies quite a bit about who we talking about: adult men whose maturity got stunted in the stage of boyhood.
  - lax4ever 4y ago
    I'm not seeing why having a gun hobby is bad. I am not sure you realize the benefits of doing a precision activity like this when you, by your own admission, have never utilized nor have been inclined to utilize a firearm. Properly utilizing and training with a firearm builds focus, mental acuity, strength, and a sense of responsibility. It can also be argued that it destroys a certain bit of naive innocence as well when you come to the realization of what exactly you are handling and what exactly you are on the other end of should you be attacked by someone with a firearm.
nradov 4y ago
The Second Amendment doesn't cover weapons of mass destruction, so that's a total strawman argument. The intent of the authors was to cover individual weapons, of the type that a light infantry soldier might carry. (Although up through about the Civil War, it was relatively common for private citizens to own artillery and there were no licenses or permits required.)
- lax4ever 4y ago
  What is a weapon of mass destruction? How does that get defined? Beyond that, I don't believe the Second Amendment was ever meant to be framed in that manner. The idea was that firearms helped keep the government from ruling over it's population by physical force rather than the consent of the governed. This, in simplest terms, would mean that what the government was allowed to use for force, so too should its citizens, thus carrying on the whole idea of checks and balances.
  - Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
    "Although up through about the Civil War, it was relatively common for private citizens to own artillery and there were no licenses or permits required." This was implicitly acknowledged in the Constitution's provisions for issuing letters of marque and reprisal. A general point to make: widespread private ownership of weapons was so accepted, was in fact a key to our winning the Revolutionary War just a few years earlier, that the Second Amendment just acknowledges the fact and enforces it on everyone because the Anti-Federalists were wiser than the Federalists, they knew some hard red lines had to be drawn limiting the power of the new central government being created because any claims it would be self-limited were ludicrous. As we saw almost immediately, then through tyrants like Lincoln and FDR; Stalin wasn't the only national leader in the 1930s to deliberately starve people.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Weapon of mass destruction is clearly defined in 18 USC § 2332a(c)(2). I agree that the individual right to keep and bear arms is an important component of our Constitutional system of checks and balances, but weapons of mass destruction have never been considered "arms" in that context.

lax4ever 4y ago

And people who legally and respectfully own guns don't have different hobbies? All they can possibly think about is going out a shooting? Beyond that, clearly taking away guns doesn't stop violent crime. Domestic abuse is still a major issue even without guns. Knife, club, and acid attacks have taken the UK by storm. Robbery, rape, looting, arson, all things that can and in many cases are done without a firearm.

krapp 4y ago
I don't think anyone has ever suggesting that gun control prevents all forms of violent crime. Rather that gun control prevents gun crime by virtue of not providing access to the guns with which to commit said crimes.
- lax4ever 4y ago
  At the cost of otherwise disarming a much, much larger segment of the population who have never committed a crime with a firearm and are much better protected against crimes of many various types, including those with firearms.
  - krapp 4y ago
    No, at the cost of disarming everyone, including the population intent on committing a crime with a firearm.
    - lax4ever 4y ago
      That's a pretty big assumption, considering someone intent on committing a crime isn't exactly pre-disposed to follow the law in the first place and all you are really doing is disarming someone who does follow the law and placing them at a greater disadvantage.
      - krapp 4y ago
        I suspect harsher sentencing for possession of a gun during a crime is a deterrent, but I'm not invested enough in this conversation to try to find stats. I would also point out that in other countries with effective gun control - which is to say the rest of the civilized world - there isn't the expected rampage of gun crime your comments imply should be taking place due to gun laws only being effective against citizens but not potential criminals.
        lax4ever 4y ago
        Harsher sentencing for violent crimes with a weapon already exist and I would love if they were applied more often. But that's a different discussion. It's not about an expected rampage, of which I doubt there would be because we are not facing a rampage of gun crime as it is. On average in the US, of the approximately 35,000 gun related deaths every year (and considering an estimated 8 out of 10 Americans owns a firearms less than 0.01% of the population is killed in a firearm related death is another thing), on average 60% of that is suicide, not homicide. Roughly 14k. This doesn't even break the top 10 causes of death in the US and of the 805k deaths by other causes per the CDC [1] we're talking 2%. That's not exactly a rampage despite the voluminous amount of media attention this gets. No, the point is that the volume of those killed by guns (even if you include suicides in that number) is miniscule compared to the potential of a firearm to stop a violent crime in process, even without the firearm being discharged. There is an estimated 300,000 to 3,000,000 defensive uses of firearms in the US. Even if you attribute all gun homicides (including suicide) to defensive firearms uses (which is absolutely not the case), death by firearms would be a mere 12% of even the smallest estimated number. This is why you allow firearms with as minimal restrictions as possible, because the number of people who will properly use them vastly dwarfs the number of people who will misuse them. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db427-tables.pdf#4 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db427-tables.pdf#4
- refurb 4y ago
  I don't think any pro-gun people have issues with stopping criminal and the mental ill from getting guns. The thing is, we have laws on the books now that would do a pretty good job. However, they aren't enforced at all or only enforced during egregious cases. Why not start enforcing the laws we have now and see how that goes before creating new laws for the people who never broke the existing ones?
tacheiordache 4y ago
Not the ones who legally own 34 weapons. I've seen some folks whose main hobby is collecting and shooting weapons. Sure, not everyone has that obsession with weapons but my point was different. The choice of collecting weapons when one or two handguns would be sufficient for self defense implies quite a bit about who we talking about: adult men whose maturity got stunted in the stage of boyhood.
- lax4ever 4y ago
  I'm not seeing why having a gun hobby is bad. I am not sure you realize the benefits of doing a precision activity like this when you, by your own admission, have never utilized nor have been inclined to utilize a firearm. Properly utilizing and training with a firearm builds focus, mental acuity, strength, and a sense of responsibility. It can also be argued that it destroys a certain bit of naive innocence as well when you come to the realization of what exactly you are handling and what exactly you are on the other end of should you be attacked by someone with a firearm.

nradov 4y ago

The Second Amendment doesn't cover weapons of mass destruction, so that's a total strawman argument. The intent of the authors was to cover individual weapons, of the type that a light infantry soldier might carry. (Although up through about the Civil War, it was relatively common for private citizens to own artillery and there were no licenses or permits required.)

lax4ever 4y ago
What is a weapon of mass destruction? How does that get defined? Beyond that, I don't believe the Second Amendment was ever meant to be framed in that manner. The idea was that firearms helped keep the government from ruling over it's population by physical force rather than the consent of the governed. This, in simplest terms, would mean that what the government was allowed to use for force, so too should its citizens, thus carrying on the whole idea of checks and balances.
- Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
  "Although up through about the Civil War, it was relatively common for private citizens to own artillery and there were no licenses or permits required." This was implicitly acknowledged in the Constitution's provisions for issuing letters of marque and reprisal. A general point to make: widespread private ownership of weapons was so accepted, was in fact a key to our winning the Revolutionary War just a few years earlier, that the Second Amendment just acknowledges the fact and enforces it on everyone because the Anti-Federalists were wiser than the Federalists, they knew some hard red lines had to be drawn limiting the power of the new central government being created because any claims it would be self-limited were ludicrous. As we saw almost immediately, then through tyrants like Lincoln and FDR; Stalin wasn't the only national leader in the 1930s to deliberately starve people.
- nradov 4y ago
  Weapon of mass destruction is clearly defined in 18 USC § 2332a(c)(2). I agree that the individual right to keep and bear arms is an important component of our Constitutional system of checks and balances, but weapons of mass destruction have never been considered "arms" in that context.