Are there any decent arguments to be had opposing a motor vehicle-style training and registry system for firearms in the United States? I can, more than likely, get on board with this. Earthcubed, kinda want to your input on this.

I think you should be more concerned with getting opinions with people who you don't agree with and trying to work towards an agreement with them rather than hearing someone who's opinion you're already championing.

I, like most people, have varying opinions on things, and I could not find a good answer opposing motor vehicle-style training and registry system for firearms in the States, so I'm positing thoughts on this idea.

It has been shown that suicide, like petty crime, can be greatly minimized with pure inconvenience. So actually, yes, if your absurd blanket statement of "banning guns" did happen, suicide rates would plummet. There was a story of a bridge, I want to say it was in the Western States somewhere, that was "popular" for suicides. So they built a wall/fence/barricade on the bridge that made getting to a place to jump far more difficult. The rate of suicides there dropped.

There is also this handy graph from Australia after the government removed a great deal of firearms:





Timothy McVeigh was also a gun nut. The difference is that he didn't just wake up one day, look at all his guns while depressed, and decide to "go out in a blaze of glory" to help him get to his suicide. He wanted to strike back a the government, at the United States, and by the way, he was rather fond of white supremacist conspiracy theories. So yes, there was more to his issue than just guns and such. But the point is, he had a very specific goal and plan and spent time getting into it.

What we're seeing now is an effect of how easy it is to amass a large number of firearms in this country, and how a depressed snap decision can so easily turn into tragedy BECAUSE of the ease of amassing those guns.

Sorry, my thought was more of a general thought on everyone than you.

With everyone squabbling every time something like this happens I don't think we're ever going to get anywhere.

Well, if I had based it purely on my own filterbubble I would have qualified it more, since I certainly know a fair number of gun owners who take a hard stance on the 2nd amendment, but in this case I was actually basing it on polling. At least as of 2015, 85% of gun owners supported universal background checks and clear majorities supported a few other allegedly-contentious controls. The NRA prioritizes the policy preferences of gun manufacturers over those of gun owners, basically.



Well, sure, and that's definitely a problem broadly in politics, but the Brady Campaign isn't generally thought of as an extremist organization. They're pretty much the go-to organization if someone wants information or an opinion from the standpoint of gun control proponents. They're one of the first groups left-leaning members of Congress turn to when they want a briefing or a fact sheet before making a press statement.



Well, I don't have a problem with the registry idea (which is also supported by a clear majority of firearms owners), and I also think training should be mandatory, but there is a potential constitutional hurdle. Owning a gun is considered a right, whereas driving a car is considered a privilege. I can just see a lawyer arguing by way of analogy that you shouldn't be prevented from exercising your right to, say, free speech without undergoing training on the proper uses of speech. It's similar to the arguments people make against gun licenses ("guns are as much of a right as speech and we don't need a license to speech" blah blah). There's also an argument against training that gun control proponents make from time to time, which essentially boils down to "we oppose training requirements because that would make gun owners more effective killers," which I think is nonsense, since we're not talking about marksmanship training.

I'm all for training requirements, basically.

Well, would you look at that. Thanks.

My memory's totally failing me on this, but some time last year the NRA (or an NRA-backed politician?) put out a TV ad smearing some political opponent who was quoted as saying, "Clearly, there is no fundamental right to own a gun," or something quite like that. I don't know who it was.

I didn't bother to look into it, and am not terribly familiar with the debate in the first place, but I didn't question the authenticity of the quote. I just figured it was probably plucked out of context to create a more fearsome picture for gun owners than the facts actually warranted. But I'm curious what the actual details of that might be, if anyone happens to remember. Is "fundamental" the key word? - as in, there still can be a derivative, context-sensitive right to own a gun, even if the right to own a gun isn't unconditional and inherent to humanity? The right to self-defense on this view would be a better candidate for a fundamental right, and if certain other conditions are satisfied, that right might entail the specific right to own a gun. And of course it's senseless to speak of gun ownership as something like a natural right, prior to the invention of guns (as if the Second Amendment applied to Adam and Eve, so to speak).

I'm just curious. I could see the word "fundamental" representing a critical qualification to the original view, yet getting casually glossed over in a TV ad, as if it's just verbal ornamentation.

That's probably just a stupid euro-question, but would it be beneficial to limit the number of guns one can legally own?
AFAIK, the Las Vegas shooter did own at least 47 firearms, and had 23 in his hotel room.
If he had been limited to 2 firearms (for instance one handgun and one riffle, with the obligation to re-sell one when wanting to buy a new one), the casualties would have probably been far less.

The 2nd amendment was a mistake. It's nothing but trash.


Exactly. Everyone's a responsible gun owner... until they aren't.

Saying "responsible gun owners solve this problem" is vacuous, fallacious bullshit.


*their
Also, suicide attempts by guns are more effective:

What happens if/when someone even worse than Trump wins the presidency, though? The people deserve to have the ability to usurp their own government if need be. Citigroup's "plutonomy memo" even expressed concern that the growing wealth inequality is "likely to result in a backlash at some point"... gun control is part of the one-percenters' agenda as much as the dumbing down of society is.

Good luck usurping when the us army is your opponent lol. Honestly that pro gun argument always struck me as the silliest of them all. This ain't musket against musket anymore.

Going by that us citizens should be able to purchase military grade drones to stand a chance.

Good job on living up to your title.

What if unicorn dust gets in my Mountain Dew even while the can is sealed and I turn into a minotaur?

What if goblin eggs fall on my flying car that was transported from the future and I'm out of Goo-Gone and Wal-Mart doesn't exist anymore so I can buy more?

What if Tom Cruise un-brain-washes himself and single-handedly dismantles Scientology while giving the money to poor people and reveals that he was, in fact, Gene Hackman the whole time?



You see, anyone can conjure up impossible scenarios in the form of questions.

I would argue that American politics is going to get much worse, but I'm too tired right now.

Well, I think fully-automatic weapons should be legal for that reason.

I dare say, it smells an awful lot like treason in here!

That's cute how someone changed my title. No wonder Droneriot left.

It's cute that you only noticed just now.

I certainly didn't notice any actual rebuttal from you.

I definitely agree with this.

The reaction from the side that lost this election was awful and now both sides will only react worse in future elections.

Until we stop this two party non-sense we're fucked.

Because your argument of "but... but... but what if I have to rebel and take over the government" is a shit one. One might even call it idiotic.

"Bugger! Fully automatic weapons are now legal for everyone! Now, we have to keep the upper hand so get to work on that homing insta-death lazer we have been working on mr military–industrial complex!"

Because totalitarianism can't possibly exist in modern America -- that's just something that happened in other countries in the old days.

Sorry, didn't think the ludicrous notion that the 1% being in favour of gun control merited any serious rebuttal when we all know the most powerful lobby in the US is the fucking NRA (who's primarily backed by money by gun manufacturers, not gun owners).

Nor the equally absurd ideas that there could be a worse president than Trump (I guess you got me there, I didn't think you guys could sink lower than Bush Jr. or Reagan, good job on proving me wrong), or that armed private citizens would stand a chance at a violent uprising against the US military.

You have the nerve to complain about the "dumbing down of society" when you're so dumb, you're only allowed to stay here as the laughing stock? Adorable.


Careful you don't sneeze with all that straw.

You claim I'm dumb, yet you still haven't really stated anything factual.


Source:
https://delong.typepad.com/plutonomy-1.pdf

You seriously think the wealthiest people in America weren't shitting bricks during the Occupy movement?

Edit: Another link...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmagoldberg/2016/06/15/these-are-the-u-s-billionaires-who-back-gun-control/#1ac4135f7d9e

My unwanted take on the matter:

More or less gun control wouldn't have affected this particular case. I highly doubt a "good guy with a gun" would have been too effective, barring the low probability chance that he had a sniper rifle on his person and he wasn't too drunk on shitty beer to take a few good shots at this guy in the middle of a concert at a bad angle.

More gun control wouldn't have helped either. Dude had ammonium nitrate and tannerite in his car and house. In the highly unlikely event he couldn't secure illegal firearms from the black market, which is already a pretty big issue (google "ghost guns in California"), he still had millions of dollars at his disposal and the intent to kill a lot of people. He probably would have simply opted for the Timothy McVeigh route of bombing an entire building.

It's a shitty situation. There is no easy solution in stopping someone so well funded and completely outside the expected profile of what a mass shooting suspect typically ends up being. I hope the investigation yields some sort of motive or warning signs in retrospect so we can learn to stop someone like this in the future before they go off. We know he was on Valium and the son of a known psychopath, but little beyond that.

Wut

You don't think it's a fact that the NRA is a powerful lobby? For crying out loud.

Yes, the NRA is a powerful lobby. I was just pointing out that the anti-gun lobby is backed by many one-percenters because they're scared of people violently revolting. Gun ownership is a deterrent against government oppression and wealth inequality.

LOL. Yes, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg and fucking Oprah are in favour of gun control because they're afraid of violent revolt.

...If you're a Alex Jones-like nutcase with zero grasp on reality, that is.

Get the fuck outta here.

Edit:

That's almost adorable. Yes, wealthy Wall Street plutocrats were surely very terrified of the disorganized mess that was the Occupy movement. I can imagine them shaking in their boots, like so:

Both Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder (who I'm actually not a huge fan of, but he makes a ton of good points here) rebutts every aimless, rambling, poorly-thought out thing Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue. It's amazing people fucking eat this uninformed drivel up. Congratulations, Jimmy. You think the situation sucks. So does everybody else. Maybe get your writers to do some research because you spout a bunch of bullshit.

^ Why such a sudden interest in gun control in 2013? Right, it was the year the Egyptian government was legitimately overthrown and also the year when Ed Snowden leaked the NSA documents.

Sandy Hook took place in December 2012. At that point in time, there was the biggest spike in US weapon sales we've seen so far.

Sorry but if the US government wants you dead, you're fucking dead. A room full of the latest and greatest gun tech won't do shit against an army of remote controlled precision-strike drones. There are some good arguments for keeping guns legal; this isn't even close to being one of them.

Not necessarily. People would just have to improvise guerrilla tactics. I'm sure there's something in The Anarchist Cookbook that would be useful.

This is why America will never fix the gun violence. Our culture is so irredeemably fucked that owning several dozen more guns and thousands more bullets than are necessary to take down any living thing in the galaxy isn't considered weird or something you should be wary of.

AboveTheThrone: Confirming every negative stereotype anyone has ever had about line cooks since 2017.

I don't understand people who own dozens of guns, if you aren't in a profession where that makes sense that ought to raise all sorts of red flags. But the "omg he's buying 1,000 bullets at once HOW CAN THAT NOT RAISE ALARMS" argument is a silly non-argument, especially when it comes from people who also argue that modern guns should be banned or more tightly regulated because they shoot faster than cowboy guns. If you say "modern guns shoot too fast" you can't also be arguing that it ought to raise flags when owners of these guns buy in bulk.

I rarely shoot nowadays but when I do I easily go through 100 rounds an hour, and that isn't with an "assault weapon" or a "high-capacity magazine" or anything more deadly than what a hunter would have used in the 19th century. It's with a shotgun I need to reload every three shots, and it doesn't have a detachable magazine or anything that would make for quick reloading. With a pistol or rifle that holds ten rounds or more that 100/hr number becomes considerably higher, and plenty of gun owners shoot more often than I do. If you visit the shooting range multiple times per week with a pistol, you're going to be buying a lot of ammo.

We have the most corrupt White House in American history, who are actively working to revoke the rights of American citizens and attempting to gather the personal information of thousands if not millions of other American citizens. At the same time, wealth inequality is the highest it's ever been in the US. Government oppression and wealth inequality are damn near than they've ever been.

Either that was a piss-poor attempt at sarcasm, or you really have no idea what this country actually looks like.