Alright, let's go ahead and talk about Obama's gun control proposals

[Andara Bledin]

But it is much harder to kill 23 people over a large area without guns.

If he'd had a bat, he might have been able to beat people to death with it. But it seems disingenous to me to act like he would have done it just as easily as if he wasn't armed with a gun.

I never said that the Sandy Hook attack would have been as easy without the guns, merely that lack of guns would likely have done little to stop the attacker from gaining entrance to the school. The entire front of the building is glass doors and windows. Unless they're specifically reinforced against intrusion, anyone with the will to force their way is going to get inside.

The idea that a glass door will stop a madman just because he couldn't scrounge up a firearm is unsupported by the facts and highly unlikely to be true.

^-.-^

[Nyoibo]

I'm just throwing this out there, but none of the mass shootings I keep hearing referenced have proven that having guns readily available help stop these things from happening.

[LewisLegion]

I honestly think we should model after England, Australia, and Japan as far as gun control goes.

However, this seems to be (in general, not necessarily here) being made into an all or nothing situation.

We have a bad situation that keeps happening, proving that the way things are being handled now is NOT WORKING. Dialogue is opened and solutions are proposed, but because those proposed solutions, measures, or regulations in and of themselves are not air-tight and utterly perfect, they are dismissed and shot down.

Yes, to highlight an example here (taking it to the extreme for illustration purposes):

Person A) If he'd had a more difficult time getting hold of an assault weapon, then perhaps the assault wouldn't have happened, or at least not on the same scale.

Person B) You don't know that, he could have used a handgun/set the place on fire/built a bomb.

The second suggestion SEEMS to make the point that because something may or may not have still happened using other means, then the first suggestion is utterly worthless.

I agree, we have a big mental health problem in this country. You can thank Reagan for that. Yes, the underlying reasons that cause these kinds of rampages DO need addressing, but in the mean time, we should be doing what is necessary to prevent them until that underlying cause is addressed.

You have a friend that is suicidal. They are standing in front of you with a razor held to their wrists about to kill themselves.

Yes, that friend needs therapy and counseling and professional aid. But you don't refuse to take the razor away from them because 'they will just get a rope or try pills or walk into a lake' and it won't solve the problem. You take the damned razor away and do what you can to prevent them from harming themselves before they can get that professional help. No, it may not be perfect, and yes, they may end up finding another method doing the deed anyway despite your best efforts. But it isn't a matter of 'it must be the perfect solution' OR 'we do nothing'.

Yes, if his mother hadn't had an assault weapon for him to steal, he MAY have found another method. Or, he may have had sufficient time to calm down and decide not to do such a horrible thing. OR, in the time it took him to plan and execute another method (which may or may not be as devestating) someone might have noticed a warning sign or a change in his behavior or something might have raised a flag that would have stopped him and halted anything from happening at all. The point is, we don't know. What we do know is that because he had an assault weapon, he was able to wreak incredible tragedy on those children, in high numbers.

Shooting everything down (no pun intended) because we don't have a perfect, flawless solution to the problem only ensures that this problem is going to continue.

[guywithashovel]

My Facebook news feed is getting filled with shared posters with pithy remarks about taking away people's guns (even though most people's guns wouldn't be touched under what Obama is proposing). Just yesterday, I saw one (from the same person who has posted many of the others) featuring colonists, and its caption read "The last time a king tried to disarm the populace, we got the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Don't tread on me!"

Once again, most people are not being "disarmed." But I guess hyperbole is more fun than facts, right?

The main issue here that really, really bugs me is that the people making these statements make it all about "liberty," and most of them have no business preaching to anyone about liberty. Most of them bend over backwards to assure that the LGBT crowd is treated like trash and not given the same rights as everyone else. Most of them support restricting women's reproductive rights. Most of them think their religious beliefs should be imposed on everyone by the state. Then they want to preach to the rest of us about liberty.

[Greenday]

1. Require criminal background checks for all sales - Makes a lot of sense. There's no reason you should be able to go to a gun show and just stock up on weapons without anyone checking to see if you are okay to actually own a gun.

2. Ban Military-Style assault weapons and high capacity mags. While I don't think most people need one, we still have the right to own them. Part of the entire second amendment is the ability to possess firearms to protect ourselves from dangerous people and dangerous governments. We would not be able to do that if the government bans everything but peashooters.

I'm fine with them making harsh laws to prevent gun trafficking. I don't think unlicensed people should be able to sell them.

Gun tracing, fine. If you are going to shoot someone, it just means you damn well better be justified and will help cut down on criminal shootings.

3. Invest in school safety. We need people to be paying more attention to who is coming in and out of schools. We need more counselors to help give kids the help they need to deal with their problems.

4. Improving mental health services. Finally, something meant to actually prevent crime in general that'll really help. Fighting the cause of all this non-sense.

[Rageaholic]

My Facebook news feed is getting filled with shared posters with pithy remarks about taking away people's guns (even though most people's guns wouldn't be touched under what Obama is proposing). Just yesterday, I saw one (from the same person who has posted many of the others) featuring colonists, and its caption read "The last time a king tried to disarm the populace, we got the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Don't tread on me!"

Once again, most people are not being "disarmed." But I guess hyperbole is more fun than facts, right?

The main issue here that really, really bugs me is that the people making these statements make it all about "liberty," and most of them have no business preaching to anyone about liberty. Most of them bend over backwards to assure that the LGBT crowd is treated like trash and not given the same rights as everyone else. Most of them support restricting women's reproductive rights. Most of them think their religious beliefs should be imposed on everyone by the state. Then they want to preach to the rest of us about liberty.

That's why I can't take the far right seriously on any issue. They're hell bent on keeping us in the dark ages, yet they want to talk about "liberty".

I don't even have strong opinions on the gun control issue. In fact, after hearing some of the arguements raised in this thread, I'm beginning to think this might not be a good idea. But that's because of rational arguements being posed. Nothing these tea party loonies say is even close to rational.

[TheHuckster]

Ban Military-Style assault weapons and high capacity mags. While I don't think most people need one, we still have the right to own them. Part of the entire second amendment is the ability to possess firearms to protect ourselves from dangerous people and dangerous governments. We would not be able to do that if the government bans everything but peashooters.

This becomes a matter of "where do you draw the line?" though. You can use the same argument to allow grenade launchers, missile launchers, and arsenal that, AFAIK, is already illegal for civilian use. So, if one agrees that missile launchers should be banned, but assault weapons should not, what makes one different than the other?

[Andara Bledin]

Yes, to highlight an example here (taking it to the extreme for illustration purposes):

Person A) If he'd had a more difficult time getting hold of an assault weapon, then perhaps the assault wouldn't have happened, or at least not on the same scale.

Person B) You don't know that, he could have used a handgun/set the place on fire/built a bomb.

The second suggestion SEEMS to make the point that because something may or may not have still happened using other means, then the first suggestion is utterly worthless.

That's reading more into the rebuttal than is being said. All that the rebuttal says is that the point being made is unsupported and most likely fallacious, and potentially dangerous as the idea that banning guns would stop such attacks leads to a false sense of security and do-nothing feel-good legislation - aka Security Theater, which is costly and counter-productive.

Yes, if his mother hadn't had an assault weapon for him to steal....

This is exactly the sort of misguided commentary that results from the asinine assignation of the term assault weapon. If he hadn't had an assault weapon to steal, he would have made do with the five other guns he had stolen, which included two semi-automatic handguns, a shotgun, and anothe rifle. It was that simple .22 rifle that he used to kill the owner of the guns, so obviously he didn't need a so-called assault rifle to commit mayhem.

, he MAY have found another method. Or, he may have had sufficient time to calm down and decide not to do such a horrible thing.

Except that he spent enough time planning this assault to have acquired body armor and other protective gear. This was not a spur-of-the-moment attack. Neither was Aurora or Tucson or Columbine. All of those were planned over the long-term.

OR, in the time it took him to plan and execute another method (which may or may not be as devestating) someone might have noticed a warning sign or a change in his behavior or something might have raised a flag that would have stopped him and halted anything from happening at all.

The problem is that not only are such warning signs often missed, but in some cases they are outright dismissed and ignored. The Aurora shooter is reported to have attempted to get himself counseling multiple times and acquaintances told investigators that he had said outright that he was dangerous. How much more obvious can a person get?

The point is, we don't know. What we do know is that because he had an assault weapon, he was able to wreak incredible tragedy on those children, in high numbers.

There you go with the "because an assault weapon" thing again. An assault weapon is only different from a non-assault weapon in how many bullets come out of the end at every trigger pull. A semi-automatic (of which he was carrying two, with thousands of rounds of ammunition for each) would have been just as sufficient for defeating a glass door and murdering a few teachers and a couple classrooms full of children.

Shooting everything down (no pun intended) because we don't have a perfect, flawless solution to the problem only ensures that this problem is going to continue.

It's not the lack of a flawless argument - it's the proposal of a fundamentally flawed argument that is being rebutted.

In this case there are two:

First, that lack of access to assault weapons versus non-assult weapons will somehow make any difference at all; the only difference that is likely to make is that there will be a few fewer bullets flying around; however, the other side is that for someone with a limited supply, they will have a longer opportunity to commit mayhem.

Second, that lack of a gun would have stopped the attacker cold at the door. This we know is nothing but pure speculation with no basis in fact, which is the only point I was rebutting at that time.

^-.-^

[crashhelmet]

Second, that lack of a gun would have stopped the attacker cold at the door. This we know is nothing but pure speculation with no basis in fact, which is the only point I was rebutting at that time.

^-.-^

Would he have been able to get through the door with a bat? How think was that glass? If it was like the glass you find at supermarkets and restaurants, it might've taken a few hits to break it. Sure, he could've broken it down, but how long after that would he have been tackled? How quickly would the police have been called and responded?

You might have one person with broken ribs instead of 26 dead victims.

That's the point the others are trying to make.

[Andara Bledin]

The door was unmanned, which is why the first people shot were people coming out of a meeting after the first sounds of gunfire. It's entirely possible that he could have broken in the door with a bat and not been discovered until much later.

We can play the speculation game all day long, but none of us have remotely enough facts to say one way or the other whether his not having the ability to easily steal guns would have resulted in fewer or more deaths so it would be best for the entire debate to stop trying to beat that horse and focus on points that aren't built on wishful thinking and supposition.

^-.-^

[s_stabeler]

a) banning armor-piercing rounds- good idea, the only people who i can see needing armour-piercing rounds are the military and police.
b) require background checks regardless of where you are buying the gun from: again, obvious step. this closes one of the biggest loopholes in the existing restrictions.
c) banning assault weapons: depends on how you class assault weapon, I think. with the right definition...
d) enhance mental health provision: again, good idea.
e) making schools safer: good, to a limit. If the average prison is less secure...

[Greenday]

This becomes a matter of "where do you draw the line?" though. You can use the same argument to allow grenade launchers, missile launchers, and arsenal that, AFAIK, is already illegal for civilian use. So, if one agrees that missile launchers should be banned, but assault weapons should not, what makes one different than the other?

Personally I don't think people should be limited on what they should have. Gun crimes are not the result of assault weapons being available.

[Andara Bledin]

Personally I don't think people should be limited on what they should have. Gun crimes are not the result of assault weapons being available.

Well, technically-speaking, without the guns, they wouldn't be gun crimes.

But the point stands. Weapons don't cause crime, they merely affect the nature of it.

^-.-^

[Nekojin]

This becomes a matter of "where do you draw the line?" though. You can use the same argument to allow grenade launchers, missile launchers, and arsenal that, AFAIK, is already illegal for civilian use. So, if one agrees that missile launchers should be banned, but assault weapons should not, what makes one different than the other?

Explosive weapons are indiscriminate to a degree well above and beyond what even the most powerful firearms manage. It's impossible to hit a single target without affecting "friendlies" around it, which can be done with a gun. This is why we don't let people use land mines for property defense, or hand grenades for personal defense.

Furthermore, you have no control over whether an explosive device kills someone or not - if you place it in close proximity to someone, it's probably going to kill them. With a gun, it's possible to shoot to wound, and try to end the threat without killing anyone.

So, no, missile launchers are not valid self-defense tools. As to whether an "assault weapon" is or not... get back to me once a coherent, consistent definition for that term is made.

[Greenday]

Explosive weapons are indiscriminate to a degree well above and beyond what even the most powerful firearms manage. It's impossible to hit a single target without affecting "friendlies" around it, which can be done with a gun. This is why we don't let people use land mines for property defense, or hand grenades for personal defense.

Furthermore, you have no control over whether an explosive device kills someone or not - if you place it in close proximity to someone, it's probably going to kill them. With a gun, it's possible to shoot to wound, and try to end the threat without killing anyone.

So, no, missile launchers are not valid self-defense tools. As to whether an "assault weapon" is or not... get back to me once a coherent, consistent definition for that term is made.

Begging your pardon, but missile launchers ARE valid self-defense tools. I say you look on too small a scale.