I don't get liberal gun laws.

[User3]

Rhetoric about scaring people who have already committed themselves to killing people until they die is quite empty.

Is the common criminal like that, or someone who fails to see risks because they aren't readily apparent (i.e., because not everyone has the capacity to kill them)?

[Username17]

1177967181[/unixtime]]

Rhetoric about scaring people who have already committed themselves to killing people until they die is quite empty.

Is the common criminal like that, or someone who fails to see risks because they aren't readily apparent (i.e., because not everyone has the capacity to kill them)?

Well you've basically got two kinds of crime:

• Premeditated Crime
  
  
• Impulsive Crime

Impulsive crime is committed because for whatever reason it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe you were drunk and the other guy pissed you off. Maybe there was someone else's candy bar right there and you didn't think anyone was watching. Impulsive Crime generally doesn't happen if people are forced to wait, because really shitty ideas have a way of working themselves out over time.

• For example: people jump off of bridges and die. People are just walking across the bridge and they think "I wonder what it would be like to jump off this bridge and die" - and then they do it. If you put up a dinky little fence that people have to climb over, a lot less people jump to their deaths. Not because they can't physically climb over the little fence, but because in the amount of time it takes to climb over that fence enough people have second thoughts that the suicide rate drops substantially.

Premeditated Crimes, on the other hand, happen because people decide well in advance that they are going to put together a crime and commit that crime. Preventing people from doing this sort of thing is rarely a matter of making it more dangerous since they are already going out of their way to plan out and perform a crime.

What can be done is to make peoples' lives better. Sure, sometimes people will get dumped by their girlfriends or have chemical problems in their brain and become inexplicably upset - but if people in general have good hope for the future and a reasonably good outlook on their current life they are pretty unlikely to go off the deep end.

And that's basically it. Making guns less accessible is like putting up a suicide barrier on a bridge. It'll prevent a significant amount of deaths (the United States loses 85 people a day to firearms), but it won't stop all the violent deaths. It won't even stop all the gun deaths. People who are enraged beyond reason may well still kill people in the height of passion with a broken beer bottle, and the long planning mad men may well acquire weaponry in some clandestine fashion - the problem will be smaller, not gone.

-Username17

[User3]

While I do applaud your proposed approach (probably even more needed down here, as "culture" is mostly a joke), it seems like you are lumping people in only those 2 cathegories, while there are folks who would simply back off from obviously dangerous crime (I don't know how things are there, but here one could make a completely safe living out of systematically mugging people; what happens when every "victim" might shoot you first?). I've seen enough folks choose to do things like the one above because it was easy and safe; how do you keep them in line without resorting to fear? Well, this does fall into the "smaller, not gone" issue, but wouldn't whatever one achieved through welfare be still improved if everyone's defensibility was equal?

[Username17]

I appreciate the difficulty of living in a nation like Brasil which is living the Beyond Thunderdome lifestyle. But honestly, responding to that by telling your citizenry to run around Wild West Style having six gun shoot outs with people they don't like is not likely to solve anything.

Yes, the police aren't always on the side of law and order. In some countries they are little different from an another armed gang. But the solution to that is not "create an unknown, but large, number of other armed gangs" - the solution is to get a hold on your police force.

Empowering additional groups of random private citizens to shoot people is simply creating more chaos and more shootings. If you have problems with armed gangs who are trying to muscle into territories, sending in civilians with pistols to root them out is just asking for those civilians to get shot in the face.

The solution to rampant crime is the Norway solution, not the Somalia solution. That really worked out well for Norway, it really didn't work out well for Somalia.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

So yesterday, the local paper ran a column by Dan Simpson positing HOW America could disarm

Linky

Having read and re-read it, I honestly can't tell if he's being serious or if it's in the vein of A Modest Proposal.

I honestly don't think that his suggestions go far enough to work, and I also think that they go about 2 more amendments burnt past any nation I'd want to live in.

[Crissa]

Actually, I think I heard that most firearms used in deadly crimes in the US were purchased legally. Seems logical enough, as it's probably easier to buy a gun in the next town over than steal or buy one off the black market.

Of course, I have no idea where to look up that.

-Crissa

[User3]

You don't even need a particularly harsh scheme of gun control I would have thought, just adopt the australian model where automatic/semi automatic weapons are banned, you need to present a valid reason when obtaining a firearms license (which can encompass owning a large agriculture roperty, being a paid up member of a sporting shooters association, etc, etc), a firearms license requires you to pass a psych exam, police check & weapons safety course, and finally firearms must be secured in a approved container when not being physically carried.

(semi automatic weapons are not actually banned mind, just prohibitatively difficult to acquire, because the valid reason test is very strict).

And frankly it works pretty well. What gun crime there is in australia is confined almost exclusively to a few poor neuighbourhoods (which is not a *good* thing per say, however it re-enforces franks point about a better life.)

That sort of control regime allows hunters to own hunting rifles rlatively easily, but herds out the violent, incompentent and insane fairly painlessly.

Oh, that and the govenment brought back all the firearms that become illegal-and any other outstanding firearms at quite generous prices when it implemented the scheme.

[Catharz]

1178026339[/unixtime]]...the australian model...

[tzor]

Speaking of firearms/semi automatic weapons and reasonable approaches therein ... (as opposed to the Austrailan model which isn't to say it's not reasonable)

My father used to hunt bear in Maine. (As opposed to hunting bare, which isn't a good thing since bear have very good vision so you really need to go full camoflauge which in late summer in Maine which is really hot and sort of a marshland (would you believe it) isn't all that comfortable doing.) Anyway you need a good semi automatic weapon just in case you don't get the bear on the first shot and the bear decides that he wants to share the pain of a bulet in his side my ripping off your face. The only problem is that hunting laws require a maximum number of bullets in your cartridge clip. You can't simply put in less than a full cartridge because it's your word against the law's.

Ironically it's very hard to get a reduced cartridge for some brands of semi automatic rifles. My father looked for years through dozens of catelogues to get a proper clip for his gun.

The inverse is also true. It's not whether it's bolt action or semi automatic that is the real problem but how many shots you can fire without reloading.

[Crissa]

You don't need a semi-automatic weapon to hunt bear.

In no way 'What if I miss' is an excuse. Don't miss. People went a hundred thousand years hunting without semi-automatice weapons and hunted successfully.

If you don't make the first shot, the animal you are hunting will move. This means there is only one shot to be taking.

-Crissa

Looking at this again, this sounds way too snarky, because the majority of your post is about the diffculty in obeying the laws and even common sense.

You are right about the proper clips and availability. There seems to be some subculture in gun-owning that really enjoys flaunting the laws - like using automatic weapons in hunting - and these guys seem to drive the sales market. ...Which in turn reduces the impetus for availability of a reasoned middle road.

[Cielingcat]

The lesson here is not to hunt bears. Did you know that five million people die every second to bear attacks?

[User3]

1178047919[/unixtime]]Did you know that five million people die every second to bear attacks?

That's figure is out of this world crazy. If such a figure was even close to accurate, bears would have killed every man, woman and child on the planet: something like one hundred fifty-seven trillion people mauled in a year.

[RandomCasualty]

1177993405[/unixtime]]Actually, I think I heard that most firearms used in deadly crimes in the US were purchased legally. Seems logical enough, as it's probably easier to buy a gun in the next town over than steal or buy one off the black market.

Of course, I have no idea where to look up that.

But it's actually a good thing to have people committing crimes with registered weapons, because they're easier to trace. You can't simply dump a registered weapon, because if it's found, it can get traced back to you.

Nobody can adequately predict the future, so we don't necessarily know who is going to commit a crime next. The important thing is being able to catch them when they do.

I grew up in a pretty tame suburban town, and even I knew a source that would be willing to sell me an AK-47 or an uzi illegally. This was when I was in high school. I'm just not convinced that banning guns is going to make a difference as far as preventing people from getting them.

If I wanted to go all Columbine on my school, I very well could have and guns laws wouldn't have made any difference.

[User3]

1178061497[/unixtime]]

1178047919[/unixtime]]Did you know that five million people die every second to bear attacks?

That's figure is out of this world crazy. If such a figure was even close to accurate, bears would have killed every man, woman and child on the planet: something like one hundred fifty-seven trillion people mauled in a year.

I'll tell you what's out of this world crazy: bears, that's what.

[User3]

1178076416[/unixtime]]

But it's actually a good thing to have people committing crimes with registered weapons, because they're easier to trace. You can't simply dump a registered weapon, because if it's found, it can get traced back to you.

I grew up in a pretty tame suburban town, and even I knew a source that would be willing to sell me an AK-47 or an uzi illegally. This was when I was in high school. I'm just not convinced that banning guns is going to make a difference as far as preventing people from getting them.

If I wanted to go all Columbine on my school, I very well could have and guns laws wouldn't have made any difference.

You make a solid point about traceability and accountability, but I'd like to raise another point - you could buy AK's etc, but I understand you can legally get them in some parts of america?

It's rather more difficult (Read: impossible) to buy them in Australia, as the only people who import them are the military and historical museums with special licenses, where they get rendered neutral or are military issue. The military sure loses alot of them, but they mostly drop them out of helicopters or into swamps or whatever, so they are usually not a threat if you can find them later

The majority of illegal firearms in Australia are actually from people buying gun parts from various states and assembling them, because different states had different 'controlled parts' and uncontrolled parts. So buying an uzi is next to impossible due to supply problems.

The emerging threat in Australia is semi automatic handguns, which I suspect will be banned/more tightly controlled fairly promptly. While they are covered by the licensing scheme, they are used in violent crime.

As for the bear hunting thing! If you where a farmer or a professional who could show a clear need to hunt bears you'd be allowed to buy a semi automatic weapon. Professional hunters doing kangaroo culls in Australia are allowed to buy semi automatic weapons. Farmers with largish scale rural properties can buy them too.

And hey, thats fair enough, if you can demonstrate a need you can totally have one. Just that the test is high Which is fine, recreational hunters in Australia don't *need* semi-automatic weapons.

[Draco_Argentum]

People who think semi-automatic means anything as a measure of murder-usability are ignorant or playing on public ignorance in an attempt to get them banned.

Pump and lever actions are basically as fast, hold similar amounts of ammunition and can be reloaded as fast.

Another thing to note about Australian gun law. The ammunition must be stored in a separate locked safe.

[User3]

1178096360[/unixtime]]People who think semi-automatic means anything as a measure of murder-usability are ignorant or playing on public ignorance in an attempt to get them banned.

Pump and lever actions are basically as fast, hold similar amounts of ammunition and can be reloaded as fast.

Another thing to note about Australian gun law. The ammunition must be stored in a separate locked safe.

The real difference is that with a pump/semi automatic weapon over a bolt action is that you can fire without breaking aim. I know you can do it with a bolt action too, but you need significantly more training than what it takes to do it with a semi automatic weapon.

So yeah, I do think that there is a significant difference because in terms of practical rate of fire semi's are much faster that bolt actions - the sporting shooter mag that my house mate subscribes too wouldn't advocate that they should be unbanned so they can kil pests more effectively to boot! (He fires blackpowder muzzle loaders, for intrest)

As for pump action shotguns are banned in australia too! Nfi about lever. Good point about ammo.

[Draco_Argentum]

Pump shotguns are legal if you are "a member of an approved shooting club that takes part in, or is affiliated with a body that takes part in, national and international clay target shooting competition."

Inexplicably pump rifles only require "You need to provide written permission from a landowner authorising you to shoot on the landowner's rural land."

Note that in both cases there are other reasons for having them. But its a lot easier to get a pump rifle than a pump shotgun.

Basically the laws were written by idiots who don't know anything about guns. Reading the rules that they have on the QLD police website its technically legal to own a Russian version of the Barrett anti material rifle since they specified the exact ammunition they banned "a firearm capable of firing 50 calibre BMG cartridge ammunition;" Of course the Russians use a similar but different cartridge.

Also they wasted my tax dollars buying back a lot of guns.

[Crissa]

Gun laws are written without help of people who know firearms...

...And then they're intepreted by people who do.

So a non-gun person wouldn't care if the ammunition was slightly different, but a gun person would.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1178088903[/unixtime]]
You make a solid point about traceability and accountability, but I'd like to raise another point - you could buy AK's etc, but I understand you can legally get them in some parts of america?

I'm not really even sure if you can or not. I didn't do too much research. All I know is that I could get one illegally if I wanted to and I have like next to no criminal connections.

I can easily extrapolate that any career criminal is going to have the connections to get almost any gun he wants illegally.

It's rather more difficult (Read: impossible) to buy them in Australia, as the only people who import them are the military and historical museums with special licenses, where they get rendered neutral or are military issue. The military sure loses alot of them, but they mostly drop them out of helicopters or into swamps or whatever, so they are usually not a threat if you can find them later

The majority of illegal firearms in Australia are actually from people buying gun parts from various states and assembling them, because different states had different 'controlled parts' and uncontrolled parts. So buying an uzi is next to impossible due to supply problems.

Gun control might make sense for Australia. I'm really not too familiar with the gun situation there, so possibly you may be able to prevent people from getting guns if they already don't have them.

All I am sure of is that it makes no sense in the US.

[User3]

In no way 'What if I miss' is an excuse. Don't miss. People went a hundred thousand years hunting without semi-automatice weapons and hunted successfully.

Here's a short list of other things we got along fine without for hundreds of years.

-Computers
-Vaccines
-Steel
-Cell phones
-Communism
-Baseball
-You
-Reliably fresh water
-The germ theory of disease
-Electricity
-The printing press

"People got along JUST FINE!" is never, ever an argument for anything.

[User3]

That was me, but for some odd reason I can't log in.

[MrWaeseL]

-Computers
-Vaccines
-Steel
-Cell phones
-Communism
-Baseball
-You
-Reliably fresh water
-The germ theory of disease
-Electricity
-The printing press

Two of these don't belong

[tzor]

1178044779[/unixtime]]You don't need a semi-automatic weapon to hunt bear.

In principle you don't. But bear lodges in Maine practically insist on it. It's probably more a CYA than anything else.

One of these days I realy ought to do a write up on bear hunting. It practically goes from OMG the bear has no chance, to so you're just out there to sit out there on a tree and smell like pine.

My favorite weapon is a bolt action WWII rifle "sporterized" by my dad. It's a shame I never maxed out on my hide, move silently, and spot skills because in my few years of hunting I never spotted anything. (Deer and bear all do the happy dance!)

[Draco_Argentum]

1178122951[/unixtime]]So a non-gun person wouldn't care if the ammunition was slightly different, but a gun person would.

That was a throwaway jab at the government. The real issue is that the law wasn't written based on how dangerous a given gun is, which is the justification for gun laws in the first place. A pump rifle and a semi auto are negligibly different as far as killing people goes. However one sounds a lot scarier to the general populace.

They are treated separately not for reasons of public safety but as a way of conning the public into believing the government are doing something to stop mass shootings.