Sensible Gun Safety

[hooligan88]

You can ban all the guns you want but some people are actually smart enough to build whatever weapons they want. The way things are now the feds are easily alerted when someone is about to go nuts with weapons.

[CU77]

Fully automatic machine guns were banned in 1986. How many home-built machine guns have been built and used in crimes since? Very close to zero.

Once again: are you in favor of lifting the ban on private ownership of fully automatic machine guns? If not, why not?

[ABV 8.3%]

Fully automatic machine guns were banned in 1986. How many home-built machine guns have been built and used in crimes since? Very close to zero.

Once again: are you in favor of lifting the ban on private ownership of fully automatic machine guns? If not, why not?

Anything that a human can carry, they can own. The question wasn't asked of me, but I would support lifting the ban on fully auto. Isn't that yet another thing that only the rich can own, b/c of grandfathering ? (the m2 Browning )

[holmes435]

Fully automatic machine guns were banned in 1986. How many home-built machine guns have been built and used in crimes since? Very close to zero.

Once again: are you in favor of lifting the ban on private ownership of fully automatic machine guns? If not, why not?

Machine guns are perfectly legal to buy and own. Here's a MAC 10 you can buy - https://www.gunbroker.com/item/823300710

Here's a lot more you can buy: https://www.gunbroker.com/All/search?Ke ... hine%20gun

Just buy the gun, fill out the forms, pay the tax stamp, wait for approval from the ATF and 6-12 months down the road you've got yourself an actual assault rifle.

The law says you as a civilian can't purchase a machine gun manufactured after 1986. Giffords Law center says there's about 638,260 machine guns on the national registry. Yet with all those guns, there are hardly any legally machine guns used in crimes. Maybe one or two.

Gangs and black-market groups are the ones who liked machine guns. You saw it during alcohol prohibition, and you saw it a lot in the "war on drugs". Even then machine guns weren't close to the gun of choice in most homicides or crimes. Handguns are currently 50% of gun homicides, while rifles make up about about 2.5% of homicides, so barking up a rifle ban is going to do diddly squat. Handguns have been the gun of choice for criminals for the past 100+ years. Cheap and easy to conceal and steal.

[CU77]

Why do you refuse to answer the question?

Are you in favor of repealing the 1986 ban, or not?

[holmes435]

Why do you refuse to answer the question?

Are you in favor of repealing the 1986 ban, or not?

I'm fine with repealing the ban on purchasing machine guns manufactured after 1986 while still requiring the tax stamp and additional background check to get one that is currently in place. Because it won't have much of an impact on gun deaths.

I wasn't refusing to answer it - you had asked it to someone else.

[hooligan88]

Lift the ban. It will not make a difference. Legit gun owners are not the problem.

[CU77]

I wasn't refusing to answer it - you had asked it to someone else.

My mistake, apologies!

[CU77]

Lift the ban. It will not make a difference. Legit gun owners are not the problem.

Of course "legit" gun owners are not the problem. That's true by definition. You define "legit" to mean gun owners who do not commit crimes.

[DMac]

I know you really hate guns, CU77, and I respect that...I do get it.
Machine guns, or any kind of gun deaths, doesn't even make the top ten leading causes of death in this country.
Diabetes, 83,500+ deaths per year....so what do we do? Raise the price of insulun so it's a struggle for Type 1s to afford it. There's something to focus on if it's deaths you're concerned about. Guns truly are not a very big problem in this country, they just make the news more than the rest of the causes of death.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php

70K+ OD deaths per year (a whole lot more than guns).
What if we legalized all drugs and regulated them? Would that save more lives than more gun laws? I don't know the answer but I lean toward yes and belive it's more doable than eliminating guns from the population.
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topic ... eath-rates

If it's truly the number of deaths we're concerned about and not just the guns, I believe we can reduce that number in much smarter ways than with more gun laws. JMHO.

[cradleandshoot]

Lift the ban. It will not make a difference. Legit gun owners are not the problem.

Of course "legit" gun owners are not the problem. That's true by definition. You define "legit" to mean gun owners who do not commit crimes.

The conundrum is many gun laws penalize legit gun owners while attempting to stop the bad guys with guns. Good intentions can't compensate for poorly written laws like NYS. SAFE ACT.

[CU77]

Another day, another mass slaughter by another white supremacist.

Good thing this one happened in an open-carry state so all the good guys with guns could leap right in to stop it ...

[seacoaster]

Another "little" one last night in Dayton:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/us/d ... e=Homepage

A nation that persists in doing nothing, murder after murder after murder.....

[RedFromMI]

Another "little" one last night in Dayton:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/us/d ... e=Homepage

A nation that persists in doing nothing, murder after murder after murder.....

From my Twitter feed yesterday:

Mass shootings, 2019

US 249
Mexico 3
Canada 1
Brazil 1

That’s it.

[DMac]

Just awful. Anyone got an answer/solution?
350,000,000 (and growing...that 350mil number has been used for a long time now) guns of all kinds of varieties, billions and billions of rounds of ammo.
How do you deal with that?

[Andersen]

One Rule of Coaching I learned is that if what you are doing is working, stick with it, if not, look for answers and make changes. It's clear the status quo isn't working.

[smoova]

One Rule of Coaching I learned is that if what you are doing is working, stick with it, if not, look for answers and make changes. It's clear the status quo isn't working.

Go back to where you came from.

[CU88]

Next up--mass shootings began when we took prayer out of schools, legalized abortion, video games, poor school designs, etc...

[Typical Lax Dad]

Next up--mass shootings began when we took prayer out of schools and legalized abortion...

Yep. That’s the reason.....Taliban Schools don’t breed mass shooters.

[MDlaxfan76]

Lift the ban. It will not make a difference. Legit gun owners are not the problem.

Of course "legit" gun owners are not the problem. That's true by definition. You define "legit" to mean gun owners who do not commit crimes.

The conundrum is many gun laws penalize legit gun owners while attempting to stop the bad guys with guns. Good intentions can't compensate for poorly written laws like NYS. SAFE ACT.

Which gun laws "penalize legit gun owners" and how do they do so?
I'm a gun owner and have never had any real issue as a result of my legal ownership or usage.
But perhaps I just haven't bumped into a law that caused me an issue?

A majority of NRA members favor longer background checks, including closing the gun show loophole.
How would that "penalize legit gun owners"?

I agree with DMac that a smart policy of decriminalization of drugs would have a major impact upon many gun deaths associated with drug crimes. Huge problem, and I agree with that as a rational solution, more effective than a gun policy alone - unfortunately the right wing of America disagrees. 25 years ago, so did I.

But we should not conflate the use of guns to commit crimes over drug/gang turf and reciprocal killing, and mass murder for ideological or even merely psychopathic reasons (lots of overlap between the two).

The mass murder, terrorist attacks have dramatically escalated, both the # of events and deaths, and the numbers interdicted before occurrence. Huge increase.

At the same time, ironically, overall violence in our society is at historical lows. Even urban, drug-gang related violence in America is down (though not in every district, city, etc).

It would be a mistake to think of these mass murder events solely through the lens of assault weapon gun control. Yes, these weapons really have no place being anywhere other than on the battlefield or carefully regulated gun ranges. I'm all for making them illegal in any other setting, including our basement closets.

But that's not enough, for sure, as these mass murderers will find other means to do great destruction.