Do you feel the need to be unarmed and defensless while camping?

[Dalko43]

Dalko, I'm not sure how you missed the parallels, particularly given that you restated my position again, only in your words. In the 70s there was an impetus to reduce automotive fatalities. To achieve that end, every facet of automobile transport was addressed. The results speak for themselves. We have the faculties and resources to do the same with our massive rates of gun deaths each year.

I don't think there is a parallel between automobile safety and gun crime.

And the question I am not seeing you address is: why are we safer on our roads?
Is it because regulations have made people behave more responsibly?
Or is it because the cars are inherently safer and allow for higher survival rates?

People still go out and drink and drive in fairly great numbers. The change between drunk driving arrests in 1995 and 2012 was only about 200k:
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/1995/95sec4.pdf
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/29tabledatadecpdf

The main reason for the change in car safety I think has more to do with car crashes being more survivable due to better technology, not because regulations have changed drivers' behaviors or decisions.

It will most certainly take a global approach as it did with cars. It will probably require gun owners to jump through a few hoops. It will probably involve stiffer penalties for the misuse of firearms. When someone makes that transition from good guy to bad guy, they should go away for a very, very long time. Who can get a gun will likely need to be revamped. Like I said before, if you're on a terrorist watch list, you shouldn't be allowed to buy a gun.

The government's main influence in improving car safety was to make cars safer, especially in crashes. How should the government go about making weapons safer?

Misuse of firearms (i assume you mean negligence not criminal action) is not the problem we are facing. It's criminal use/possession we need to worry about.
Many violent criminals (think rape, armed robbery, assault, murder) are repeat offenders who have been let off or released early. If you want to truly target and restrict those who are going out and committing a majority of the gun crimes, then you should be in favor of stiffer penalties for a whole slew of crimes (drug-dealing, human trafficking, theft) not just for gun crimes.

As for restricting who can get firearms, we already do this to a large extent. Most criminals get their firearms illegally. Those who don't, like some recent lone-wolf shooters, either had no prior criminal or mental red flags that were serious enough to warrant additional investigation or simply slipped through the cracks.

Increased checks on a person's mental background is a great idea to discuss, but there are plenty of people who have seen a therapist or have had to work through issues but still are perfectly capable of owning a firearm. Where do we draw the line on some of these checks?

We just had a state health inspector go mow down over a dozen people with his wife in San Bernardino, all in the name of Jihad. There were very few, if any, indications on his intent. Neither him nor his wife were marked down as potential terrorists in any of the government's databases. I think to some degree, we need to understand that we are not going to catch all criminals prior to the act...no matter how much legislation we put on the books.

We also have to address our social issues head on. Why do we rank so high in gun deaths per 1,000?

In my opinion, the end goal should be to aspire to reduce gun related fatalities of all kinds, but to also not remove the right for those capable of owning guns from doing so.

It's not being "anti-gun" or "liberally whacko" to want a safer society. How we get there differs. Some don't want to do anything. Today 90 people will die of a gun wound. Statistically, within Japan, England, and Australia, there will be less than 12.

Do we not want that for ourselves?

90 people in the US might die of gun wounds only if you are including suicides and homicides (though I'm curious where you got the statistic). Annually we have about 10k gun-related murders in the US, which is vastly different from the 30k-40k annual gun deaths (suicides + murders) that anti-gun activists will quote.

If we are going to include suicides into this conversation, then it is worth noting that there are many countries which have similar or even higher suicide rates relative to the US, despite some of them having stricter gun control. Japan, which you referred to, has about 70 suicide deaths per day (without even including the daily deaths from crimes), despite having much stricter controls on firearm ownership:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-33362387

The only realistic measures i see for decreasing gun crimes are:
1) Harsher sentencing for the lesser crimes, including but not limited to illegal gun possession.
2) Background checks on private sales
3) putting greater security measures in place at vulnerable sites (like schools)

Short of a nation-wide turn-in and ban on all firearms (which would be about as effective as our nation-wide ban on cocaine and heroin), putting additional restrictions on law-abiding citizens will only further inhibit and disenfranchise them while leaving the criminals' access largely unaffected.

 

[plainjaneFJC]

I'll jump back in because I love the car analogy.

In 1977 automotive fatalities had come off a decade of 50,000 deaths per year. It was decided more regulations needed to be implemented and over the course of the next decade we saw safety standards all across the transportation sector increase. This is the era that brought us all the technologies that now keep us safer than ever including anti-lock brakes, collapsing steering columns, airbags, crumple zones, three-point seat belts, and the list goes on. At the same time, roadways improved and regulations multiplied. Stiffer laws for DUI were implemented. Manditory seatbelt laws were created and finally...child seats required by law. There was a global approach to safer automobile travel.

The result: We reduced automobile fatalities by a full 50%. That reduction can be wholly attributed to the collection of efforts applied to that result - directly.

While there are those who have drawn loose correlations between the proliferation of guns in the US to a reduction in homicides over that same period, that connection is not very tenable and disputed by many social experts. More telling are the predictions that our rapid proliferation of weapons is not sustainable, and we can't continue to flood the streets with guns and not be where we are...one of the most violent countries in the world.

Earlier someone pegged me as not applying any logic to this discussion, which I don't think is accurate. I believe we all have our own way of applying our intellect and experience to this topic. I still contend, adding more guns with fewer regulations simply does not seem like the path to a less violent country.

And as a moderator and member, I want to thank everyone for keeping this discussion polite, thoughtful and interesting.

The car analogy is still bogus, it's not a constitutional right to drive so of course they can come up with safeguards to protect from ourselves.

 

[Christophe Noel]

The car analogy is still bogus, it's not a constitutional right to drive so of course they can come up with safeguards to protect from ourselves.

It's not bogus. It's an example of our society, through political, technological, and social means, making a positive change to correct a public issue. We have those same tools available to help quell gun violence. If we deem it necessary and choose to make the effort. Doing nothing...isn't working.

For those clinging to the constitution as a means of staving off regulation, how then do you explain the current regulations in place? There are already limitations to the 2nd Amendment. Why do people conveniently elect to not acknowledge that fact or fold it into the dialogue. It's not enough to just say, we have the right.... It already has parameters.

 

[Christophe Noel]

And again, I'm not the one to initially bring up the car/gun correlation.

However, this is timely and popped up just today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-as-many-people-as-cars-in-the-u-s/?tid=sm_fb

 

[plainjaneFJC]

It's not bogus. It's an example of our society, through political, technological, and social means, making a positive change to correct a public issue. We have those same tools available to help quell gun violence. If we deem it necessary and choose to make the effort. Doing nothing...isn't working.

For those clinging to the constitution as a means of staving off regulation, how then do you explain the current regulations in place? There are already limitations to the 2nd Amendment. Why do people conveniently elect to not acknowledge that fact or fold it into the dialogue. It's not enough to just say, we have the right.... It already has parameters.

Count me in the group that clings to the constitution then. You still cant believe that laws would be effective. The only way you can eliminate gun violence is to completely eliminate ALL guns.

 

[calicamper]

I don't think there is a parallel between automobile safety and gun crime.

And the question I am not seeing you address is: why are we safer on our roads?
Is it because regulations have made people behave more responsibly?
Or is it because the cars are inherently safer and allow for higher survival rates?

People still go out and drink and drive in fairly great numbers. The change between drunk driving arrests in 1995 and 2012 was only about 200k:
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/1995/95sec4.pdf
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/29tabledatadecpdf

The main reason for the change in car safety I think has more to do with car crashes being more survivable due to better technology, not because regulations have changed drivers' behaviors or decisions.



The government's main influence in improving car safety was to make cars safer, especially in crashes. How should the government go about making weapons safer?

Misuse of firearms (i assume you mean negligence not criminal action) is not the problem we are facing. It's criminal use/possession we need to worry about.
Many violent criminals (think rape, armed robbery, assault, murder) are repeat offenders who have been let off or released early. If you want to truly target and restrict those who are going out and committing a majority of the gun crimes, then you should be in favor of stiffer penalties for a whole slew of crimes (drug-dealing, human trafficking, theft) not just for gun crimes.

As for restricting who can get firearms, we already do this to a large extent. Most criminals get their firearms illegally. Those who don't, like some recent lone-wolf shooters, either had no prior criminal or mental red flags that were serious enough to warrant additional investigation or simply slipped through the cracks.

Increased checks on a person's mental background is a great idea to discuss, but there are plenty of people who have seen a therapist or have had to work through issues but still are perfectly capable of owning a firearm. Where do we draw the line on some of these checks?

We just had a state health inspector go mow down over a dozen people with his wife in San Bernardino, all in the name of Jihad. There were very few, if any, indications on his intent. Neither him nor his wife were marked down as potential terrorists in any of the government's databases. I think to some degree, we need to understand that we are not going to catch all criminals prior to the act...no matter how much legislation we put on the books.




90 people in the US might die of gun wounds only if you are including suicides and homicides (though I'm curious where you got the statistic). Annually we have about 10k gun-related murders in the US, which is vastly different from the 30k-40k annual gun deaths (suicides + murders) that anti-gun activists will quote.

If we are going to include suicides into this conversation, then it is worth noting that there are many countries which have similar or even higher suicide rates relative to the US, despite some of them having stricter gun control. Japan, which you referred to, has about 70 suicide deaths per day (without even including the daily deaths from crimes), despite having much stricter controls on firearm ownership:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-33362387

The only realistic measures i see for decreasing gun crimes are:
1) Harsher sentencing for the lesser crimes, including but not limited to illegal gun possession.
2) Background checks on private sales
3) putting greater security measures in place at vulnerable sites (like schools)

Short of a nation-wide turn-in and ban on all firearms (which would be about as effective as our nation-wide ban on cocaine and heroin), putting additional restrictions on law-abiding citizens will only further inhibit and disenfranchise them while leaving the criminals' access largely unaffected.

Get lost in the trees much when looking at the forest? The history of policy around autos is a good example of the most probable path gun policy will take. States started requiring licensing to do two major things, generate income to cover Auto related services costs and to establish a base line skill set and expected operator responsibilites. When self governance starts to fail social policies are developed to ensure things stay safe, clean, unabused etc. No different than our fisheries policies, hunting permitting policies, water use etc. In every case self regulation failed and to reduce abuse etc society enforces policies.

Its not being anti gun to say whatever policy we have today is clearly not very good and its not being anti gun to say that there is always room for improvement or new policy that addresses new challenges beeing seen around the US regarding gun use and abuse. A non citizen in the US should not have the right to take high powered non hunting related guns to a commercial shooting range. I think any gun owner and citizen should support some way for shooting ranges to easily confirm you have the right to posess and fire the guns your taking to the range. That would put gun advocates center stage that they want to protect their 2nd ammendment rights and protect their ownership of legally obtained firearms. Not to mention no gun sane owner out for some range practice wants to be standing next to a criminal doing target practice with live ammo. One example of were gun advocates can help show they take some of our society issues just as seriously as the lethal ponential of a gun. The recent CA crazys that shot up coworkers went out shooting at a gun range with guns purchased by another person. I'd like to think someone at that range could have said hey sorry but that **** dont fly here, and there be a process for logging the occurance so authorities could do a check to see what the story was. I think in that case there would have been some red flags that popped up and put those two on a watch list. Hell pretty sure neither one was a citizen yet either, more red flags. Just one of many examples where I feel the Gun Advocates can do a far better job standing up for their right to bear arms, by making sure the people they cross paths with in gun circles have the right to be shooting at a range or buying pallets of ammo. LOL

 

[Lynnrb]

And again, I'm not the one to initially bring up the car/gun correlation.

However, this is timely and popped up just today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-as-many-people-as-cars-in-the-u-s/?tid=sm_fb

So government regulation and technology have made driving safer, who would have thought that.

 

[calicamper]

Get lost in the trees much when looking at the forest? The history of policy around autos is a good example of the most probable path gun policy will take. States started requiring licensing to do two major things, generate income to cover Auto related services costs and to establish a base line skill set and expected operator responsibilites. When self governance starts to fail social policies are developed to ensure things stay safe, clean, unabused etc. No different than our fisheries policies, hunting permitting policies, water use etc. In every case self regulation failed and to reduce abuse etc society enforces policies.

Its not being anti gun to say whatever policy we have today is clearly not very good and its not being anti gun to say that there is always room for improvement or new policy that addresses new challenges beeing seen around the US regarding gun use and abuse. A non citizen in the US should not have the right to take high powered non hunting related guns to a commercial shooting range. I think any gun owner and citizen should support some way for shooting ranges to easily confirm you have the right to posess and fire the guns your taking to the range. That would put gun advocates center stage that they want to protect their 2nd ammendment rights and protect their ownership of legally obtained firearms. Not to mention no gun sane owner out for some range practice wants to be standing next to a criminal doing target practice with live ammo. One example of were gun advocates can help show they take some of our society issues just as seriously as the lethal ponential of a gun. The recent CA crazys that shot up coworkers went out shooting at a gun range with guns purchased by another person. I'd like to think someone at that range could have said hey sorry but that **** dont fly here, and there be a process for logging the occurance so authorities could do a check to see what the story was. I think in that case there would have been some red flags that popped up and put those two on a watch list. Hell pretty sure neither one was a citizen yet either, more red flags. Just one of many examples where I feel the Gun Advocates can do a far better job standing up for their right to bear arms, by making sure the people they cross paths with in gun circles have the right to be shooting at a range or buying pallets of ammo. LOL

Defending your right to bear arms also includes making sure those who dont have that right are not doing so. At least not easily and in plain sight at gun shops purchasing ammo and shooting ranges.

 

[Christophe Noel]

Count me in the group that clings to the constitution then. You still cant believe that laws would be effective. The only way you can eliminate gun violence is to completely eliminate ALL guns.

I think anyone truly engaged in this topic with any sense of reality would never in a million years think we can ELIMINATE gun violence. Again, to borrow from someone else's car analogy, even with all that we have done on that score, we have reduced fatalities by half. That's more than 15,000 lives saved per year and with 167,000 more drivers on the road in the last 40 years. If we could achieve those same numbers with gun violence, wouldn't that be a victory? I think so. Again, do we care enough to put the effort to it? That's the question.

And I didn't say gun laws alone could correct this course. People do love to put words in my mouth.

 

[plainjaneFJC]

Defending your right to bear arms also includes making sure those who dont have that right are not doing so. At least not easily and in plain sight at gun shops purchasing ammo and shooting ranges.

All the guys pushing for more laws are going to eventually see all our rights taken away, and then sit there in disbelief, wondering how it ever went that far. We give an inch and they are going to take a mile.

 

[calicamper]

I think anyone truly engaged in this topic with any sense of reality would never in a million years think we can ELIMINATE gun violence. Again, to borrow from someone else's car analogy, even with all that we have done on that score, we have reduced fatalities by half. That's more than 15,000 lives saved per year and with 167,000 more drivers on the road in the last 40 years. If we could achieve those same numbers with gun violence, wouldn't that be a victory? I think so. Again, do we care enough to put the effort to it? That's the question.

And I didn't say gun laws alone could correct this course. People do love to put words in my mouth.

Hell yes and the politicians wont use it as an election yr only punt to scare up votes

 

[bob280zx]

One of the very few civil long running discussions on guns I've seen. Thank you to all contributors.

There are already some 20,000 gun related laws on the books. I think it's safe to say enforcement, and application of penalties, is sporadic at best. The revolving door, plea driven legal system doesn't seem to be much of deterrent. I find it difficult to believe more laws would yield significant results.

Whatever the current gun crime rate is, if a relatively few areas, for instance south side Chicago, east St Louis, Camden NJ among others, are taken out of the equation, the statistic plummets dramatically. More gun laws won't fix those problems. It seems to me we need a smarter approach than expecting more gun laws to save us.

I wish I knew what that smarter approach might be.

 

[Lynnrb]

All the guys pushing for more laws are going to eventually see all our rights taken away, and then sit there in disbelief, wondering how it ever went that far. We give an inch and they are going to take a mile.

Please give an example of what you are using to base your premise on. All I see is an expansion if our rights in the last 4 decades.

 

[Dalko43]

I think anyone truly engaged in this topic with any sense of reality would never in a million years think we can ELIMINATE gun violence. Again, to borrow from someone else's car analogy, even with all that we have done on that score, we have reduced fatalities by half. That's more than 15,000 lives saved per year and with 167,000 more drivers on the road in the last 40 years. If we could achieve those same numbers with gun violence, wouldn't that be a victory? I think so. Again, do we care enough to put the effort to it? That's the question.

And I didn't say gun laws alone could correct this course. People do love to put words in my mouth.

You and Calicamper want more controls where exactly?

Since the 1900's, we have put some restrictions in place on the 2nd Amendment (mostly to do with fully auto firearms and pistol licensing and open carry), which is why more than a few are reluctant to allow for any more. You ask how people and groups, like the NRA, are capable of becoming so stubborn to changes/revisions to gun laws; it's because there is a mentality exhibited by some that if they take away certain firearms/permissions, they can then take away others...a slippery slope.

The reality is gun violence, unlike the car analogy you keep clinging to, is not an accident issue...it's a crime issue. One has to do with inadvertent deaths the other has to do with intentional homicide/assault. Getting illegal firearms off the street is one thing we can all agree on. Saying that we need to put further burdens on the law-abiding population is where you'll start to meet staunch resistance.

You and others focus on negligent use/behavior by certain firearm owners, or the lack of certification and training. The overwhelming majority of gun-related homicides are caused by pistols in the hands of repeat offenders....if you and others were truly serious about reducing gun violence, you would focus your advocacy efforts on restrictive pistol permitting/registration (which already happens to a large degree in many states) and on increasing punishment for criminals across the board.

I'm not saying that I would fully embrace such an approach (at least not additional pistol licensing, since my state makes it tough enough as it is), but logically speaking, those should be your areas of focus if you were truly in favor of reducing gun violence. And yet all I hear from you and others is that we need to increase the licensing, restrictions, burdens for everyone and every weapon.

 

[Christophe Noel]

I don't know if it makes anyone feel better, but these dialogues, when approached by all with a degree of open mindedness can be helpful. Two years ago, I would have likely been in the "ban them all" bunch. Through discussions with level heads on all sides, the middle ground becomes visible, and attainable.

Dalko, it's also important not to pigeon hole responses and opinions for your own arguments. I never said that I feel ONLY more controls will suffice. I explicitly said, several times, that it will take a multi-faceted approach to reduce our gun deaths which are currently at disgustingly high levels. You can't pick and choose what you want to hear, my friend.