Gun control discussions in the wake of the Newtown, CT deaths

[Mary19]

I think in Canada we have the idea that guns are dangerous and can hurt us instead of feeling like they will protect us. I know that sounds simply but it's the general attitude. My husband is a police officer and he's not even allowed to bring his gun home...I've never been in a situation where I've said " I wish I had a gun". I've thought more often "it's a good thing I don't have a gun".

[exzel]

It is a red herring in that gun control issues can be discussed and decided upon totally within the context of the second amendment. Bringing the first amendment into it has no more validity than claiming such restrictions are violating, for example, your 14th amendment rights. Second amendment issues have nothing to do with whether your freedom of speech or rights of assembly are being violated. Red herring.

I don’t agree, but then again I’m not a constitutional lawyer, nor did I ever play one in the movies. Comparing rights recognized in the Bill of Rights, which are derived from necessary extensions of Natural Law does not constitute a Red Herring IMO. And in simply comparing rights, I believe using similar arguments both for and against the two is justifiable. Both rights are safeguards against expansive federal and state suppression of individual rights. They are insurance policies that guarantee all individual rights from violation by criminals or government.

One can even argue that are companions. The founding fathers believed that if the right to free speech were violated by the government, people retain the right to defend their life, liberty, and property through the use of force.

Now applying “hunting” as an argument for the right to bear arms under the second amendment would be a red herring IMO. The right to keep and bear arms must first be established in order to have a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. Hunting has nothing to do with the second amendment.

[shipwreked]

This link is interesting, FBI Totals of violent crimes by state in 2011 I couldn't find any non-biased listings of states by level of gun controls. Just by reputation, I think it is interesting to note the rankings of a few states that are known to be among the most restrictive when it comes to private gun ownership, California, Illinois, Maryland, and New York.

Seems to contrast with what Todash was saying but I may be misunderstanding something. Would not be the first time.

[Shasta]

Just by reputation, I think it is interesting to note the rankings of a few states that are known to be among the most restrictive when it comes to private gun ownership, California, Illinois, Maryland, and New York.

And you know where the criminals get the guns in California? Gun shows. Know how I know that? My cousin, a Seargeant in the LAPD, who has been with the LAPD for over 20 years.

Know what would help fix that? Mandatory background checks on all gun sales.

[Shasta]

I think in Canada we have the idea that guns are dangerous and can hurt us instead of feeling like they will protect us. I know that sounds simply but it's the general attitude. My husband is a police officer and he's not even allowed to bring his gun home...I've never been in a situation where I've said " I wish I had a gun". I've thought more often "it's a good thing I don't have a gun".

That's it. I'm moving to Canada.

[exzel]

And you know where the criminals get the guns in California? Gun shows. Know how I know that? My cousin, a Seargeant in the LAPD, who has been with the LAPD for over 20 years.

Know what would help fix that? Mandatory background checks on all gun sales.

Don’t forget Mexico. The Reverend Jesse Jackson recently said on MSNBC that the 500 plus murders in Chicago in 2012 were attributable to firearms smuggled 1,300 miles from Mexico to the Windy City. Because of soaring firearms prices in the US, the 'run on firearms' in retail gun stores seen over the past few years, and impending stricter gun laws, many cartels are shipping firearms into the US. Los Caballeros Templarios and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion are buying firearms from sources in the former Soviet Union and China to satisfy criminal demand in the US. An unfortunate result of tighter gun laws… the criminals will still be able to get their guns.

[Todash]

Just to clarify, you're establishing a standard based on a select few (unnamed and unnumbered) countries to illustrate how the USA has the highest rate of gun homicides.

I am not, actually. It is true I didn't name the countries or give statistics (I felt like I was getting very long-winded in that comment already), but the research is pretty easy to find--and very reliable. My sources compare the US to other affluent countries, which is apples to apples. Here are a few links:

Comparison of US gun homicide rates to other affluent nations (the specific nations are listed as well as the factors used to choose them, and there are links to the raw data, which is in Excel format); note the main finding is that the US gun homicide rate is about 15 times that of the average of the remaining affluent countries (used to be about 20 times): http://www.politifact.com/virginia/s...te-20-times-h/

Discussion of gun violence specifically, not just homicides. Interesting fact brought out here: the US is not really more violent than other countries, just more lethal. That is because guns are more lethal than any other common weapon.: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2331892.html

funny thing about facts based on statistics. I hear the exact same claims toward opposite metrics of gun ownership and laws. One case in point, Chicago leads the nation in gun related homocides, among the most gun restricted cities in the US (not to mention Obama's stomping ground)

Actually, that bit of info does not reference gun ownership at all. It references strict gun laws. So ... what's different about Chicago? What makes it so lethal? The Chicago police chief says ... guns.

"Chicago Police Department takes more guns off the street every single year consistently, year after year, than any department in the country," McCarthy said Thursday at St. Sabina Church on Chicago's South Side.
He said in 2012 police confiscated more than 7,400 guns, including 300 assault weapons. That's nine times as many guns as New York City and three times as many in Los Angeles.

What that says to me is that we need to get those illegal weapons off the streets. My vote: minimum mandatory sentencing if you're caught with one, and minimum mandatory sentencing for anyone who registers a gun that is later used in a crime by anyone.

[Todash]

This link is interesting, FBI Totals of violent crimes by state in 2011 I couldn't find any non-biased listings of states by level of gun controls. Just by reputation, I think it is interesting to note the rankings of a few states that are known to be among the most restrictive when it comes to private gun ownership, California, Illinois, Maryland, and New York.

Seems to contrast with what Todash was saying but I may be misunderstanding something. Would not be the first time.

In general if you look at homicide rates, you'll see they correlate to gun ownership by region (South, Midwest, West, Northeast). Certainly there are outliers (and really studying those would be a great idea.) It's important to look at cause and effect, I think. Chicken and egg, you know? Chicago, certainly, has been a very violent city from its inception. Also, not every law is going to work the way it's intended--for example, I'm not sure I've seen compelling evidence that restricting assault weapons has done much, although the federal ban was only nine years, which is hardly enough time to register the impact--and I openly admit that when emotion plays more of a part than logic in passing laws, those laws have a lesser chance of pushing through the societal change they are intended to.

I am not saying I know everything about this issue. And I am sure there are laws that pretty much do nothing. But that does not mean that we throw our hands up in the air; that means we get SMARTER about how we address this issue.

I mean ... gun advocates, I am asking this question and I would like an answer: is the homicide and suicide rate in the US acceptable to you? I think it's deplorable that such an affluent country has such a high gun death rate. No, we're not the worst among all nations, but we are clearly the worst among affluent nations, nations like us. The fact that we're better than developing countries, countries run by the drug mafia, Jamaica, Honduras--countries where the struggle to survive is the default mode for much of their citizenry--is not something to congratulate ourselves about. As my grandma would have said, "Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back." Here's what I think: we can do better.

If we cannot agree on anything else--and I definitely think there is room for argument about HOW to fix this problem--can we at least agree, as a starting point, that it is NOT okay that we (those of us in the US) live in a country where we are much more likely to die by violence than any other similar country?

[Todash]

Don’t forget Mexico. The Reverend Jesse Jackson recently said on MSNBC that the 500 plus murders in Chicago in 2012 were attributable to firearms smuggled 1,300 miles from Mexico to the Windy City. Because of soaring firearms prices in the US, the 'run on firearms' in retail gun stores seen over the past few years, and impending stricter gun laws, many cartels are shipping firearms into the US. Los Caballeros Templarios and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion are buying firearms from sources in the former Soviet Union and China to satisfy criminal demand in the US. An unfortunate result of tighter gun laws… the criminals will still be able to get their guns.

Definitely we do not want to leave illegally imported weapons out of the equation.

[Todash]

Well, one thing that is lost in the debate in the extreme efforts to eliminate/retain private gun ownership, is the number of violent crimes committed without guns and the number of crimes prevented because the right person happened to be armed. It is my *impression* that there seem to be much more general violent crime in places where law abiding citizens are obliged to go about unarmed. According to the FBI stats guns are not the predominate method of injuring someone else in a violent crime.

I forgot to mention in my response to Todash's post, I disagree that the second amendment is infringing on the tranquility and general welfare in the States. The rights of the constitution apply to law abiding citizens of the US and pointedly exclude criminals, armed or not. I sincerely doubt that the accidental incidents are significant enough to warrent abolishing the second amendment, which would *the* valid case of Todash's assertion that the second ammendment is infringing upon the spirit of the constitution. The way I see it, the more armed good folks there are out there, the less bad folks there will be doing things to interrupt our tranquility and general welfare.

Let me clarify: I did not intend to imply that the Second Amendment itself infringes upon the intent of the Constitution. (There may be those who would argue that point; I am simply not one of them.) What I meant was this: just as the way the First Amendment and others have been implemented over the time since its adoption, facing expansions and contractions because of deeper social change as well as the external forces of the changing world around us, so too must our interpretation of the Second Amendment be refined and re-refined as technology and society change. I'm not going to argue that only muskets be allowed; frankly, that is silly. But I will argue that the increased lethality of today's guns, plus other relevant factors, means that we need to rebalance. We need to find that sweet spot between, to put it bluntly, the right to shoot--and the right to not be shot.