Can we please just admit that maybe gun control is a good idea finally?

A better question would be why open the two up - the ones he's already identified as semi-automatic, in order to show their similarity; but did not open up the third. Or why he subsequently felt the need to reinforce the lesson by showing how you could stick a semi-automatic receiver into something akin to a CQB stock. The answer is, of course, normalization of deviance.

But hey, if you like your deviance without normalization; here he is being crazy on the internet.

If he had said it outright, I wouldn't have used the word "implied." Instead, we have a few minutes of him alluding to the "fact" that the semi-auto AK variant is really no different than a hunting rifle; when I'm pretty sure it's obvious which of the semi-autos an infantryman would prefer to take into room to room combat.

I just wonder what slogans Bushmaster considered and discarded before settling on that one.

Was "Make them pay for laughing at your tiny cock!" just a little too on the nose?

Becoming like Canada?

tl;dr Canada.

Free healthcare, more human rights, cleaner cities, legal pot...I'm looking for the downside here...

Rush

Um... pot isn't legal up here and we have a Conservative government right now that's chipping away our rights and freedoms (they borrowed Karl Rove's handbook to successfully take down the opposition parties).

Yeah? Maybe cops just look the other way more. Maybe that's just New Brunswick?

Oh and more politeness. People here all react like I'm being some super great guy just by saying "please" and "thank you", and I once got pulled over by a cop because a weird light kept blinking on my car right before I took a turn.

Cops here in Vancouver look the other way too. The hundreds of people gathered downtown for 4/20 is tolerated with the cops only there to make sure people don't block traffic.

It's a difference of culture and how the two nations were founded. Americans were raised on the "wild, wild west" mindset where everyone was expected to take care of themselves and wary of authority, while Canadians, holding to their British background, relied on government authority.

If an American (with a concealed-carry pistol) bumps into a Canadian, guess who would say "Sorry"? ;)

Well, that's going to lead to a fun week.

Oi! You!

I've not read every post in the thread (because it is enormous) but in the wake of renewed gun control fervour I thought I'd re-offer a few links to studies that might perhaps provide a more practical path (I'm not seeing a great way to meaningfully reduce 300 million firearms even without the fervent political opposition (like Tea Party x100) it is likely to invoke) to reducing violence and murder in the US.

As Jason pointed out earlier in the thread there is not a strong, straight international correlation between gun ownership rates and murder rates. International studies which do show a correlation often suffer from either some cherry-picking, show a weak correlation or are often distorted by the extremity of the US situation. In short guns help kill people, yes, they are an effective tool but they are not the prime factor that drives differences in violence and murder between countries. They seem highly likely to be a secondary indicator, in that countries and states where there is already a tendency toward greater violence are more likely to have looser gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership as well. I think that Jason already covered the statistics of this but I can probe around for more studies if anyone is still convinced that the rate of gun ownership is the primary factor driving the higher murder rate in the US. I will say, if it were politically easy or practical to drastically restrict the amount of guns in circulation in the US it would still definitely be a policy path worth pursuing. However, I suspect that the issue will end up as a political failure as it has done so many times in the past because gun ownership is so popular in the US and the people who own guns often REALLY like their guns.

So, the root causes of differences in violence between countries can be better explained by more complicated factors that then in turn require a more complicated political response. Income and wealth inequality has already been briefly mentioned but it bears repeating because of graphs like this:



That show a pretty strong international correlation in first world countries between income inequality and homicides (the US is still something of an extreme outlier which can be partly be explained by gun availability in addition to other factors).

The other index that shows an excellent correlation with rates of violence is measurements of social capital which I tend to think of as a collected measure of how much 'socialism' (in the original definition of the word rather than the tea party or Stalinist parody versions that have attained common currency) a country has. The Scientific American ran an article that covered the literature pretty well in a populist style after the last shooting spree so I'll just liberally quote and link that here:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2012/07/26/the-jokers-wild/

If you want to read more about the origins of the term 'social capital' then Robert Putnam is probably your man with several widely cited if somewhat outdated classic papers on the topic like this one with lots of graphs:

http://www.oecd.org/edu/educationeconomyandsociety/1825848.pdf


So, if the answer is more socialism then why pursue that instead of gun control, given that socialist ideas are often just as politically difficult to advocate for in the US? Well, because 'socialism' solves more problems than just violence; it helps with health, with education, with obesity and even simple things like trusting your neighbours that just make life easier. Plus Obamacare just recently got passed, which while far, far from perfect is one of the most socialist national policies that the US has enacted in a long time and provides a framework that can be incrementally extended into something more like the NHS over time. I believe that a more socialist America wouldn't have such a need for gun control because it's citizens wouldn't want to shoot each other so much in the first place.

Maybe, maybe not. The guns would have at least been locked up.

It would have helped in thousands of other cases though.

If someone steals a car from you and runs over someone should you also be charged with a crime?

Despite being the creator of this incendiary thread, I agree with all of them words up there.

The county I live in has that but for land. If someone, whether they are there legally or not, shoots someone else on your property, you as the property owner can be held liable. Which is dumb as all hell.

That's a stupid comparison, even for you.

Not at all, you want to punish someone because a thief broke into their house and stole an item from them and harmed someone with it. That is what is stupid.

Point of order - it is much simpler to secure a gun than a car.

How were they able to steal it? Because you left a lethal weapon unsecured in your home and by doing so you created a public safety hazard.

That chart is insane. I did not even see the USA dot for the first thirty seconds of looking at it :(

I leave knives in my home unsecured, those are lethal weapons as well.

Also, what if the person had it locked up and the thief stole it? It just seems idiotic that you would want to punish someone for a thief stealing something from that person and harming someone with it.

If they stole it, you didn't lock it up. Thieves with the capacity to crack a gun safe do not steal guns from homeowners - there are much less risky and more lucrative uses of their talents. If your gun can be stolen, then you were negligent in securing it.

Guns are far more lethal than knives and they have far fewer uses besides killing. And yeah, I think a negligent homicide charge is appropriate in the case of a gun falling into the wrong hands because it was improperly secured. One of the biggest problems with gun ownership in this country is that as much as people love guns, they too often don't respect them. So they don't take gun safety classes, they store them inappropriately, they let them get stolen or used by others inappropriately, their kids get ahold of them, etc. We should absolutely be addressing every facet of that problem, and if you want to own some deadly weapons I don't think it's too much to ask that you just don't leave them lying around where anyone can get at them.

You know, I very often have to secure balls of yarn in my house in such a way that my cats can't get at them. I do this to avoid having a strand of yarn that wraps all the way around my house, which is a frustrating situation but still a somewhat less tragic one than the one that prompted this thread. But if I get a little lax and I do come home to that sight, I have to deal with the consequences: cleaning it up and maybe replacing the yarn if it got slobbered on too much. I literally spend more time and effort stopping my wife's yarn from falling into the wrong paws than many people do with their guns. It's absurd.

So yes, we should have standards for gun storage and safety, and we should hold people accountable when they don't meet those standards.

But also, if they did have it locked up and it was stolen by a master cat burglar anyway, they're in the clear because by definition they weren't negligent. It's not really a difficult concept.

Tell you what. Let's go to war, you vs. me. You get a knife, I get a gun. Both are "lethal weapons", so we're even, right?

Seriously. I have owned guns. I am not rabidly anti-gun. I like guns. Guns are fun. But the "Durrrrrrr durp guns aren't more lethal than other, less lethal weapons" is the stupidest fucking argument in this debate, and people who want to protect gun rights need to stop making it because you're making the rest of us look stupid.

Anyone who wants to protect gun rights should be first in line calling for responsible gun safety and ownership standards. That means: gun safes, trigger locks, and proper handling and storage of ammunition when the weapon is not in use. This is basic, basic stuff that should not be argued against by any serious person.

EDIT: also, I think that "purchaser should not be a fucking lunatic" should be one of the ownership standards.

One of the old guys where I live had a cheap gun safe broken into and the guns stolen. Just like the steel security door I linked a video to above, they can be forced.

Of course, the answer is as simple as reporting firearms thefts to the cops: hardly an onerous obligation on your part, no?

This is something that consistently amazes me about the pro-gun crowd, or at least a very vocal part of it. I'm not pro-gun rights generally--I don't actively lobby for just making all gun ownership illegal but it wouldn't upset me much if that happened--but on this I think all reasonable people on either side of the argument should have common ground. It's really weird and kind of gross to me the way some people view those kinds of proposals as infringing on their most cherished human rights.

I think you mean "old guy forgot to lock his safe and told people it was broken into". I find that more likely.

Well this is why there should be standards in place; as it stands now I wouldn't know what to do with that guy, but if the law was that you had to store your guns in a safe and not a cheapie one that you can punch open like you're Fonzie that would be a different story.

Well I don't know about that. If you've stored your guns in such away that they're easily accessible to whoever wants them, I don't think just reporting the theft should be enough to absolve you of all responsibility.

People are bad at assessing risk (I'm going to 'citation needed' my own post, but there are numerous studies showing this). Gun owners are a bit like motorcycle riders, in that they cut across a large swathe of people with very disparate experiences. People who have ridden motorcycles for many years, and have known many riders, and have experience, know that the likeliest risk is that someday they will be in an unavoidable accident. Those people wear helmets and goofy looking cordura suits. Newer riders (especially midlife crisis guys who buy that Harley) think that the likeliest risk is that their penis will get smaller if they are seen wearing a helmet. Those guys die after getting on their bike without a helmet and with no body armor after having a beer at the local bar.

The gun owners' continuum isn't quite so cut and dry. There are plenty of people who understand that the likeliest risk of handling guns is an accidental discharge that injures themselves or someone else. Those people like gun safes, trigger locks, and removing clips from weapons. Unfortunately, there's also a pretty significant group of people - I don't think I could characterize the size - who honestly believe that the likeliest risk is that someone from a minority they are frightened of is going to assault them at any moment. Those guys walk around with weapons locked and loaded. As a gun owner I am honestly nervous about hanging out with anyone who is carrying a weapon that is primed and ready to fire (footnote 1), and I don't understand how anyone who understands firearms could not be. But apparently that's not a universal feeling.

Footnote 1: I mean "primed and ready to fire and just kinda walking around with that holstered." I'm not nervous if we're at the range or trap shooting or something, because then everyone is concentrating and paying attention. It's when the guns are locked and loaded when people aren't focused that the risks of accidental discharge increase.

Brett already refuted you, but these are just from the first page in this thread:

Okay, fair enough--mea culpa. I do think it's fair to say that most people here are not advocating a total ban. For one thing, that would bring us pretty squarely into Jason McCullough's "never going to happen" argument. A total ban on guns in the US would probably be about as practically feasible as a ban on religion.

That doesn't mean that we can't talk about more sensible regulations on guns, though (which a number of people in this thread have done). Brett's car analogy aside, I really don't see anything particularly onerous about having laws that require guns to be stored securely. And I don't think it's crazy to take a hard look at what kinds of guns we want to allow people to own. There is already a strong precedent, supported by numerous USSC decisions, for restricting weapon ownership based on potential lethality. The right to bear arms is not unlimited, which is why you can't run down to the gun store and buy missiles or a nuclear weapon.

In Canada, it's by law that firearms be secured properly. Non-restricted firearms (most shotguns and rifles with barrels over 18.5") need to be at least secured with a trigger lock, while Restricted firearms (pistols, AR-15s and rifles with barrels shorter than 18.5") have to be locked inside a gun cabinet, safe or vault. All firearms have to be unloaded and separate from ammunition.

But why aren't you required to keep your swimming pools in a safe? Those things are just as deadly.
Answer me that!

(I'm not reading any of Bretts posts, so I'm just guessing at the tone here)

That's part of it; political support for various policies increases when they're framed as gun-safety rather than gun-control.

Really? A certain town in Connecticut couldn't even get support for a few mild time and place limitations:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/n...tml?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=twr&pagewanted=all&

We should probably just give up. The inmates are running the asylum.

This is why such a thing could never work, too many people would just assume the gun owner was lying about their weapons being secured.

So, ownership of firearms in Canada is restricted to recreational use with no home defense justification?

I ask because if you're storing your gun that way, you're doing it wrong for home defense (if you have to put your weapon together before you can use it to stop an intruder, that makes it very hard to rely on in a surprise situation), which is one of the many reasons why the home defense expert that talked at us said that families probably shouldn't bother with guns for home defense (his recommendation was pepper spray, which you could discharge at your son sneaking back into the house after a night out drinking without subtracting your son from the universe entirely). Given that fact, this particular rule might not adapt well to the United States (where home defense is cited as a justification).

Agreed - more realistic voices gained traction on the thread as it continued past the first 5 or so pages.

Stored securely in what way? Heller already struck down trigger lock requirements as such things prevent firearms for being used in self defense. And I'm not sure what you mean by lethality - what restriction could they put in place here? Heller specifically authorizes handguns for self defense, and I hope you're not advocating resurrecting the useless magazine restrictions