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

Most people don't need a gun for home defense. They might think they need it, but they'd be better off having a can of mace, a cell phone and an escape plan. And if they really, honestly, truly believe that their home is likely to be invaded by gun toting thugs whom they can only fend off by returning fire in a hail of bullets... well, that side of the discussion should probably be moved to the thread about mental illness. Treatment exists, people just have to be willing to admit they have a problem.

Yes. The second-amendment maximalist standpoint is in many ways an anti-social one.

Ah, I forgot that was happening today. Any other gems?

Given that their half of the conversation boils down to "NAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNOTHINGTOSEEHEREWECAN'THEARYOU," that seems fitting.

I dunno about you folks, but I love infographics and there's a project going on now that is attempting to document every gun death since Newtown.

Spoiler: it's a lot.

"While the NRA Was on TV Talking About the Need for More Guns Some Guy Was Walking Up and Down a Road in Pennsylvania Shooting People"

http://gawker.com/5970497/while-the...d-down-a-road-in-pennsylvania-shooting-people

The vast majority of home defense uses with a gun do not involve anyone shooting another person.

Then what are you shooting in defense of your home?

I think he means it's sufficient to wave it around and look tough.

Please, don't be intentionally dense, the vast majority of them are someone having a gun and the criminal knowing it and either leaving when confronted or being kept there until police arrive.

Many gun proponents believe that the mere thunderous ratchet of a round being chambered will send all potential miscreants scurrying for their grimy holes.

I'm not being intentionally dense.

I don't have a security system on my house. I have a sign that says I have a security system. 99.9% of thieves who are looking to simply break & enter and don't have the know how to disable an alarm will not break into my house. My point still holds. Most people don't need a gun for home defense and you are agreeing with me. Where we differ is that I say "can of mace" and you say "since they aren't going to shoot anyone anyway, a gun replica will do". If you aren't planning to actually shoot a person, you don't need a real gun.

If you own a gun for home defense, you are planning to shoot someone. You may tell yourself that it would be "as a last resort" but it still means that when you considered the defense of your home and decided a gun was the proper way to do it that you accepted that you would be willing to shoot someone. If you didn't then you are dangerous and shouldn't own a gun.

There's some deterrent use out there, but the numbers usually bandied about are from John Lott and should be assigned zero weight, like Bellesiles. Dunno if there's any good estimates.

A gun replica would be a hilarious in-between deterrent method, come to think of it.

Actually, security systems aren't very helpful at deterring crime. There was an AMA with a police officer on reddit, and he explained that because security alarms always go off unintentionally, they fall into the trap of crying wolf, and so tend to respond really slowly to them, which gives thieves plenty of time to make off with your things. The guy suggested visible cameras and a sign that says, "Smile you're on camera".

The brandishing numbers that lead to "the vast majority of them are someone having a gun and the criminal knowing it and either leaving when confronted or being kept there until police arrive" come entirely from John Lott's study. They have been debunked extensively in a variety of ways, and I would encourage anyone who's curious about it to start with a statistical breakdown.There simply isn't good data on the subject (no surprise there), but what is there is decidedly more mixed if not outright counter to gun ownership.

I mean, I say this as a gun owner, but one who does not expect "brandishing" or anything other than fatalities to result from the unlikely event of my use of them in self defense. I say that having successfully disarmed or neutralized people without shooting them in a military context, and despite having that experience (or perhaps because of it) I don't consider it a realistic expectation. *If* the (again, unlikely) self-defense event escalated to the level of guns being brought in, I would do the utmost to avoid shooting. But given that we are talking about split second decisions in suboptimal conditions, it is not what I bank on when I think of my self-defense in terms of the gun.

I would say that a replica is a singularly dangerous way to play the self-defense game for anyone, and most especially those likely to live/work in an elevated risk area.

I'm reading about the NRA press conference and this part bothered me:

Wait, what...? Seriously? Did he enter a wormhole and wind up back in the 1990s?

Shouldn't he have blamed parents for allowing their kids to be exposed to video games, movies, and music videos?

The parents are potential NRA members, of course not.

Well if it turned out that brandishing actually was the dominant method of self-defense than hrm, but yeah as you say the data's not there.

This transcript of the press conference doesn't show "This is the beginning of a serious conversation."

Just out of curiosity, what makes the difference in a home-invasion setting?

Totally an "exact quote" right there.

I wish I could understand why so many people here seem to think that to use a gun in self defense means you automatically shoot someone.

Because like all of you responsible gun owners are so quick to point out, you should never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. Also, because that would be the only data point that means anything. John Q. Homedefender saying "I defended my home with a gun" because a burglar ran away when he turned on the light and happened to be carrying a gun means fuck all, yet it still gets reported in your anecdotal evidence as a time when a gun SAVED A LIFE and was indispensable.

Edit: In other words, if you "defended yourself" with a gun but did not shoot anybody you did not defend yourself with a gun. You defended yourself, and also had a gun. Maybe you could have waved a leg of lamb or a pool cue around as cavalierly as you're brandishing your scary gun, and had the same effect. Who knows?

I suppose you could use the gun as a club... But honestly, if you aren't shooting it at someone, you are... holding it? waving it around? cocking it? firing a round into your ceiling or wall? And if the intruder has a gun also? Are you still not shooting? In that case I would expect that having the gun would be more dangerous as an intruder with a gun is more likely to shoot you if you brandish your own firearm...

I was trying to do some searching to figure out a way to get news alerts on this, and wasn't able to figure out a good filter. I'll be interested to see this (although it won't load for me at the moment).

I am concerned that we will respond by passing legislation tailored to prevent mass school shootings -- station the National Guard at schools! arm teachers! reinforce all school doors! -- while doing nothing to address the much larger numbers of deaths and injuries due to gun violence. Of course the trigger is emotional but it's not the vast majority of the problem.

Here's Tony Horowitz (Confederates in the Attic) noting some similarities between the 1850s pro-slavery movement and the modern NRA-based pro-firearms movement. Especially worth noting is the maximalist approaches that both took, which met with initial success but ultimately provoked serious backlash.

Former GOP chair Michael Steele on the NRA press conference.

The pattern for me is hypermotivated minorities (often with a somewhat fantastic vision of the opposition they face and the justice of their own cause) can go very far even when a soft majority might disagree with their viewpoint. But the same characteristics that make them succeed - vehemence, relentless maximalism - eventually go awry. You could look at other segments of the American right besides the NRA, and also other examples in political history elsewhere.

Because I was raised with the value that if you point a gun at someone, you'd better be about to pull the trigger. Otherwise there's no reason to point a gun at someone.

Basically: they're not toys or idle threats. At any point if you pull a gun and the conflict does not end in gunshot wounds, it's because the OTHER party injected sanity into the situation.

That is such a bunch of BS. If you force someone to leave because you had a weapon who was going to rob or harm you, how is that a bad thing? Would you rather the person in the house be attacked because they arent allowed to defend themselves.

And your last statement is completely false, police do such things all the time to force a criminal to give up (take out a weapon and no one gets shot). And I wouldnt call the criminal the sane one.

Bolded: the OTHER person injected sanity into the equation.

I cannot stress this enough: If you are pointing a gun at someone without the express intention of shooting them, you are the problem with gun usage in this country. It is not a fucking toy. If cops point a gun at someone, it's because they absolutely intend to use it if the target does not comply. They do not simply point a gun at someone who is not a threat in order to threaten them

If a cop points a gun at a criminal and the criminal gets on the ground, the criminal is absolutely injecting sanity into the situation and preventing gunfire.

Christ, are you one of those people who puts his finger on the trigger more than a second before shooting? No? Then you understand that they're dangerous goddamned weapons and by drawing said weapon you have immediately escalated the situation to lethal force. This is why Brandishing is a crime, you know. To beat it into people that flashing or drawing a weapon without intent to shoot is BAD.

edit: and just to make a point, the cops aren't pointing a gun to make the other person go away. They have full intention of finishing the event in an arrest. There is no case in which the cops pull a gun and let the other party go where the other party cannot sue the cops. You pulling a gun and yelling about get out of the house? Either you intend to shoot, or you shouldn't have the fucking thing because someone's going to get killed from careless use.

I'm going to rant a bit more: Jesus Christ, what do you think happens if the person does NOT leave when you pull your gun? Dude just walks towards you. Either you intended to fucking shoot them or they're going to take your gun from you. THUS YOU HAD PULLED IT WITH INTENT TO USE IT.

There's a fucking reason we arrest and charge people who pull guns on people. "I was scared" is a shit defense because people are scared of more than three black dudes hanging out together. You pull a gun, you had better be planning on shooting someone. If you aren't, you escalated the situation to lethal levels as a fucking bluff.

The Four Rules introduced by Colonel Jeff Cooper

1. All guns are always loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Emphasis mine. If you are not willing to pull that trigger then don't aim that gun at someone. If someone is high on PCP breaks into your house, they may not fear a gun being pointed at them.

I wonder how many American homeowners have bought a gun for home defense but have never taken a training course or even gone to the range?

I would have no problem with mandating safety courses and licencing to own a gun. But its this ban all guns mentality and that no one can be a responsible gun owner that I have a major problem with. If a person wants to have a gun to defend themselves or for hunting or other legal purposes they should be allowed to, with appropriate training classes.

It is a good thing that Kildorn never once advocated banning all firearms in the polite discussion that he was busy having while you were busy plying your trade as the world's worst carpenter.

Plenty of people can be responsible gun owners, but in order for that to happen we need to increase the fuck out of regulation and enforcement. That's the problem. I have no basic issue with guns. I have issues with people who treat them as alternatively toys or extensions of their penis.

MA has pretty low gun crime rates IIRC. It has nothing to do with their idiotic rules on guns (mag sizes and the like) and more to do with the licensing requirements and mandated safety courses, and re-licensing every five years. But beyond that we need to determine "for other legal purposes" to decide what weapons and ammunition should be legal to own, what registration should be required, etc. Hell, for starters we should ban straw purchases and put in place a way to resell that is tracked properly, and randomly audit people for owned weapons. "Hi, the list says you own these five weapons. Can we see them?" would rapidly reduce the number of people reselling without using an official transfer system.

It's really just the issue that for some reason we put less effort into tracking and documenting them than we do cars.

Oh, Bryce, don't you know? "We need better regulations," when said by someone who clearly does not think guns are the best thing ever, is code. For BAN ALL THE GUNS.