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

Please accept my fucks as well, Sheepherder.

Do you require six months of therapy at a stretch? Hospitalization?

Then why aren't you serving your country, citizen?

Yes and yes.

And how many of those were required for you to not shoot somebody who didn't need shooting? As opposed to "this keeps me a balanced and happy individual."

Seriously, George W. Bush was in the Air National Guard, and he was AWOL getting high most of the time. If you only experience a psychotic break and shoot random people every seven months but are never convicted your chances are high good.

Legalese. As in "I've been in therapy for years, but I've only needed the odd session."

Or, you could dig out pretty much any documentary ever that even vaguely touched on recruiting practices.

You need to be vaguely coherent for six months straight, after that it's the military's problem. This is why I though a Starship Troopers reference was called for. Apparently not.

Because fuck you, day by day.

By Canadian law the $100 StackOn gun cabinets meet the minimum requirement as a locked cabinet. I bought a $400 safe from Costco -- it'll deter some punk who breaks into my apartment but I'm sure someone with a blowtorch can easily cut through the 3mm steel front. Now if I owned tens of thousands dollars worth of firearms I would invest in a bigger and stronger safe.

There's a case about seven years ago where a gun collector had 35 guns stolen when thieves waited until he left for a vacation to Florida for a few weeks. It took the thieves two days to break into the vault. The cops charged the gun owner for improper storage.

Tried that, it sucks. Each little bump burns with the agony of a thousand stab wounds. You know what else sucks? Getting a visit from your cousin, and learning that later that was was his curtain call: that he shot himself in the head shortly after. Try that for a mindfuck.

So yeah, I know depression sucks. I can still say you're not the intended target of that particular regulation. But hey, what do I know of depression, amirite?

Al Jazeera takes at Japan's gun control laws, one of the toughest in the industrialized countries.

3mm is 0.11811 inches (according to Google) I don't call a teeny bit more tenth on an inch a "safe" by any definition of the word. Especially considering a real gun safe is more than 2 inches (50.8mm) thick with fireproof material in the middle.

Congratulations, you just proved that thin metal is thin? I don't get your point. Are you even arguing with me? I apologize if not.

A 1,700 pound safe is not a "vault" it's in the higher ranges but "vault"? No.
I can't find any more details (other than he was living in subsidized housing and had no other security features in his apartment). I find it odd that the thieves used blowtorches and sledge hammers for two days and no one noticed (or that he was targeted in the first place unless someone knew about it. Safes are all about making the risk to reward ratio too high. This is negated if you know the reward is leagues higher than the risk)
And I can quote myself from earlier in the thread: nothing can stop the TRULY determined. Nothing. And laws can not be designed to stop the truly determined because they become insufferably oppressive to the average person just going about their day.
Nothing you just said was any sort of counter point to anything I said. Again: are we arguing? I can't tell.

And I'm not watching a 30 minute god damn video, just tell me what you think is relevant.

Whoa. I think by site rules those posts don't technically exist then.

I was actually browsing through various internet articles as you were responding. There's a waiver program for people with milder psychological problems that seemed like it was an in for people with manageable problems. And having completed some further digging apparently it just as fucked up as the rest of psych treatment in the USA.

I "liked" this to help cheer you up.

Also the "continual" part of the "psychotic breaks" part.

The 3mm is a number I'm just guestimating (without getting away from my computer and opening the safe) of the metal front, excluding the locking mechanism part, of the safe I have. No, I'm not arguing with you. It's better than having a cheap cabinet...

The video shows what heavy duty safes can withstand from thieves who have the proper tools that can foil mass market safes.

See, I think we need to be careful about making perfect the enemy of good, here. A storage law that makes weapons harder to steal but not perfectly safe is still an improvement over the status quo. The "A really dedicated thief could still get them" argument just isn't compelling. Sure they could. But so what? Are we really going to argue that any regulation that doesn't perfectly stop all gun violence is worthless? (Note: I'm not implying that you are making this argument, Eric--I'm just speaking generally to those that have). Here's a counter-question to those that think that a secure storage law would be pointless because a resourceful thief could foil it: do you lock your house when you go out? If so, why do you bother? A thief could just break a window, after all.

It seems to me like you and Sheepherder are talking about this from opposite directions, and you've taken his disdain for generally sloppy/meaningless recruiting standards as a disregard for the vast differences between different kinds of things that fit under mental health issues. The standards as written aren't enforced (ask anyone who has lied and lied and lied in the drug use sections, which is pretty standard, and there are plenty of diagnosed medical conditions that get by on the collusion between recruiters and recruits), and I suspect you would both agree that there is a woeful lack of concern over detail and nuance in the military's approach to discerning mental health qualifications. If nothing else, it does demonstrate that there isn't a pre-existing mold of disqualifications for gun ownership that can just be carried over to a hypothetical gun law in the same way that other, less charged issues have been dealt with in the past.

FWIW I think Mrs. Widget simply overrated the degree of granularity that the military applies to mental health in recruitment, which is different from the ghettoization of mental health issues people that could be read into her point.In fact, it's possible she was thinking of it much more in terms of training and safety questions rather than recruitment standards per se. It was not an idea that I would approve in a million years, but I think the offense is unintentional.

The handful of people I've talked to in pursuit of secure storage for my firearms have told me that until you start spending a couple thousand dollars, safes/cabinets are really only effective for keeping honest people out. I ended up opting for putting a lock on one of my closets rather than a cabinet, as it fulfills my purposes for child-proofness and doesn't scream HAY THAR'S GUNS IN HERE to someone who might happen to break in.

Nah, 8-9 hundred would do just fine (and if it's just for handguns even less). Just be sure to get a reputable brand (American Security not Sentry) with a fire rating, have it bolted to the floor, and anyone who just happens to break in is not going to touch it. I mean why spend days trying to break into a safe when you can grab the TV and run?
You don't even need a "burglary rating" or more than a half hour fire rating really, those are mostly insurance reducers.

3mm IS a cheap cabinet.
We aren't arguing? Ok :)

Ah, yes, safes have basic but effective security. In fact higher end safes have actually evolved further methods that you'd NEVER see in any video and mass market safes, at one point, evolved further but quickly devolved because it just wasn't necessary.

As someone who studied Anthropology, I am well acquainted with comparative analysis and its usage. I never said it can't be used in this situation, I said that using Australia as a point of comparison when discussing gun control in the US is, as you mentioned, a naive comparison. On the grounds of cultural, political and historical differences, it is very difficult to extrapolate from the Australian experience to what if anything could be done in the US. Many people have studied the issue and the biggest hurdle is two-fold: the second amendment protecting your individual right and the division over gun control in the US. In Australia we do not have that right and never did, and whilst there was some resistance when the changes were put in place, the majority supported it. The attitude towards the issue amongst the populations is vastly different.

I strongly believe that the US needs to change its stance on gun control. I would love to see your country do what we did, but every time I look at the comments section of almost every article on the issue, or the latest comments from the NRA, I'm reminded of why it's not likely to happen any time soon.

Not insanity; it's but a snake oil salesman's routine.

Perfectly cynical on the other hand, but that's another story.

You know, I really can't know how the general public will receive the NRA's statement, but my feeling is it might backfire. Yes there are a great many people who love their guns more than, um, thinking, and will lap up all of that nonsense. But I should think there's a much larger group who are pro-gun ownership in general but do quite like thinking, and as such won't possibly be okay with "put officers in every school" stuff.

I was kind of surprised really. The NRA are one of the most effective lobby groups in the country, but I didn't see much political savvy on display. It's one thing making those sort of statements to your die-hard members, quite another to try to convince a nation you're right.

It's more of an argument that the Canadian Crown from the links I posted. They've been looking for different ways of reading the vague law to go after gun owners for improper storage. Legally, firearms and ammo have to be stored separately but the law doesn't say if they have to be in separate safes/locked ammo cans or just a few centimeters from each other in the same safe. I think my firearms and ammo meet the requirements but a firearms officer who inspects it may think otherwise if they see loaded magazines next to my rifles.

The current storage laws doesn't go into detail on the degree of storage other than for Restricted firearms (eg. pistols and AR-15 rifles) they must be stored in at least a gun cabinet and Non-Restricted firearms (shotguns and long-barrel rifles) have to be trigger locked.

I don't know offhand how many legal firearms are stolen each year but I can safely assume there are very few accidental shooting in Canadians homes compared to the US due to the strict Canadian gun safety and storage laws.

Adding locking your house or adding additional security (eg. motion detector alarm) isn't required by law but it will affect your insurance premiums.

We have certain laws, like mandatory wearing of seat belts, to help save lives, even though die-hard libertarians may have issue with those laws. I prefer to have secure storage laws than none at all -- I don't want to see guns stolen and fall into the hands of criminals (most gangs want pistols for easy concealment).

I'm realistic that my $400 Costco safe is good against the average burglar (the thing weighs 300lbs empty) and other unauthorized persons (eg. kids). But if I could afford an $10,000 AI sniper rifle I would invest in a better safe.

The division is pretty strong, but time is showing a downward trend in ownership rates (which at least hints at changes in opinion on guns). See here. Home gun owners are already a minority, and Democratic ownership will likely continue to dwindle. If demographic trends hold, you may see that majority of non-owners grow even larger (on the D side, at least), facilitating real change going forward. Honestly, I think we could see movement on it within the next 20-25 years or so, but that may just be me being optimistic.

I caught this link elsewhere and didn't see it posted in this thread, so here ya go.

Gun Rhetoric vs. Gun Facts
http://factcheck.org/2012/12/gun-rhetoric-vs-gun-facts/

The mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., has reignited a national debate on gun control. As elected leaders begin the dialogue, some facts are clear — there has been a massive increase in gun sales. Some things are not so clear — such as whether there is causation between more guns and more violent crimes. And some are contrary to the general impression — for example, the rate of gun murders is down, not up.

We have decided to look at some of the rhetoric and how it squares with the facts, while offering some broader context to inform the debate.

Not without a warrant (or duly issued tax audit, which is basically a warrant) they can't.

This is one of my favorite terms in all language. That's all.

We'll cut more salaries from those deadbeat, fat-cat teachers!

I'm with Brett. I love how it is the gun lobby one always sees at the front of civil liberties marches, protests trying to get the state out of deciding on who one may shag or marry, and actions against state-supported monopolies. There isn't a day that goes by that we all shouldn't count the important freedoms and liberties gun owners have provided us all.

BING

How you got that bunch of BS sarcasm from my response to a specific question is mind boggling. I was responding a specific question about if the founding fathers would have still had the second amendment if guns like we have today existed then. And like it or not what I said is one of the major reason THEY put the second amendment in.

And also with 200 million or so guns in America I would also say that many gun owners DO support civil liberties and the causes you are talking about

The NRA defends brett's right to not use commas.

"America had 11,000 gun-related homicides in 2008. Japan had 11. Does anyone know if they play video games in Japan?" @JensenClan88

— Bill Gross (@Bill_Gross) December 22, 2012