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

Ok, cool:

• All gun owners now must be licensed like drivers.
• All gun owners must carry gun liability insurance

Wait, what?

• Must register and report ammo purchases. Only purchase max 500 rounds.
• 10 round magazine limit

DA FUQ

• ALL magazines must be fixed to the gun (can not be removed without the use of a tool)
• Changing definition of shotgun revolving cylinder — Basically only single shot shotguns will remain legal.

I think what they should add is a routine mental health check every X years. Fail it, get a chance to appeal, then lose your right to own guns.


That magazines/shotgun stuff is just weird.

Please excuse me while I grab my tool so I can remove my magazine. In the meantime, feel free to kill me.

Yeah. I said it. I have to grab my tool to remove my magazine. This is going to be so fun.

Meh, its stupid because the gun makers will engineer a way around it in like a month.

Does the "bullet button" affect handguns or just rifles?

It looks like there's a simple work around "bullet button."

Tyranny. Really? Fuck the planet, where's my space ship?

If bullet buttons are to become illegal, period, then what he's doing in that video (the work-around as it were) is no longer an option because just having the button on the gun is now illegal. Unless there's something else involved, but it seems to me that they're closing the loophole that this guy is using.

And hey, all those large magazines gun nuts stocked up on are now illegal to possess. No grandfathering.

Don't know if this has been brought up, but can't they just change the bullets to something that would knock you on your ass but not kill you?

Those already exist, but home defense gun owners don't want them. I'm interpolating from other conversations, so feel free to correct me, but I believe the reasoning is that if someone's threatening your life you don't want to take a half-measure that could leave them still capable of killing you. Do the job right or not at all, so to speak.

Not really. Less lethal rounds will be either too slow and unreliable to stop threats or too fast and still be able to cause grievous harm. Rubber bullets and bean bags shotgun rounds are typically effective against the lesser committed criminals, but if they hit certain sensitive areas they can cause great bodily damage or even death.

There is also the problem of the legal difficulties that will follow a "shoot to wound" situation. Potentially a civillian using a bean bag shotgun round against a perpetrator could face criminal assault charges and a heavy financial civil suit.

Warning shots are big no-no as well. Civil suits aside, our criminal legal system punishes you less if the perpetrator dies in a self defense gun use at least before Castle Doctrine and SYG laws. Most importantly, you never shoot to warn, wound, or kill. You shoot to stop a threat.

Edit to add recent case where a woman fired a warning shot and was sentenced to 20 years: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/justice/florida-stand-ground-sentencing

No, they can't.

The human body is not terribly robust. In terms of ability to take punishment from firearms humans rank with the upper end of small game: most modern military rifles fire cartridges which are considered too underpowered to hunt deer.

Fixed magazines under a given size isn't a bad idea if your objective is to stop spree shooters. It puts pretty effective diminishing returns on the total number of people you can shoot with a given amount of ammunition, unless you fancy buying and carrying 20 handguns to pull off something on the scale of Virginia Tech.

If you need to shoot more than 3-10 rapists at a time invading your house you wife must be really, really hot; way to go, you! For that purpose I recommend an M1 Garand: the en bloc clip is pretty quick to swap.

Hi jerk.

This is actually a very amusing natural experiment! Your post got six likes, mine got two. Variables:
- One is in the Sanctum, one in D&D.
- You're you and I'm me.

Fascinating!

http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/news/2013-02-07-proposals-curb-gun-violence

TL;DR: You shouldn't get your talking points from fucking crazy people who can't or won't differentiate between a magazine that needs tools to be removed and a magazine that needs tools to be opened.

I didn't check that thread, it was titled the boring thread about gun science!

Yeah, I figured.
I'm sure they could come up with some form of tranquilizer gun or stun gun, but people would never go for anything like that, especially in our culture.

NRA spokesmen are borderline PETA nutso with their rhetoric. It's like a bunch of people sitting around talking about owning cats, and most people are agreeing that cats are awesome but finicky little bitches that need care and attention with a few smattering of people saying they hate cats but whatevs, and then some PETA whacko screeches FREE ALL ANIMALS FROM SLAVERY and tries to throw blood on you but it misses and it splashes on some innocent kids way over there and FOR FUCK'S SAKE, WHO'S APPLAUDING THIS SHIT

We need to throw more money into Phaser development. =)

Yeah, I talked to a gun nut from Texas (redundant) who told me he was told in a self-defense gun class to always completely unload your clip and at least fake hyperventilating/agitation when the cops show up. If your first shot hits the dude between the eyes and then you act all cool when the cops show up, you're getting charged for murder.

Then that Texan is incredibly stupid and so is who ever told him this.

I hope he doesn't actually believe that and is just posturing like many gun store rambos do.

Well then



EDIT: Otterloop posted this in the Comics thread before I posted it here, credit where credit is due etc.

They have them, they're called tranquilizer and stun guns. They're pretty much neither here nor there in the gun debate unless you're willing to ban hunting, forbid farmers from keeping nuisance animals like prairie dogs in check, close the national parks, and let the pigs have the south (huge improvement). Failing that, you have to take as a given that people have ready access to ammunition which is easily capable of killing a human.

Tangentially related: the attempted citywide ban(s) on hollow point bullets is moronic. Partially because it very likely won't work. Partially because the entire point of hollow point bullets is to make sure it doesn't over-penetrate the target: they are a good deal safer for everyone you don't intend to shoot.

I'm surprised that one didn't merit a "WHATTHELOVINGFUCK?" from MatthewF.

California's got some pretty restrictive gun laws anyway (possibly only behind New York; FrankA 's gone over this in the open carry thread). I don't think these laws do much (and most of them don't do anything) to stop the bulk of firearm killings in the US, but in the interest of getting my chain-quote quota out of the way early in the year I'll go though this list.

Again, this is a guy from reddit, so with that caveat:

Not helping anything but probably will stand a court challenge. I have no clue what "assault bullets" are going to encompass. Not going to help with the bulk of gun violence.

I actually like this part assuming the sellers of ammo are going to have to report this stuff but the round limit is stupid; just register purchases. Probably will survive a court challenge; wouldn't mind seeing it enacted in my state with the round limit removed.

Might help with spree shooters; I don't personally own a gun with a larger than 10 round magazine. Not going to help with the bulk of gun violence.

I see what they're wanting to do but it's not going to work that way. Spree shooters will just bring more guns and it's not going to cut down on the bulk of gun violence. Given some of the other stuff in California's current gun laws it might stand up to court review.

At some point this was going to happen. I don't agree with it necessarily (my personal option would be to have something like the NFA; tax and regulate the hell out of it) but again, this does nothing to stop either spree shooters or the bulk of gun violence. I'm not sure if this would stand up to a court challenge.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of shotguns in California would be legal under this; the semi-auto one I've got would. Maybe does something to stop spree shooters (don't know of any offhand that walked around with a drum-fed shotgun but I'm sure someone's going to link me to one), doesn't do anything for the bulk of gun violence. If the magazine restriction stands up in court I'm pretty sure this will.

See magazine tool writeup (sue me, I'm shooting vodka over here)

I'm opposed to this just like I'm opposed to Voter ID laws. I know what they're wanting to do but mandatory registration does the same thing. Unless the state is handing these out for free I hope it'll end up like Voter ID legislation.

I'm not opposed to this, but I think it will be struck down if it's not cheap (and is California trying to increase NRA membership?) if it's not inexpensive and/or rolled into homeowners/renters insurance.

I liked the Gun Gripe channel until they got all political with the gun ban scare (they even made a video to justify why they're raising prices of their guns and accessories -- "It's capitalism!" -- with everyone fearing a gun ban).

Here they talk about gun safety and how many of their customers break the gun safety rules when entering their gun store.

With regards to the insurance thing, are there any other organizations trying to do the thing the NRA did with pooled liability gun insurance? Or is the cost prohibitive (e.g., it's essentially a loss-leader for the NRA to get more members on the rolls, with the money really coming from companies / the firearms industry)?

3 minutes of this fucking redneck monkey explaining the definition of two elementary words to their viewers and then a minute of unironically talking about discharging weapons unintentionally four times in his life, somehow not killing or injuring anyone else, and I'm supposed to listen to this chucklefuck bullshit? Fuck off, dude.

I thought the guy on the left lost all credibility after his comments on nazis in Cannes.

Barry (the older guy) said he intentionally pulled the trigger in an unsafe manner and he admitted he was younger, stupid, and drunk. But that he's older and not so stupid (I don't know about the drunk part) he hasn't had a negligent discharge in about 30 years.

What they do say in the video is quite telling that a lot of their customers don't know or follow the gun safety rules nor treat their firearms with respect.They tell people to obey the simple gun safety rules. I'm surprised people aren't taught that in the US when they buy guns.

In Canada, intentional reckless discharge of a firearm in a place (building, vehicle, aircraft, etc.) is a criminal offense with sentences from 5 to 14 years.

Here in Canada, as part of the gun safety course we have to pass in order to apply for our gun license, we have to learn the PROVE rules. The rules apply when you're picking up a firearm or about to put it away. Right before a ceasefire at my range I go through these steps and open the action so the Range Officers can make sure I followed the rules and that there is no round in the chamber.

• Point the firearm in the safest available direction.
• Remove all cartridges.
• Observe the chamber.
• Verify the feeding path.
• Examine the bore.

The Range Officers have told me that people have pointed firearms at them, probably when they sweep the gun when they turn around, breaking the rule of pointing the firearms in a safe direction. If you are going to turn around with a firearm in your hand you are suppose to point the gun up. When people sign up to be a member of the club they have to pass a safety course and they are on probation until the ROs verified they have had six safe visits.

I don't know where in the video you're referring to.

He looks like Lars von Trier .

And he should have been put in jail the first four times and had any ability to have a license revoked.

The New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police plans to raffle off one gun every day in May in order to raise $30,000 for a police cadet training academy for 14- to 20-year-olds. An anti-gun critic is willing to give $30,000 to buy all 31 guys and have them returned to the police to be destroyed.

Some interesting posts on Volokh.com lately about gun restrictions.

http://www.volokh.com/2013/02/12/my-letter-to-ted-cruz-on-gun-control-proposals/

http://www.volokh.com/2013/02/11/le...onal-issues-in-federal-gun-control-proposals/

Like I've said before, I don't own any firearms beyond a pellet gun I haven't touched in years. I'm not particularly opposed to gun control but I remain extremely skeptical that it will accomplish anything.

I know the bloggers on Volokh are all libertarians but some of the arguments they provide do seem pretty convincing to me. I despise the tendency of our politicians to fool us into thinking they are doing a good job by passing meaningless laws that have either no effect or that make things worse.

The current proposals strike me as being very likely to fall into this category.

This is probably a terrible analogy, but when you design software you design for the rule rather than the exception at least to start. You design something that covers the most possible ground and then you only start thinking about the exception cases when you've covered the obvious and valuable cases.

If we were going to apply this approach to gun control we would start by repealing the second amendment because the only proven way to reduce gun crime is to start with a gun ban. (I'm assuming this has been pretty amply demonstrated by various countries.)

We would then start crafting exception cases that would allow firearm ownership under certain conditions and with certain safeguards (licenses, checks, insurance, etc)

I think we can all agree that there's no way that's going to happen. Given that we are fundamentally prevented from solving the problem it makes very little sense to me to chip away at the exceptions in a manner that's likely to be ineffective.

They shouldn't be. Quite a bit of it is chaff ("but some guns fire a more deadly cartridge!") and quite a bit of it is flat-out wrong ("Barrel shrouds and T handles make the gun more accurate, this prevents injuries to bystanders!") All of it is disingenuous bullshit.

Let's use barrel shrouds as an example here: they go around a relatively lightweight barrel and prevent you from burning your hand when you discharge the firearm multiple times in succession. The alternative is to use a thicker barrel, possibly fluted for greater surface area / heat dissipation. There are two major groups of shooters which tend to go through a lot of ammunition in short periods of time: target shooters and infantry. Which one do you supposed gets put to use by target shooters, and which do you suppose gets put to use by infantry? Which one is an obvious proxy for "this weapon might be well suited for shooting lots of people in a CQB-like situation?"

Argue your right to own a Carl Gustav under the second amendment if you want. But once you start trotting out red herrings or omitting important details from an argument I will fucking cut you.

The Chicago police chief calls law-abiding gun owners corrupt who endanger public safety.

The text you're quoting there is really not worded well, but his point about lobbying and special interests does sort of stand. I wouldn't have gone with "corruption" but, eh.

At this point, arming every citizen in south Chicago and teaching them how to shoot might be an improvement.

That is a completely ludicrous rephrasing of the chief's statement.

This belongs here and not in Otterloops weird ghetto-thread:

New York Daily News call out LaPierre for lying

NRA chief LaPierre claims 'looters ran wild in south Brooklyn' after Sandy, but Coney Island residents say he is full of it.
To bolster his argument against gun control, NRA chief Wayne LaPierre fabricated a ‘hellish’ post-Sandy aftermath for south Brooklyn that never happened. He seems to forget that some New Yorkers were actually there.
“There was no food, water or electricity,” LaPierre wrote. “And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.”

It sounded good. Too bad it’s not true, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

“(In) the 60th Precinct in Coney Island, it was hardly hell week — there were no murders, no rapes and no shootings,” he said.
The same was true in the neighboring 61st Precinct, where there were no murders, rapes or shootings.
There was a big spike in burglaries, as criminals picked through abandoned homes, Browne said. But all other crime categories were down.
Shootings were down 17%. Rape was down 47%. Robberies were down 22%. Assaults were down 18%. Grand larceny was down 45%. And car thefts were down 22%.
Overall, crime fell by 25%.

And Browne delivered another inconvenient truth for the NRA man — the city actually went a record eight straight days without a single murder.

A lot of people are very, very deeply stupid even when taught. It was a formative shock to me around 13ish at a hunter's safety course (mandatory in the state for a license) how very common sense literally all of it was. Then there was a multiple choice test that was grotesquely easy, with questions along the lines of:

Q: It's deer season. While hunting, you hear rustling in the bushes. You think it might be a deer. What's the proper thing to do?
A: Immediately aim your weapon with finger on the trigger safety off, so you can open fire the moment the deer emerges.
B: Do not aim at the target until you can see it clearly and know it's a deer.
C: Fire aimlessly in all directions while screaming YEEHAW!

Q: What is a safe way of carrying a rifle in this situation. (Diagram of a three hunters line abreast, a "YOU" arrow on the middle one.)
A: (Diagram of you with rifle barrel inserted into the ear of the hunter on your left.)
B: (Diagram of you with rifle barrel inserted down the pants of hunter on your right.)
C: (Diagram of you with rifle barrel in your mouth, hopping on one foot with the toe of your other foot on the trigger.)
D: (Diagram of safely carrying the damn thing.)

So I took the entire thing with a general feeling of "seriously?" And the real formative shock was getting the quiz back, obviously getting a hundred on it and being unsurprised. And then some other folks there being awestruck at how high the score is, after they'd just barely passed.

I think that's when I realized that humanity is a doomed species.

Yeah, I was a sargent in our Civil Service, so I only trained conscripts in firefighting, first aid and rescue - some of them was truly stupid and I was just happy that they ended up in our branch and not one of the ones with access to firearms.

After a guy working with a wounded person on the second floor of a ruin shouts "Could you get me that hammer?" and another throws it through the window denting his steel helmet, you lose faith.

Maybe they were trying to get out of mandatory service?