Rant Gun Control?

No need for firearms if all they are meant for is breaking laws.
No need for motorcycles or cars that exceed the speed limit, they are meant for breaking laws. Maybe we could register and licence sports vehichles that can be kept at tracks, and worked on at registered garages only though.
No need for PC's they are used for piracy and breaking laws, Xbox/PS3/WII for games, and cell phones for email.
No need for private swimming pools, unsupervised kids can drown in them, public regulated pools will suffice.
No need for Bars and Pubs, they encourage drinking which increases bad/illegal behavior.

Etc.... why ban something to control something that is allready illegal? Increase fine/punishments for the illegal actions.

First degree murder? 20 year minimum sentence. Doing so with a firearm? 30 year minimum. No negotiating away gun charges like is commonly done now.

 

Not a bad idea actually.

The reason why I wouldn't like banning guns is the same reason why people will start lobbying for other bans..

 

I know in Florida we have the 10-20-life law.

10yrs mandatory if you commit a crime with a gun
20yrs mandatory if you pull the trigger at any time
25-Life mandatory if you hit someone whether they die or not.

And it is consecutive depending on any other crimes you commit at the time.

 

The tools most of us modders own are sufficient to manufacture a firearm. We should ban drill presses and lathes.

john

 

lets outlaw metal.

 

lol contradiction much?

I presume in the US you need a driving licence and have to register your car? Do you see that as a huge invasion of your civil liberties? Yet you see registering a gun which is made solely for killing as your government over stepping the mark.

 

indeed, lets outlaw metallica.

 

War's havent been started over cars and cars arent specifically mentioned in the founding documents of our country.

Also, I can own as many cars as I want, I can buy as many as I want in any given time period and if I keep them on my private property, or someone elses private property its 100% legal to drive them without registration or tags.

Its close to the same with guns in the US at the moment. You can buy as you like, depending on state regulations. If you wanna carry the gun in public (concealed...) you need a license, same as you need a license for a car. Should there be concealed carry permits/licenses? Yes of course, too many dumb/immature people who would end up hurting someone else negligently, and it provides a quick means of showing that this person should is OK to be carrying a firearm. But the licesnses should be freely availble (along with the class, at a low cost... no week long $5000 classes to qualify) to anyone who qualifies, rather then to just a select few. Some qualifications would be:

-Not a felon
-Not suffering from a mental illness that would make you unsutable to carry a firearm, or past history of certain kinds of mental illness as applicable. (I.E. ADHD wouldnt disqualify someone, severe depression would disqualify them while they suffer from it, but not afterwards, etc...)
-short safety class with hands-on training where student must actually demonstrate that they arent a total pin-head.
-short legal class (most likely part of the safety class)
-over 21 or whatever legal purchase age for the firearm youre going to conceal.


Would you feel it was an invasion of your civil liberties if you had to be licesnsed to drive an ATV/quad on your own property?

Would you feel it was an invasion of your civil liberties if you had to take a hour long computer security class every 6 months or else you wouldnt be allowed to use your internet connection?

 

Nope. I think it is reasonable that you have the necessary skills to operate dangerous machinery.

Yes i would but my internet connection is not designed to kill things.

On the subject of your countries founding documents they were written at the time of muskets. If automatic weapons had been available at the time it might have been worded differently. I'm not anti gun ownership but i find this unwillingness to have registered fire arms really odd.

 

ConKbot, considering that the job of a gun is to destroy the object in front of it or to deter people from destroying you, and that the job of a car is to transport people and objects, which one of the should have more regulation in a civilized society?

The process should be paid by who? the tax payer?

More or less what they want to do with the law, plus the fact you have to register the weapon, but if you don't intend to use it to go around and kill someone then you don't have nothing to hide, therefore you loose nothing by registering your weapon.

why the hell would i want a vehicle that was limited to my own property? You don't need a licence to drive an ATV/quad on your own property, but it sure is useful to be able to take it outside your property and get something from the main road.

If computers and the internet were able to kill (i press a sequence of buttons and be able to kill you on the other side of the planet), yes i would like it if we had to take a hour long computer security class every 6 months.

 

Fair enough, if thats your opinion on that. I think that on my own land I should be free to ride a dirtbike or quad, shoot my gun (into a proper backstop of course), all 3 activities there pose minimal threat to others, and if the operator wants to assume the risk of those activities, thats up to them. So I guess that point comes down to 'is it ok for me to do what I want if I'm not endangering someone else?' which would be a whole 'nother thread

But what about worms and stuff like conflicker etc... what if someone used a botnet like that to attack something like a traffic light control center, take down DNS servers, stock exchanges etc... I think we both can agree that it would be better if more people were more aware of threats online, how to install an antivirus, run anti-spyware software etc...

Muskets were the most lethal weapons for an individual soldier at the time, and for hunting/survival I'm sure they could have done fine with shotguns. But the constitution didnt specifiy "hunting weapons, or sporting weapons" and I'm not proposing that full auto firearms should be freely availible as handguns.
As far as registration, its been used in the past before confiscation, why should we let a party who wants to get rid of firearms implement registration?
Mugger comes up to you and demands you wallet, you say no, then he asks to just see inside your wallet, do you let him?

"Just the tip just for a second to see how it feels?"

I aim my car at a crosswalk full of people, or drive up on the sidewalk, or at kids getting off a bus, its plenty easy to use a car illegaly for harm of others also. I can use a baseball bat to hit a ball or smash in someones head, same with kitchen knives, hammers, large sticks, golf clubs, lumber, rocks, large clods of dirt and more. There is plenty of non evil entertainment uses for firearms. Yeah its portrayed in movies and tv mainly for killing people, why? because no one would find it entertaining to sit and watch a target shooting match on tv.

Misunderstanding there, I meant freely as in not next to impossible to get, I would imagine a the training class would be $50 or so, (with a class size of 20 or so it wouldnt be that hard for it to pay for itself) and annual fee of $10-20, nothing more then to take care of the registration program, not so large as to be a tax to deter people from it.

already addressed registration further up. If you dont have anything to hide I'm sure you wouldnt mind the police checking your papers if youre out past a cerfew or look slightly suspicious in any way.

A farmer with 200 acres of field could use a farm truck that could stay on the farm, or if is a race car which you tow to the track, why would you waste money on registering it, if it never is driven on public streets?

See above.


Ok enough mega post I know there is a character limit somewhere...

 

That is why you are forced to register your car! if you commit a crime with your car it is simple to link the crime to you. You are also forced to take the driver licence, in certain places you have to pass a psychological and physical exam to drive a car, here you have to do psychological and physical exams to drive a Bus or a truck. Plus the fact that a car is a little bit more expensive than a gun, i think.

Please compare the lethality of a baseball bat, kitchen knives, hammers, large sticks, golf clubs, lumber, rocks and large clods of dirt compared to a shotgun or a pistol in the hands of a normal human.

Of course there are plenty of non evil entertainment uses for firearms, how many of them don't involve putting a bullet into another object in order to pierce that object? Can you please list the non destructive uses for a gun?

i agree.

i agree, by the way, what is the penalization for driving a car without registration on the public streets over there?

what i find interesting is that that farmer has to have 2 trucks, one to transport things inside the farm, and another to do the exact same things outside of the farm.

around here you have tractors to transport things inside the farm, they are considered and registered as agricultural equipment.

i think a gun is a little bit more effective at creating havoc than a programming IDE when given to the vast majority of people.... think about it... you give a gun to a random person and say: "point this hole to what you want to make a hole in and pull that thing over there", most of the people that you will give this information and tool will be able to create some havoc.

now, give a computer, programming tools, a link to the internet and tutorials to the same people and ask them to make a botnet, virus or worm... what do you think will be the effect of this?

the lethality of computers and internet is only present when you put these tools in the hands of extremely capable people (unless they go postal with the computer and wires and start bashing people with the computer case and choking people with the cables), a gun is lethal (most of the time to the user) in the hands of about everyone that can hold a gun...

edit: as for people not knowing that they need to install protection on their computer... i think that the only people that think like that are mac users...

i have seen far larger and far more tedious posts...

what i find amazing is that some people want to buy a gun as freely as if they were buying a kettle... that makes absolutely no sense, even if it says in the constitution that you are allowed to have gun, some rules have to apply, weapons have grown hugely in lethality during the last 200 years and laws should have followed that trend.

 

It's simple. A gun is a tool that easily punches big holes in objects from a distance, and is designed and used to either kill (hunting) or for self-defense purposes. In unskilled or criminal hands it can very easily kill people.

Now, should there be some regulation on how people get to own one? Proficiency test? Screen for criminal convictions? Should there be some way of keeping track of them?

Take any other potentially highly dangerous object: cars, poisons, radioactive isotopes, even some medications and medical equipment --all of that stuff is registered and you need training and a licence to use them. So why should guns be any different?

Guns are not toasters, nor are they fashion accessories or personal expressions of your freedom, independence and what a bad-ass you'd be if anyone ever thought of mugging or burgling you. They are potentially lethal tools, that should be registered and kept by trained, licenced, law-abiding and balanced individuals only. Anyone who objects to that is not responsible enough to own a gun in the first place.

 

If you want to take the car in public, not forced to register for private use.

In a fit of rage as has been mentioned in earlier posts by other people, a bat or knives could be quite lethal. One good crack from a bat to someone's head and they could be on the way to death from brain swelling, one quick stab or slice to a major artery, and the person is gonna bleed out, even if you immediately change your mind as soon as you do it.
yes firearms are more lethal, hence why the military uses them and not rocks and bats. Not denying that, just saying that if you want to ban something because it can be dangerous, you got a large list of stuff to work on.

I would call target shooting far from destructive, but yes youre right, almost all the time firearms are used to punch holes in things. I would hope poking holes in paper doesnt hurt your sensibilities however.

Your car gets impounded and you get a nice ticket. If you are caught concealing a weapon, the weapon is confiscated, and youre arrested on the spot, charged with what I believe would be a felony, and if convicted, no more firearms for them. More serious punishment for a more serious offense

I'm sure a farmer wouldnt buy two trucks, but if he had a pickup truck that ran but failed emissions/inspection so he couldnt drive it on the road, there is no reason he couldnt keep it on his property for use there. Some states require inspection every 2 years, and more then a little body rust is enough to fail the inspection.
I'm not sure what goes on with farm equipment here as far as combines and tractors. I'm pretty sure Ive never seen a tractor with a license plate on it, but I know I have seen pickups with agriculture tags

Ive also seen junk yards that had old POS trucks they used for driving around the yard. Door wouldnt latch, no seatbelt, turned on with no key, belched smoke etc...

again, I go back to should you ban something because its dangerous when misused or should you punish people severly for misusing something? Why punish and tax legitimate users when you could punish and tax the misusers?

Like I said, 1st degree murder with a firearm? 30 years minimum. If the convict is 20 when they go in, they are 50 when they come out. That is some serious time, 50 years old and no life, and no welfare (how it should be for a felon) job center to help place them in jobs yes, welfare? no. Dont think that person is going to be much of a threat to society anymore, especially since they are banned from owning a firearm, so even having one would be back to jail for them.

Freely as a kitchen appliance? No, the NICS instant background check is fine by me. Easy and quick way to make sure the person buying is not a felon, fugitive of the law etc... No different then a credit check for getting a loan. Dealers are allready licensed and a form 4473 is filled out with each sale of a firearm, which gets forwarded to the ATF. If a gun is found at a crime scene, the serial number can be followed up on, unless of course the criminal purchased the gun from an illegal source or stole it. But why would a criminal break the law to get a gun?

As far as "growing hugely" I'd beg to differ, The maxim machine gun (first machine gun) was invented in 1884, The broomhandle mauser (early semi-auto pistol) in 1899. the M1 garand (first military issued semi-auto rifle) in 1936. While stuff has become more reliable, use new materials, and may even look more scary to some people, the kinds firearms available to the general public are still the same ones they were almost 100 years ago, semi-auto rifles, semi-auto pistols.

It varyies by state, but in the one I live in, you are required to have a training class or be ex military (honorable discharge) or current or ex law enforcement. Same with hunters safety classes. People who are mentally unfit, or criminals are already in violation of the law and unable to buy guns from an FFL, so why would having to get a licesnse make it any different for them?

I dont know if some people get the impresson that you walk into gun shops here and walk out with weapons no questions asked, but its not true, there is 3 pages of forms I have to fill out to buy a handgun or even the reciever for a gun. Even at gun shows you're filling out paperwork and they dealer is calling in to NICS for an instant check.

Responsible and safe firearms owners shouldnt be punished or hassled or have an everwatching eye on them because of the actions of others.


edit, nexxo snuck one in...

target shooting is something that more then a few people enjoy, a lot of people seem to think hunting as the only sporting use however. Similar to martial arts, its about control of mind and body, both have the potential for misuse. Cant say I can blame someone who hasnt actually gone to a range to shoot for recreation however, its not like you ever see that on the news etc... "group of firearms owners at range, all went well, everyone went home without mishap..."

yes

I'd not be opposed to the purchaser having to demonstrate to the dealer they they know basic firearms safety

already is and should be there for sure.

They are allready serialized and record of your purchase gets sent to the ATF on the form 4473

They do take responsibility and I agree that someone demonstrating that they pose a danger to others doesnt deserve to be in possession. But where that line is drawn in the fuzzy part. What is 'balanced'? what if someone decides they think all ron paul supporters are whack jobs?
In an ideal situation, licensing could be fine. But in real life, it would be too easy to be corrupted to make it harder for legitimate owners to purchase guns, or people to target because of political points of views etc..

But anyway... I'm done for the afternoon.

 

Contrary to you might think i also like to use a gun, i have a compressed air pistol that i use for target practice from time to time.

http://www.gamo.co.uk/af_10.htm

 

Are you kidding? Its not the fact that I am afraid of what they would do, its the fact that they are trying to do it! The mere chance of them coming to my home right now to confiscate my guns is unthinkable, but I will defend my right as an American to bear arms even if it meant that I had to use them against my own country (my point of the government fearing the people).

What concerns me is the liberal left that points guns out as nothing but tools of death. Hogwash! Until you have actually fired/owned/maintained a gun, you will not see my point of recreational use. I had a blast (no pun intended) a few weekends ago shooting with my family. Did some clay shooting, rifle and pistol. It was a lot of fun! And guess what? No one was killed. Even my 9 and 10 year old nieces and nephews were shooting.

Anyway... this topic just infuriates me...

 

But if you gave your guns to the goverment, you wouldn't need guns to keep the government from taking your guns...

 

Then we'd be like the UK and the government would have more control, which it shouldn't because the people are the rulers of this country not the government.

 

Yes, first they'd take your guns, then they'd come round to your house and shoot you, since you have nothing to shoot back with. Can you imagine?!

Now where did I put my tinfoil hat?

 

Tinfoil is overrated. I prefer copper. The blocking of radio waves keeps my PTSD from acting up.