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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) jblaque | |
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Three questions for the readers of this journal (for which I will explain my asking reason in an upcoming post): 1) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "It's not about my ability to hunt. It's not about the ability for me to protect my family and property against criminals. It's all about us protecting ourselves from a tyrannical government of the United States." 2) Which of the following do you consiider to be reasonable, general public weapon restrictions? • Reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 • Ban on fully automatic weapons • Ban on hand grenades, RPGs, mortars, missile launchers and certain types of high-powered ammunition • Ban on high capacity ammo magazines/clips (defined as any mag that holds more than 10 rounds) •Ban on gun possession within 300 yards of a school• Raising the legal age of gun purchase/ownership from 18 to 21, nationwide • Requiring instant background checks at gun shows, nationwide • Requiring trigger locks with all handgun sales, nationwide • Handgun purchase limit of one per month, per person And lastly... 3) In the wake of the murder of 9-year-old Christina Green and others in Tucson, the issue of guns, gun violence and gun restriction is once again in the MSM spotlight, as well as at dinner tables across the country... Why, in your opinion, doesn't this very same issue receive even a fraction of public & media attention when children in places like Chicago, Detroit, St.Louis and Oakland are murdered with guns on a daily basis? Tags: guns, justice, law, reader poll, weapons
From: Chicago
Mood:  Contemplative
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1) I can see the point, I have some understanding of it, and I agree with it to some extent. However, the kind of person who says this is usually the kind of person who thinks Democrats=tyranny and Republicans (even ones who pass shit like the "Patriot" Act) = freedom, which IMHFO is pretty damn flawed logic.
2) I think I agree with all of those, although I'm willing to bend to 15 or so on the magazines. I don't know all the details of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 and I'm too tired to read it now, but from what I recall I'm generally cool with it.
3) I think the biggest reason is because the kids in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland, and so many other places who are murdered with guns are black, Latino, and/or poor. White people don't care if little brown kids get killed in ghettos. They do care if a kid like theirs (e.g. Christina Green) gets killed outside the Safeway. If white middle-class kids were being gunned down at the same rate as non-white poor kids, the GOP would be outracing the Dems to tighten gun laws, you betcha.
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1) Oddly, agree. Not because I think it's a good idea; it is and should be impossible without a general uprising. But governments behave better when they know that martial law without public permission is functionally impossible.
2) The assault weapons ban was a joke; a ban on weapons that look scary, not based on any actual measurement of stopping power, concealability, or any other useful or meaningful distinction. Fully automatic weapons are adequately regulated now. I don't know the status of current law on sub-question 4 well enough to comment. I do support limiting high-capacity clips the same way we limit automatic weapons now; in the event of a shooting war, you as a civilian partisan only need enough bullets to get you to a friendly arsenal or to kill and take the weapon from an enemy soldier. Location-based bans are stupid and unenforceable. Raising the age for gun ownership is stupid, and even if it weren't, why stop at 21 when you'd have to raise it to 25 or 30 to make a difference? Yes, plug the gun show loophole. What good are mandatory trigger locks if there's no law requiring people to use them? And yes, I think it should take a class 2 firearms license to buy more than one handgun per month.
3) If one politician hadn't been murdered in the process of attempting to assassinate another, Christina Green's murder would have disappeared from the national news by the end of the 2nd day. Attempted assassination is still rare enough to be nationally newsworthy. (For now.) Murder of any non-celebrity mostly isn't.
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1) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
"It's not about my ability to hunt. It's not about the ability for me to protect my family and property against criminals. It's all about us protecting ourselves from a tyrannical government of the United States."
While still a valid part of the necessary second amendment, it's a distant third to the other two based on the likelihood of actual occurrence.
2) Which of the following do you consiider to be reasonable, general public weapon restrictions?
• Reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994
Shit. No.
Completely ineffective, plus political suicide, plus probable revolution as a result.
• Ban on fully automatic weapons
The current level of restriction is sufficient: extensive scrutiny + extreme cost to own.
• Ban on hand grenades, RPGs, mortars, missile launchers and certain types of high-powered ammunition
The current level of restriction is sufficient: illegal.
Also, define 'certain types of high powered ammunition'.
25mm? 40mm? 50bmg?
• Ban on high capacity ammo magazines/clips (defined as any mag that holds more than 10 rounds)
The current level of restriction is sufficient: legal.
•Ban on gun possession within 300 yards of a school
Pointless. I shouldn't have to drive blocks out of my way to make the ignorant feel better.
• Raising the legal age of gun purchase/ownership from 18 to 21, nationwide
I'm on the fence on this one on principle, but it's still political suicide.
• Requiring instant background checks at gun shows, nationwide.
Strongly in favor. There should be no loophole.
• Requiring trigger locks with all handgun sales, nationwide
Strongly in favor.
• Handgun purchase limit of one per month, per person
The current level of restriction is sufficient: no limit.
And lastly...
3) In the wake of the murder of 9-year-old Christina Green and others in Tucson, the issue of guns, gun violence and gun restriction is once again in the MSM spotlight, as well as at dinner tables across the country...
Why, in your opinion, doesn't this very same issue receive even a fraction of public & media attention when children in places like Chicago, Detroit, St.Louis and Oakland are murdered with guns on a daily basis?
Because the problem isn't guns. The problem is people being desperate and/or fucked in the head enough to think they need to use them for anything other than defense.
Mental health services on demand. End to the drug war. Single payer healthcare.
These things will do exponentially more than any ill advised ban or unreasonable restriction of a basic human right.
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1. It's not a question of whether I agree or disagree with that statement, but a question of whether I think it's a practical reason for unregulated gun ownership. My take is that an armed populace is not much of a tyranny deterrent given the state of the art weaponry the govt owns. If it came down to a fight, the citizenry is hopelessly outgunned, so if the govt really wanted to go down that route, America is pretty much screwed.
2. Again, it's a practical issue for me -- i.e. does the law/regulation do any good or not? On a general-purpose level, probably not, but on a municipal level, certain regs might make sense. Anyway, there may be a good reason to let civilians buy military grade weaponry, but I'm having trouble imagining feeling comfortable with allowing RPGs to be sold in Wal-mart. If we're at the point where it's necessary, we're probably already doomed as a society.
I'd also add that you could mention a ban on guns in establishments that sell alcohol (which was recently legalized in Tennessee). Even some gun owners I know aren't crazy about making that legal.
3. This debate comes up during any high-profile mass shooting with a high enough body count that the media can latch onto it and fill an entire 24 news cycle with it. With AZ, the fact that a politician was targeted (which is rare) makes it even more high-profile. I don't think it's a racism issue (for one thing, the majority of kids killed with guns since 1979 were white) so much as a matter of psychology – humans are bad at risk assessment and are wired to make bigger deals out of rare but spectacular and scary-sounding events with mass casualties than more common fatal events.
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I don't like the way the statement in #1 is phrased; "It's all about" makes me think of crazy people holed up in their bedroom clutching their guns muttering about Obama taking their precious away. However, I do believe that the ability and right to use weapons for both recreation and defense, whether against home invaders or a hypothetical tyranny, is pretty important. The usefulness of any weaponry a citizen can have against a government is another matter entirely, but that doesn't take away the right.
As for #2, I think those are all more or less valid (the 300 yards of a school thing is fairly arbitrary, so is the 1-per-month limit), except possibly the age restriction (I'm not sure that 21 is any more or less stupid than 18), but it would be cool if there was at least some consistency between different laws and restrictions and the age they decide you count as an adult for those purposes.
Most of the items restricted by those.. full autos, grenades, rockets; those are things that are totally unnecessary overkill for self defense, and at the same time nowhere near the level of power a government can bring to bear, but annoying enough to possibly get that power brought down in such a hypothetical situation and get people dead. Although many of them would fall into the 'hella fun' category for recreational use.
As for #3, well. That would be because people suck donkey balls.
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1. Nope. If it ever gets that bad, I'll "vote with my feet" - I could, theoretically, walk to Canada, even from here.
2. In general, I think they're all okay. I am not "anti-gun"; I've fired a few. But guns are tools, with specific uses. Long guns are for hunting, and I respect that. Handguns, however, are really not much use for anything but harming human beings - furthermore, possession of one tends to give a false sense of power and invulnerability to people who don't know very much abou guns. (Think of all the wannabes holding the damn pistol sideways.) And there really is no excuse I can think of for an average citizen to own rocket launchers, grenades, or machine guns.
3. If that child had been shot in some kind of random incident, it might have gotten a very small mention in the news, because she was white and middle-class, but the story still would have vanished as soon as a "celebrity" was found shtupping someone they weren't supposed to.
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From: pure_doxyk |
Date: January 15th, 2011 01:02 pm (UTC) |
| (Permalink) |
Easy! (And good questions, thank you.)
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1) Yes, I do, actually. It bothers the hell out of me that we've increased the power of the police and decreased the power of the population to the point where if our government turned V-for-Vendetta, they could put us all down. That was specifically not intended from the beginning, and I'm not ok with it. Our own leaders are absolutely a danger we need to protect each other from.
2) I agree with all restrictions that prevent CRIMINALS from obtaining guns, that punish people for *mis*using them (emphatically including police), and that enforce general safety, like trigger-locks and ownership classes. I do not agree with anything that interferes with law-abiding citizens from purchasing and legally using their weapons.
3) Because those are poor people, simple as that. The economic discrimination in this country is its great "hidden" epidemic, and part of me hopes Detroit explodes and takes Bloomfield Hills and Livonia and all those disgusting whites-only-please burbclaves out with it. Amen. ;)
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I'll see if I can answer this with some concision.
1) I agree with the first two sentences. I disagree with the third. We don't have a Stalinist government, but even still, if the .gov decided to roll over the citizenry we wouldn't have a chance. Sorry, Bill McPatriotbagger, your safe full of small arms won't amount to shit and amassing weaponry in the name of "defense against tyranny" is like hoarding a few bug zappers to protect against a swarm of locusts.
2)
• Reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994
-AWB was silly.
• Ban on fully automatic weapons
-They're already banned/legislated. This is probably reasonable, so long as folks who want to take the time and money to be Class 3 certified can do so.
• Ban on hand grenades, RPGs, mortars, missile launchers and certain types of high-powered ammunition
-What types of "high-powered ammunition?"
• Ban on high capacity ammo magazines/clips (defined as any mag that holds more than 10 rounds)
-This is just dumb.
•Ban on gun possession within 300 yards of a school
-Also dumb.
• Raising the legal age of gun purchase/ownership from 18 to 21, nationwide
-Nah. I'm in support of a single age for adulthood (not "tiered adulthood" as we have now), and 18 seems as good as any.
• Requiring instant background checks at gun shows, nationwide
-Good idea, but difficult to implement. This, however, won't do anything to stop legal private sale.
• Requiring trigger locks with all handgun sales, nationwide
-Good grief, no. Optional? Perhaps. Mandatory, not so much.
• Handgun purchase limit of one per month, per person
-Absolutely not. This I feel will do little to deter crime and make it more difficult for those of us who enjoy collecting/shooting firearms to pursue that.
3) It's less about brown people and more about the fact that the little girl was an unfortunate bystander at a politically-motivated slaying.
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I believe there is more dimensionality to it than the singular either-or you have here. I believe it is for both, as well as protecting against criminals, or preparing for an unknown catastrophe in the future.
I am of the mind that any weapon whose usage would likely cause people to die other than your intended target is bannable. This includes things like bombs, grenades, biological weaponry, machine guns, etc... Things on the border, like assault weapons, are up for debate. Safety measures like purchasing restrictions, trigger guards and usage restrcitions are also up for debate. I do think that no sane, law-abiding American should find it difficult to acquire a handgun or rifle within a reasonable period of time. But reasonable is up for debate.
My opinion on the dubious behavior or the public eye is that it is arbitrary and expressing attention deficit.
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1) I disagree. But I would like to highlight something a few commenters have noted obliquely but not followed to its root -- the disparity it both ordnance and training between the average soldier and the average citizen.
Remember that part of the 2nd Amendment that gets such short shrift? The bit about the "well-regulated militia"?
Back in the day, the citizens were the militia. They all knew and used their weapons all the time. They trained. They were capable of pitting their long rifles against the long rifles of an invading force.
Would-be warriors today, not so much. And it isn't helped by Rambo-esque movies that make A Force Of One seem plausible. It's precisely the same thing as those who made the arguments in favor of torture by citing Jack Bauer on 24: Dude, it's scripted.
2) I'm in favor of all of them. I'd even make a few of 'em more strict.
3) Again, a lot of the reasons are already cited: poor brown kids, Gabby Giffords was a politician as well as a white female, it was a more affluent neighborhood, etc., etc., etc. As long as the mess is far away, a lot of people don't see it or smell it.
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1) I can see the point, but both sides have pretty much lost touch with the public and we are now living in a for-profit-prison police state. 9/11 just pretty much sealed the deal and turned the USA into Fascist America with the illusion of freedom. The middle and lower classes are fighting each other because we're being manipulated to look that way by the media and powers that be to distract us from the real problem of the upper class breaking us. So the right to carry is one thing they give is as a "false sense of security".
2) The ban on guns that is there is a joke to begin with because criminals don't care either way. It's because of the failure to provide mental health care (which has been shredded by the rich to line their pockets and replaced with cheap drug therapy as an alternative) would have prevented the Tuscon terrorism incident. Loughner fell through the safety nets of the VA and state mental health boards. Since he was living at home, it was his parents fault for not getting him treatment. It's his college teachers, admin, and classmates fault for not recognizing that he's another VT incident waiting to happen. I'm sure the FBI and Sheriff's office personnel are questioning them now asking if they felt Loughner was dangerous then why not report it?
While I do think that some of the bans are correct. To the criminal element it means shite and that its just a weapons charge on their record and "So What?" It just adds time to their jail sentence in the first place it doesn't discourage them from getting hold of them. Instead, the sellers of the weapons need to be punished as well. When they get traced back to whom got them the weapons they should be in jail as well, regardless of whom their connections are. That's why we make these mistakes, punishing criminals is pointless; if the people who supply criminals are still free to continue their trade. We need to go after them as well and put them behind bars or in some cases in the ground.
High-capacity magazines (30+) should be outlawed and only available to the military or law enforcement. They should be serialized to track them. However, there are a few thousand out there already in the hands of the right wing militia groups that aren't and they want to keep it that way for their "right to bear arms". I do believe that we should be allow to own guns to protect ourselves and will stand by that belief. If its not by gov't tyrant take over then zombie/alien invasion is still on the table.
Then again if people are rich and powerful enough to own Class 3 weapons permits let them get their "rich man's toys" of firearms being an AK-47 or what every they want as long as they pass the background screening and ownership requirements. However, if these weapons start to "disappear" or are used in a crime than its on that person's head to face punishment for it. Unless they can prove the items were stolen from their property. I've seen people collect cannons and other military hardware for re-enactments (mostly smoke shots and noise makers to let people experience re-enactment events), but a few will fire off live rounds as displays because its "cool".
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From: navytron89 |
Date: January 15th, 2011 06:06 pm (UTC) |
| (Permalink) |
Re: Guns and Gun issues PT.2
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I also look at the Chicago and Morton Grove anti-gun laws to back the statement the crime doesn't care about having firearms. When the morons of Morton Grove, Il city council passed their "liberal" anti-gun laws in 82' the crime rate soared 67% in the first year because of armed robbery. The business owners had fits many moved out to other places where they could have protection. Hell, my mother and I actually witnessed on of the incidents of armed robbery when I will a teen. the town council hired extra police to try and prevent robberies from happening. All it did was make it slightly harder for the criminals and they looked elsewhere for softer targets until Morton Grove cut its PD again when it was too costly to keep them, partly do to unionization and other issues. So the crime rates went back up again.
While there is hope and that education and reformation of felons is possible. The problem is that money is restricted; Republicans, Conservatives , and TEA Baggers all think that criminals don't deserve a "second chance" at life and should remain behind bars, that rehab programs are a waste of tax dollars and incarceration is a better choice. They want to keep them away from normal citizens. That's why For-Profit-Prisons are making a killing because of this Conservative ideology that is rooted in their warped brains.
Where as Texas and several other states have Concealed Carry Laws that are mandatory. This requires if you want to own a gun, your required to pass all the checks to get a CCW license as well. Several towns that have these laws passed have almost a zero crime rate because criminals have no idea whom is armed. Could Granny be packing a .38 in her purse and go to the gun range weekly for fun, rather than bingo. Or how about that blonde jogger with the iPod and belly pouch (does it have a .380 in it). An armed society is a polite society, because criminals are often cowards in the face of armed resistance. Many women who fight back live to tell the tale. They are beaten up and bruised by are still alive to tell the police what happened and a dead mugger or rapist is in the ground. So how is that a bad thing?
If we treated gun ownership like that with CCW permits it would make it impossible for criminals to legitimately carry weapons, so when they do have them they can be punished under the strictest sense of the law and whom ever sold them the gun will also get punished as well. It makes it harder for crazies like Lougher and Cho to get guns because they have to qualify and pass tests, psychological and knowledgeable. While Loughner would pass the knowledge portion, because his mental issues were present, as a Veteran he has to be screened to be allow to own a weapon. The psychologist would have spotted the signs and not issued them out.
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1) I'm torn on the whole subject; this country's completely rabid obsession with guns makes me deeply uncomfortable, perhaps because half my family is made up of halfwitted rednecks who own guns and have no business being anywhere near anything stronger than a cheap BB gun. But I have to admit my own love of violent movies and the thrill of excitement I get from a good fight scene, I like movies laden with guns, and as the owner of several samurai swords and an array of knives I don't feel I have the right to pass any kind of judgment on being armed. But then on the other other hand, swords are a damned sight different than an assault rifle.
2) All of the above. As others have pointed out, the ability to own an assault rifle or grenades won't mean jack shit against a military assault, and it just makes you more dangerous. Plus the fact that many of the people who want this stuff have no business owning any kinds of weapons. Paranoid, violent, unintelligent idiots and guns are a horrible idea. Plus the fact I have never heard one single sound, reasonable reason to need that kind of firepower, unless you're hunting the armored bears from The Golden Compass.
3) Several reasons. One, those are brown kids, and who gives a crap about them, right? Also, killings are to be expected in places like that with all those horrid, poorly-educated, drug-addled minorities. A killing in Detroit? So what else is new? But when it's a pure, pristine, innocent white child, that's when the pearl-clutching starts. So much for the post-racial society, eh?
(Answers are unusually cynical today.)
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