Gun control

We probably won't get any...

shonan19328 said:
Hi,
I think it's time to need some gun control in the US.
How do you think ?
In other hand in Japan, suicide is over 30000 every year vs traffic accident 5000.

http://www.itbook.info/web/2012/12/アメリカで銃による死者数が交通事故による死者.html
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The problem is too large and there is not enough political force on the gun control side to do anything very significant. It's just the way it is. There are at least 270 million guns owned by Americans and that large of a problem is unlikley to be solved. Assuming of course that it is a problem.
 
An interesting statistic (from the FBI, IIRC) is that Japanese-Americans commit fewer gun crimes that Japanese in Japan even though gun ownership among Japanese citizens is vastly lower.

Even if we could drastically reduce the number of guns in America it is highly unlikely to reduce violent crime and murders. It's even possible it would increase them. It might reduce gun crime but how someone is killed is somewhat irrelevant because they are still dead. If Japan had a high rate of gun ownership there is little doubt the suicide rate with guns would be much higher. However, as the Japanese have demonstrated there are plenty of efficient ways to kill yourself.

Also, restricting gun ownership, especially in a country like the US that has a higher than average rate of violent crime, shifts the balance of power from the weak towards the strong. It also shifts the balance of power from the people towards the ruling class. I don't think either of those scenarios in acceptable.
 
The recent events in the Senate..

show how difficult a political problem gun control is and I think the lesson has probably been learned by all and sundry that some other approach to gun violence-especially by out and out criminals needs to be tried. Some years ago I read an interesting proposal which to the line that because gun possession is a right or privledge bestowed by the federal Constitution, the Federal Government could pass a law that made use of a gun in any crime a federal offence. The logic went that if this were done every gun crime would carry both all the penalties of state law and then additionally (not concurrently) all the penalties of the fed law. The idea was that a criminal using a gun would first serve their state obligation in prison and then the federal term in a federal prison. I found this to be both logical and very probably effective. Oh, the federal prosecution needed only to find that the person had violated the state law (their conviction being prima facie evidence of that) and that they did indeed use a gun (again that would probably already be established) Sentencing would be mandatory and specific. In other words a very streamlined judicial process that would impose a sort of inescapable prison sentence surcharge just for using a gun.
 
That makes a lot more sense...

...than making the 269,990,000 guns' owners that DIDN'T use their weapons in a crime...have to live by different rules than our Constitution provides for.
 
I'm beginning to believe ...

it is something that could get done. On the other hand I can well imagine some kind of objection coming from all sides of the issue.
It's just pie -in-the-sky anyhow. One thing it would never prevent, or even deter, are things like Sandy Hook which are going to happen irrespective of law,penalty or even available weaponry.:sad::sad::sad:
 
A long standing argument...

pafiat said:
your implication is that the "people" hold power because they own guns...isn't this the home of the brave and the land of the free? Are you truly free if you have to have a gun in your pocket?
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and the core belief (or at least core talking point) of the gun rights side of the national debate is that an armed citizenry was included in the Constitution in order trump the tyranny of the government over the people. This is one among many interpretations of the 2nd Amendment and one that is not uncontroversial. A reading of the Amendment of by any competent speaker of English would probably not immediately yield this interpretation. Personally, I think this may have been part of the reasoning of the drafters of the document but the specific language and other parts of the text of the Constitution easily lead to other conclusions.
 
pafiat said:
your implication is that the "people" hold power because they own guns...isn't this the home of the brave and the land of the free? Are you truly free if you have to have a gun in your pocket?
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I think that the only way you can truly be free is if you have some means to protect the Liberty you are exercising from being taken away.

After all, the idea of Liberty is a relatively new concept for us Human Beings---most of our existence has been as subjects of rulers. Liberty is the exception to the rule, and history shows that the exercise of Liberty is always a struggle.

On a personal level the human right of self defense is justification for gun ownership.

On a political level, gun ownership by individual Americans has the potential to deter overt tyranny from all levels of government.
 
Whatever the merit...

of an armed citizenry in the defence of 'liberty' may be, I don't think in America it can amount to aything except some ultimate showdown with the federal government (and those chances are slim and none). The idea that armed resistance to a state or local authority would ever be met with anything but crushing power from the next higher level of government is unimaginable. The Constitution specifically provides for the use of militias to supress insurrection. Certainly any President would put down any local armed insurrection as a matter of Constitutional duty if nothing else.
 
Slim yes, but I wouldn't say none. You also seem to discount political consequences of having to put down an insurrection and the deterrence that is to government overreach. Also, overwhelming force has proven to be less effective against guerrilla warfare than one would imagine.
 
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Matthew said:
Slim yes, but I wouldn't say none. You also seem to discount political consequences of having to put down an insurrection and the deterrence that is to government overreach. Also, overwhelming force has proven to be less effective against gorilla warfare than one would imagine.
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Agree w/all but employing arms against the "gorilla"... They are wunnerful creatures!
 
This is just so speculative...

as to be a virtual 'just-so-story'. I mean in the face of an armed insurrection who is going to worry about 'political consequences'? They don't come worse that a successful coup.
 
shonan19328 said:
Hi,
I think it's time to need some gun control in the US.
How do you think ?
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If public polls are to be believed, the majority of Americans would agree with you. At this point though, the issue is unlikely to reach a vote of the general population since special interests continue to roadblock US politics. :(
 
Gallup...a liberal polling group...

...just released their most recent numbers on this topic. Only 4% felt that gun control was an issue that was deemed important. Only the POTUS keeps crying 90%.
 
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MGandini said:
If public polls are to be believed, the majority of Americans would agree with you. At this point though, the issue is unlikely to reach a vote of the general population since special interests continue to roadblock US politics. :(
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Sort of. Polls show that most Americans want expanded background checks and and "assault weapons" ban. However, most Americans don't know anything about either issue. The "gun show loop hole" is a great example of that. The fact that the media can repeatedly mention it even though it's entirely fabricated goes to show how little people know about gun laws already on the books. Most polls also show that the more people learn about specific gun control laws the less they support them. I suspect that if an "assault weapons" ban and a universal background check law was put up for a national vote after a thorough campaign with both sides spending equal time and money it would probably fail. However, It would probably be fairly close vote.

It's not so much "special interests" that block politics. It's the structure of government itself that does and it was designed that way for a reason. Quite frankly I don't think they did a good enough job with that. And after all, special interests are us. Personally, if it were up to me, we would rewrite the constitution so that all laws required 2/3 in the house, 2/3 in the senate and a signature of the president to become law. I would also make it so that any law could be unilaterally repealed by a simple majority in either house of congress or an executive order. That way the government never do anything controversial. Everything that the government did would have solid majority support.
 
POTUS is a politician...

bb4re said:
...just released their most recent numbers on this topic. Only 4% felt that gun control was an issue that was deemed important. Only the POTUS keeps crying 90%.
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but what he said is that polls show 90% of those polled were in favor of expanding background checks ( I think the spread of polls was actually closer to 84%). That is a different issue than what % find important. There is no real relationship between the two numbers.
One would need to know how those questions were asked also, and when and where.

Another point is that the politicians played their cards pretty well in that the public is not all that upset about the failure of the control measures in the Senate. After another six months the whole thing will be mostly forgotten as an electoral issue at all.
 
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