Originally Posted by Kepi

Because the laws that people are trying to push aren't good laws. Just because there's problems doesn't mean the advocated solutions are any good. For instance, nobody had made it a law that governor springs be installed in all cars. That would be a bad law. Most people are finding that traffic monitoring by camera is quite terrible and frought with logistical problems.

Also, we've found that when we make things safer we tend to take larger risks. That's great when those risks build to something better, not so much when it causes you to do something stupid. You see this with speed bumps all the time. People slow down for speed bumps, but gun it in between. Meanwhile shared space designs are actually showing reductions in accidents. Not all laws are good laws, and frankly I could do without the majority of the new laws and features that risen up within the past 20 or 30 years.

... none of which argues against the simple parallels the NRA and others fight so hard.

If you wish to "operate" one or more guns, you should be certified as eligible and competent, and get a license ... just as you do to drive a car, motorcycle or commericial vehicle. Typically, each category is unique and requires a separate "driving" test - as it should. A handgun is not a shotgun, and needs a greater degree of competence to "operate" it safely. A rifle is somewhere in between, but still unique. The NRA used to specialze in gun safety and training of shooters. Do they still care about that?

Then there is the issue of the guns themselves. Shouldn't we care that a legally purchased Glock isn't just transferred to a gang-banger, because we don't title and register them? Again., this is a direct parallel.

If we did those two things, 99.9% of the controversy would disappear.

Originally Posted by TnT

Consider the automobile wreck carnage over the years. About the same order of magnitude as gunshot deaths. Though the number of miles per capita has skyrocketed over the last four or five decades, we have agreed as a society, to insist on seatbelts, air-bags, collision-absorbing body parts, all manner of safety devices.

As a result, even the total number of deaths has plummeted, and of course the deaths per mile driven even more.

We, as a society, certainly are attached to our cars, perhaps more than any other industrialized country, and yet we managed to work our way through many sensible innovations to make driving much, much safer.

Most people are part of the 'car culture', and the automobile gets us to places that we want to be. We all know about collisions, and some of us adapt.

What in the world do you suppose is the matter with us, that we are so opposed to regulating another mechanical device that we are emotionally attached to? And, it doesn't have even close to the same utility to us as a society. Why are we so enamoured of our guns?

The benefit of guns in self-defense is more mythological than concrete. The likelihood that anyone can end up in a life-or-death situation in which his possession of a firearm against a human attacker is practically nil unless one is in law enforcement and encounters the worst of the worst. It's telling that Ted Bundy was subdued without a firearm. That is not to say that I would not pack iron if I lived in bear country.

The criminal has the advantage of surprise. The intended victim must size up the situation in a split second (impossible) grab the gun (which may not be close enough) and have the willingness to use it. The intended victim most likely has qualms about using deadly force. Using a non-lethal chemical weapon might be less troublesome and just as effective.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... none of which argues against the simple parallels the NRA and others fight so hard.

If you wish to "operate" one or more guns, you should be certified as eligible and competent, and get a license ... just as you do to drive a car, motorcycle or commericial vehicle. Typically, each category is unique and requires a separate "driving" test - as it should. A handgun is not a shotgun, and needs a greater degree of competence to "operate" it safely. A rifle is somewhere in between, but still unique. The NRA used to specialze in gun safety and training of shooters. Do they still care about that?

Then there is the issue of the guns themselves. Shouldn't we care that a legally purchased Glock isn't just transferred to a gang-banger, because we don't title and register them? Again., this is a direct parallel.

If we did those two things, 99.9% of the controversy would disappear.

That's not true. Even in the parallel that's not true. Regulation didn't stop the controversy, it just opened the door to more and more regulations which don't work. Licensing itself doesn't work very well, mostly because the unlicensed continue to drive, and most of the accidents that occur are between licensed drivers. No amount of speed bumps, signage, lighting or the fact that she was licensed kept a person from hitting me while I was at a dead stop in a parking lot last week. However, what mitigated the damage was good design. The ever constant increase in poorly concieved laws, and pointless obstruction in the vehicular world are exactly why gun world is so opposed to more regulation. It's a give an inch, want a foot world in our political system.

Originally Posted by Kepi

The ever constant increase in poorly concieved laws, and pointless obstruction in the vehicular world are exactly why gun world is so opposed to more regulation. It's a give an inch, want a foot world in our political system.

In part. I'd also say that it is the constant belief that from the regulation side, "compromise" only means that we will stop asking for this new expansion now, but will try again next year, or next month, or next time something happens where we can exploit emotion.

Originally Posted by Kepi

... No amount of speed bumps, signage, lighting or the fact that she was licensed kept a person from hitting me while I was at a dead stop in a parking lot last week. However, what mitigated the damage was good design. The ever constant increase in poorly concieved laws, and pointless obstruction in the vehicular world are exactly why gun world is so opposed to more regulation. It's a give an inch, want a foot world in our political system.

What you say is a good example of the problem with our national conversation. One wreck in one parking lot that happens to you is exactly NO evidence for anything one way or the other. So many only want to accept solutions to problems if and only if they solve every single example. Perfection is the only option. Black and white. Sliced and diced.

The gun nuts only want, they say, to consider a solution when it completely and totally solves the problem.

Then, we have the societal difficulty that we are unable to try things out and then discard them if they don't work. There are lots and lots of counter-intuitive things in the world. For example, some experiments in Great Britain to totally eliminate directional and cautionary signs on roadways actually appears to drastically decrease accidents and the severity thereof! Cool, eh? Very counter-intuitive, but perhaps worth a try.

And finally, Kepi, despite what you say, auto accidents, their severity, and the number and severity of injury and the number of fatalities have greatly been reduced over the last decades.

Originally Posted by TnT

What you say is a good example of the problem with our national conversation. One wreck in one parking lot that happens to you is exactly NO evidence for anything one way or the other. So many only want to accept solutions to problems if and only if they solve every single example. Perfection is the only option. Black and white. Sliced and diced.

The gun nuts only want, they say, to consider a solution when it completely and totally solves the problem.

Then, we have the societal difficulty that we are unable to try things out and then discard them if they don't work. There are lots and lots of counter-intuitive things in the world. For example, some experiments in Great Britain to totally eliminate directional and cautionary signs on roadways actually appears to drastically decrease accidents and the severity thereof! Cool, eh? Very counter-intuitive, but perhaps worth a try.

And finally, Kepi, despite what you say, auto accidents, their severity, and the number and severity of injury and the number of fatalities have greatly been reduced over the last decades.

Yes, and that's been done not because of law or because people are better drivers, but because of increased emphasis on making cars safer and better. What the no-fun crowd doesn't get, and this is why they casket seem to get anything done, is that in order to engage in a negotiation, you have to have something to offer. The ban violent media/obscinity crowd had nothing to offer media consumers or media producers, so it died. The anti-abortion crowd isn't exactly handing out birth control or money to help people not get abortion, so they lose. The gun control people want to get rid of guns, that's their ultimate agenda, and they lose because when people see the laws they're nonsense. All this anti-what-others-enjoy nonsense falls flat on it's face because the agenda is taking things away, not making them better. Why would anybody negotiate? I'm not interested in giving the Tipper Gore's and Phyllis Sclafley's of the world one inch, and while I think there are certain things we could do to make guns better, I don't blame the NRA crowd one bit for not budging for their opponents.

Ok, fine you want all us gun owners that legally own weapons to disarm.

then here's my proposal and once it is done I will hand you all my ammo and all my guns. But only after you get the government to do this:

1. go door to door in every crime infested, gang riddled neighborhood and every other neighborhood in between. search it and clear all weapons.
2. arrest the people who had unregistered and illegal weapons.
3. provide folks like me that need weapons to defend against large dangerous predator animals a full time government paid game warden for every single task we must do to defend our life from said predators.
4. once you have disarmed everyone, the police and politicians no longer get guns either to defend themselves or whatever high ranking official either. fair's fair. If average joe can't have a fire-arm, neither can they. Oh and the military must be de-armed as well, we can issue them slingshots and some rocks.


but here lately it isn't the normal person randomly murdering people, it seems to be cops getting away with beating people to death and off duty cops shooting people in movie theaters for texting.

but see most folks aren't anti gun, they just seem to think only the cops, military and government should have them. it's never really worked out well for unarmed citizens against only the government with guns.
Tianamen ( I doubt I spelled that right) Square in China
the Polish in WWII didn't fare well either
the kulags didn't either
Neither did the Jews

but if you are going for a regime like exists there, yeah, buddy let's let only the thugs with badges be the only people able to terrorize or defend themselves. I guess we can fight back with wasp spray or slingshots or pointy sticks.

Originally Posted by Danilynn

Ok, fine you want all us gun owners that legally own weapons to disarm.

Oh, Danilynn, just because we license and register our motor vehicles, does that mean that the Department of Motor Vehicles is going to confiscate them and prevent us from driving around? Sure, if we drive drunk or fail the test and prove that we can't handle a motor vehicle, then we lose our license. And that's as it should be.

Why the fuss about treating fire arms like motor vehicles?

Criminals don't follow laws, what are we supposed to fend off a
home invasion with? A load of bread? A couch cushion?

You disarm the criminals and un militarize the police and we follow. My issue is every country that "registers" guns, then comes back and confiscated them. So no. Not happening

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

just because we license and register our motor vehicles, does that mean that the Department of Motor Vehicles is going to confiscate them and prevent us from driving around?

Do you see a group of people solely advocating for said confiscation? I think that is one place where the analogy could have problems.

For stopping criminals just how effective are nonlethal weapons?

Originally Posted by Kepi

That's not true. Even in the parallel that's not true. Regulation didn't stop the controversy, it just opened the door to more and more regulations which don't work. Licensing itself doesn't work very well, mostly because the unlicensed continue to drive, and most of the accidents that occur are between licensed drivers. No amount of speed bumps, signage, lighting or the fact that she was licensed kept a person from hitting me while I was at a dead stop in a parking lot last week. However, what mitigated the damage was good design. The ever constant increase in poorly concieved laws, and pointless obstruction in the vehicular world are exactly why gun world is so opposed to more regulation. It's a give an inch, want a foot world in our political system.

That's a very poor argument. Yes, the unlicensed drive, but, as you noted, they are a tiny minority. It's also true that licensed drivers have accidents. How bad would it be if money was the only factor, and anyone who had a car could just get in and drive?

I know a woman who thinks she needs a gun to be safe. She went out and bought one. She has yet to fire it anywhere, and she carries it around in her purse. Worse, she has a 12-year old daughter, and that purse is not always on her arm. That's simply nuts.

My rules on handguns:

1. If you must own one, then get a gun safe,and keep it there
2. Before you load it, learn how to clear it and verifyu that it's clear. This is the area where cautin pays.
3. Before you take it anywhere for personal protection, go to a gun range and run at least 1,000 rounds through it.
   
   1. When you are comfortable with it, and can hit where you aim, you are at the minimally qualified level.
   2. Continue to practice often
   
   
4. If #3 is too onerous, then get professional training ... and run at leas 500 round through it.
   
   1. Again, you have to be comfortable, andreally know how to use it.
   2. Ongoing practice is still a must.
   
   
5. Take it out of the safe only when you must and put it away at all other times.

Originally Posted by Joral

In part. I'd also say that it is the constant belief that from the regulation side, "compromise" only means that we will stop asking for this new expansion now, but will try again next year, or next month, or next time something happens where we can exploit emotion.

Never compromising from the owners perspective, means that the other side may exploit a situation, and just take the things. We non-owners have the right to be safe in our persons, and a bunch of gun-toting yahoos are a threat. No, they aren't typical, but they aren't uncommon either. Can we agree that the yahoos need to be identified? If no, then you put yourself in the same category.

Making common cause with miscreants is simply stupid.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

For stopping criminals just how effective are nonlethal weapons?

not very.
A guest speaker gave a lecture at the local high school to the girls on safety and such things in public.
One of the items really caught my eye, was that girls were advised if someone was attempting to forcefully and against their will have sex with them they were to urinate or defecate on themselves if at all possible to make the act "distasteful" to their would be rapist.

If kidnapped they were to attempt to scream, and failing that appear non-threatening to the kidnapper and try to "talk to them so as to eventually make the person holding them see them as a person".

yeah. great advice for how to be a good little victim.

My about to be 12 year old can clear and load my 9mm. she also has great impact groupings at the range on her targets with it. She is also very well versed in gun safety.
She's been hunting with us and does fairly well there too.

You can raise your kids with victim mentality, but my daughters will not have to resort to urinating or other on themselves to avoid being raped. Lucy starts her self defense course in February. And she will go through it as many times as it takes for it to be second nature to her.

To make use of the car analogy, all of what I have taught or paid to be taught to them is as important for them to know as how to pump gas into a car and change a flat tire safely before using a car as transportation.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Never compromising from the owners perspective, means that the other side may exploit a situation, and just take the things. We non-owners have the right to be safe in our persons, and a bunch of gun-toting yahoos are a threat. No, they aren't typical, but they aren't uncommon either. Can we agree that the yahoos need to be identified? If no, then you put yourself in the same category.

It depends on where you draw the line of 'yahoo', and how. If you're limiting it to those who would, and do, go out on shooting sprees, I agree with you in principle, and we will probably argue on method.

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Originally Posted by Kepi

Licensing itself doesn't work very well, mostly because the unlicensed continue to drive, and most of the accidents that occur are between licensed drivers. No amount of speed bumps, signage, lighting or the fact that she was licensed kept a person from hitting me while I was at a dead stop in a parking lot last week. However, what mitigated the damage was good design.

Pretty much. Stop and think for a minute about what becoming licensed to drive a vehicle entails... A few short hours of instruction and experience and a teenager is deemed worthy to command 1 ton of metal at speed. The thing is though with all of the incredible differences in experience, competence and intelligence between drivers driving tons of equipment over millions of miles, driving is a relatively safe activity. It's not safe because of the license of course (or the laughable joke called "driver ed"); it's because the overwhelming and vast majority of human beings have a vested interest in remaining alive.

State forced licensing isn't a tool to keep people safe, it's a tool to keep state bureaucrats employed.

Originally Posted by TnT

And I can't imagine a circumstance, 99.9% of the time when a "quick draw" would be required. When I review the stuff that happens in this city where the police find it necessary to shoot someone, it's clear to me that there's more than enough time to jack a shell into a semi-auto pistol virtually every time it comes up.

I hate to burst your bubble but police don't wander around on duty without a round in the chamber. It's called administrative loading. Most firearms instructors teach the same thing. If the firearm you carry isn't ready to be used immediately, then you may as well just carry a brick.

Originally Posted by TnT

If "cowboy quick draw" is essential, then it seems to me that everything is up for grabs. I think I get it why concealed carry folks think like you do, but as one who is trained in science, I tend to think in terms of probabilities, and the probability of me needing my Kimber to be cocked, in my pocket, with one up the pipe, to be vanishingly small. And, the probability of me hurting myself or someone else needlessly, goes up a lot. Interestingly, even in the Gabby Giffords shooting in AZ, the three CCW guys on the scene there found it impractical to shoot the perp. Instead, they disarmed him. So I guess I'm not convinced by your "seconds count" concept. Sure, it's "possible." Anything is "possible." But probable? No. Probable enough to substantially increase one's own danger and those around him? No.

Determining if and when to shoot at a human being is a very personal and situational matter. Many simply find that they can't (and won't). Then there are other reasons for deciding not to take a shot. It's impossible to say what a person should or should not do until you see that sight picture.

You also seem to focus entirely too much on what you believe is some macho underground cult of firearm owners who hope and dream of having the opportunity to kill people (conveniently excluding yourself from that group). For my part I would prefer going through the rest of my life without ever needing to shoot at another person. This (by the way) is a sentiment shared by every single gun owner I know personally.

Originally Posted by TnT

And ... to go back to my other point ... If one carried a revolver, one wouldn't have to worry about any of this, would one?

One does. Loaded revolvers are ready to fire by design. Oh and when a revolver malfunctions, it can be spectacular.

Originally Posted by TnT

Clearly, my whole orginal post borders on fantasy. In the USA, nothing is going to change our culture in the foreseeable future. We have always been a gun society, we continue to be, and very likely will always be.

I've always been a Rocky Mountain westerner, and guns are simply embedded in that sub-culture. My sense is that the mid-west is much the same what with pheasant hunting, migratory bird hunting, etc. I'm not so sure about the large cities on the coasts, as I've not spent much time there. Hunting itself has declined a lot in my lifetime, so there are fewer and fewer of us, and I guess fewer hunters to advocate for the hunters' perspective. Yet it seems that there are more and more folks who believe that any minute, a gang of crazies are going to kick down their front door and that a Bushmaster will be required to defend the family. I know that my perspective, as a hunter and outdoorsman is very different from the "personal protection" crowd that advocates universal CCW and whatnot.

Enforcing laws requires the cooperation of the populace. Without passing some sort of tipping point, there's just not enough support to enforce sensible regulations around guns. We've gone down the polarization road too far.

I always advocate safety and then training, training, training. And then once training is complete go back and train a lot more. Once you reach a point where you feel that you are an experienced shooter/hunter/outdoorsman/whatever, then it's time to go back and really start training. Note that these are the things I recommend and should not indicate any desire to force you (or anyone) to comply with my wishes. It's a personal responsibility and one should not only take into account the responsibility part but also the personal part. The latter is possibly even more important than the former.

Originally Posted by TnT

What you say is a good example of the problem with our national conversation. One wreck in one parking lot that happens to you is exactly NO evidence for anything one way or the other.

Neither is a single negligent discharge by a single state senator.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I know a woman who thinks she needs a gun to be safe. She went out and bought one. She has yet to fire it anywhere, and she carries it around in her purse. Worse, she has a 12-year old daughter, and that purse is not always on her arm. That's simply nuts.

How many people has she killed?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Oh, Danilynn, just because we license and register our motor vehicles, does that mean that the Department of Motor Vehicles is going to confiscate them and prevent us from driving around? Sure, if we drive drunk or fail the test and prove that we can't handle a motor vehicle, then we lose our license. And that's as it should be.

Why the fuss about treating fire arms like motor vehicles?

Have you ever been to the DMV?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

That's a very poor argument. Yes, the unlicensed drive, but, as you noted, they are a tiny minority. It's also true that licensed drivers have accidents. How bad would it be if money was the only factor, and anyone who had a car could just get in and drive?

Exactly the same. Because that tiny minority is analogous to people who commit serious gun crime versus the general population. Hell, most of the people who get their licenses suspended get them suspended due to things like lapses in insurance coverage or other trivial details. We used to gawk at the negative point balances on still licensed drivers. I think the lowest I ever saw was -68. Bear in mind that the Max you can get is a +5.

I know a woman who thinks she needs a gun to be safe. She went out and bought one. She has yet to fire it anywhere, and she carries it around in her purse. Worse, she has a 12-year old daughter, and that purse is not always on her arm. That's simply nuts.

If a child under 12 gets a hold of a fire arm with out an adult present the owner is criminally liable. The law is pretty clear that it expects a 12 year old is old enough to know the basic dangers of what a gun can do. As for this lady... More than likely she'll never fire it. No amount of gun safety teaches a person discretion, but fortunately most people, gun owner or not, are never faced with the decision. If all she wants a gun for is the illusion of safety, what do I care?

My rules on handguns:

1. If you must own one, then get a gun safe,and keep it there
2. Before you load it, learn how to clear it and verifyu that it's clear. This is the area where cautin pays.
3. Before you take it anywhere for personal protection, go to a gun range and run at least 1,000 rounds through it.
   
   1. When you are comfortable with it, and can hit where you aim, you are at the minimally qualified level.
   2. Continue to practice often
   
   
4. If #3 is too onerous, then get professional training ... and run at leas 500 round through it.
   
   1. Again, you have to be comfortable, andreally know how to use it.
   2. Ongoing practice is still a must.
   
   
5. Take it out of the safe only when you must and put it away at all other times.

And those are great personal rules, but they don't need to translate to a licence for every owner. While I think that some sort of storage requirement might be a good law, and while I've dealt with people doing dumb things with guns, I don't think that people follow the law because it's the law or because they're afraid of getting caught. I've spent far too long dealing with issues of crime and law to maintain that delusion. It's again analogous to traffic law. Most people follow it when it makes sense to and break it when it makes sense to or the situation at hand fails to make sense. Licensing would resolve absolutely nothing, just like it does for all the other things we license for because frankly the level of enforcement necessary to actually do that in a way that would have an impact would be both draconian and way too expensive, especially for a murder rate that, like all crime aside from institutional violence, is continuing to decline.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Never compromising from the owners perspective, means that the other side may exploit a situation, and just take the things. We non-owners have the right to be safe in our persons, and a bunch of gun-toting yahoos are a threat. No, they aren't typical, but they aren't uncommon either. Can we agree that the yahoos need to be identified? If no, then you put yourself in the same category.

Making common cause with miscreants is simply stupid.

Where did you get the idea that you have a right to be safe in your person? Is it anywhere in the Bill of Rights?

If you want to understand the mind set of the revolutionary era, think about an environment that is very unsafe, where individuals and communities have to be prepared at all times to protect themselves. There are no rapid communications to call for help except maybe continuously ringing the church bell or firing one's musket in the air. There were no automobiles, no polished road systems, and no professional trained police standing by nearby or far. The government is one of the threats. The autocratic nobility is one of the threats. (The English Civil War and American Revolution are in period.) The government is as apt to be the oppressor as the protector. The world in the old days was a very dangerous place. The right to keep and bear arms was seen as an essential element in keeping that dangerous world at bay.

In the rural modern United States, the distances and response times make many see the world more as the founding fathers did than as many modern urban dwellers see it.

The old mind set involved a right to protect one's self, and a duty to protect the community. The old laws still reflect this. If you can't imagine the old days and be ready to role play people living in such times, you aren't going to understand where many modern rural folk are coming from.

Deep down core level values. About as flexible and movable as your typical granite mountain.

Note to Mr. Butler: I suggest you try the Bill of Rights argument with any prosecutor or law enforcement persons you might encounter. They might mention the words "murder", "assault with a deadly weapon", etc. It should work out about as well as the Sovereign Citizen thing. The video should be amusing.

You're right about the worldview difference. Which means we will see much more misery in the future.

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

Note to Mr. Butler: I suggest you try the Bill of Rights argument with any prosecutor or law enforcement persons you might encounter. They might mention the words "murder", "assault with a deadly weapon", etc. It should work out about as well as the Sovereign Citizen thing. The video should be amusing.

As I see it, the collective right argument started with the end of reconstruction with denying blacks the right to bear arms. Shortly after the same arguments were used to disarm labor unions. It continued, depending on local culture, to the extreme in places like Chicago and Washington DC where the (law abiding) population was totally disarmed.

This is a long enough time frame where the institutional memory of law enforcement in many places has no recollection of an individual right to bear arms. I agree there will be problems. When the courts, protests and congress put an end to the rest of the Jim Crow interpretations of the Bill of Rights, there was lots of turmoil, noise and resistance from within and without the law enforcement community. Morality and the original meaning of Bill of Rights eventually won. It was an ugly and prolonged process, though.

The tiny cheap video camera might also change law enforcement. In many communities the police forces are accustomed to extra-legal violence as method for suppressing crime. As time passes, they are going to have to assume that everything they do is going to be caught on one camera or another. It won't be. There may never be that many cameras. Still, if you do something under the assumption that there will be no camera, one is at risk. The video is apt to be linked to on the front page of CNN.

While a lot of folks are worried about privacy, the cameras everywhere future might well suppress the bad guys as well.

Anyway, I don't anticipate the state of law enforcement remaining stagnant, and the process of change may well not be smooth.

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

You're right about the worldview difference. Which means we will see much more misery in the future.

Too true. I would think each side could see the other's perspective on this one, but worldview clashes don't seem to work that way. If one's own opinion is no doubt about it uniquely true, anyone who disagrees has got to be evil, stupid, insane, ignorant or some variation on said themes. There are generally valid reasons why the older cultural elements came into being, as well as valid reasons why large numbers of people living under more rapidly changing living conditions want to adapt. Alas, the conversations aren't about understanding why the other guy's position makes sense to him and creating something that works in diverse communities. It's about what is best and/or traditional in one's own community and forcing one's own culture on the other guy.

Originally Posted by Joral

It depends on where you draw the line of 'yahoo', and how. If you're limiting it to those who would, and do, go out on shooting sprees, I agree with you in principle, and we will probably argue on method.

As a model for "yahoo", how about the shooter who didn't take well to someone texting while he watched a movie? BTW, he's a retired cop.