So much for those tough gun control laws

[AAAintheBeltway]

Uh oh, Nine Ender is going to try to get you banned for saying such racist things.

We know that the whole gun control movement was triggered by fears of blacks being armed. It's the same today.

Liberals in my neighborhood are not worried about whether some rich lawyer or lobbyist has an arsenal in his house. They are worried about black thugs, but you would have to waterboard them to get them to admit it.

 

[Ricter]

If gun laws worked, someone wouldn't be able to shoot up a Canadian school as they just did.

That's like saying, "if all laws worked then no one would commit a crime."
Perfection is impossible, progress is not.

 

[Tsing Tao]

That's like saying, "if all laws worked then no one would commit a crime."
Perfection is impossible, progress is not.

That's a good point, and it would be progress if you could get the weapons out of the hands of the people intent on committing the crimes, but you can't. You have no way to accomplish this. Your solution is to go after those not breaking the law.

That's not progress. Instead, to continue your "if all laws worked" response, what you propose is akin to taking cars away from drivers who don't drive drunk in order to lower DUIs.

You're just going to have to accept the fact - and it is a fact - that people who want to kill others are going to do so regardless of whatever gun legislation you try to get the public to swallow. And there's nothing you can do about that. If the Canadian shooting shows one thing, it's that - despite tough gun legislation - people will still get guns and shoot others if they are intent on it. How much more so in a country like the United States where there are orders of magnitude more guns available?

If you were smart enough to figure it out, you'd instead focus on the people who commit these crimes, and why they do it.

 

[Ricter]

That's a good point, and it would be progress if you could get the weapons out of the hands of the people intent on committing the crimes, but you can't.

I think we can, re future mass shooters who do not presently have firearms. Tighten the supply and those with firearms will protect their possession of them. This will reduce the leakage from legal ownership to illegal ownership. Either we do this, or we have to go the character route and create databases on everyone, looking for clues to possible future violence and, imo, the state becoming a lot more intrusive.

Another idea I like, without much investigation, is personalizing firearms, so that only the legal owner can use them. Similar to car keys.

 

[Tsing Tao]

I think we can, re future mass shooters who do not presently have firearms. Tighten the supply and those with firearms will protect their possession of them. This will reduce the leakage from legal ownership to illegal ownership. Either we do this, or we have to go the character route and create databases on everyone, looking for clues to possible future violence and, imo, the state becoming a lot more intrusive.

Another idea I like, without much investigation, is personalizing firearms, so that only the legal owner can use them. Similar to car keys.

Tightening the supply won't work, Ricter. There are hundreds of millions of firearms on the street. That ship has sailed. Efforts to tighten demand will cause an even greater spike of the sale of weapons before regulations are passed, and once they are passed, the price of these weapons on the street will rise until someone sells. There are millions of illegal guns already in circulation! Your pie in the sky idea would be great if we hadn't already passed the event horizon, but we have.

Personalizing firearms has the same problem - there are way, way too many weapons on the street already that don't have that. Weapons aren't going to "degrade" or become useless over time like you think. Well, they will, but the time in this hypothesis is vastly understated and the amount is vastly overstated when compared to reality. Not to mention the fact that you can now 3D print a handgun that is quite durable.

The only suggestion in your response above that will have an impact is creating a database on everyone. Of course, that will be fought against by both right and left, for different reasons, so it will never happen unless we move to some dictatorship, or violence intensifies to the extent that resistance to this approach greatly diminishes.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

I saw a TV item on illegal weapons trade. They went to a jungle workshop in the Phillipines where farmers were churning out pretty decent looking 1911's by hand. Any competent machinist can produce not only handguns but assault rifles. The only difficult part is the barrel, and they are readily available in eastern Europe. You only need a high quality barrel for a quality gun. You can have a serviceable weapon with a cheapo barrel. It won't be accurate or hold up in a firefight, but that may not be important. Not everyone needs a mil spec Colt.

 

[futurecurrents]

So what kind guns were used in this?

Very good chance hand guns or "assault rifle". Which should be banned.

 

[fhl]

 

[Tsing Tao]

Very good chance hand guns or "assault rifle". Which should be banned.

Maybe they should be. But they never will because it can't be done.

 

[futurecurrents]

Maybe they should be. But they never will because it can't be done.

I know, it's like keeping people from speeding. Can't be done.

Let me guess, conservative?