Didn't Hillary also make an implication about Obama being assassinated in 2008? Only I don't recall anyone making as much of a big deal about it back then. Meanwhile, this quote can actually be construed as Trump pointing out that gun owners would be the only ones able to fight back against their gun rights being taken away in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

If you compare both quotes side by side, both are fairly innocuous. It's just that the media blew one of them way out of proportion. Don't let the media lead you by the nose.

(And before the angry comments come, I am FAR from being a Trump supporter. I felt the Bern, and now I'm burning Green.)

I'm quite pro gun rights generally, but to me it seems insane that "self defense" is the #1 stated reason for owning a gun in the US now.

Jim Jeffries' bit on self defense covers my concerns in a pretty funny but honest way. In your home, keeping your guns in an accessible place where they could easily be used in a self-defense situation makes them not safe. Much more likely to have accidents, or have a criminal end up with them and using them on you. Securely storing them away from ammo to prevent those issues precludes using them for self defense. Catch-22.

For concealed carry, that's a bit different. With the right kind of setup, I suppose that I must admit that the risks of accidents could be low, the chances of needing to use the weapon low, but some real potential for situations where some people would be better off having a weapon than not.

...There are some *major* caveats to that, though. For example, if I was black, I'd never concealed carry because that seems like a recipe for disaster. Is that fair, or reasonable? Fuck no. But it is reality.

I think personally as a white country-bumpkin dude, if I was going to carry semi-frequently, I'd go with the old redneck standby of a shotgun or hunting rifle on a rack in the back window of my pickup. Lock it to the rack with a combination lock, and keep ammo separately in a glove compartment or something with another combination lock. If I actually needed it, it would be there.


One thing I do agree with @Mordhaus 100% on is that suicides should NOT be considered, or at the very least should be specifically denoted as suicides, when showing numbers for "gun violence" or "gun crimes".

Nothing is going to get done in Congress because the animosity between the two parties at this point in Congress is at Defcon 1. Bipartisanship is completely DOA. Both sides are just looking to criticize the other while crafting the narrative that their side is the one that knows what's best for the American people.

I think what you're going to see more of are things like what's happening in Hawaii. State representatives are going to realize the untapped voter potential that's out there by crafting gun laws before Congress does. In fact, probably the best solution to this problem right now is for States to work with each other and standardize all disparate gun laws across the U.S.

The real question here is how the Supreme Court is going to view these state laws when they (inevitably) get challenged on 2nd Amendment grounds. Scalia is gone now, so I honestly don't know how the Court will decide. But if you look at how gay marriage was essentially legalized in the U.S. state-by-state, I think you can see a road-map to how gun control laws could follow a similar path.

What's missing right now is an advocacy group that cares as much about this issue as the NRA does about "gun rights." It's easier to get people behind the legalization of gay marriage because it's a human rights issue and at the end of the day most people have a relative or friend (or several of each) who is affected. Sadly, it may take a day to come when everyone has a relative or friend who has suffered from gun violence to get the same kind of groundswell necessary to nudge things meaningfully forward.

18 USC 922 :
- Is a danger to himself or others
- Lacks mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs
- Is found insane by a court in a criminal case
- Is found incompetent to stand trial, or not guilty by lack of mental responsibility pursuant to articles 50a [blah blah blah]

The second line item is what applies to persons assigned a fiduciary due to a failure to manage their financial affairs (which is often elderly people).
This is why gun rights groups are crying about new measures to link medicare to the background check system.

But generally, yes, you have to do something to demonstrate that you're mental, in order to be found mental.

Gun registration is not required to know who has guns. The background check tells LEO which dealer ran it and about who. They go to the dealer and acquire the sale forms (retained at dealer by law) regarding that person.

The purpose of registration is not to know who has guns - that part is already known. Registration makes it a legal requirement to demonstrate custody. If you can't present a registered firearm, you're a criminal. Hence you have no ability to hide a registered firearm, because the act of hiding it sends you to jail. A large subset of gun owners have firearms strictly for "SHTF" (shit hits the fan). They squirrel them away with some food, and have them 'just in case' the world goes tits up. That's the segment of gun owners that drive against gun registration. They don't want their emergency kit confiscated by the government during a disaster (like happened during Katrina), and they don't want to go to jail for hiding it either.

In general, personally, I have nothing against training.
Ironically, AFAIK, LEO are the biggest offenders when it comes to accidental discharge (which makes sense, given that they point guns at people more often than regular folk, so their accidents are deadlier.).
(Police also commit [non-police-work-related] murder at a rate 8 x that of the general population.)
Training is an easy low hanging fruit to grab on to when looking for 'something to do [legislatively]', but in practice it isn't as significant as people would imagine. People that like to shoot will be well practiced, and are overall safe. Folks that bury their guns in a closet for emergencies won't be well practiced, but won't normally be in a position of opportunity to make mistakes.
Folks that legally concealed carry (hence are managing a firearm throughout the day) require a license that requires training in order to acquire. Granted, it's really not a hard test. It's driver's ed level proficiency. Just enough so you know which end to point where, you know what the controls do, and can hit a target inside of a required accuracy.
I honestly don't know the most common causes of accidental discharge - but I would assume that most are gonna be split between flubbing it with a holster (butter fingers), or forgetting to eject a chambered round after removing a magazine (derping out).

-scheherazade

To understand the wording of the second amendment, you have to take into account the history behind it. I'm not sure how familiar you are with American history, but this scholarly article is a great read on the topic, and demonstrates that guns have been kept and regulated (the most important terms of the amendment that often get completely overlooked by guns rights advocates) by Americans for both personal and collective defense since the Colonial period.

It's important to note that the Revolutionary War was literally started at Lexington and Concord when the British government, "Came fer our gunz!" That event informs a great deal of the rhetoric, and it is not at all an exaggeration to say that had the British government successfully disarmed the populace earlier, the Revolution might never have had a chance for success.

Regardless, there are an overwhelming number of legal precedents now that support the notion that the Constitution allows guns to be owned by U.S. citizens for self-defense purposes. That horse has long been out of the barn, so arguing that the constitution does not specifically use the words "self-defense" is a complete waste of time. What is not a waste of time is arguing how far the government (state and federal) can go in "regulating" the sale, carrying, and use of firearms.

Okay, Libertarians stand for:

End to the endless wars: This is much more important than any social policies they might hate. Those programs will fail if we cannot control this bullshit, and then what? Austerity.

Gay rights: (Liberal view.) Not just marriage, but all gay rights. Get the government out of the marriage / contracts etc. and give full rights to people who are different.

Abortion: (Small government, get out of a woman's right to choose. Liberal/conservative point of view.)

Gun rights: Let the States limit gun rights. What works for California might not work in New York. Not my style, but less than conservatives want, more than liberals want. Honestly we have a shit policy out there now. With terrorism building, getting rid of all handguns is seeming ominous, as they will have access to guns despite bans. They have that support in droves, unlike the average criminal would. However, conservatives want ASSAULT rifles for everyone, which is stupid and dangerous. The paradigm has changed. Liberals taking guns from average people (who are most often responsible) and yet not preventing assault rifles from terrorists hands.

Libertarians won't solve the problem but at least their view that states, not an open-access ordered by the Federal Government, would put more restrictions than most conservatives would, and still offer handguns since times have changed.

War on drugs: Failure, stop punishing people, limit laws that predominantly punish minorities, and reduce prison population.

Where the fuck have liberals gone that they no longer support a party that supports their positions so much? Oh social programs...would suffer. Get over it. Programs will suffer from every party. And conservatives shouldn't complain either. For fuck sake people, change with the times. Stop viewing this party as the party of 1920....

Gun rights people always seek to quote other causes of death, as if that has any bearing at all on the arguement..IT DOESNT..we shouldnt do anything about guns, because people drown? Thats fucking retarded. we shouldnt regulate guns, because people smoke? How fucked up is your thinking process? Hey, we shouldnt have seat belt laws ! Because, you know,,,people also overdose !! I have heard this line of bullshit repeated over and over, and it has to be one of the stupidest fucking arguements...ever......

First off, sheeple don't go to prison for violent crimes. Sheeple follow blindly along and don't cause any trouble at all.

Also 'potential for abuse'...don't cops already carry guns? You trust them with guns, right?...until they abuse that then they lose those guns and face prosecution or other remedies.

Oh and thank you very much peggedbea, for coming to my defense-Yeah NewtboyP ,i ain't one of those born-again types either, I ain't right or left of center, apolitical, pro-guns, right-to-lifer (i.e. the right to follow will), and I know the hand of who is fucking me at any given time with regard to laws and governments UNLIKE many many many people who haven't a duckling clue what they believe but simply parrot that which supports their delusions(esp. with regard to politics and religion)....Which is a category I feel you so passionately represent.

4th - yeah that's gone.
1st - some attacks on it, but in general it's still pretty healthy
2nd - er, you do realise that's the one about guns, right? It's not "almost gone", it's not even close to being gone, because it's pretty much the only part of the american constitution that conservatives care about. They couldn't even get some reasonable controls passed.

Oh and for the record, abortions' a non-issue as are all diversions taking-up valuable "overthrow or seriously re-direct the cunts who run the show" air-time. People of all nations have the right to fuck themselves up or empower themselves however they wish, wither it be through unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and/or abortions, watching too much television, or taking copious amounts of illicit substances.

So if you want gun rights you don't move to Illinois, and if you want cunts out of your state legislature, demand it....which means becoming actively/physically involved other than watching from your computer monitor and spouting scripted, ineffectual party-line distraction like the bobble-heads on the telly-Time to put your riot gear on.

Run from a knife, rush to a gun.. But that is pretty unnatural setup, no one gives you those changes.. both hands behind the gun, right..

Hey argument mongers! YEAH YOUSE! This is a great video so why don't we respect it and resist the temptation to turn this into another gun rights flame war (incidentally, another war that cannot be "won"). There is a place for that discussion and it's not here. Move along. Theenks.

I love when retired police officers step forward and slowly rip apart the drug war with facts, experience and wisdom. Seems the sad truth is that the U.S. government, (which is currently in the habit of displaying a level of insanity fit for a corporate-emperor-giant-king via what it says to the public versus what it actually does in its slowly eroding privacy) clearly doesn't seem to actually want to end the drug war or the war on terror for that matter any time soon. i guess there is too much profit to be had from the institutions that are already in place at this point.

With luck, the Nixon/Reagan-esque dinosaurs of free will control, hiding behind the thin guise of morality, which they surely are not the paragons of, will soon be trapped within their sedimentary prison for all time and We the people will be able to choose what kind of substances we ingest without the looming shadow of silent oppression casting its all encompassing umbra upon us.

"But you get to the place
Where the real slavedrivers live
It's walled off by the riot squad
Aiming guns right at your head
So you turn right around
And play right into their hands
And set your own neighbourhood
Burning to the ground instead!"-Jello Biafra, "Riot."

If you're looking for gun rights and a place where the government isn't trying to be sneaking about their privacy laws, Canada is not the place for you. =)