I wonder how this lady feels about her neighbor's gun ownership rights.

I don't know where you live, but you can hire or steal a truck pretty easily here in Australia (one of the most heavily regulated countries in the world). And our regulations haven't stopped recent idiots mowing down people with cars on purpose (Melbourne!!!). They're thinking of putting bollards in place in strategic locations - because you can't regulate away what we don't want happening.

Yes, some things kill at lower rates than the examples but I had to end somewhere.

Vehicle ownership is not essential. You can have public transport service everyone just fine (e.g. Singapore). Of course, some people argue that what is good for Singapore may not be suitable for themselves (i.e. it is essential in my scenario because I say it is). And you can extend that same argument to firearms (that they are essential in someone else's scenario). Firearms have a measured economic benefit, protection benefit, health benefit (active outdoor sports), military benefit, etc.

Modern civilisation works fine (I'd argue it works better) without private vehicles. Try having a civilisation without firearms - you'll have to have awfully large mobs of bobbies armed with nothing but sticks. Good luck with that

@newtboy and @scheherazade,

I think I may have come up with a shorter line of evidence for a well armed population being protection against tyranny.

Granted, a poorly armed population with strong arms control laws doesn't necessarily devolve into tyranny. We can all demonstrate this with counter examples like up here in Canada. However, can anyone name an oppressive dictatorship that had 2nd amendment level freedoms for every man and woman in their state? I can't think of a single example myself.

As I said before, that doesn't lead me to immediately declare zero restrictions on guns are thus worth any cost to forestall future tyranny. However, I have to acknowledge that the NRA style argument for protection against tyranny isn't entirely without merit.

That leads to my objections with declaring that it is objectively obvious that gun freedoms must morally be pulled back, while at the same time objectively obvious that idealogical/religious practice freedoms must not. We have ample examples of extremists gathering together to plot violence, mayhem and death on a grand scale and putting some extra lines in the sand of when that becomes unacceptable is no more obviously immoral than restricting gun ownership.

Only what they mentioned in the news.
20 ish guns.
2 ar15s, 1 with a bump stock.
1 ak pattern rifle (47 claimed, but the news is clueless. Could be a 74, could be an odd variant), possibly with a bump stock.
Then a bunch of other guns, not described.

Yes, full auto varies. I erred on the higher rate side.
A more realistic rate would be 12hz auto, 6hz bump, and 3hz semi.

Only other non-NFA non-bump rapid fire mechanism that I know of is a binary trigger (fires on pull, and on release). Effectively doubles your semi fire rate.

In any case, he only needed 1 gun and spare magazines.
I assume he brought everything not because it was necessary, but because he was planning to die and he had the stuff, so why not use it one last time (not like he'll get another chance).

To be fair, so far, mass shooters have stuck around for the long haul. Escape hasn't been an issue. But sure, in the future it could be.

True, you don't have to be 100% squeaky clean, but the vegas guy so far does look like he was.

As an aside, our felony code is incredibly expansive. People get disqualified from gun ownership over things that most normal people wouldn't even think would be illegal.

There's a stat that some lawyer published : a person typically commits 3 [obscure] felonies per day just going about normal daily activities. You can basically put anyone in jail if you choose to monitor them.

IMO, felonies should be divided into major and minor, with anything non violent being minor, and not disqualifying of gun ownership or right to vote.

Eg. I don't care if someone is running a pot farm. It isn't bothering anyone, it shouldn't even be a crime. But if it's gonna be a felony, at least it should be some lesser felony than it is now.

-scheherazade

Lol, I read "imaginary Hiller" (and assumed you meant Hillary). My bad.



We have reasonable laws already.
Most things people ask for either already exist (and anti-gunners just don't know because they don't have to follow those laws), or only screw collectors and sportsmen while not doing anything to reduce risk (which I already covered, I assume you read the earlier part, eg California compliant AR15, etc).



Nobody expects to need to form a militia.
Nobody expects the country to go to hell.

The seat belt analogy is about preparedness for unlikely events.
Like, you don't "need" flood insurance in Houston - unless you do.

Owning a gun also hurts nobody.
By definition, ownership is not a harm.

Almost all guns will never be used to do any harm.
The very statement that "guns are all about hurting other people" is a non-empirical assertion.

Just shy of every last gun owner doesn't imagine themselves as Bruce Willis. Asserting that they do is a straw man.


You remind me of Republicans that complain that Black people are welfare queens (so they can redirect money out of welfare). Or Republicans that complain that Trans people are pedophiles in hiding (so they can pander to religious zelot voters). Creating a straw man and then getting mad about the straw man (rather than the real people) is self serving.


* Only the rarest few people think they are Roy Rogers. That is a straw man that does not apply to just shy of every gun owner.
* You don't need a gun for home defense... unless you do.
* Differences in likelihood of death armed vs unarmed is happenstance.
(Doesn't matter either way. Googled some likelihoods : http://www.theblaze.com/news/2013/02/15/how-likely-are-you-to-die-from-gun-violence-this-interesting-chart-puts-it-in-perspective/
You'd have to suffer death 350'000 times before you're at a 50/50 chance of your next death being by firearms.)
[EDIT, math error. Should say 17'000 years lived to reach a 50/50 chance of death by firearms in the next year]
* Technically, even 1 vote gets someone elected. You don't control who is on the ballot.



NRA and NSSF are on life support. They have to fight the influence of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, most major newspapers. They are way outclassed. Current events don't help either.
The "big bad NRA" rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. As is the rhetoric that the NRA only represents the industry.

-sceherazade

I think everybody advocating for even more gun control needs to put a nice 24" sign on their yard saying "This home not protected by firearms." For some reason most people hesitate to do that. It's like herd immunity for viruses. General gun ownership keeps everybody safer even if they don't own one, criminals don't like to confront armed people.

"By comparing criminal victimization surveys from Britain and the Netherlands (countries having low levels of gun ownership) with the U.S., Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck determined that if the U.S. were to have similar rates of "hot" burglaries as these other nations, there would be more than 450,000 additional burglaries per year where the victim was threatened or assaulted. (Britain and the Netherlands have a "hot" burglary rate near 45% versus just under 13% for the U.S., and in the U.S. a victim is threatened or attacked 30% of the time during a "hot" burglary.)"

And yet, gun laws DEMONSTRABLY work in other countries. There are plenty of other countries with high gun ownership rates (Canada, for instance), but nowhere outside the 3rd world has anything like the gun-related death rate of the US.

Meanwhile, you are caught up in some ridiculous fantasy where you save America from imaginary Hitler.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/6l4l6m/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-scapegoat-hunter---gun-control

edit: fine don't embed the video, then!

In open warfare of govt vs people, drones don't matter, just like jets don't matter. I already covered this above.



Nowhere is an oppressive dictatorship - until it is.
[redacted]
I feel like people are too distracted with instagram and other B.S. to bother learning about how the world works.
History is long. The current peace is an anomaly. When things go bad, there is little warning. If you're lucky, a year or so of build up. If you're not lucky, weeks or days. Shit likes to spiral.
In bad times, you have only what you have on hand.


Most western countries with [regardless of gun ownership] don't have a population that's F'd in the head.
Nothing stops a German gun owner from taking his AR15 and shooting up a concert.
Storing his guns in a safe that he can open doesn't mean anything.
Paying for a new license card for every few guns doesn't alter the guns.

Gun laws, as proposed, are fluff. Nothing that makes people safer, nothing that prevents ownership, but plenty to crap on collectors.
* 10 round limit = 2 second pause to reload
* Gun show loophole is a misnomer.
* (re. above) Only private sales (gun show or not) don't require checks - but you still end up in court if the buyer does something bad.
* Assault weapons ban only bans pistol grips and threaded barrels. Cosmetics. Just google "California compliant AR15" (they already have a de-facto AWB).
* There's already laws against straw purchase.
* There's already laws against crazy people buying (already part of the background check)
* Registration is pointless as gun control. Doesn't alter the guns or who has them (background check already tells gov who, when, and where bought a gun).

(I'd sooner vote for mandatory roll cage and 6 point harness in every car. Could eliminate 90+% of car fatalities in one rule - if people cared enough.)


By the way, gun owners hate people like the Vegas shooter even more than anti-gunners hate people like him.
Precisely because assholes like that shooter make anti-gunners turn on their frustration on innocent gun owners.

The call to "do something" is the phrase that perfectly describes the sentiments that led to actions, that in turn became described by either "famous last words" or "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".





We had shit health insurance before Obama. We had shit insurance during Obama (only you're required by law to buy it, even if it's not a good value), we continue to have shit health insurance during Trump, and no matter what trump does, it will still be shit.
Problem is that the insurance company lobbyists draft the language of the law (no matter the party in charge), and it's not for our benefit.





Re. Minorities, most are living normal lives. The white eutopia that the few vocal people complain about, doesn't exist. At least I have yet to see it. Don't let a few thousand people in a nation of millions guide your thoughts about overall social norms.

I'm happy to see them protest. Frankly, I wish white people had the same solidarity that black people have. When a black gets shot by a cop, they come together. When a white is shot by a cop, other whites say "he probably deserved it". I wish the black community good luck and success.





Yes, I wish we weren't jailing more people than anywhere else on the planet, over things that harm nobody.
I wish we had the drug laws of Portugal (decriminalization)
I wish we had the legal system of Sweden (no jail before conviction).

Know how I said that most countries don't have as many people that are F'd in the head? Same applies for people in government.
None of this shit will get fixes.
Republicans are bible thumping retards that funnel money to defense contractors and campaign donors.
Democrats are buck-passing censors that funnel money to insurance companies and campaign donors.
And people just pick a team and bark at the other team, while each gets fleeced by their very own side.

-scheherazade

Two words easily dismiss your entire argument: predator drones.

Look, there are plenty of other countries with high gun ownership rates, but a few sensible regulations stop this kind of shit happening, and guess what? Those countries aren’t oppressive dictatorships, they’re modern, progressive societies.

Meanwhile, the USA, for all your talk of guns preventing dictatorship is a disgrace. You have have bigoted asshole running your country, your healthcare is barbaric (and they’re trying to make it worse), your tax system is ridiculous and your minority citizens are being criticised for daring to protest about the systemic racism they have to endure.

Gun control won’t make your country “less free”, because it’s already ranked pretty low there. But it will certainly lower the number of mass shootings.

Freedom of religion is independent of civilian armament.
History shows that religious persecution is normal for humanity, and in most cases it's perpetrated by the government. Sometimes to consolidate power (with government tie-ins to the main religion), and sometimes to pander to the grimace of a majority.

Ironically, in this country, freedom of religion only exists due to armed conflict, albeit merely as a side effect of independence from a religiously homogeneous ruling power.



It's true that Catalonians would likely have been shot at if they were armed.
However, likewise, the Spanish government will never grant the Catalans democracy so long as the Catalans are not armed - simply because it doesn't have to.
(*Barring self suicidal/sacrificial behavior on part of the Catalans that eventually [after much suffering] embarrasses the government into compliance - often under risk that 3rd parties will intervene if things continue)

When the government manufactures consent, it will be first in line to claim that people have democratic freedom. When the government fails to manufacture consent, it will crack down with force.

At the end of the day, in government, might makes right. Laws are only words on paper, the government's arms are what make the laws matter.

Likewise, democracy is no more than an idea. The people's force of arms (or threat thereof) is what assert's the people's dominance over the government.



You can say the police/military are stronger and it would never matter, however, the size of an [armed] population is orders of magnitude larger than the size of an army. Factor in the fact that the people need to cooperate with the government in order to support and supply the government's military. No government can withstand armed resistance of the population at large. This is one of the main lessons from The Prince.

Civilian armament is a bulwark against potentially colossal ills (albeit ills that come once every few generations).

Look at NK. The people get TV, radio, cell, from SK. They can look across the river and see massive cities on the Chinese side. They know they have to play along with the charade that their government demands. At the end of the day, without guns, things won't change.

Look at what happened during the Arab Spring. All these unarmed nations turned to external armed groups to fight for them to change their governments. All it accomplished was them becoming serfs to the invited 3rd parties. This is another lesson from The Prince : always take power by your own means, never rely on auxiliaries, because your auxiliaries will become your new rulers.






Below is general pontification. No longer a reply.
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Civilian armament does come with periodic tragedies. Those tragedies suck. But they're also much less significant than the risks of disarmament.
(Eg. School shootings, 7-11 robberies, etc -versus- Tamils vs Sri Lankan government, Rohingya vs Burmese government. etc.)

Regarding rifles specifically (all varieties combined), there is no point in arguing magnitudes (Around 400 lives per year - albeit taken in newsworthy large chunks). 'Falling out of bed' kills more people, same is true for 'Slip and fall'. No one fears their bed or a wet floor.

Pistols could go away and not matter much.
They have minimal militia utility, and they represent almost the entirety of firearms used in violent crime. (Albeit used to take lives in a non newsworthy 1 at a time manner)

(In the U.S.) If tragedy was the only way to die (otherwise infinite lifespan), you would live on average 9000 years. Guns, car crashes, drownings, etc. ~All tragedies included. (http://service.prerender.io/http://polstats.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/life#!/life)






A computer learning example I was taught:

Boy walking with his mom&dad down a path.
Lion #1 jumps out, eats his dad.
(Data : Specifically lion #1 eats his father.)
The boy and mom keep walking
Lion #2 jumps out, eats his mother.
(Data : Specifically lion #2 eats his mother)
The boy keeps walking
He comes across Lion #3.

Question : Should he be worried?

If you are going to generalize [the first two] lions and people, then yes, he should be worried.

In reality, lions may be very unlikely to eat people (versus say, a gazelle). But if you generalized from the prior two events, you will think they are dangerous.

(The relevance to computer learning is that : Computers learn racism, too. If you include racial data along with other data in a learning algorithm, that algorithm can and will be able to make decisions based on race. Not because the software cares - but because it can analyze and correlate.)

(Note : This is also why arguing religion is likely futile. If a child is raised being told that everything is as it is because God did it, then that becomes their basis for reality. Telling them that their belief in god is wrong, is like telling the boy in the example that lions are statistically quite safe to people. It challenges what they've learned.)



I mentioned this example, because it illustrates learning and perception. And it segways into my following analogy.



Here's a weird analogy, but it goes like this :

(I'm sure SJW minded people will shit themselves over it, but whatever)

"Gun ownership in today's urban society" is like "Black people in 80's white bred society".

2/3 of the population today has no contact with firearms (mostly urban folk)
They only see them on movies used to shoot people, and on the news used to shoot people.
If you are part of that 2/3, you see guns as murder tools.
If you are part of the remaining 1/3, you see guns like shoes or telephones - absolutely mundane daily items that harm nobody.

In the 80's, if you were in a white bred community, your only understanding of black people would be from movies where they are gangsters and shoot people, and from the nightly news where you heard about some black person who shot people.
If you were part of an 80's white bred community, you saw black people as dangerous likely killers.
If you were part of an 80's black/mixed community, you saw black people as regular people living the same mundane lives as anyone else.

In either case, you can analytically know better. But your gut feelings come from your experience.



Basically, I know guns look bad to 2/3 of the population. That won't change. People's beliefs are what they are.
I also know that the likelihood of being in a shooting is essentially zero.
I also know that history repeats itself, and -just in case- I'd rather live in an armed society than an unarmed society. Even if I don't carry a gun.

-scheherazade

I don't disagree that weapons don't necessarily make anyone more free. I also can't say people are wrong to observe in a civil war level of unrest, a dissenting party armed with fully automatic weapons has more leverage than one armed with knives.

Freedom to practice religion is not 'fairly safe' without guns, unless you want to ignore attacks with cars, trucks, IEDs, and, historically, civilian airliners.

I am mostly pointing out that restricting laws on gun ownership to protect people is not so terribly different from limiting freedom to practice/express idealogies. It is readily demonstrable that BOTH those freedoms have directly contributed to civilian casualties.

The difference between say, banning automatic weapons, and the banning of affiliation with extremist groups like the KKK or ISIL is mostly divided along partisan lines, logically they are pretty much two sides of the same coin, with democrats and republicans each decrying one as necessary and the other as evil.

Two points followed by some general discussion but w/e...

I didn't try to justify his actions in the slightest, he was wrong to draw the gun and to discharge it. I understand why someone might do something if he sees an idiot with the worlds worst flamethrower trying to set people on fire, but I do not condone it.

I also said that he was drawing the gun to defend others, didn't try to make out that he was being attacked personally. Defense of others is a legitimate reason to step in to a situation (even if, again, I think the amount of force he decided to deploy was way over the top and illegal...).

No, neither side should show up armed, that is how far this whole shit show has barreled down the hill. And yes, I would be fairly certain that a bunch of white supremacists would be armed, so if I did show up to protest against them, I sure as fuck wouldn't be attacking them first and giving them reasons to lose their head and draw down on me... They certainly are the types that gravitate to gun ownership, rebellion against the government etc, I don't think that's a huge surprise to anyone right?

One of the first rules about fighting I learned way back in the day when I worked security is that it's fucking stupid to launch violence against anyone that you do not explicitly need to because you have no idea what they can do, what they have access to etc. If you can resolve a situation with words rather than fists (or more), do so at every opportunity. The idiots showing up to 'punch nazis' really have no concept of this. They show up to 'take nazi scalps' and expect no repercussions?

And yeah, you clearly put this up as a 'left did something bad, OMG THE RIGHT DID SOMETHING WORSE', the entire screed describing the vid only mentions the pyro once as a minor note in a story about the evil armed racist. You're about as fair and balanced as Faux and it's bitchy little stunts like this shit which will always put you exactly where BK33 says you are.

Fucking amazing, you're moronic enough to make Bob right. Kudos...

But I still believe that it's more important for people to see what happened than to suppress it, so the vote stands (petty would be taking it away now you've insulted me ; ).

The only way this can be solved long-term is by treating the area as an investment opportunity. At the very least Japan, China, Russia, the US and South Korea would have to cooperate to make it happen.

South Korea would have to head the effort mainly because Koreans are incredibly xenophobic and nationalistic. Most North Koreans are actually proud to be successfull at enduring whatever hardships are thrown at them and believe foreigners are to blame for everything.

There would have to be a "Marshall plan" that would ensure that the general population, but also most local elites would keep or recover some form of ownership of their "property" which would mostly be land and housing and administration or military rank at this point.

In other words you would have to make the idea of change favourable for the population of North Korea, not try to scare them. Very difficult to organize, much more so than US healthcare.

I'm an atheist.

No once has merry Christmas offended me.

Other people's mouths are not my property. They're welcome to wish whatever the hell they want. I'm welcome to not give a crap.

Talk is cheap. I'd be embarrassed to be emotionally affected enough to actually whine about it.

In general, I think the 'type of person' that would try to create law to use the police to silence people they disagree with, are the fundamental problem. Whether it's right wing churchies, or left wing SJWs, they share the same character flaw that is the root cause of suffering for much of the world. The only good thing about them is that they often manage to cancel each other out.

Re. atheism in public, crap I care about would be things like: marriage tax benefits, or marriage co-100%-ownership benefits. Because marriage (a historically religious arrangement - and before that an arrangement of human chattel) has no business being in the government sphere, and no business having tangible effects on people's economic and legal lives.

-scheherazade