Here, I'm gonna throw you a bone:

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/10/06/555861898/gun-violence-how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries

Scroll down to how the US compares against more violent countries.

Imagine saying this but not making a connection between violent societies and access to machines designed for killing.

"In Japan, there are less guns. Japan has less gun violence."
-- Yes but you can't make that comparison because the US is more violent.

???

You’re right. Cars and trucks are deadly in the wrong hands.

Which is why we regulate them. You need a licence to drive one. You are tested to see if you are a competent driver. People with serious mental health issues are restricted from driving and there are MASSIVE industry regulations that attempt to make these vehicles safer.

There’s also entire departments dedicated to studying road fatalities.

None of which is true of guns. The CDC can’t even STUDY gun violence.

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

@Asmo, ok, here's your video of antifa violence, I've spotted one that is in that crowd of women and children shooting a short flame in the direction of the Nazis, met with greater, deadly Nazi gun violence and "just die nigger"....Thanks Bob for finding this video....even though oddly he couldn't point out the antifa in that crowd.

This video was also not released by the media, I guess you would say that's to protect the antifa being shot at from responsibility, not the right wing nazi?
I take a more reasoned approach and believe it was withheld to 1) not incite more violence 2) protect the police's already badly tarnished reputation from those saying they caused the violence by doing nothing and 3) help the police investigate without the guilty parties going into hiding.

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Nazi-Violence-Finally-Called-Out-By-Media

In this part of the world stating "self defence" as a reason for wanting a firearm will disqualify you.

I would certainly consider suicide by firearm as "gun violence", and I would also say that good firearm regulations should make it hard for suicidal people to easily and quickly get their hands on a weapon.

The 1996 Australian gun buyback, which halved the number of gun-owning households here, is credited with a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates (source, via snopes). Although this was an unanticipated benefit of the buyback, I think most of us consider it a good outcome.

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.

@Mordhaus

"We have always been a gun violence culture up until the post WW2 era. Think frontier, wild west, duels, and mafia shootouts. We glorify violence everyday, we even give sickos who shoot up groups of people mass media coverage. "

Don't you think that that idea is outdated in 2016? Fine, that's the culture. Change the fucking culture.

When I grew up in Ireland, nobody gave a second thought to driving drunk. Sunday after church, people went to the pub, had a few pints with the neighbours, the kids played space invaders and then the whole family got back in the car and drove home.

And most of the time, it was absolutely fine. People got home, there was the occasional accident, but ya know, what can ya do?

Until it wasn't fine. And it took decades, but eventually, it became socially unacceptable to drive drunk.

"I'm just extremely leery of package deals like lets ban everyone who ends up on a list from having weapons based on a government decision."
I get that. But be reasonable. You're ok with not letting people fly, but you draw the line at owning weapons?

That is some fucked up list of priorities. I would be far more concerned with restricting someones right to travel (essentially restricting their freedom of movement, or a lighter form of incarceration) than whether they can own a gun.

You say that owning a gun is a constitutional right whereas travel isn't. I say that freedom of movement is a fundamental basic human right... oh, look at that, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."

I'm completely willing to say that it should be a lot harder to put someone on this kind of list, but there's no way the right to own a weapon is more important than freedom of movement.

Finally, re: slippery slopes
"The Patriot Act, meant to be a well intended set of rules to help us protect ourselves, has been perverted to lessen quite a few of our rights."

The Patriot Act wasn't a slippery slope, it started at the bottom of the slope and went straight over a fucking cliff. It should never have been passed in the first place.

The fact the gun lobby won't let the CDC do it's job and collect data on gun violence just shows how insane political right is.

Then the right is blaming ISIS... the idiot pledged allegiance to ISIS and Hezbollah, even though they are enemies of each other. He clearly just had an issue with gays, and was using faith as an excuse. Most of the mass shootings in the US aren't done by Muslims in an act of terrorism, they are done by crazy people who have unfiltered access to guns.

I'd be fine if we don't close the gun show loophole or don't ban people from buying assault weapons, for now, so long as we first at least let the CDC get back to doing its job and collect data on gun violence. Then explore it in a few years of data collection to see what measures would be helpful. The fact the right refuses to let that happen must tell you that they know what the data will show, that some loopholes need closed.

And yes, if you are on the federal no flight list (and I haven't seen that this shooter was on such a list, just investigated twice), then you should certainly be delayed in getting a gun. That should be a huge red flag. You should then be told why you were denied and then have a right to argue for the right to own a gun and/or get off the no flight list. It should be a clear process to make such an application, and shouldn't require a lawyer. But odds are that most people on the no fly list aren't there for search history, or library records, but most are on the no fly list undoubtedly for far better reasons.

I'll fight to retain the right for most Americans to own a gun. Both a hand gun for personal home defense, and hunting rifles and the like. However if you are in a situation that requires an AR-15 to defend yourself, you are way over your head.... and don't give me some bull shit about protecting yourself from the government, remember how well having even more powerful weapons and training did for the people in Waco. Where do people who argue that those should be sold without restriction want to draw the line (and to be clear, I'm not arguing against the right to own one necessarily, but I am against buying it without restrictions, for a smaller wait time than it would take to buy a handgun)? Do we let people buy a bazooka? A surface to air missile launcher? A nuclear bomb? Where do you draw the line on putting restrictions, or at least a wait time on weapons of mass harm?

What absolute fucking bullshit!

I'm so sick of this child like interpretation of the constitution.

Oh slippery slope... same document used to give people the RIGHT to own other humans...

Oh slipper slope... the RIGHT to vote is clearly intended for white men and land owners only.

etc... etc... seems like we're up to like 27 HEINOUS infringements on YOUR rights by now.!

Its absolutely utterly fucking ridiculous. The entire country is held hostage from even discussing the issue. The government isn't even allowed to collect data.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/us/gun-violence-graphics/

We are the ONLY ones doing this at anywhere even close to this rate. And we can't even discuss potential solutions rationally without it being turned into some paranoid hypothetical tyrannical enslavement scenario.

Its fucking pathetic. So yeah... your right lets not even make a fucking attempt at solving our issues.

*promote

We have always been a gun violence culture up until the post WW2 era. Think frontier, wild west, duels, and mafia shootouts. We glorify violence everyday, we even give sickos who shoot up groups of people mass media coverage. For a person who wants to go out in a blaze of infamy, we are custom tailored to give them their last 15 minutes of 'fame'.

Again, we have a nebulous definition of what it takes to get on the watch list. I could be placed on it simply by stating something to the effect that "I support ISIS", even though I don't. Restricting people who manage to end up on a government list is the same as removing their right to a firearm after committing a felony offense, only you have removed every single bit of their right to a legal defense. There is no due process to being placed on a US watchlist, you get put on and fuck you if it was a mistake. Maybe they'll take you off later, who knows?

I am not going to defend a slippery slope argument on this, I don't have to. It's already happened in the years since 2001. The Patriot Act, meant to be a well intended set of rules to help us protect ourselves, has been perverted to lessen quite a few of our rights. Not only our rights, but other countries. We have violated their security, spied on their people and leaders, and we perform acts of war on their territories with impugnity. All because we lost two buildings and 2,996 people; a heinous act, but one our government exploited to put us into 2 wars with a death toll to people who may not even be our enemies that dwarf our loss. In short, we fucking have the slippery slope process down to a SCIENCE.

O'Reilly supports AR-15 should be banned.

He's wrong about why gun violence has gone down -- Freakonomics guys looked at the numbers.

@Mordhaus

The idea of US being a gun violence culture just makes no sense to me. A gun ownership culture among a subset of the population sure, but a culture of resolving conflict with violence? No, it's a product of gun availability. The numbers ChaosEngine quoted on guns / 100 people really is the unique differentiator that makes murder rates some 5-20x the developed country average.

Poverty leading to crime, poor mental health treatment are the tinder but the easy access to weapons is what leads to the death tolls to combust incomparable to any other developed country. Also if legislators can't pass gun control after Sandy Hook, or even restrict people on or previously on the terrorist watch-list from buying guns then the idea of any kind of slippery slope is farcical.

I've never supported loss of freedom for security, but yeah, it was one of the many things that the general public was willing to give up after 9/11. The Patriot Act is literally the stupidest thing we have ever allowed to go into place and the sad thing is that most of the people who voted for it didn't even bother to read it.

Gun violence is definitely part of our culture. It's almost a joke to see that the places that are the most restricted on guns usually have the higher rates of gun violence. Florida is the odd one out this time, they have relaxed gun laws and still got hit. I guess one thing that made it worse is that most places that sell alcohol for a certain amount of their profit (bars/clubs/etc) aren't allowed to permit concealed carry holders on premises. I fully understand the logic behind that, alcohol and weapons of any type don't mix, but maybe some armed security guards?