Gun control in the USA

God you would never see that glorification of guns and terrorism in Ireland...oh wait...

robindch wrote: »

MadsL - with my mod hat on here briefly, A+A is more of a discussion forum; photos work better over here. Thanks.

I'm the only one who posted pictures? Wow.

(sorry inbox full, would have PM'd, and I'm not intending to get into a discussion of modding, just wow that you singled me out)

And, in all fairness, I could spend quite some time asking you questions like "Does your viewpoint on topic X differ significantly from the NRA" and if I keep hearing back a "no", I might jump, justifiably if mistakenly, to the conclusion that your viewpoints generally coincided. This would be quite unfair on you if it's not true.

How would you respond if I asked you "how does your viewpoint differ from Fine Gael?" Do you think it reasonable to expect anyone to respond to such a rediculously vague question.

If you want to ask a question, pose it in a reasonably tight frame of reference to give your debate partner a hope of answering.

I wouldn't dream of asking you "how does your viewpoint differ from the Brady Campaign?"

And, in all fairness, I could spend quite some time asking you questions like "Does your viewpoint on topic X differ significantly from the NRA" and if I keep hearing back a "no", I might jump, justifiably if mistakenly, to the conclusion that your viewpoints generally coincided. This would be quite unfair on you if it's not true.

Except you haven't spent even a minute asking any kind of question framed like that, other than are you a member of the NRA to which I answered NO in the strongest possible terms. But that was not enough for you.

equivariant wrote: »

Failed analogy. The difference is that Fine Gael is a political party with a huge range of issues on which they take a position. Whereas this is a discussion about gun control and the NRA is pretty much a single issue advocacy group (a the most important relevant group to boot) - that issue being gun control. So in a discussion on gun control, it is a perfectly reasonable to ask 'where do you disagree with the NRA?' I can aonly presume that it is a question that for some reason you feel uncomfortable answering (I would too, in your shoes)

To give a more appropriate analogy, if we were discussing government austerity measures, it would perfectly appropriate to ask 'where do you disagree with Fine Gael on this issue?'

Once again I see you are not above word games in order to put words in my mouth. Worse, you are again trying to play logical fallacy games along the lines of "MadsL supports responsible gun ownership, the NRA support responsible gun ownership, therefore MadsL = NRA". How about you go argue that line on the Christianity forum "Robert Mugabe is a Catholic, Catholics also believe homosexuality is wrong, therefore Catholics all support Robert Mugabe's attempts to eradicate homosexuality"

You say my analogy is inappropriate, yet the NRA is a also a political lobby group with a wide range of issues. You have to frame your question to a specific topic and again I would say that it is very wide framing of that question.

How about you just come out and ask a question? I've already told you I would not join the NRA with a gun held to my head. And that still seems to be unclear for you. The only thing I find uncomfortable about that is your hounding of posters on this, and I find that rather odd given you mod this forum.

Here's the wikipedia entry for the NRA so that you don't have to endure the shame of visiting their website. Ask away!

robindch wrote: »

No, you're the one who posted too many -- up to a few, carefully-selected, relevant images are fine, six images on top of each other is a bit much. If you'd like to discuss this further, please PM me.Yes, I think it's quite reasonable, even if you're referring to a general political party with a multitude of continuously-changing views, rather than a single-issue pressure group which receives massive funding from a single industry.

The point of me asking that specific question is -- as equivariant points out -- that the likely answer is obvious and will put you and the other two posters who avoided answering it into an uncomfortable position in this discussion.

Do please feel to correct that impression if you wish.

MadsL wrote: »

Once again I see you are not above word games in order to put words in my mouth. Worse, you are again trying to play logical fallacy games along the lines of "MadsL supports responsible gun ownership, the NRA support responsible gun ownership, therefore MadsL = NRA". How about you go argue that line on the Christianity forum "Robert Mugabe is a Catholic, Catholics also believe homosexuality is wrong, therefore Catholics all support Robert Mugabe's attempts to eradicate homosexuality"

You say my analogy is inappropriate, yet the NRA is a also a political lobby group with a wide range of issues. You have to frame your question to a specific topic and again I would say that it is very wide framing of that question.

In this post you seem to have confused me with robindch. Its my fault really - I jumped in and commented on an exchange between the two of you.

Nevertheless, claiming that the NRA is a political lobby group with a wide range of issues (that mibht be comparable to a party such as Fine Gael) is ridiculous. They are to all intents and purposes only concerned with any issue insofar as it affects gun control - the very epitomy of a single issue advocacy group. Also, your whole Mubage/Catholic/etc analogy is just a straw man

robindch wrote: »

I'd have thought that a moderator of the boardsie shooting forum would know enough about the largest and most massively funded gun-lobbyists in the USA to be able to answer that without needing to take a week for research. Do you really know that little about them?

Correct. They do lobbying in the US and regulate a few sports I don't partake in; so I have no contact with them and no real interest in what they do.
(Just because two sports both use firearms doesn't mean they're linked, anymore than soccer and bowling are linked because both use similarly-sized balls).

Now ask me a question about Irish target shooting or Irish firearms legislation and I can help you.

Zillah wrote: »

If weapons were entirely outlawed the criminals would be very unlikely to be so armed.

It's a nice idea, but to give a counter-example just to even the debate, automatic firearms are not legally licencable in Ireland and never, ever have been - they were strictly controlled by Irish law before we joined the EU and are equally strictly controlled by EU law. You basicly need a Minister (either the Minister for Justice or the Minister for Defence) to give permission for you to have one - so only the defence forces and the gardai have them. Similar law applies in Northern Ireland and the UK.

And yet, the Troubles, and our current crime levels happened, with such high points as families being taken hostage in "tiger" kidnappings first by the paramilitaries and then by "ordinary" criminals, using AK47s and the like; and criminals driving down the M50 shooting at each others cars with automatic weapons; and I'm sure we could all keep adding to that list for far too long for any civilised country.

I would love to see criminals disarmed too; I doubt anyone out there would disagree; but when even as strong a legal ban as we had on automatic firearms fails to do so, it becomes harder to dismiss the US approach to this as being naive or insane. It's distasteful to us, certainly, we had 40 years of that kind of living; but that's a different thing.

MagicMarker wrote: »

Dunblane guns were legally held
Columbine guns were legally held
Sandy Hook guns were legally held

Woo Bum-kon were legally held ( Police guns)
Woo Bum-kon (or Wou Bom-kon) (February 24, 1955 – April 27, 1982) was a South Korean police officer who carried out the second largest known incident of spree killing in modern history. After the rampage concluded, 57 people (including himself) were dead and 35 were wounded in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woo_Bum-kon

seamus wrote: »

To be fair, gun control aside, I think there are cultural issues in the USA around guns which need addressing.

It's absolute madness that in a stable, peaceful, democratic society, citizens would be permitted to carry firearms concealed, for nothing more than self defence against a human attacker. Craziness.
But what's even worse than that is that in many quarters it's seen as a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do.

Getting a gun in Ireland isn't that difficult. There are a few hoops to jump through, but we have our own few examples of unhinged individuals being in charge of legally-held weapons. So if they can do it, so can most other people.

But there is a cultural difference in Ireland - the man on the street would consider owning a gun for self-defence to be a weird thing to do.
Carrying a concealed weapon in public while going about your business would be the considered the actions of a complete nutjob, someone who is so paranoid, unstable and dangerous that they felt the need to carry it.

So gun control aside (and I think most reasonable people recognise that there are many perfectly valid reasons to choose to own a gun), I'm not sure if restrictions on the availability of firearms (say banning anything above a pistol and a hunting rifle) in the US would have that big an effect on the number of legally-held weapons.

In Ireland all guns being transported public places covered or kept out of view.
In other words they must be concealed.

In most of America you need a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
In many parts of America you can carry a weapon without a permit if it is visible.

equivariant wrote: »

I'm sure that Ms Lanza also considered herself a responsible gun owner.

Your drink analogy is a complete fail. Guns are designed to kill and maim - that is what they do. Sure drink kills and damages and there are important issues to debate about our culture of drunkenness. However, that is not analogous to the gun culture in the US. Guns have no purpose other than violence (I include violence against animals in that statement). I don't care whether you think you are a responsible gun owner or not. In a civilised society most people should not be allowed to decide whether or not they are fit to own a gun. If that offends your over inflated sense of entitlement or 'personal liberty' or whatever you want to call it, tough.

if guns are designed to kill or maim( apart from hunting ) then of most 300 million guns in America in have failed in this designed or the would be million of people killed every year in the US.

Yes Guns do not for the most part kill people.

Bullets kill people.

Belfast wrote: »

Federal Assault Weapons Ban
Compliance

The National Rifle Association has referred to the features affected by the ban as cosmetic,[3] as has the Violence Policy Center.[4]

In addition, in March 2004, Kristen Rand, the legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, criticized the soon-to-expire ban by stating, "The 1994 law in theory banned AK-47s, MAC-10s, Uzis, AR-15s and other 'assault weapons'. Yet the gun industry easily found ways around the law and most of these weapons are now sold in post-ban models virtually identical to the guns Congress sought to ban in 1994."[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban#Compliance

Cannot see the Americans changing the law in a meaning full way.

even if all private ownership of guns were banned in the US there are too many people willing to break that law as they believe that have the right to own guns.

They didn't break any laws by creating 'ban legal' rifles, the US gov set a list of features they considered 'dangerous' on a rifle and the manufacturers simply removed them and people bought them 100% legally. That's the problem with banning features on a gun, a bit of re-tooling in the factory and the rifle is up for sale again minus the offending part. The same thing will happen this time too, they'll decide bayonet lugs and flashiders or some other benign features are dangerous and ban them to appease the loudmouths who think taking a flashider off a rifle makes it safer.