Gun Violence and how to address it

There is a minimum age on guns. At this time, a person has to be 21 to purchase a handgun. Long guns remain at 18, the argument being that they have the right to buy other guns, just not handguns. My guess is that the handgun limit will drop to 18 as well on the basis of past rulings.

SCOTUS today also remanded two cases (one from California and one from New Jersey) to be reheard by lower courts which had upheld laws on maximum magazine capacity.

If you break apart statistics enough you get to justify the guns...

Yep. Statistics have shown that everyone in the universe has three legs and owns a hyena.

To begin talking about the variations between states is always a bit iffy when you can just bring stuff across a border. Highlighting individual cities for elected officials is even more ridiculous unless you have airport style searches at city limits (not advocating this but that is what you would need to make the analysis effective)

Yes and no. If the cities are attempting to operate and pass laws on the presumption that they are going to have an effect similar to airport-style searches at city limits, yet such searches do not happen, then inherently the city governments and their policies need to be looked at. It's all very well for them to say "this is banned, that needs a license, whatever", but if it's effectively unenforceable, then they have to accept the realities pursuant to having their heads in the sand on the matter.

If similarly situated localities have differing results, the question is 'why'? Why can a city in a state with loose gun laws have a much lower violent crime rate than another city in a state with loose gun laws, if not even the same State? Or why can a city in a state with tight gun laws have a higher violent crime rate than a city in neighboring state with loose gun laws? Why do San Francisco and San Jose have much lower crime rates than Richmond and Oakland, all large cities within an hour's drive of each other? Blaming the ability to import guns from out of state doesn't address that question. There is something else at play here. Probably socio-economic, and probably cultural.

Finally, there's the question of 'deal with your own problems.' For example, the largest city in South Carolina is Charleston. (159k). The next largest city is Columbia (139k). Charleston isn't on the list of top 100 murders per capita. Columbia is #17. From the perspective of a Charlestonite, if Columbians can't sort out their city to be safe in the environment of South Carolina's gun laws, that's their problem. Why should someone in Charleston vote to restrict their guns?

It also covers the most useful class of weapons. Not to mention the minor detail of the impracticality of effectively banning a hundred million+ unregistered firearms. How would you do it? When I'm wearing a firearm, you've no way of knowing it unless I show it to you or are sharp enough to spot the extra clip on my belt if I'm wearing my shirt tucked in. And you certainly don't know if I have any banned firearms in my house which I can take out whenever I feel the desire.

Homicides by firearms were dropping in Australia prior to their buyback (and they estimate less than 30% of prohibited firearms were turned in, see previous sentence). To my knowledge, only University of Melbourne has looked for a causative relationship between the gun laws and the reduction in shooting (as opposed to simple correlation), and they were unable to find one.

The idea that bullets are not protected by 2a has been shot down by the courts already on the similar basis that the 1st Amendment protects ink. See Jackson v City of San Francisco. "The Second Amendment protects "arms," "weapons," and "firearms"; it does not explicitly protect ammunition. Nevertheless, without bullets, the right to bear arms would be meaningless. A regulation eliminating a person's ability to obtain or use ammunition could thereby make it impossible to use firearms for their core purpose".

If you have a right, you have a corresponding right to everything you need to exercise that right, including ammunition and magazines. There is even a right to have a shooting range in your town (Ezell v Chicago) under the theory that if you need to practice in order to exercise your right correctly, you have a right to have a place to practice.

The incremental approach is precisely why gun rights groups are no longer compromising on legislation. You make the point for them.

The "right to a certain calibre" currently falls under the "common use" test. .50 BMG is not commonly used anywhere, in the US or not so the bans on it have not been successfully challenged.. 5.56 on the other hand...

They have the right to set taxes, but they cannot be so as to have a chilling effect on the exercise of the right. The principle was first clearly stated with regards to taxes on newspapers (Grosjean v American Press in 1936), but was applied specifically to taxes on firearms in Murphy v Guererro 2016.

"The Court agrees with Murphy that the tax places an excessive burden on the exercise of the right of law-abiding citizens to purchase handguns for self-defense without a corresponding important government interest. Accordingly, the law cannot stand. The government need not arm the poor, but it cannot impose uncommon burdens on their ability to exercise their fundamental constitutional rights."

These solutions you propose are not new. There is a reason they are not in place.

[i]It suits the gun lobby to trot out the 'fact' that nothing can be done so to cut off debate before it has even begun. But an assault ban was brought in before and had some good effects. If enough politicians could actually take this seriously, then many lives could be saved.[/i]

What good effects? It had zero effect in studies, and for good reason: The 'ban' was entirely cosmetic (And rifles aren't an issue anyway). I bought a rifle in Kentucky during the ban. It was functionally identical to a pre-ban rifle with the exception of a flash suppressor. Actually, I also bought several rifles during my stay in California where the ban was (and is, as it's still in place) more strict than the federal ban. They are all fundamentally identical to rifles purchased in other states and now I've moved to another state, they are all in 'normal' configuration, because the ban's methodology is entirely superficial. Took between 30 seconds to two minutes to do it per rifle, just as the San Bernadino shooter did.

That's what you get when people who don't understand guns, probably because they don't like them, try to ban them. Useless idiocy. That's before you hit the minor question of how many are out there.

However, this thread isn't about rifles, it's about gun violence, and rifles are responsible for fewer deaths a year than fists. The violence, to include mass shootings, is predominantly being caused by pistols. Mainly pistols carried by criminals because they are easy to conceal, and thus the type likely to be carried by people more likely to cause violence, and that being mainly violence caused by criminals against other criminals. Even if you believe that focusing on guns will help solve the violence problem, focusing on rifles is not going to solve the violence problem. The problem with focusing on pistols is that we're not talking about a country like Ireland or New Zealand where gun owners are such a minority that they can get trampled. Some 45% of households in the US have one.

The answer lies not in focusing on the guns. Yes, the lack of funding for mental health is a perfectly valid complaint. I agree with this. Though I would also observe that when the folks who want to ban guns tended to be in the majority of government, they didn't fix the issue either. Even at the State level, it's not happening. DC, California or Maryland can fund all the healthcare that they want... but they're not doing it. It's disingenuous to point only at one side for being unwilling to address an issue that both sides claim will be beneficial.

There is, and it is a question which has been asked by at least the 9th Circuit in oral argument. For example, let's say someone develops a laser gun. Can the government immediately ban it for civilian purchase before it has time to become a weapon in 'common use'? No court has as yet had to answer the question, however, so officially the question remains unanswered. However, given that Constitutional protections have been held to cover new technological developments (eg Internet for free speech, telephone lines for unreasonable search) so I suspect some interpolation will be required based off of adoption outside of the US civilian environment.

The question is most likely going to be addressed in upcoming litigation regarding the 1934 NFA. Ultimately with regards to machineguns, but more likely to start with matters such as suppressors which are in common civilian use outside of the US and are not as common domestically because of the restrictions.

For the record, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38238685

Put on the onus on the gun manufacturers to make the guns as safe as possible, with massive liability if their gun is used to illegally kill another person

They are as safe as possible. Product liability laws already cover shoddy manufacturing. Some states such as California even require safety tests such as a drop test before they are authorised for sale.

I am sure that car manufacturers will be thrilled at the idea that a manufacturer can be held liable for the misuse of their correctly functioning product by third parties.

I agree, certainly, that some incremental steps can be made. Here are two from my side.

Bring firearms training back into schools. It was very common before the 1990s and caused no particular trouble at all. We do sex ed, we do driver's ed. In a society where firearms are common, people should be taught responsible and safe firearm use. Refusing to accept this is about the same level as conservatives preaching abstinence instead of sex ed.

Give every household a free lockbox. The one I keep my carry pistol in was about $30 delivered on Amazon, I'm sure the government can get a bulk discount. Folks are more likely to use something they already have instead of something they have to go out and buy, and it should keep more pistols out of the hands of kids who find their mom's gun and bring it to school. It may even reduce some of the theft of firearms by burglars. If you're one of the 55% who don't have a pistol, congratulations, you've got something to keep your jewelry in. Storage/child endangerment laws are fine, though admittedly very difficult to effectively enforce. By the time it's known that something's gone wrong, the damage is done. But there's little harm in enacting them.

If you need a sledgehammer for the issue of gun violence you take a god damn sledgehammer and if someone has their hobby become more awkward then they will get over it a lot quicker than a lot of kids and parents will be getting over yesterday.

Though shooting is a hobby for many people, it is not the only use for firearms in the US, particularly not for the pistols which cause the overwhelming majority of problems. Firearms also provide the overwhelming majority of the solutions for the practical problems for which they are suited.

Resurrecting this thread (Has it really been six months?) to avoid a new thread/derailing another. Here's an example of how not to address gun violence. This has been making some waves on this side of the water.

The Governor of New Mexico (Democrat) decided last week to announce a "Public Health State of Emergency", and forbid the carrying of firearms in Albuquerque and its county, Bernalillo for the next thirty days.

The Constitution of New Mexico states: "No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms"

The District Attorney (appointed by her) has refused to prosecute violations. The City Chief of Police (Appointed by the Democrat-majority city) has refused to arrest violators. The County Sheriff (an elected Democrat) has also refused to enforce it saying that not only is it unconstitutional, it wasn't going to help anyway.

Apparently understanding that the locals wouldn't do anything, in her press conference making the announcement, she announced that the State Police would do so. Over the weekend, armed protestors had a rally in front of the government buildings, and the State Police did not arrest or cite them.

The ACLU has joined with the NRA in objecting. So have some Democrats, like this one who managed to get a Red Flag law passed in NM.