The .22 caliber rifle has probably killed more people and poached more game than all others combined. Going by numbers, that would seem to be a logical place to start a banning campaign right?

Guns aren't the problem and never will be. We always try and address the symptoms without treating the cause. I am "lucky" to live in a state with very liberal gun laws. It really simplifies things, I just assume that everyone is armed and conduct myself accordingly. Victory through superior firepower and/or proficiency.

Todd is right in that the real life examples of what so many are scared of are few and far between. That having been said, you can't legally own certain guns in certain places. Is big brother looking over your shoulder, hell no.

Coley...

I'm not sure which gun killed more people, it's an interesting point/question... But to me, I have no interest in banning simple 22 rifles, because weapon has too many important civilian uses... Many people (including myself ages ago) learned to shoot targets with one. Plenty of hunters young and old use them all the time. And yes, people misuse them as you suggest.

But "important civilian uses" seems to me to be a less apt description of assault weapons. To me the threat they pose to the safety of law-enforcement and the public at large outweighs their value for civilian uses. Which to me is the crux of the issue... For example, I believe a guy with a 6-shot revolver is 99.9% as likely to defend his home successfully as a guy with an assault weapon. So the marginal value there is much lower.

Successful policy shifts -- at least in my view -- should not be judged by ensuring "xxx never happens again". "Never" is an alarmist/politicians word used too much in today's world. So you're right that gun's aren't intrinsically the problem, but I can't agree they "never will be". SOME guns are SOME of the problem, I believe. And if we can address that, in my view we should.

I am not sure why you would be asking if LE would confiscate your pistol in this question, since the pistol itself is/would not be illegal (unless you know of a revolver that holds more than 10 rounds) only the clip that holds more than 10 rounds would be illegal. So you eject the magazine and the LE takes your magazine and you keep the pistol if you have all the proper documents.
I guess I could be wrong since I was only applying logic to your question.

Because rifles with thumbholes in the stock look stupid?

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. Get back to me when one of your guns has been grabbed...and that goes for all the rest of you, too.

While I agree California gun laws may be stupid. Almost all hand guns made can take a 10 round or 15 round magazine. A lot of the magazines are pretty much the same, 10 rounds are set up in a single stack, where the 15 round magazines are double stacked or there is a plastic/metal base plate that limits the number of rounds but the magazine is the same. Pretty much like a plug in a shot gun.

I was being a bit facetious in offering up the .22 caliber example. It is an example of misuse of course and illustrates the point that "data" accurate or otherwise can be used to argue a point that may very well be contrary to the greater good. Take a look at homocide statistics, use of deadly force statistics, and LE deaths by gun fire statistics starters. That should help you more clearly define the problems. From there, working towards constructive solutions that don't unreasonably limit the freedom of law abiding citizens is the task at hand.

Personnally, I think we should all be free to carry and own whatever we want and solutions should be aimed at the root cause of the problem, not the tools that the problems choose to employ.

The problem is that the politicians and folks who snivel the most about the first care the least about the second.

Fish on...

Todd

BTW, You're right Coley, I should read up on the stats you suggest, and I"ll make time to do that before I post any followups to this...

But I must point out that the "unreasonably limit the freedom of Law Abiding Citizens" is just a test that doesn't pass muster here. I would hold guns to the same standard I would hold explosives and drugs to.. Which is to say I believe there are some explosives, and some drugs which present a greater danger to our society than the benefits they offer--and therefore are outlawed/strictly controlled. Assault weapons seem to me to be similar.

Of course I realize that none of these laws are magical solutions. You and I both agree that we must *also* address root causes of gun violence, drug addiction, and the kinds of extremism that makes people want to build truck-bombs with diesel and fertilizer.

And one more thought experiment for you: If you are for ZERO gun control for Law Abiding Citizens, are you also for ZERO drug prohibition? ZERO control on any explosives up-to-and-including WMDs? What's the distinction for one but not the other in your mind? Why are the freedoms you're arguing for not applicable in drugs/explosives cases?

No, I'm certainly not interested in a general banning of guns. I guess I'm looking at it more like IR where I think there should be a line that gets drawn that potentially limits how much damage one person can do in a certain amount of time. Going back to the firecracker vs. nuclear weapon analogy, a firecracker could be used by someone to blind another and remove digits one at a time. In theory, someone could take out the vision and digits of whole city by systematic, individual firecracker attacks. The problem is accomplishing that is the amount of time it would take along with the willingness of future victims to not stop it. In reality, the perpetrator would never be able to blind a whole city because the "weapon" they've chosen can really only do a certain amount of damage per time. A nuclear weapon could do all that damage (and more) in a fraction of the time. I guess that is why I'm OK with people having firecrackers but not giving them a nuke.

To me, it isn't about stopping people from having guns or even stopping someone from killing another individual. The problems start with mass killings of people where certain weapons are clearly more easily used to kill large groups of people in a hurry.

As kind of an aside, I do find it odd that some of the biggest gun proponents in this country would be some of the people first to bomb Iran because they want a certain weapon.

The reason suggest that IR, and it may go without saying, but a lot of folks are scared of things that just aren't happening and aren't part of statistical reality such as Todd's gun grabbing analogy. Are many types of automatic and semi-automatic (I shy away from the term "assault") rifle and sub-machine guns exceptionally dangerous. Of course they are, in the wrong hands.

The key phrase here is "law abiding" and therein lies the rub. None of these guns are a bad things unless they are used to do bad things. E.g. criminal behavior When used for good, they are just that, an advantage that I would hope those protecting themselves and others would have access to.

So to me the issue is less about what guns we should and shouldn't allow and more about how do we control who is allowed to own such weapons. Of course it is compounded by the fact that the more of these types of weapons that are in circulation, the easier and more likely it will be that they fall into the wrong hands. That is inevitable.

While these are great concepts to discuss, they don't necessarily bring us closer to a solution. The only ideas that pop readily to my simple and relatively uninformed mind would be improving the vetting system for gun owners across the board and providing stiffer penalties/stronger deterrents for those that would break or seek to break laws governing the ownership and use of certain classes of weapon.

I put drugs and explosives in a different category entirely. Although in each case (for the most part) they were developed with the greater good in mind, they pose unreasonable risks to society as a whole simply by existing and whether or not they are they are in the right hands or the wrong hands.

I love .22's and think every decent person in the country should own one I did a poor job of trying to make my point there I guess.

First on the drugs. The drug war is B.S. A joke when we think of the money and time spent in LE and prisons. As a good lib(libertarian that is) I think we can make our own choices and live with the results. if your drug use does not hurt me then use away. All these should be legal and big brother has no right or need to protect me from myself. If I screw up and steal/drive/fight/whatever then we should have nasty stiff penalties.

Explosives-There is plenty of danger in just the storage of explosives. Huge danger in handling as well. Not the same with firearms. They should be tightly watched and only avaliable for work needs. And then applied for and used under supervision with someone trained in their use. The last thing I hope to have is my neighbors house blowing up taking out mine because something got wet or he screwed up. That is of concern and the distinction.

Doc,

I can't agree with you on all drugs... I fancy myself close to libertarian in my beliefs, but I can't go all that way... The idea that heroin, crack, oxy, etc. that those should all be legal without restrictions (even age?)-- there's just not even one good example where that works out well. Age restrictions seem certainly the minimum (if you don't have kids, the idea that dealers could simply give your kids trials to get them addicted, without repercussions is pretty chilling).

Explosives -- you seem pretty fixed on storage and handling dangers. Like you worry about accidents. Well, why not worry about gun accidents? It's not the explosives killing people, it's the dumb person who dropped it on the floor killing people. Many forms of explosives are extremely stable, and have excellent handling properties....

I appreciate your response though -- the discussions here are important and I know how many people here disagree with me on this. At least you took the Pepsi challenge.

IR,

Glad to agree to disagree. I understand my view of drugs is in the minority by far. We have it pounded into our pumpkins that drugs are bad. They are in many cases but our fine govern has gone so far over the top. They wasted so much time and money on this "war on drugs". It does nothing but line pockets and the results are crap. Endless law enforcement and court time spent on it. I would say more than any other in our criminal justice system. I agree that under age should be illegal but as an adult I can make my own choices. They are everywhere legal or not. Their war on drugs as done nothing to stop that but it has filled the prisons and wasted billions with little to no results.

Educate people and let them make their own choices. I think the problem would be no worse if that was the law of the land than it is now. I do know we would have a lot less people in prison for victimless crimes. We would also take much of the money out of the drug trade. Mexico would thank us for that. Places where things are legal have less problems than us. In fact I would say the vast majority of victimless crimes are a joke.

Explosives-Now gun accidents happen but no more with the weapons you wish to ban that any other so banning certain types will do nothing with that unless you wish to ban them all. You could get hit by the dropped 22 just as easy as the dropped 50 cal. And when the neighbor drops his riffle and the shell goes off the bullet is much less likely to do someone harm than when the neighbor sets off the mini mushroom cloud and takes out the entire block and half the next one.

Explosives are much different than firearms but of course you know that but I appreciate the taking of it to the next level. You will find some that can not see the difference and thus will agree there is not one. Thereby allowing regulation of one we must allow regulation of all. Pretty big stretch though and just does not work in this case. Thanks for the discussion though.

Here is an interesting statistic for you guys regarding gun safety in the home.

It is 7 times more likely that firearms kept in the home will be used against the occupants and/or accidentally discharged by the occupants than it is that they will be used by the occupants to protect themselves. That statistic comes from a comprehensive study done by the National Institute of Justice that looked at incidents involving firearms in the home for a 10-12 year period here in the US I believe. Sobering eh.

Accidental discharge by "dropping" a firearm is a highly, highly unlikely event.

There is always a mass emergency when it comes to drumming up money with the NRA...Especially election time. I'm at the top of their list, and they can count on a contribution almost always. I doubt they are laughing tho. These are serious times.

Seriously good fundraising times, that's for sure.

Fish on...

Todd

Per year? Of course not.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. Karl Rove should take over fundraising for the NRA...there'd be no guns or money left in about three years

Yeah, 'cuz the NRA needs to burn more than just money.

Fish on...

Todd

Since I paid for my life membership with the NRA I have not and will not give them any more money because they lean way to much to the right and seem to have taken the point as RWNJ's!


FIshy