Gun Control Anyone?

[LorenS]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

I guess those who are in favor of tighter gun control would like to draw the line based on trading off the right of individuals to own weapons, versus concerns about public safety. But many of those who are against gun control do not recognize the public safety concern as valid, and so look to draw the line based on interpretations of what consitutes a "mililtia" weapon under the 2nd amendment.

First, are you are buying into the lie that an "assault weapons" ban will enhance public safety? - It's a cosmetic rule, the supporters of the ban will openly admit it's worthless and only a first step.

Second, which public are you interested in? Have you forgotten the Great Leap Forward? Have you forgotten the Holocaust? Is Syria on your radar? Now about Mexico?


I base my observations on history and facts. I spent 12 years in the US army throwing hand grenades and shooting 105mm field guns. I have had so many jams with M-16s I can't count them all. The Aurora shooter had a jam, the Oregon shooter had a jam. I really don't like M-16's or AR-15s. I don't like jet skis or Mustang 5.0s either and if you own a 2 cycle weed wacker I have words for you also.

There is no valid public safety reason to ban "assualt weapons" as any honest person will admit. There is no valid public safety reason to ban hollow point bullets. There is no valid public safety rason for micro stamping, magazine safeties and a host of other stupid rules.

There are a host of reasons that following the constitution as written (or legally changing it) is a good idea for public safety. And if the Constitution is so badly flawed by all means change it - legally.

[raja]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

i don't think "assault rifles" are much different than other semi-automatic rifles except in appearance, but it seems appearances count, not just to the lawmakers but to some of the perpetrators of these crimes.
. . . . there are many more individuals with fantasies of some future, hypothetical, american revolution 2.0, who arm themselves and fantasize about resistance.

I moved to a farm a few years ago, and I have had to learn a little about guns in order to deal with the various varmints that would like to eat my livestock. FWIW, here's my understanding:

• [*=1]With an automatic gun, you press and hold the trigger, and the gun continuously fires until you let up the trigger.
  [*=1]Semi-automatic means that a press of the trigger only lets off one round. You have to press again to shoot another round . . . but you do not have to stop and reload.
  [*=1]Single shot means you have to load every round into the gun before you can shoot off a round.
  [*=1]Automatic and semi-automatic guns have magazines or chambers which hold multiple rounds. You can buy magazines that hold different numbers of rounds -- usually from 5 to 100.
  [*=1]By law, assault rifles in the hands of the public must be semi-automatic. In the military, assault rifles are automatic.
  [*=1]Assault rifles have short barrels. The idea is that in a combat situation you have more maneuverability than with a long-barrel rifle. Long barrels give more accuracy for distant targets, and are used in the military for sniping.

For varmints at the farm, I have a semi-automatic .22 Ruger rifle. The .22 rounds are small, so appropriate for smaller targets. If I see a fox eating my chickens, I can shoot several rounds without stopping to reload, improving my chances of killing it if I miss with the first shot. However, it would be very rare to use more than 5 shots, so a 5-shot magazine would suffice. The only thing that differentiates this gun from an assault rifle is the size of the bullet and the length of the barrel.

For deer and coyotes, I have a Ruger Farm .223. It too is a long-barrel semi-automatic, but the rounds are larger and heavier, so have more "stopping power" against bigger animals. It uses the same rounds as the assault rifle. The only difference between this gun and an assault rifle is the length of the barrel.

I bought 20-round magazines for the .223 Ruger. Why?
Because I know how bad humanity can behave.
It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future (ha ha), but for anyone who reads History, it's obvious that "civilized" people have frequently been guilty of the most terrible atrocities, especially when there are severe economic pressures such as we might face here in the US in the near future.
So, I indulge my "fantasies" of defending myself and my family against "roving bands of starving people" or government "enforcement squads".

Why did the nut-job killer choose an elementary shcool as his target? He probably thought, "I going to hurt all those assholes who have hurt me. How can I easily create the most destruction possible and destroy whey love the most? I'll assault a school full of their children, who can't fight back and slow me down as I exact the vengence that is due."

Just as I believe "soft" targets like elementary schools are inviting to psychotic mass murderers, an unarmed population is a "soft" target for a fascist government. It's only been 70 years or so since the "civilized" Germans were making lampshades out of people's skin, and a couple of decades since the "civilized" Serbs were cutting off their enemies genitals and forcing them to eat them.
For those who think it could never happen here, in my opinion, that is the fantasy . . . .

By the way, I also have a semi-automatic .9mm pistol locked in a mini-gun safe by my bed, should an intruder with ill intent break into my house. I would not hesitate to take the life of some criminal scumbag if it meant saving the lives of myself and my family.

[don]

Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

Agenda Driven News

By: Paul Craig Roberts| December 19, 2012




I have known for a long time that US news is agenda-driven. Tonight (December 18) I was made aware of the extent to which agenda-driven US news drives the news of the rest of the world.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, Russia Today Moscow requested a live TV interview via Skype about the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings that killed 20 young children and several adults. I was interested to know what was Moscow’s interest in the shootings, and I agreed to the interview.

I was surprised to see that RT Moscow’s interest was to spread the official US story of the shootings and to ask me if I thought “assault weapons” would be banned as a consequence.

Many things can be an assault weapon. A baseball bat, a knife, a fist, a foot, a single shot .22 rifle, a double-barrel shotgun, a fireplace poker, a six-shot revolver, a brick, a sword, a bow and arrow, a lance. A person can add many items to this short list.

Gun-control advocates have defined “assault weapon” to be a semi-automatic civilian version of military weapons, such as AR-15, the civilian version of the military M-16, and AK-47. During the Clinton administration the civilian version of these weapons was not permitted to have various harmless features because the features made the rifles have a military appearance, and the weapons were restricted to magazines that held no more than ten rounds.

Today 20 and 30 round magazines are available. For a professional, the capacity of the magazines is immaterial. With experience a person can change clips in a second. A button is pushed, the clip drops out and a new one is inserted. For reasons hard to follow, gun control advocates think that a ten-round clip turns an “assault weapon” into something else.

I told RT Moscow that the United States was the most complete police state in human history. Thanks to modern technology, Washington is able to spy on its subjects far beyond the capabilities of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Even George Orwell’s imagination in his dystopian novel, 1984, has been surpassed by Washington’s current practice. The “war on terror” is the excuse for the American Police State.

A police state, I said, was inconsistent with an armed population, and as all other constitutional amendments have fallen, the sole remaining amendment, the Second Amendment, will not survive much longer.

But why RT Moscow’s focus on “assault weapons”? The accused, Adam Lanza, was immediately declared guilty. According to the Associated Press, the Newtown, Connecticut medical examiner, Dr H. Wayne Carver said that “all the victims of the Connecticut elementary school shooting were killed up close by multiple rifle shots.” http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/183651631.html

Yet Fox News http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/20346...chool-shooting reports that “A CNN reporter said police recovered three weapons at the scene: a Glock and a Sig-Sauer, which are handguns, as well as a .223 Bushmaster rifle. The rifle was in the back seat of the car the gunman drove to the school, the handguns were inside the school.”

The same Fox News report says: “Security measures implemented this year at Sandy Hook [the school] kept doors locked during class hours, and people have to be buzzed in before entering. There is a camera to view whoever enters the building.” If this report is correct, how did an armed Lanza gain entry to the school?

I tried to point out to RT Moscow that these news reports indicate that the accused dead gunman, whom no one can interrogate, if he is indeed the culprit, killed the children with handguns, not with an “assault rifle” left in the car, but that the medical examiner said the children were killed with rifle shots.

The discrepancy is obvious. Either the news reports are incorrect, the medical examiner is wrong, or someone other than Adam Lanza shot the children.

This was too much for RT Moscow’s news anchor. She cut me off with her statement that the children were dead by whatever gun. Yet, the focus of the program was on “assault rifles.” This focus was reinforced when I was asked to stay online for a post-interview question.

The question from RT Moscow was whether I thought assault weapons would be banned. I answered that I thought all guns would be banned. I had already told the TV anchor that I thought that all guns would be taken away from US subjects, but that I doubted the efficacy of the ban. I told the news anchor that during the early part of the 20th century, the US, in all its wisdom, had a ban on alcohol, but alcohol was everywhere available. The alcohol ban was the origin of the crime syndicates’ fortunes. Today we have the drug ban, going back decades. The result is that drugs are everywhere, and drug syndicates are making billions. It will not be much different with a gun ban. England has a gun ban, but criminals have guns, and today the formerly unarmed British police are heavily armed. When I lived in England, guns were not banned and the police carried nightsticks, not firearms.

The focus on “assault weapons” is puzzling for another reason. According to news reports Lanza had a personality or mental disorder, or perhaps he was just different.

Regardless, he was on medication. So does the blame lie with guns or with medication?

As the agenda is to ban guns, the blame is placed on guns.

In the previous mass shooting at the Colorado movie theater, eyewitness accounts differed from the official account, and according to news accounts the suspect was involved with the government in some sort of mind control experiments and was found after the shooting sitting in a car in the movie theater parking lot.

Similarly, the Connecticut school shooting has puzzling aspects. In the real time report to the police, a teacher says that she saw “two shadows running past the gym.” http://sgtreport.com/2012/12/so-many...lag-operation/ The police radio recording also reports two men in a van at the school stopped and detained, and various news sources report that the police arrested a man in the nearby woods. The man says, “I didn’t do it,” but how would a man out in the woods know what had just happened? There are no TVs to watch in the woods; yet, the man denied doing the shooting. Very strange.

What often happens is that there are a number of initial false reports, such as in the Connecticut case the report that Lanza’s mother was a teacher at the school and was killed at the school, that Lanza had also killed his father, and that Lanza’s brother might have been involved. Any discrepancies in the official story then get thrown out with the false reports. As the media simply goes along with the official story and does not investigate, it is impossible to know what really happened. People just accept the official story.

It seems odd, however, that RT Moscow would uncritically follow the US media in reporting the official story after experiencing, for example, the US media’s intentional misreporting of the Georgian-Russian war, which was started by the former Soviet republic of Georgia but blamed on Russia. Does RT Moscow really believe the US media that the US missile bases surrounding Russia are directed at Iran?

Americans have been well armed for several centuries, but “gun violence” is new. Why?

Are there more disturbed people? More medicated people? Have Americans lost self-control, their moral conscience? Are Americans being molded by violent movies and video games and by eleven years of their government’s slaughter of other peoples? Have Americans lost empathy for others?

Tom McNamara, a lecturer at the French National Military Academy, asks: “Do Arabs Cry For Their Children Too?” http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/18/do-arabs-cry-for-their-children-too/print

The Connecticut school shooting is a tragedy in more ways than one. Children lost their lives, families lost their children, and the tragedy is being used to disarm Americans faced with a police state growing in power and menace.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

I've been shooting a .22 Ruger rifle for decades, for recreation. Very easy to use and reliable.
It's still around, but I rarely use it now.

I don't disagree that things could get ugly here, but the for the time being, my neighborhood seems incredibly peaceful. Gun's just don't feel "appropriate", though I am sure many of my neighbors have them. This is South Carolina, so I am guessing there is more than one gun per household on average.

That does not make me feel threatened.

[Penguin]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

Interesting discussion here. Last night I spoke with my wife about the ins and outs of what we knew about the most recent shooting. She didn't grow up around guns/rifles. I OTOH did and own a few for hunting and target practice.

The most interesting thing to me was her reaction and thought process when I told her that my little mountain rifle (a 7mm-08) was a whole lot more powerful than the rifle used in the shooting. And that my bolt action 30-06 was of a design that was over a century old and was on a whole different planet from the .223 in terms of energy and range. My hunting rifles are designed to be extremely lethal for ONE target while the assault rifles are designed to be more lethal for A BUNCH of targets. Lower energy = lower recoil, handles to make it easier to stay on target when shooting a lot of round in a hurry, that kind of thing. Then I told her that a lot of people considered my rifles to be 'sniper rifles'. Which opened up a whole other can of worms.

Parsing language and technical details and design intent and all of that is kind of a dead end. Not that it isn't important to know them, I am just not sure you could design a gun control law that will accomplish the complete abolition of these kinds of crimes and still be on the right side of the 2nd.

But you can start talking about what kinds of individuals are committing these crimes. And we are starting to understand that we have a system that just is not getting mentally ill and dangerous people off the streets. And certainly we aren't doing a very good job of keeping psychotic individuals separated from lethal weapons. It is only my opinion, but I think the discussion needs to be directed here moreso than anywhere else.

I am quite certain others will disagree.

Will

[Penguin]

Re: Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

I've heard the same critique about the rifle being in the backseat of the car. But one of the police stated that it was a shotgun and not the semi-auto rifle that was left behind in the car. Nothing I have heard from the people on scene and in change contradicts this scenario.

A whole lot of bad info hits the air whenever these things happen and I have to tell you that I wouldn't trust a typical reporter to know the difference between an 870 and a howitzer. Maybe I am being a bit harsh here.

Will

[jiimbergin]

Re: Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

I have tried to at least skim all of the posts here, so if this has already been mentioned I apologize. The largest loss of life in a school mass murder only involved one bullet and that to set off the last of several explosions. Most of the deaths occurred without any shooting.

Bath School disaster

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Bath Consolidated School before the bombing

Bath Township, Clinton County, Michigan, USA

May 18, 1927

Bath Consolidated School, house, farm and wife

School bombing, mass murder, murder-suicide, suicide truck bombing, fire, uxoricide

Dynamite, pyrotol, firebombs, club

45 (38 children, 2 teachers, 4 other adults and the bomber)

58

Andrew P. Kehoe

Revenge for defeat in local election; personal and financial stress

The state historic site marker placed on the site


The Bath School disaster is the name given to three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, on May 18, 1927, which killed 38 elementary school children, two teachers, and four other adults; at least 58 people were injured. The perpetrator first killed his wife, and committed suicide with his last explosion. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth grades (7–14 years of age^[1]) attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history.^[2]
The bomber was the school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe, age 55, who was angry after being defeated in the spring 1926 election for township clerk. He was thought to have planned his "murderous revenge" after that public defeat; he had a reputation for difficulty on the school board and in personal dealings. For much of the next year, a neighbor noticed Kehoe had stopped working on his farm and thought he might be planning suicide. During that period, Kehoe carried out steps in his plan to destroy the school and his farm by purchasing and hiding explosives.
Kehoe's wife was ill with tuberculosis and he had stopped making mortgage payments; he was under pressure for foreclosure. Some time between May 16 and the morning of May 18, 1927, Kehoe murdered his wife by hitting her on the head. On the morning of May 18 about 8:45, he exploded incendiary devices in his house and farm buildings, setting them on fire and destroying them.
Almost simultaneously, an explosion devastated the north wing of the school building, killing many schoolchildren. Kehoe had used a timed detonator to ignite dynamite and hundreds of pounds of incendiary pyrotol, which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers gathered at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and used a rifle to detonate dynamite inside his shrapnel-filled truck, killing himself, the school superintendent, and several others nearby, as well as injuring more bystanders. During rescue efforts at the school, searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol connected to a timing device and planted throughout the basement of the south wing. Kehoe had apparently intended to blow up and destroy the entire school.

[c1ue]

Re: Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

who knows what motivates such people? [assuming they are not completely psychotic and motivated by beliefs entirely at odds with consensual reality.] my latest speculation about the newtown guy, after learning he'd destroyed the hard drive of his computer, is that he was addicted to child pornography, but it is likely we will never know.

My point wasn't that we can understand the person doing it - your theory above is as reasonable as any I've seen, that the shooter was acting against that which was destroying/destroyed his life, but the way in which said person did it.

In other nations, typically the act is to end one's own life - not others'.

If I see a fox eating my chickens, I can shoot several rounds without stopping to reload, improving my chances of killing it if I miss with the first shot.

Note that having fully automatic weapons might or might not reduce kill totals. More bullets in the air doesn't mean a greater chance of hitting unless at extremely close range. Semi-auto forces the shooter to take a little time between shots - thus if anything making accuracy greater, all things considered, in untrained individuals.

The insurgents in Afghanistan and elsewhere all have automatic weapons - it doesn't seem to have helped much. They do the most damage with IEDs.

[shiny!]

Re: Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

Note that having fully automatic weapons might or might not reduce kill totals. More bullets in the air doesn't mean a greater chance of hitting unless at extremely close range. Semi-auto forces the shooter to take a little time between shots - thus if anything making accuracy greater, all things considered, in untrained individuals.

Fully automatic weapons are extremely inaccurate. As each round leaves the barrel it spins, creating air turbulence. The next round's trajectory is knocked off by that turbulence, while it is itself creating more turbulence for the round just behind it. The turbulence increases with each successive round. That's why it's called "spray and pray". Sighted fire with one round per trigger squeeze is much more accurate than full auto, not only because of the time taken to sight in, but for the lack of air turbulence.

[LorenS]

Re: Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

And certainly we aren't doing a very good job of keeping psychotic individuals separated from lethal weapons. It is only my opinion, but I think the discussion needs to be directed here moreso than anywhere else.

I don't completely agree or disagree. I most certainly do have some problems with the fact that vast numbers of Americans, who are deemed too dangerous to have a single shot .22 rifle, have unfettered access to cars.

In Colorado it is the law that drivers have to give 3' of space when passing a bicycle. The compliance rate is around 60% (less during rush traffic) and I've never seen or heard of someone getting a ticket for such a violation. Given the fact that our roads have speed limits up to 65 mph and bicycles bike with traffic (you can't see them coming) I have serious problems with letting some of these maniacs have cars.

On the other hand, many "felons" are merely carrying a stigma inflicted by an ignorant society and I don't want that same stigma getting thrown at those whose only crime is being mentally different either. I'm not willing to go even farther down the police state road for empty hope and false promises.



Of the 30,000 traffic fatalities every year how many are deliberate? How many murders are we chalking up to "accidents". Is ignorance bliss?

The insurgents in Afghanistan and elsewhere all have automatic weapons - it doesn't seem to have helped much. They do the most damage with IEDs.

Brain damage heals slowly, lost skin cannot be replaced. For all the pomp and concern for our "children" observe how we care for our returning veterans.

[rogermexico]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

My father grew up in a rural town in western Minnesota during the depression in the 1920's and 30's.

He liked to tell me that he and the other kids sometimes shot rabbits, pheasants and quail walking to school and back, so the coat room at his elementary school and high school had a few loaded guns unattended most days, and they never shot each other.

I lived in a small town in Iowa in the 1970's. I remember as a junior high student riding through town on bicycles early in the morning with our shotguns to go duck hunting on nearby public land. No one thought it was weird or threatening.

[unlucky]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

First, are you are buying into the lie that an "assault weapons" ban will enhance public safety? - It's a cosmetic rule, the supporters of the ban will openly admit it's worthless and only a first step.

I agree with you on that point. In Germany, citizens can legally own a semi-automatic rifle but only if the magazine is modified to hold only two rounds, and a tool needs to be used to change the magazine. That is an example of a restriction that is genuinely designed to substantially reduce the danger posed by the weapon in the wrong hands, while not making the weapon illegal.

In Australia on the other hand semi-automatics have been completely illegal ever since Martin Bryant used one to kill so many people.

A ban on "assault rifles" per se would only be useful if as jk commented the use of "scary looking" rifles is part of the motivation of rampage killers. Which I personally doubt.

[Roughneck]

Re: Gun Control Anyone?

http://kontradictions.wordpress.com/...-ill-tell-you/

[shiny!]

Re: Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

Agenda Driven News

By: Paul Craig Roberts| December 19, 2012

Good find, Don. Gives me chills.

[BadJuju]

Re: Paul Craig Roberts weighs in

He is a loon.