Another Shooting: San Bernardino California

[Adam White]

How moronic.

It's starting to get difficult to keep track of all the bigots on this forum.

And people who would rather name call than give facts. Congress is coming to solve all your problems!!! Sit tight!

I already gave you the facts:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/gun-homicides-ownership/table/

And nobody called you a name; I said the idea that if you can't get killings down to zero then you shouldn't do anything at all is moronic.  Which it is.

wow.  its us, brazil, mexico, and columbia.  Well we've got distinguished company.

Something is clearly wrong. Everyone who owns a gun is a law-abiding gun owner until he isn't. And then it's too late.

[I-10east]

The problem with the liberal's logic concerning gun rights is very naive, thinking that we all are 'the same' and we are gonna 'do the right thing' and live within this utopian society all singing kumbaya. I have some breaking news for you libs, there are wackos out there that are ready to commit mass shootings. You can enforce all of the gun bans that you want, and it will have zero effect on determined sickos. Taking guns away from responsible people is not the answer. This isn't political, this is common sense.

[Adam White]

The problem with the liberal's logic concerning gun rights is very naive, thinking that we all are 'the same' and we are gonna 'do the right thing' and live within this utopian society all singing kumbaya. I have some breaking news for you libs, there are wackos out there that are ready to commit mass shootings. You can enforce all of the gun bans that you want, and it will have zero effect on determined sickos. Taking guns away from responsible people is not the answer. This isn't political, this is common sense.

I can't speak for the liberals on this forum, but I don't think that's what they are saying.

[I-10east]

What is naïve is thinking that if you are in every person in America fewer people will be shot to death. The evidence has shown us, the numbers are proven this, and yet people are so naïve that they believe more of the same will result in less death

People haven't been saved by responsible gun owners? Boy that's news to me... I know that likelihood of 'accidentally shooting an innocent bystander' really holds soooo much weight...

[I-10east]

I can't speak for the liberals on this forum, but I don't think that's what they are saying.

Some liberals on MJ aren't totally anti-gun?? Boy, the breaking news just keeps piling up...

[Adam White]

I can't speak for the liberals on this forum, but I don't think that's what they are saying.

Some liberals on MJ aren't totally anti-gun?? Boy, the breaking news just keeps piling up...

I don't know about whether there are some liberals who support gun ownership or not. But go back and read your post, because that's not what you said:

The problem with the liberal's logic concerning gun rights is very naive, thinking that we all are 'the same' and we are gonna 'do the right thing' and live within this utopian society all singing kumbaya. I have some breaking news for you libs, there are wackos out there that are ready to commit mass shootings. You can enforce all of the gun bans that you want, and it will have zero effect on determined sickos. Taking guns away from responsible people is not the answer. This isn't political, this is common sense.

[finehoe]

We'e already banned murder, people still do it. Banning guns won't stop it.

NRA DEMANDS REPEAL OF ALL TRAFFIC LAWS, SAYS "LAWS WON'T STOP BAD DRIVERS"

Washington, D.C. – The NRA's Wayne LaPierre is on the offensive following the nation's most recent gun tragedy. This time LaPierre is doubling down on his belief that any kind of gun law is a violation of the second amendment and a step towards a tyrannical Nazi-esque America, regardless of statistical evidence, the opinion of the NRA's own members, his wife, the Pope, his butcher, the American people or plain old common sense.

LaPierre paints a picture that any kind of gun control will result in unarmed, helpless "good guys" being flanked by armed "bad guys." He is ready to apply that same ironclad logic to repealing all traffic laws – age limits on licensing, registration, speed limits, manufacturing safety requirements, seat belts, child seats, traffic lights and standardized signs. "People are going to break the law anyway so we can no longer bother with laws that just impede the right-away of good guys. These restrictive traffic laws, even those designed for safety only oppress the GOOD drivers. Therefore I anticipate a 0% increase in fatalities, in fact, I think these newly liberated good drivers will help keep the bad drivers in check. Especially if they have a gun."

http://thisshouldbethenews.com/2015/10/05/nra-demands-repeal-of-all-traffic-laws-says-laws-wont-stop-bad-drivers/

[BridgeTroll]

Interesting Op-ed...  Ignore the title and read it...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/opinion/sunday/liberalisms-gun-problem.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

I DO NOT own guns, and the last time I discharged a firearm was on "Second Amendment Day" at a conservative journalism program many years ago. (Yes, dear reader, that's how conservative journalism programs roll.) My political commitments are more communitarian than libertarian, I don't think the constitution guarantees a right to bear every kind of gun or magazine, and I think of myself as modestly persuadable in the gun control debate.

Of course that doesn't mean I really am, since we're all tribal creatures and gun rights advocates are part of my strange and motley right-wing tribe. But at the very least I understand why the idea of strict gun control has such a following, why it seems to many people like the obvious response to mass shootings — whether the perpetrators are ISIS sympathizers, mad right-wingers, or simply mad — and why the sorrowful public piety of Republican politicians after a gun massacre drives liberals into a fury.

That fury, though, needs a little more cool reasoning behind it. It's fine to demand actions, not just prayers, in response to gun violence. But today's liberalism often lacks a clear sense of which actions might actually address the problem – and, just as importantly, a clear appreciation of what those actions might cost.

Sometimes, it's suggested that all we need are modest, "common-sense" changes to gun laws: Tighter background checks, new ways to trace firearms, bans on the deadliest weapons.

This idea was the basis for the Manchin-Toomey bill that failed in 2013 in the Senate. It was also, though, the basis for two major pieces of gun legislation that passed in the 1990s: The Brady Law requiring background checks for handguns and the assault weapons ban.

Both measures were promoted as common-sense reforms — in the case of the Brady Law, by none other than Ronald Reagan. But both failed to have an appreciable impact on homicides — even as other policies, like hiring more police officers, probably did. That double failure, some gun control supporters will tell you, has to do with the loopholes those two laws left open — particularly the fact that individuals selling guns aren't required to run background checks when they sell within their home state.

But that claim's very plausibility points to the problem: With 300 million guns in private hands in the United States, it's very difficult to devise a non-intrusive, "common-sense" approach to regulating their exchange by individuals. Ultimately, you need more than background checks; you need many fewer guns in circulation, period. To their credit, many gun control supporters acknowledge this point, which is why there is a vogue for citing the Australian experience, where a sweeping and mandatory gun buyback followed a 1996 mass shooting.

The clearest evidence shows that Australia's reform mostly reduced suicides — as the Brady law may have done — while the evidence on homicides is murkier. (In general, the evidence linking gun ownership rates to murder rates is relatively weak.) But a lower suicide rate would be a real public health achievement, even if it isn't immediately relevant to the mass shooting debate.

Does that make "getting to Australia" a compelling long-term goal for liberalism? Maybe, but liberals need to count the cost. Absent a total cultural revolution in America, a massive gun collection effort would face significant resistance even once legislative and judicial battles had been won. The best analogue is Prohibition, which did have major public health benefits ... but which came at a steep cost in terms of police powers, black markets and trampled liberties.

I suspect liberals imagine, at some level, that a Prohibition-style campaign against guns would mostly involve busting up gun shows and disarming Robert Dear-like trailer-park loners. But in practice it would probably look more like Michael Bloomberg's controversial stop-and-frisk policy, with a counterterrorism component that ended up heavily targeting Muslim Americans. In areas where gun ownership is high but crime rates low, like Bernie Sanders' Vermont, authorities would mostly turn a blind eye to illegal guns, while poor and minority communities bore the brunt of raids and fines and jail terms.

Here the relevant case study is probably not Australia, but France. The French have the kind of strict gun laws that American liberals favor, and they have fewer gun deaths than we do. But their strict gun laws are part of a larger matrix of illiberalism — a mix of Bloombergist police tactics, Trump-like disdain for religious liberty, and campus-left-style restrictions on free speech. (And then France also has a lively black market in weaponry, which determined terrorists unfortunately seem to have little difficulty acquiring.)

Despite their occasional sympathies for Gallic socialism, I don't think American liberals necessarily want to "get to France" in this illiberal sense.

But to be persuasive, rather than just self-righteous, a case for gun control needs to explain why that isn't where we would end up.

[NIMBY]

It has to stop.  I can picture the body count increasing like the circling numbers on the old analog gas pumps.  Death, death, death...on and on. Something must be done.

I find the arguments unconvincing.

First, that there is a perceived right in the constitution?  I don't think the founders could have imagined the efficiency with which the killing is occurring in 2015.  Doesn't someone's right to not be killed supersede it?

Second, it is said that changing the law won't stop it anyway, so why criminalize ordinary citizens?  So we shouldn't even try?  Even if it reduced the killing by 30%, wouldn't it be worth it?  What if some restrictions saved your brother or niece?

[spuwho]

Interesting Op-ed...  Ignore the title and read it...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/opinion/sunday/liberalisms-gun-problem.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

I DO NOT own guns, and the last time I discharged a firearm was on "Second Amendment Day" at a conservative journalism program many years ago. (Yes, dear reader, that's how conservative journalism programs roll.) My political commitments are more communitarian than libertarian, I don't think the constitution guarantees a right to bear every kind of gun or magazine, and I think of myself as modestly persuadable in the gun control debate.

Of course that doesn't mean I really am, since we're all tribal creatures and gun rights advocates are part of my strange and motley right-wing tribe. But at the very least I understand why the idea of strict gun control has such a following, why it seems to many people like the obvious response to mass shootings — whether the perpetrators are ISIS sympathizers, mad right-wingers, or simply mad — and why the sorrowful public piety of Republican politicians after a gun massacre drives liberals into a fury.

That fury, though, needs a little more cool reasoning behind it. It's fine to demand actions, not just prayers, in response to gun violence. But today's liberalism often lacks a clear sense of which actions might actually address the problem – and, just as importantly, a clear appreciation of what those actions might cost.

Sometimes, it's suggested that all we need are modest, "common-sense" changes to gun laws: Tighter background checks, new ways to trace firearms, bans on the deadliest weapons.

This idea was the basis for the Manchin-Toomey bill that failed in 2013 in the Senate. It was also, though, the basis for two major pieces of gun legislation that passed in the 1990s: The Brady Law requiring background checks for handguns and the assault weapons ban.

Both measures were promoted as common-sense reforms — in the case of the Brady Law, by none other than Ronald Reagan. But both failed to have an appreciable impact on homicides — even as other policies, like hiring more police officers, probably did. That double failure, some gun control supporters will tell you, has to do with the loopholes those two laws left open — particularly the fact that individuals selling guns aren't required to run background checks when they sell within their home state.

But that claim's very plausibility points to the problem: With 300 million guns in private hands in the United States, it's very difficult to devise a non-intrusive, "common-sense" approach to regulating their exchange by individuals. Ultimately, you need more than background checks; you need many fewer guns in circulation, period. To their credit, many gun control supporters acknowledge this point, which is why there is a vogue for citing the Australian experience, where a sweeping and mandatory gun buyback followed a 1996 mass shooting.

The clearest evidence shows that Australia's reform mostly reduced suicides — as the Brady law may have done — while the evidence on homicides is murkier. (In general, the evidence linking gun ownership rates to murder rates is relatively weak.) But a lower suicide rate would be a real public health achievement, even if it isn't immediately relevant to the mass shooting debate.

Does that make "getting to Australia" a compelling long-term goal for liberalism? Maybe, but liberals need to count the cost. Absent a total cultural revolution in America, a massive gun collection effort would face significant resistance even once legislative and judicial battles had been won. The best analogue is Prohibition, which did have major public health benefits ... but which came at a steep cost in terms of police powers, black markets and trampled liberties.

I suspect liberals imagine, at some level, that a Prohibition-style campaign against guns would mostly involve busting up gun shows and disarming Robert Dear-like trailer-park loners. But in practice it would probably look more like Michael Bloomberg's controversial stop-and-frisk policy, with a counterterrorism component that ended up heavily targeting Muslim Americans. In areas where gun ownership is high but crime rates low, like Bernie Sanders' Vermont, authorities would mostly turn a blind eye to illegal guns, while poor and minority communities bore the brunt of raids and fines and jail terms.

Here the relevant case study is probably not Australia, but France. The French have the kind of strict gun laws that American liberals favor, and they have fewer gun deaths than we do. But their strict gun laws are part of a larger matrix of illiberalism — a mix of Bloombergist police tactics, Trump-like disdain for religious liberty, and campus-left-style restrictions on free speech. (And then France also has a lively black market in weaponry, which determined terrorists unfortunately seem to have little difficulty acquiring.)

Despite their occasional sympathies for Gallic socialism, I don't think American liberals necessarily want to "get to France" in this illiberal sense.

But to be persuasive, rather than just self-righteous, a case for gun control needs to explain why that isn't where we would end up.

This OpEd seems to say that stopping gun ownership will not stop gun based homicides.

The French model restricts gun ownership, but a "healthy" underground provides adequate supply.

If the US came out with an outright ban, the gun market would go underground with untraceable equipment.

[coredumped]

If the US came out with an outright ban, the gun market would go underground with untraceable equipment.

Just like the drug war, if people want it, they'll get it.

Besides, how will a ban on gun stop home made weapons?

[fsquid]

prohibition worked well.

[Adam White]

As a matter of fact, I was brewing up a batch of bathtub semi-automatic rifle just the other day.

[Ocklawaha]

First, that there is a perceived right in the constitution?  I don't think the founders could have imagined the efficiency with which the killing is occurring in 2015.  Doesn't someone's right to not be killed supersede it?

You were kidding of course? Cherry Valley, German Flatts, Wyoming Valley (PA), in the late 1700's were all massacres far worse then the recent terror attack and they used guns, clubs, spears etc to do their killing. In the late 1830's The Mormon Wars led to dozens of family size massacres all across Illionis and Missouri. By 1857 the Mormons wiped out an entire wagon train with guns and bow and arrows. Jump to the 1880's and Tombstone AZ was locked in a bloody vendetta that left bodies in Mexico, AZ and NM. This stuff is going to happen, guns, knives, and spears don't do it, PEOPLE DO!

[Adam White]

First, that there is a perceived right in the constitution?  I don't think the founders could have imagined the efficiency with which the killing is occurring in 2015.  Doesn't someone's right to not be killed supersede it?

You were kidding of course? Cherry Valley, German Flatts, Wyoming Valley (PA), in the late 1700's were all massacres far worse then the recent terror attack and they used guns, clubs, spears etc to do their killing. In the late 1830's The Mormon Wars led to dozens of family size massacres all across Illionis and Missouri. By 1857 the Mormons wiped out an entire wagon train with guns and bow and arrows. Jump to the 1880's and Tombstone AZ was locked in a bloody vendetta that left bodies in Mexico, AZ and NM. This stuff is going to happen, guns, knives, and spears don't do it, PEOPLE DO!

I think the key word in NIMBY's post was "efficiency" but you seem to have chosen to overlook that. It's a matter of fact that a semi-automatic rifle is more efficient than a bow and arrow. It's not even an issue of semi-automatics -- the Winchester 1873 is known as the "gun that won the west."

The Mongols managed to conquer wide swathes of territory on horseback using swords, knives and bows and arrows. I suspect they wouldn't have been so successful had their potential victims been armed with assault rifles.

Guns don't kill people - people with guns kill people.