Common Sense Gun Control

If they're that dangerous, then they should be in prison.

 

You somehow have the idea that I'm against guns. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I own several weapons. All legally obtained, all of which just sit there in my gun locker, having never been brandished or fired at anyone. You will note from my above posts I stated ANY weapon. I only used guns in my initial post as an example.

If you lie on a federal background check in order to obtain a weapon, you need to go to prison. If you brandish a weapon in public, whether or not you end up killing someone with said weapon, you need to go to prison. Simple as that.

 

I did assume you are anti gun, but my opposition to your suggestion does not change one way or the other regarding your support of guns.

As far as your apparent urgency on this issue, that too is overblown. Gun deaths per capita have not changed much in the last 50 years. What you have seen is a gigantic increase in mass school shootings, and while those are obviously horrible, they are an insignificant percentage of gun deaths. People spend far too much time worrying about them. A student is far more likely to die in a traffic accident on the way to school than they are of being shot in a mass school shooting. If worry were properly distributed, there would be far more of an emphasis on driver safety versus preparing for the elusive school shooter.

 

There are a number of people in legal circles that would, and do, claim otherwise.

The state carries out the execution, but it doesn't apply the penalty. That decision is made by a jury, not the government.

The problem with "life in prison" is that it's usually not, and prisoners that know they will never be free often kill other prisoners that are in for far lesser offenses.

 

I understand. Im not crusading to ban the death penalty.

All I am saying is if I ran the world, the government would not kill its own citizens. I see it as a bad look. I would push for harsh sentences such as mandatory life in solitary confinement for horrific crimes, but I would not support killing people.

 

See this is where we need to be careful with definitions.

This could get people thrown in jail for taking their firearm out of a holster and into a car lockbox in order to enter a post office.

 

Again, school shootings, while horrible, are not the issue. Gun crime (and I use that term loosely) in general is. Greater than 90% of all gun crimes are committed with a handgun, not a scary "assault" rifle. People don't commit suicide with AR-15's, they use a handgun. Little Johnny doesn't bring the AR-15 you left laying around to school to shoot people, he brings your handgun that he found.

 

How could that even remotely be considered brandishing? You are inside your own vehicle, placing your weapon inside the vehicle lockbox, in order to enter a federal building. The definition of brandishing in public is quite clear. You are outside, in full view of the public, waving your weapon around, making threats, or just being an assclown with it in general.

 

It is not reasonable to believe a single person, willing to risk the penalty for committing murder would not risk the penalty of being caught with an illegal firearm. We can't speak for what the dangerous person feels, but we do know that honest citizens would not risk breaking a gun law.

If gun laws stopped with criminals, there wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, politicians, enjoying the luxury of armed security, are working to infringe on the rights of good people.

 

The point I was making there is that gun murders from a historical perspective, are not necessarily up. They have been remarkably flat over the years. A lot of people see the school shooting and assume that murder is way up, it is not. I don't personally think that we would be having this discussion if not for the mass school shootings. Being that they are not substantively up over the decades, I wonder why now is it so important to you to create life in prison for any gun crime?

With your above mention of handguns, it is starting to sound as if my original assumption is more accurate than not. Perhaps I should have been more specific and call you anti hundgun. I am not aware of the AR15 issue being mentioned in any crimes other than mass shootings. For that matter, Im not sure why it would be relevant OTHER than in a mass shooting. It feels like you are pushing an agenda but then turning around and denying that agenda.

Owning a few hunting rifles is a different issue.

 

“[T]he term 'brandish' means, with respect to a firearm, to display all or part of the firearm, or otherwise make the presence of the firearm known to another person, to intimidate that person, regardless of whether the firearm is directly visible to that person.” 18 U.S.C.

All it takes is for someone to see your gun in some leftist paradise and for them to claim they were "intimidated" by it.

It has happened before.

 

Well, these people are "intimidated" by a Ford F-150 in traffic behind their Prius. Stupidity is their brand.

 

I'm just saying that the problem with severe penalties is that they can be used against you, and we see how much leftists love that.

 

Must be, and if Constitution-hating "progressives" ever manage to deprive law-abiding citizens of their right to bear arms, you can rest assured that all of the criminals will meekly and obediently turn in their own guns.

 

Long story short, nothing will ever be done about guns. Ever. Criminals don't obey any gun laws, and confiscation will never happen. Gun owners in the United States outnumber our combined military and law enforcement by 200 to 1. The only thing that will even make a dent in crime in general are ridiculous, over-the-top, immediate cessation of life penalties. And even then some idiot will still commit a crime. You can't legislate human nature.

 

I'm a big fan of brandishing. If you search “defensive gun usage" you’ll find it happens anywhere from 500k – 3.5 million times annually. The raw numbers come from the CDC, most recently from a study ordered by President Obama in 2013. It includes FBI data delineating how more than 95% of civilian involved defensive gun usages are resolved peacefully, with no injuries sustained by either party.

When I was an infant we took a day trip to the mountains and stopped at one of my parents’ favorite spots. During our stay a couple bikers rolled in. Dad could tell they were trouble and loaded wife & kid into the car. During the load up one of the bikers shouted at dad to “hand over summa that slant eyed pu$$y!” Loudmouth wheeled his bike about 4 feet off the back bumper and dismounted. He made a beeline for driver’s side window and leaned in to find himself looking down the barrel of a .357. He and his compadre saddled up and rode off.

25 years later I owned a '65 Plymouth Barracuda. One day I towed it to a building where I was going to work on it. As I pulled onto the property there were a couple guys about my age sharing a crack pipe. I rolled down the window and said “Hate to tell you guys, but this is private property and you’ll need to clear off.” They snarled and cursed. One of them picked up a piece of rebar and both advanced. I let them see my pistol and told them to simmer down. Both men split.

Exactly. I'm glad they were.

 

My point was just two things really: you have to be careful about promoting severe penalties for loose definitions because....leftists will use them against non-criminals in order to make them criminals.

Look at their keeping political prisoners in jail for years while calling trespassing "an insurrection".

 

I don't think he's saying we shouldn't have laws. He's saying that laws should be enforced on criminals who use guns for crime, not on law abiding people who would use them to defend against crime.

When a law doesn't produce the desired control it is meant to do, it usually means it's not being enforced, or not enforced with sufficient consequence, or directed to the wrong place.... Or, all of the above.

 

Currently it's all of the above, unfortunately.

 

Then eliminate all laws since they don't work.

 

Laws can't work if they aren't enforced....

 

I'm not suggesting that all laws be abolished and I'm not even asserting that all gun laws be abolished.

I's simply saying that if the existing gun laws don't work, it's absurd to add more of the same.

 

.

 

While I basically agree, your assertion, of course, depends on the sanity of the individual and their capacity to discern the difference between legitimate legislation and illegitimate legislation.

I just happen to remember my days of working on an Emergency Psychiatric Hospital Unit in a large inner-city and met many people who felt completely entitled to disregard a wide range of the laws of man and nature.

Thanks,

 

Nobody with the mega money from the government for having 7 kids can be kept from affording getting a gun by some illegal way.