There is a lot of misinformation concerning guns and gun control floating around out there. The media is mostly clueless, and many politicians are as ignorant as can be concerning guns. Please post examples here, and discuss. Thank you.
Hillary Clinton just recently was talking about the Oregon College shooting. She said we need to stop these folks from using "automatic weapons" and "military assault weapons". First of all, none of these were used in the shooting. Second, nobody is allowed to own such weapons unless they receive specific authorization from the BATFE. I don't know of any U.S. shooting involving automatic weapons at a school. She also wants to hold gun manufacturers liable for the misuse of their products. That is like holding car manufacturers liable for the misuse of their cars. Also, cars are not taken away from everyone because of the misuse by a few, and neither should guns.
Good read about gun death statistics and actual solutions: http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/04/the-truth-about-gun-deaths-numbers-and-actual-solutions/
The president echoed the same lie that has been exploited by the media..... he said 40% of all handgun sales are performed without a background check. Go to factcheck.org and they blow that claim out of the water.... "Both of those statements were based on a single 1994 telephone survey on private gun ownership conducted by the Police Foundation and funded by the Justice Department. The survey asked the 251 participants who had acquired guns in the previous two years, “Was the person you acquired this gun from a licensed firearm dealer?” The answer choices were “yes,” “probably was/think so,” “probably not,” “no/definitely not,” “don’t know” and refuse to report. Cook and Ludwig found that 64.3 percent of those surveyed (Table 3.14) said that they had purchased or traded for a gun that came from a licensed dealer or “probably” did. The 40 percent figure comes from assuming that the remaining 35.7 percent — which has been rounded up — did not." http://www.factcheck.org/2013/03/guns-acquired-without-background-checks/
Thats the biggest one that gets on my nerves. They use fear on purpose on push their agenda and to those who know nothing about firearms a tricked out AR-15 does look a bit intimidating. Many people out there still honestly believe that AR-15 type weapons are machine guns. They believe that because for one it looks like one and two the media purposefully uses vague terminology to loop them into the same category as machine guns. These media outlets know the proper terminology, they do research before conducting broadcasts and publishing stories. They purposefully use words such as "military assault weapons" knowing full well that it will trigger images of machine guns spraying in war videos. Many in the public still have no idea that the AR-15 you can buy at the local sporting goods store isn't a vietnam era fully auto M-16 clone. News stories purposefully omit the part about them being semi automatic because that doesn't help push their agenda. I ended up having to move to a state with strict gun laws so I opted to leave all of my firearms with my father who lives in a state where gun rights are respected. My father is an older guy of course and was always afraid of guns. I felt it my responsibility to educate him on proper clearing procedures of the various rifles I had just in case he ever needed to move them or something. Up until the day I showed him how these guns worked he literally believed that I had a locker full of fully automatic AK-47s. He had absolutely no idea that they even made semi auto rifles. After he figured that out for some reason he was no longer intimidated by them and was actually excited and eager to pick them up and handle them and learn how to clear them and whatnot. He even asked if I would take him to the local range to let him try one out. In his words I quote "You mean to tell me you actually spent thousands on dollars on big rifles that shoot like pistols? You trying to look cool or something having a bunch of guns that look like real guns? You remind me of people who go to the dealership and get the 4 cylinder version of a truck. That's not a truck, thats a car, trucks have 8 cylinders. Why would you even buy a truck with 4 cylinders on purpose? Hahaha, thousand dollars for a big pistol gun. Why didn't you just buy the real kind if you're gonna spend that kinda money?" In his twisted sense of humor I understood what was going on. His entire life he thought I had legit machine guns in my gun locker. He honestly had no idea that you couldn't buy machine guns in the local sporting goods store. He thought I purposefully chose to get the semi auto version like it was an option and was making fun of me for it. I explained to him that you can't choose a "version" of the gun and they don't sell fully auto weapons to people in the stores and that the majority of people out there have semi auto rifles that LOOK like so called "assault rifles". His response "Well then all ya'll are dumb" LOL People don't know what they don't know. Can't assume people know things. My father isn't unlike a lot of people who fear these guns for what they THINK they are, not for what they actually are. And the media absolutely LOVES people like that because its so easy to put fuel on that fire. Just beat around the bush, don't flat out tell them they are machine guns but don't specifically tell them they AREN'T. The media knows exactly what it is doing, they aren't nearly as ignorant as they portray. They do that on purpose to influence the masses who are already ignorant on firearms and afraid of them due to recent events.
I don't remember the whole thing, but if you want a real laugh, Google "ghost gun". This animated suit stood in front of the cameras, holding an AR 15, and told the world that this thing can shoot 30 clips per second, and so forth. The real discussion was about 80% lowers. Huh?
The notion that extending background checks to cover private sales, without first addressing the numerous shortcomings of the system as it is, will somehow yield any beneficial difference. It is no more valid than a doctor continuing to prescribe a specific strain of antibiotics long after the disease has developed immunity to them.
If I hear "gun show loophole" or internet gun sales loophole one more time, I think I'll scream. The laws governing sales at gun shows are EXACTLY the same as the laws governing sales outside of gun shows. There is no loophole. A licensed gun dealer has to do a NICS check, regardless of if it's at his store or a gun show. A private citizen does not have to do a NICS check regardless of whether it's at his house, out of the back of his car, or at a gun show. You cannot buy guns over the internet without having two licensed gun dealers involved.
If cars were primarily weapons then you might have a point. But you don't. "During the 1990s Smith & Wesson repeatedly threatened to spoil the party for the entire industry. It implemented a code of ethics for its stocking dealers and informed them it might terminate sales to those who did not agree to refrain from making sales to straw purchasers.78 It was the only gun maker to instruct its distributors to terminate sales to Chicago-area dealers who had been indicted for having made sales to undercover police officers posing as straw buyers for criminals.79 "Then, on St. Patrick’s Day 2000, the company committed an unforgivable sin. It entered into an agreement with many of the cities that had filed suit against the industry and with the Clinton administration (that had threatened a lawsuit). In that agreement, Smith & Wesson committed itself to imposing a far-reaching code of conduct on its distributors and dealers to help prevent sales into the illegal market.80 In order to be authorized to sell Smith & Wesson products, a dealer had to implement safe sales practices that went far beyond the minimum legal requirements. The dealer had to "• Refrain from selling any gun until the Brady background check was completed (thus solving the 'default proceed' problem). • Refuse to sell at a gun show unless every seller at the show, including unlicensed sellers, conducts background checks on all sales (thus closing the 'gun show loophole'). • Have its employees attend annual training and pass an exam on how to recognize the signs of a suspicious sale and on how to promote safe handling of guns. • Sell guns only to persons who have passed a certified firearms safety course or exam. • Implement specific security measures to prevent gun theft. • Maintain an electronic record of every time one of its guns was traced to crime and submit those records to Smith & Wesson on a monthly basis. "Smith & Wesson CEO Ed Schultz said, in announcing the agreement, 'A decision to enter this agreement, we realized, would not be popular with everyone. But we believe . . . it is the right thing to do.' 81" -Dennis A. Henigan Why were other gun manufacturers quite happy to bury their heads in the sand while their dealers sold guns to violent criminals and their profits soared? Why were other gun manufacturers unwilling to do the right thing?
Please, not even remotely true. S&W has many sins and almost went of business for a variety of reasons. It tried to make a deal with the government so that It could attempt to put the company that was cleaning its clock, namely Glock out of business. For selling out their customers and the second amendment, they wanted to entire LEO community, local, state and federal the buy their third gen pistols. Smith has made shoddy weapons in the past knowingly, yet put them out there. They also copied weapons from others and then dared the competitors to take them to court. They didn't expect Gaston Glock to nearly bury them. BTW S&W's Sigma series became one of the gang banger's weapon of choice in the process.
Yet, cars kill more people each year than guns, or is it people are killing people with cars? I don't know. Smith & Wesson may have had good intentions, but they do not work as advertised. I applaud them for their internal efforts in combating illicit sales, but there are plenty of laws on the books already that address your other concerns.
Why does it matter if motor vehicles are not primarily weapons, if they are still responsible for more deaths than firearms, and thus able to be freely owned by even the most violent of felons? Unless the ATF revokes the license of a federal firearms dealer, firearm manufacturers have no reason to refrain from providing them with merchandise to sell. We continually hear stories about how only a tiny percentage of licensed dealers are responsible for a sizable share of the firearms sold to criminals. Why do these corrupt and criminally negligent dealers continue to remain in business indefinitely, when the ATF conducts regular audits, and can easily revoke their license for even the most minor of infractions? Do not tell us that it is budget cutbacks that allow corrupt dealers to go undetected. That is not the case. The news is constantly filled with stories of licensed dealers going out of business because their license was revoked.
-And law abiding FFL's are in the same boat as legal gun owners. There are endless hoops they have to jump through that were put in place to catch bad guys.
