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Las Vegas shooting


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1 hour ago, thesometimesaint said:

Think of the money that  is spent on registration of automobiles in the US. No one gives a rats behind about  it.

That's why one way to simplify the process would be to include a gun registry with the car registry. I would assume that if a person owned a gun they would also own a car. Well, the vast majority anyway. But no, they had to create a separate registry with all the new computers needed etc. then they made a bunch of exemptions and the bureaucracy took over. Someone and their friends made a ton of money before the whole thing was shut down.

 

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2 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

Virtually every other country has some form of gun control laws. The question for me isn't if some thing can be used for murder. Cain slew Able with a rock. It is the relative ease by which firearms can/are being used to commit murder. We require the registration, training, and periodic licensing of drivers on the public roads. One one thinks twice about it. I am suggest such be required for firearms.

 

"Every other country has some form of gun control laws"?  Your implication is that we don't have any. Of course you know that we do. 

Do you really think that most murders are committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens using firearms that were obtained legally? If you do, you are more naive that I can imagine possible. You've never struck me as being particularly dense, TSS. Wrong, sometimes, but always wrong in intelligent ways, if you know what I mean.

The plain fact of the matter is that murders (and for that matter robberies and other crimes) that are committed using firearms are committed by those who don't care a fig for training, registration and licensing. And let's just imagine what would happen if it were somehow workable to confiscate all firearms. Do you really think that the criminal class would meekly hand their own weapons over?  Or if a universal firearms licensing program were implemented, that they would undergo training, register their guns, and get licensed to own them?  Or that that would stop them from using firearms illegally?

And the comparison to automobile licensing is extremely inapt. However often it is trotted out. Guns and cars are apples and oranges.  Consider the following.

  • Automobiles
    • Automobiles are large and except when garaged are visible for all to see. 
    • There are over 260,000,000 private automobiles in the US.
    • On any given day, perhaps half of them are on the road.
    • In 2015 there were over 35,000 fatalities on the roads, the overwhelming number of which were caused by otherwise law-abiding, licensed drivers. 
  • Firearms
    • Firearms are small and many of them are easily concealed from view. 
    • There are over 310 million privately-owned firearms in the US [q.v.].
    • On any given day, the overwhelming majority of them are kept at home and out of sight. Only a small percentage are out in public being used for legitimate purposes; an even smaller percentage are out in public for illegitimate purposes.
    • In 2012 there were less than 9,000 firearm-related homicides [q.v.]. The overwhelming number of these were caused by people who would not have subjected themselves to training, licensing and registration. Unless you really believe that otherwise law-abiding citizens are the primary murderers.

In short, the registration, training and periodic licensing of firearms owners targets those who are the least likely to misuse them. In other words, it would be eyewash: it would look good to certain people, but serve no useful purpose.  Perhaps you can show otherwise?

Now before you go on about suicide, which in this country is primarily accomplished by firearms, how would training and licensing of firearms owners and the registration of firearms prevent someone from shooting him or herself?  Only total confiscation would prevent firearms suicides -- but still wouldn't stop people from killing themselves.  If one means is unavailable, there are many others. In countries where ownership of firearms is highly restricted, people kill themselves by other means, such as poison, hanging and jumping from heights. So forget about suicide.

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2 hours ago, Duncan said:

I remember that, these two gun nutjobs in our ward at the time were having this petition going around, and the the hue and cry about registering your long guns, you'd think Satan came to Church. The other guys in the ward who had long guns didn't seem to care,like so what if your gun is on some list in Ottawa? anyways the two of the most deranged are what you would call paranoid delusional, they are brothers and it's a long story but one is I think a sociopathic person. When we were teens my friends were hatching this plan to write small note and mail it out to their farm and just to screw with the main lunatic. We never did it we didn't want someone to get hurt! I could go on!

That's funny, and I won't deny that there are gun nutjobs out there, just like there are other kinds.

But you do live in Canada, which is not the US.

A number of years ago (and I've told this story before, but perhaps you haven't heard it yet), my wife and I went to a local buffet restaurant with two other couples from our ward, and sometime during the meal it suddenly occurred to me that of the six couples present, five were carrying pistols -- legally, because we all had concealed carry permits. The only holdout was the wife of one of us -- I knew she had a permit, but didn't usually carry.  Her preferred weapon was her .30-.30 lever-action rifle. Which is difficult to carry concealed.  Around the same time our Elders Quorum had a summer social activity which involved going out to a local gravel pit commonly used by the community for shooting (it was on state forest land). They invited the bishopric to attend as well. So there we all were, about thirty men and boys, along with a few women and girls, all firing guns and having a blast. The next day during Priesthood opening exercises, the bishop talked admiringly about our "ward militia"! 

Note that this was no redneck ward. This was in a ward in the Washington state capital.  And all of us are very mentally functional and rational.  And apparently armed to the teeth.

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1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Because they do not understand the original intent of the Second Amendment like in that article?

Do you REALLY want to get into a discussion of original intent?  

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5 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

I'm not most people. My experience was in and out in less than 10 minutes. My wife recently renewed her driver license. She was in and out in less than 15 minutes.

You must live out in the boonies.

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3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I am not afraid of it. You should be. ;) 

Oooooh. That sounds like a challenge. :D

Well, I return to you the same challenge.

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2 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

In the US in 2013 there were over 30,000 homicides that used firearms.

SEE http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/03/us/gun-deaths-united-states/index.html

In ascending order of perfidy, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The word "homicide" means "man killing", and is used generically (and disingenuously) by CNN. More precision is needed -- since CNN famously likes to ignore inconvenient facts. The inconvenient fact is that a large majority of homicides are suicides.  In 2013 there were 33,565 firearms-related deaths. Fully 63%, or 21,175 were suicides, not murders.  This leaves 12,390 that were not suicides, among which are a relatively small number of legal interventions, accidents, and undetermined. See HERE for the numbers. In the US, as I think I said earlier, guns are the primary means used for suicide. Pew Research concurs.

I am particularly emphasizing the suicide rate because including them in a discussion of gun control is specious, and needs to be firmly taken off the table. Suicides will not be eliminated, or even substantially reduced, by eliminating or reducing access to firearms. In the country with the world's highest current suicide rate (34.6 per 100K), Sri Lanka, firearms ownership is not a right, and is restricted by licensing. There, the primary means of suicide is apparently pesticide ingestion. They have reduced access to pesticides, which reduced the suicide rate from its highest levels (back in the 1980's), but not by much.  If you examine the list of countries by descending rates of suicide, you will see the US is 48th. Many of those with higher rates are countries with much stricter gun control laws than in the US.  So if we're going to throw statistics around, let us at least throw around relevant numbers.

And interestingly enough, firearm death rates of all kinds have been flat over the last decade after a decline, despite greater rates of gun ownership. Note that in the graph below, while there was a decrease in non-suicide gun deaths over the last half of the previous decade, there was an increase in gun suicide rate. This graph is the rate per 100K people, not absolute numbers.

SDT-2013-05-gun-crime-2-1.png

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7 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

I'm not most people. My experience was in and out in less than 10 minutes. My wife recently renewed her driver license. She was in and out in less than 15 minutes.

Our local Utah stuff was easy.  South Provo office.  And getting the registration changed after my dad died was the easy thing I did.  Not only did the person know exactly what I needed to do and explained it clearly, it didn't get lost in the mail and we got the new one in less than a week iirc.

Edited by Calm
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8 hours ago, Stargazer said:

In ascending order of perfidy, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The word "homicide" means "man killing", and is used generically (and disingenuously) by CNN. More precision is needed -- since CNN famously likes to ignore inconvenient facts. The inconvenient fact is that a large majority of homicides are suicides.  In 2013 there were 33,565 firearms-related deaths. Fully 63%, or 21,175 were suicides, not murders.  This leaves 12,390 that were not suicides, among which are a relatively small number of legal interventions, accidents, and undetermined. See HERE for the numbers. In the US, as I think I said earlier, guns are the primary means used for suicide. Pew Research concurs.

I am particularly emphasizing the suicide rate because including them in a discussion of gun control is specious, and needs to be firmly taken off the table. Suicides will not be eliminated, or even substantially reduced, by eliminating or reducing access to firearms. In the country with the world's highest current suicide rate (34.6 per 100K), Sri Lanka, firearms ownership is not a right, and is restricted by licensing. There, the primary means of suicide is apparently pesticide ingestion. They have reduced access to pesticides, which reduced the suicide rate from its highest levels (back in the 1980's), but not by much.  If you examine the list of countries by descending rates of suicide, you will see the US is 48th. Many of those with higher rates are countries with much stricter gun control laws than in the US.  So if we're going to throw statistics around, let us at least throw around relevant numbers.

And interestingly enough, firearm death rates of all kinds have been flat over the last decade after a decline, despite greater rates of gun ownership. Note that in the graph below, while there was a decrease in non-suicide gun deaths over the last half of the previous decade, there was an increase in gun suicide rate. This graph is the rate per 100K people, not absolute numbers.

SDT-2013-05-gun-crime-2-1.png

Suicides are a form of homicide.

SEE https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-our-way/201510/suicide-form-homicide

Suicide with using a gun is a  homicide.

Edited by thesometimesaint
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10 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

Suicides are a form of homicide.

SEE https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/feeling-our-way/201510/suicide-form-homicide

Suicide with using a gun is a  homicide.

If you can't see the distinction between suicide and murder, then you probably believe that quitting a job and getting fired are exactly equivalent. And salt and pepper, being both condiments, are the same.

 

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26 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

If you can't see the distinction between suicide and murder, then you probably believe that quitting a job and getting fired are exactly equivalent. And salt and pepper, being both condiments, are the same.

 

Non Sequitur, and a Red Herring  I didn't say that suicide was murder.  I said it was homicide. Justifiable homicide is not murder, but it is still homicide. Think of Nephi and Laban. Something I will have to live with for the rest of my life. Though I do wonder sometimes just how many suicides are justifiable. The people who survive a suicide attempt virtually always regret attempting it.

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49 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Non Sequitur, and a Red Herring  I didn't say that suicide was murder.  I said it was homicide. Justifiable homicide is not murder, but it is still homicide. Think of Nephi and Laban. Something I will have to live with for the rest of my life. Though I do wonder sometimes just how many suicides are justifiable. The people who survive a suicide attempt virtually always regret attempting it.

Yes, the word "homicide" applies equally to both murder and suicide. But if suicide is not murder, why do you object to a distinction between them in a discussion on firearms?

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30 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Yes, the word "homicide" applies equally to both murder and suicide. But if suicide is not murder, why do you object to a distinction between them in a discussion on firearms?

I've never said all homicides are murder.(The illegal taking of a human life). To be accurate suicide is defined as a taking of your own life(Homicide). If it involves the use of a firearm it is still a homicide. Whether it can be justified is another question. We both were in the US Military, our job was to facilitate the killing of other human beings(Homicide) albeit justifiable by law. In the LDS faith we are washed clean of the blood and sins of this generation.

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On 10/7/2017 at 3:34 PM, The Nehor said:

Not sure I agree here. A semi-automatic means the weapon loads itself after each shot and each pull of the trigger fires. Almost every firearm except some shotguns is semi-automatic. A revolver is a semi-automatic. Unless you are calling for a complete gun ban outside of shotguns and muskets banning semi-automatics is silly.

We are on the same page. Weapons that have "no reasonable use in hunting or self-defense" shouldn't be in the hands of civilians. 

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On 10/10/2017 at 11:37 AM, thesometimesaint said:

I've never said all homicides are murder.(The illegal taking of a human life). To be accurate suicide is defined as a taking of your own life(Homicide). If it involves the use of a firearm it is still a homicide. Whether it can be justified is another question. We both were in the US Military, our job was to facilitate the killing of other human beings(Homicide) albeit justifiable by law. In the LDS faith we are washed clean of the blood and sins of this generation.

OK.

When you posted "In the US in 2013 there were over 30,000 homicides that used firearms", kind of out of the blue, I made the assumption that you were about to start using that figure as a base for justifying some sort of extended gun control. So I was trying to get ahead of the game by making it clear that 2/3 of those homicides were suicides and if we're going to cite statistics as a basis for our arguments we ought to use appropriate statistics. But apparently you were just trying to bring us up to date on the gun homicide count for that year. 

I apologize for jumping the gun.  <snigger />

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17 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

We are on the same page. Weapons that have "no reasonable use in hunting or self-defense" shouldn't be in the hands of civilians. 

Your opinion is your own, and you're entitled to it. However, the second amendment has nothing to do with hunting. And self-defense is secondary.  Based on original intent, individual military-grade weapons, or weapons which are suitable for military use, are precisely what the second amendment addresses. In its own verbiage, in fact. And there's case law:

US v. Miller (1939) - held that a sawed-off shotgun could not fall under the second amendment because such a weapon didn't have a military use. In other words, if it had a military use, then its ownership would have come under the protection of the amendment. Interestingly, the Mr. Miller who had been charged with possession of the shotgun in question was a bank robber who had testified against his co-perpetrators. The district court judge in the case (who was actually in favor of the National Firearms Act ban of short shotguns) allowed the second amendment demurrer to stand because Mr. Miller needed to be able to disappear before retribution from his erstwhile co-perpetrators materialized. The judge was certain that an appeal would fail and the law would be upheld because Mr. Miller would simply disappear and would never pay for a lawyer to argue his case before an appeals court, and the judgement would thus lose on appeal. In the event, that is exactly what happened. The supreme court, with no one to argue for a military use of short shotguns, simply said that absent a valid military use, short shotguns were not protected by the second amendment. Case closed, as it were. HOWEVER, if a lawyer had pled the case, he or she would have been able to argue that short shotguns did have a military use: in the previous war (WW1) short shotguns had been used extensively during trench combat -- the short shotgun was very much a military weapon.

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) - held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. I'd say that this is a liberalization of original intent, but since it's the Supreme Court, they have the right to liberalize it if they want.

And then we come to the militia. Who are the militia? The answer can be found in the United States Code: 10 USC § 246 - Militia: composition and classes:

  • The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
  • the classes of the militia are—
    • the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
    • the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

If you're a citizen, or have declared an intent to become a citizen, and you're between 17 and 45 years of age, you're a member of the US militia. If you're not in the organized militia, you're in the unorganized militia. This is also codified in the constitutions and laws of many of the states. In Washington state, with whose laws in this connection I am very familiar, there is no upper age limit or restriction as to sex as to who is part of the militia. I, a 66 year old male, have aged out of membership in the US unorganized militia, but remain a member of the Washington state unorganized militia. According to state law the governor may call me out to serve in the militia if he or she so desires. And I must report bearing arms supplied by myself (because the state probably doesn't have sufficient for the purpose). And if I show up with my single-shot rifle, then I am improperly armed.

NOTE: This is what the Constitution provides. This is the supreme law of the land. If you believe that the Second Amendment is outdated and no longer applicable to modern life, and that the nature of firearms ownership must change to be merely a matter of hunting and self-defense -- well and good, but that is an entirely different argument. I'm talking about current law. 

 

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