Gun Control in the US

[ShadySands]

M16's are fully automatic. AR's are less powerful than hunting rifles, they use what's called an intermediate round, in between a pistol and a rifle. This assault weapons bull is all about cosmetics.

 

Select-fire but the point still stands.

 

I was hoping he was using AR to abbreviate assault rifle but if he was referring to AR-15's and the like then yeah. M-16 and AR-15 are not the same and assault weapon is a catch all for any gun (the person using the term) doesn't like

[ShadySands]

from your own link

An inventory of the weapons used: An AR-15 converted to fire automatically with two 100-round Beta Magazines, a semiautomatic HK-91 rifle with several 30-round magazines, a Beretta 92FS Inox with several magazines, and three different AK-47 rifles converted to fire in fully automatic mode with several 75 to 100-round drum magazines, as well as 30 round box magazines. It is speculated that at least two of the AK-47s were later found to have been legally purchased by Phillips, and apparently converted by him as well using a bench drill to drill out the hole for the autosear pin (this allowed it to be fired in full auto). However, it was not possible for Phillips to legally purchase a firearm due to him being a convicted felon

 

They had guns illegally and made illegal modifications to them

[Calax]

Illegal modifications that take all of 1 power drill to complete (at least for the 47's)

 

And it was more going towards the point that people were trying to make that somehow we should all be trying not to have AR's banned or remotely close because "there haven't been any massacres from assault rifles/automatic weapons!"

 

Those two guys could have easily been the gun toting yahoos from India.

 

Or this guy

Or this one

 

And that's just from 10 minutes on google. Yes some were illegally modified, but it doesn't seem like the modification to become fully automatic takes to much to do.

[Drowsy Emperor]

The weapons you should really be against (if the whole issue is worth it) are those like Mac-10, MP5 etc. Compact sub-machine guns whose only purpose is to unload a lot of bullets into the target as fast as possible. They really are worthless to anyone who is not a gangbanger. Not that its going to stop gangbangers using them.

 

If you really need another example, after the wars in these parts practically every household had a gun of some sort. From handguns to AK's, from hand grenades to RPG's. I kid you not (I vaguely remember toying around with a deactivated hand grenade). And these are not households on the front lines of the war, no these are cities and villages that haven't seen any combat at all. War veterans brought a ton of that stuff back.

 

And you know what happened?

 

Nothing.

 

Many people either kept that stuff in the attic, or gave it to the police for storage/melting down. No massacres, school shootings or anything of the sort. Some of those weapons were used in typical crimes, some of them were the cause of minor accidents but that's the nature of the black market and weapons in general (when combined with human carelessness).

 

Yet another proof that having heavily armed citizens (even with military grade weapons) doesn't equate to an anarchic society. Its all in the upbringing.

[Guard Dog]

I still have a lot of reading to do on this thread but Boo and a few others have hit on something important here. The mere presence of firearms is not the cause and banning them is not the solution. I suspect in the rush to do something they will reenact the assualt weapons ban. It was a useless law that did nothing more than make a handful of weapons illegal based solely on cosmetic criteria. You guys know I've never been a fan of collective solutions for individual problems. The real breakdown here is in what is happening to our society that leads to these events. I have a few theories myself but I'd like to read this thread a bit more before posting them in case one of you already has... and did a better job of it.

 

I will mention this however. There is no firearm in the US that is legal now that wasn't legal since the end of WWII (or equivalents of weapons that didn't exist then). AR-15s are new but .223 semi-auto rifles have been around since the 50's. This "lone lunatic with a gun shoots everyone in sight" is something that, while very rare now, was almost unheard of 20 years ago.

 

Now there are some restriction I'd be in favor of. Banning hi-cap magazines, ballistic amo (note full jacketed ammo is already illeagal) background checks at gun shows make sense to me. But I would not go much farther than that.

[Volourn]

"while very rare now, was almost unheard of 20 years ago."

 

False.

[Calax]

Has the reason "Going Postal" was even invented been lost?

[Valsuelm]

Has the reason "Going Postal" was even invented been lost?

 

Not on most who were alive back in the 80s when the events that lead to the term becoming part of the American vocabulary happened. I imagine some younger folks who weren't or were but were still pooping themselves might look at the term differently as slang tends to morph meanings over time. Usually the term is used in a dark humor context, and there were some comedians back then who used it in their routine which helped popularize it.

 

How is this relevant though?

[Calax]

Has the reason "Going Postal" was even invented been lost?

 

Not on most who were alive back in the 80s when the events that lead to the term becoming part of the American vocabulary happened. I imagine some younger folks who weren't or were but were still pooping themselves might look at the term differently as slang tends to morph meanings over time. Usually the term is used in a dark humor context, and there were some comedians back then who used it in their routine which helped popularize it.

 

How is this relevant though?

 

GD's post

This "lone lunatic with a gun shoots everyone in sight" is something that, while very rare now, was almost unheard of 20 years ago.

Or can you just not even read?

[Valsuelm]

GD's post

This "lone lunatic with a gun shoots everyone in sight" is something that, while very rare now, was almost unheard of 20 years ago.

Or can you just not even read?

 

As Volourn mentions above. The above statement is false.

[Tsuga C]

As Volourn mentions above. The above statement is false.

 

Patently so.

[Calax]

which is exactly what I was saying.

 

The phrase "Going Postal" comes from before 20 years ago.

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, but schools as a target seems to be a fairly new phenomenon.

[Calax]

IMO, that might be because schools have slowly become more vicious over the years, in terms of bullying and social status, due to the increase in social media and the level of social interaction.

 

No longer can a kid being bullied at one school swap to another and remake himself. Instead he still gets nasty emails and fb posts and "trolololololol" via the 'net.

[Hurlshort]

That's a good point, digital media really can make social problems seem all encompassing. It has been quite a challenge as a teacher to address digital citizenship along with all the other struggles of being a student.

[Agelastos]

Gun control laws help, but they only treat the symptoms, not the disease.

Want to cure the disease? Then do something about the near-pennalistic social hierarchies in your high schools, the fear mongering of your news media, and your huge wealth disparity.

Edited December 22, 2012 by Agelastos

[Valsuelm]

Gun control laws help, but they only treat the symptoms, not the disease.

Want to cure the disease? Then do something about the near-pennalistic social hierarchies in your high schools, the fear mongering of your news media, and your huge wealth disparity.

 

Gun control laws really don't help. But you're right in that the thought that they do is only treating the symptom. It's not even an effective symptom treatment though. In general that's how we handle things in the west on this issue and most others: treat the symptom, be reactive. The fundamentals aren't even realized by a great many, and are almost always ignored by the media.

 

What do you mean by 'near-pennalistic social hierarchies'? 'Pennalistic' is not a word in the English language. The social hierarchies that exist today are much the same as they were for most of the last 100 years or more, though fads and what's acceptable behavior definitely changes over time.

 

There are definitely huge problems in today's high schools that weren't there even 20 years ago in most places in the U.S. For the most part it's how they are now run and how the students are viewed that are different. In an increasing number of cases it's also how they're even taught. There are a number of reasons for that, and the momentum of the direction things are going in are solidly for the worse not the better.

 

Ultimately in most cases the responsibility lies with the parents for their children's actions, though increasingly the state is usurping parental rights and responsibilities even from parents who wish to actually be parents and not just humans that spawned some offspring they might pay for. A reactive society, attempting to treat the symptom, propaganda, and the thought by many that every undesirable thing can somehow be legislated or regulated out of existence has a lot to do with this. Parents willing to take that responsibility are becoming rarer and rarer, as more and more are letting the schools, TVs, computers, and everyone else raise their kids for them.

[Agelastos]

What do you mean by 'near-pennalistic social hierarchies'? 'Pennalistic' is not a word in the English language.

 

It's not? Hm.

Pennalism is a form of institutional hazing or bullying which occurs in some academic milieus. The older/stronger students bully the younger/weaker students in order to "help" them by making them "stronger" and "preparing them for life".

By having extracurricular academic clubs and athletic teams right there in school, you create an (often anti-intellectual) intergroup hierarchy where the strong and the "cool" usually reign supreme while the physically weak and/or "nerdy"/socially awkward (and people with interests associated with "nerdiness") become the subject of ridicule and bullying.

And since most school shooters seem to be academically gifted but socially and emotionally challenged...

Edited December 23, 2012 by Agelastos

[Volourn]

"IMO, that might be because schools have slowly become more vicious over the years, in terms of bullying and social status, due to the increase in social media and the level of social interaction."

 

Oh, come on. Schools have always been 'vicious'. Bullying has been the very fabric of school social liekly for as long as schools existed and it was the etachers were the ones bullying people. The only difference is we actually have a word for 'bullying' now and 'bullying' news is spammed 24/7.

[AGX-17]

I still have a lot of reading to do on this thread but Boo and a few others have hit on something important here. The mere presence of firearms is not the cause and banning them is not the solution. I suspect in the rush to do something they will reenact the assualt weapons ban. It was a useless law that did nothing more than make a handful of weapons illegal based solely on cosmetic criteria. You guys know I've never been a fan of collective solutions for individual problems. The real breakdown here is in what is happening to our society that leads to these events. I have a few theories myself but I'd like to read this thread a bit more before posting them in case one of you already has... and did a better job of it.

 

I will mention this however. There is no firearm in the US that is legal now that wasn't legal since the end of WWII (or equivalents of weapons that didn't exist then). AR-15s are new but .223 semi-auto rifles have been around since the 50's. This "lone lunatic with a gun shoots everyone in sight" is something that, while very rare now, was almost unheard of 20 years ago.

 

Now there are some restriction I'd be in favor of. Banning hi-cap magazines, ballistic amo (note full jacketed ammo is already illeagal) background checks at gun shows make sense to me. But I would not go much farther than that.

 

A common-sense approach that one would hope conservatives would accept (they wouldn't,) would be to treat guns the same way we treat and regulate cars. (the key difference being that guns are meant to kill people, that's why they were invented, and cars are not.) But with mental health screenings mandatory every time you want your gun license renewed. 50 years ago nobody cared that the mentally ill had no rights and could be imprisoned and "treated" against their will indefinitely, and it certainly didn't help when Ronald Reagan made massive cuts to mental health care spending. Conservatives would rather see the mentally ill go untreated until they commit a crime as a result of their illness and then call them bad people who should be put in prison or executed on account of their being fundamentally evil.

 

If responsible gun owners don't want their rights threatened, they shouldn't support far-right groups like the NRA. They should do that thing conservatives hate most.

Compromise.

 

Edited December 23, 2012 by AGX-17

[Calax]

"IMO, that might be because schools have slowly become more vicious over the years, in terms of bullying and social status, due to the increase in social media and the level of social interaction."

 

Oh, come on. Schools have always been 'vicious'. Bullying has been the very fabric of school social liekly for as long as schools existed and it was the etachers were the ones bullying people. The only difference is we actually have a word for 'bullying' now and 'bullying' news is spammed 24/7.

 

Except that before you could get away from the bullying schtick by changing locations, now you're still followed via internest.

[Hurlshort]

I was also going to point to the Reagan era mental health care cuts as a possible catalyst for these types of problems. Although it is a tough balancing act, we obviously can't go back to the 50's where we just institutionalized everyone.

[Calax]

I was also going to point to the Reagan era mental health care cuts as a possible catalyst for these types of problems. Although it is a tough balancing act, we obviously can't go back to the 50's where we just institutionalized everyone.

Well, removing the stigma from having a mental health issue is a good first shot.

[Bos_hybrid]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/?tid=pm_business_pop

[alanschu]

"IMO, that might be because schools have slowly become more vicious over the years, in terms of bullying and social status, due to the increase in social media and the level of social interaction."

 

Oh, come on. Schools have always been 'vicious'. Bullying has been the very fabric of school social liekly for as long as schools existed and it was the etachers were the ones bullying people. The only difference is we actually have a word for 'bullying' now and 'bullying' news is spammed 24/7.

 

Except that before you could get away from the bullying schtick by changing locations, now you're still followed via internest.

 

 

How are they followed, exactly?