Gun laws and control

[Jack the Stripper]

Slightly related and sad news:

Legendary Gun manufacturer REMINGTON has filed for Bankruptcy...

[BOGBLAST]

I believe they are trying to "restructure" in bankruptcy court.

[Zzzptm]

Wondering if the Remington thing is like the Gibson and Fender issues, where a rising generation isn't as impressed with an existing brand name, putting their purchases towards other makes...

[Typhon]

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
―Thomas Jefferson

[Vyn]

Wondering if the Remington thing is like the Gibson and Fender issues, where a rising generation isn't as impressed with an existing brand name, putting their purchases towards other makes...

Remington built a name for themselves based on the quality of their products and customer service post-sale. The past decade or so has seen that go downhill.

And it isn't so much that Remington's competitors upped their game (although many certainly have), it's that Remington lowered theirs.

[Zzzptm]

Wondering if the Remington thing is like the Gibson and Fender issues, where a rising generation isn't as impressed with an existing brand name, putting their purchases towards other makes...

Remington built a name for themselves based on the quality of their products and customer service post-sale. The past decade or so has seen that go downhill.

And it isn't so much that Remington's competitors upped their game (although many certainly have), it's that Remington lowered theirs.

So, yes, it is kind of a Gibson Guitars story...

[Charger]

Wondering if the Remington thing is like the Gibson and Fender issues, where a rising generation isn't as impressed with an existing brand name, putting their purchases towards other makes...

Remington built a name for themselves based on the quality of their products and customer service post-sale. The past decade or so has seen that go downhill.

And it isn't so much that Remington's competitors upped their game (although many certainly have), it's that Remington lowered theirs.

So, yes, it is kind of a Gibson Guitars story...

This is quite sad to learn...but I suppose this actually happens to a lot of big name companies...they get complacent and think people will always keep buying their products no matter what so they can start cutting corners on development and manufacturing...

There are several stories like this around...

[Typhon]

You do know there are such things nowadays called phones? You can call before hand and avoid being shot!

Yeah, but i still happen to pop by for surprise visits ev'ry now and then. Doesn't always ring the doorbell/knock on the door either. Might be due to the set of friends i've got too, ofcourse...

Surprise visits are fine.  Intruders sneak in through windows or break in through locked doors.  So you have nothing to worry about if you visit me. 

[Typhon]

I would think that this recent terrible school shooting in the southwest section of the U.S. should make it clearer that more restrictive gun laws would not have helped.  An assault weapon was not used.  The guns used were legally purchased by the shooter's father.  Banning assault weapons or lowering the age limit for purchase, would not have stopped this.  Where the heck is Sabbabath?  She should be hearing this.

[Zzzptm]

It's not just assault weapons. It's semiautomatic pistols that do most of the carnage. We need controls there.

This shooting happened while I was up in Canada on business. I realized then how much their hearts break for us Americans when another thing like this happens. We've got way too much dependency on weapons, like they were part of our national religion or something.

[Vyn]

Apparently the kid also planted explosive devices in and around the school. What are we in the USA doing so that people can't just go purchase C4 and blasting caps? Shouldn't there be some kind of ID check involved? Age restriction for grenade-fuse purchases?

Oh, wait.

[Typhon]

It's not just assault weapons. It's semiautomatic pistols that do most of the carnage. We need controls there.

After the Florida incident, the high schoolers were screaming for a ban on assault weapons.  That is what I was referring to.

[Zzzptm]

I would respond that obviously, there's more to do than just assault weapons, but there's so much to accomplish, one starting place is as good as any.

The right to bear arms seriously has NOT delivered on its promise. It is not giving us a proper militia, let alone a well-ordered one. It was a philosophy of the 18th century that everybody thought would be a good idea to include, but it hasn't panned out as hoped for.

It certainly hasn't made a citizenry that the government is afraid of, nor has it prevented a grasping, centralized government from coming into existence.

My freedom of speech, religion, and to gather publicly, I use at least one of those every day. That first amendment was amazing, thanks very much for it.

The third amendment, honestly, I don't use it all that much. Probably because it exists, I don't wind up in a situation where I'd have to invoke it.

Amendments 4-8 are great to have. I haven't had to call on them in my life, thank goodness, but they're good to have, along with the right of habeas corpus defined in the Constitution proper.

Amendment nine is good, it keeps things loose.

Amendment ten is a tricky one... states want it enforced if it gives them a benefit and want it ignored if it gives another state a benefit at their expense. Shows that the founding fathers weren't all 100% in their judgment calls.

Which brings me to that second amendment... the original draft of it was this:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.

Clearly, the intent was about forming a state militia that would itself be independent of a federal standing army. It also speaks to conscientious objection to military duty. It's about a citizen army of the republic, which authors from Machiavelli forward praised as integral to the security of freedoms. Kings would hire mercenaries who would in turn oppress the people. Citizens of a republic would be less likely to turn their weapons on their fellow citizens.

But today, that second amendment has led to a cult of firearms in the USA. And I do mean a cult, in the very pejorative sense of the word. It's an ideology as bankrupt as fascism and communism - each of those discredited by the same two key arguments. One, none of those have delivered a promised better world. Two, there is a pile of bodies as a result of increasingly desperate measures to get the ideas to work.

Those societies that have abandoned those ideas live peacefully and live well. They enjoy the rule of law,  safety on their streets, and general bonhomie. Yes, they have problems in government and crime and terrible tragedies, but their problems in government are no worse than the ones in the USA, their crime rates tend to be much lower, and their terrible tragedies have a lower annual body count, when all summed up - and also much less ammunition expenditure per casualty, if any.

And I tire of how the gun believers will dismiss statistics showing how other nations that have fewer guns per person also have lower murder rates and lower massacres per annum, and then after dismissing statistics will seize upon a single, outlying incident as some sort of proof that they are right. I suppose they would be right if that single, outlying incident were all the proof we had, but it ain't that way. A rational mind takes in all the data, the bad and the good, and will change one's mind when the data clearly show that a previously-held belief was just that, a belief. Not a fact. Not a truth. A whimsical belief.

I find no rational reason to believe that more guns than people in the USA makes this nation a safer, better place. I find many rational reasons to believe quite the opposite, that the amount of guns in the USA makes this nation more dangerous and worse than it has to be.

I find that pro-gun propaganda makes as much sense in the light of truth as Nazism or Communism: none. I believe that, as people in the USA grow less tolerant of their children being killed in schools, they will begin voting hard against anyone supporting a pro-gun agenda. It may take a generation, but it is a tide of history.

The gun believers can shut their eyes and ears and pretend that shouting out the words of the second amendment as a mantra will save them, but that is a sure path to continue alienating the majority of people in the USA who are *not* gun owners. Look what happened in the case of same-sex marriages and is happening now in the case of marijuana legalization. Guns are next. The rising generation in the USA is not at all happy with the NRA and its fellow-travelers and will sweep it aside as it ages out.

I think now is the time for the gun lobby and its supporters to realize that, in order to not be on the wrong side of history, it will have to make concessions. It will have to give up assault weapons and semi-automatic weapons, in some form or fashion. Arguing about caliber size or rate of fire will just anger further gun opponents and will be likely to result in overreaching legislation. Going down a road that the Israelis, Germans, and Swiss have taken may be the one most palatable to gun opponents.

And please, don't be the ones to say, "Guns don't kill, people do!" Or, if you do, don't be the one to say, "Never bring a knife to a gun fight." That second line kinda proves the point the gun opponents make: that even if we can't stop people from killing, we can at least reduce the casualty rate by reducing the rate of fire.

In the case of vehicular safety, drug safety, and a whole host of other safety measures, we've been able to use data to show how to reduce the lethality of various human activities. We keep making laws to make things safer, and rightly so. Witness the laws against texting and driving. We know that we reduce the number of traffic accidents and fatalities when we ban texting and driving. We can't eliminate that activity, but that banning it does reduce the incidence of the hazard.

But in the case of guns, the gun believers seem to be blind to the data. It's as if they were smokers, protesting that smoking doesn't lead to cancers and heart disease, or drunk drivers insisting that the real solution is to have pedestrians keep to the sewers and sober drivers at home.

I would dare say that the cult of gun ownership has been the very thing that has prevented the second amendment from delivering on its promise. We wouldn't have such a gun problem in the USA if we didn't have people that had been taken in so deeply by the gun industry's advertising that they would make a religion out of weapon ownership.

It's clear, though. The gun lobby needs to start making concessions or wind up losing everything.

[Typhon]

A rational mind takes in all the data, the bad and the good, and will change one's mind when the data clearly show that a previously-held belief was just that, a belief. Not a fact. Not a truth. A whimsical belief.

It is a shame you don't apply this logical thinking when evaluating your "belief" in some kind of god.

[Billy Underdog]

A rational mind takes in all the data, the bad and the good, and will change one's mind when the data clearly show that a previously-held belief was just that, a belief. Not a fact. Not a truth. A whimsical belief.

It is a shame you don't apply this logical thinking when evaluating your "belief" in some kind of god.

How can you be so sure he doesn't? It was logical thinking that finally convinced me about the existence of god, and in that process i also understood that all my life i've been misinformed and miseducated about what the concept of "god" actually is.