Vigilante

[Seth]

Just wondering how many might see the US gun laws as an example of a tyranny of the majority.

It is, which is why we have the Constitution which forbids the government from implementing that tyranny.

[Seth]

Seth has repeatedly shown a lack of understanding of statistics and probability.

His statement that past performance cannot be used to predict future performance shows he has no understanding of what 'random' and 'non random' mean.

If you are dealing with purely random events, then past performance cannot be used to predict future, and Seth is correct. However, we are not dealing with random events, and this means past can be used to predict future. I know, for example, that here in NZ we have about 300 fatal car accidents every year, plus or minus 50. I predict, with total confidence, that the number of lethal car accidents this year in NZ will be 300 plus or minus 50. That is because the past can, in fact, be used to predict the future, for non random matters. I also predict that mass shootings in Australia will remain less than the pre-gun law period of 13 in 18 years.

Australia will, inevitably, have another mass shooting. But it will not be 13 in 18 years, or anything near that number. Because the gun control laws are working.

The point is your predictions don't affect reality in the least, neither does the past.

The other point is that when another mass shooting takes place, more people will die because of your gun bans who might have been saved if even ONE person in the right place at the right time was armed and able to take decisive action.

It's okay with you evidently that your government reduces your life to a mere statistic and deems you to be acceptable collateral damage should you be killed by a criminal when you wouldn't have been killed if you'd been armed. I really don't care how much or little Aussies or Kiwis value their own lives and you're welcome to your sheeple status and all the things that go with it, including being a helpless victim.

But I refuse to live that way and I live in a nation where I cannot be compelled to do so.

[Seth]

You ain't seen nothin' yet. The collection of broken records is extensive. Just you wait until I play the ones titled The Marxist Obama and his Coterie of Useful Idiots. Or The Billions of Wilfully Unemployed. Or Taxation as Theft. Or Private Property as an Absolute and Inviolable Right. Or The Girlfriend who turned out to be an Utter Nutcase. Or...

Hey Hermit, go fuck yourself.

[FBM]

Just wondering how many might see the US gun laws as an example of a tyranny of the majority.

It is, which is why we have the Constitution which forbids the government from implementing that tyranny.

I'm not up to speed on this issue, I'm afraid. Do the majority of Americans favor tighter, looser or current levels of gun control?

[Seth]

Just wondering how many might see the US gun laws as an example of a tyranny of the majority.

It is, which is why we have the Constitution which forbids the government from implementing that tyranny.

I'm not up to speed on this issue, I'm afraid. Do the majority of Americans favor tighter, looser or current levels of gun control?

Nobody really knows, but since about 50 percent of the public owns firearms it's not too much of a stretch to say that it's at worse evenly split.

The devil is of course in the details. I'm all for "gun control" that actually keeps guns out of the hands of criminals and the insane, but unfortunately none of the "common sense" gun control proposals out there from the gun control side are either common sense or effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, and almost all of them are carefully calculated to sound good, but factually intended to inhibit and obstruct the ability of law-abiding citizens to own guns. So the problem isn't gun control per se, it's exactly what kind of gun control is being proposed that matters.

Typically, "gun control" proponents are attempting to enact broad, intrusive regulations in a supposed attempt to control a small, specific problem rather than producing regulations that achieve a legitimate goal without unnecessarily infringing on the rights of the vast, vast majority of citizens.

MrJonno and BG are extremely typical of this sort of sub-rosa agenda based argumentation. Handgun Control, which has changed its name but not its stripes, has one single agenda in mind: completely prohibit the private ownership of handguns, period. We gun rights proponents know this, so when they propose some regulation like registering guns and licensing owners that SOUNDS like a good idea we know what they actually have in mind. And what that is includes universal registration and owner licensing as a stepping-stone for gun bans and confiscations/mandatory surrender of guns. We know this because on repeated occasions mandatory registrations of guns, particularly semi-automatic sporting rifles, have resulted in gun confiscations or orders to dispose of such guns when the laws are changed to ban such arms. This has happened repeatedly and include incidents in California and New Jersey as well as ongoing harassment and arrests of citizens of New York who own previously-permissible guns that were banned after the Sandy Hook shootings.

This is why gun rights advocates like the NRA, which represents more than 5 million gun owners in the US, have an uncompromising resistance to gun registration or gun owner licensing. Historically, gun registration is always followed by confiscations/mandatory surrender of firearms banned in the emotional orgy of pointless lawmaking that occurs after some horrific shooting, like Port Arthur and Sandy Hook, where politicians make hay by pandering to the raw emotions of the public by "doing something" about the "scourge of guns." Problem is it's not a scourge of guns, it's a scourge of nutcases who are willing to kill and die in the act who are not in the least deterred by gun regulations.

Firearms are perhaps the most regulated consumer product in the US, with more than 50,000 laws nationwide at every level that control their acquisition and use. Frankly, no more gun control laws are needed. What's needed is for the authorities to enforce the laws that exist already, particularly the ones that put felons in possession of firearms in federal prison for a 5 year minimum stretch, which is something that almost NEVER happens at the federal level with the very gang-banging thugs who would be best off in prison every time they get popped for carrying a gun. Instead the feds waste our money incarcerating people who smoke marijuana and evade taxes. The economic benefits of locking up criminals very likely seriously outweigh the benefits of trying to collect a few dollars from some schlub who fudged on his taxes.

Anyway, back to your point. It wouldn't matter if 99.999% of the public wanted to ban guns because unless and until they amend the Constitution the right of a single person to keep and bear arms against the wishes of the entire rest of the population of the nation prevails. That is in fact the whole purpose of the Constitution, to prevent the whims and caprices of public opinion from being used "democratically" to oppress those who happen to be in disfavor at the moment.

[FBM]

Well, if 99% of the people were opposed to firearm ownership, they could call an Article V Convention to amend or repeal the Second Amendment. I don't see anything near those numbers, though. People can argue endlessly about whether or not it's broke, but until there's enough political will, it's not a good idea to try to fix it.

[Hermit]

Told you, FBM, didn't I?

[Seth]

Told you, FBM, didn't I?

As if your arguments aren't even more pedantically redundant...

[Blind groper]

Seth

I do not care if there are 50,000 or 50 squillion laws about guns in the USA. The simple fact is that there is no law to stop anyone selling a second hand gun, of any kind, to any person whatever. Even to an escaped mass murderer, or to a totally insane person.

Nor can you get guns to the law abiding without also getting them to the criminals. Other nations have blocked hand gun sales to any person, law abiding or not, and the number of such guns in the hands of criminals have dropped dramatically. Also murders.

[Seth]

Seth

I do not care if there are 50,000 or 50 squillion laws about guns in the USA.

I'm aware of the fact that you don't care about anything except your idiotic and irrational anti-gun agenda, thanks.

The simple fact is that there is no law to stop anyone selling a second hand gun, of any kind, to any person whatever.
Even to an escaped mass murderer, or to a totally insane person.

Yes, actually, there is such a law. Many such laws in fact. It's against the law to sell any kind of gun to any person who is disqualified from possessing a gun in every single state in the Union, and it's also a federal crime to do so. It's a federal crime to sell a single round of ammunition to a person known to be disqualified from possessing firearms. The penalties begin with a mandatory 5 year federal prison sentence.

In other words, you're absolutely, completely, totally and unequivocally one-hundred percent wrong.

Your actual complaint, I suspect, is that you don't like the fact that a private individual can sell to another private individual without mandatory government scrutiny and approval of the transaction because you have an inherent bigoted bias against anyone who owns or wants a gun that makes you believe that every gun owner is a criminal at heart and that they have no compunctions or scruples about selling their guns to complete strangers who may or may not be qualified to own them.

But that's your problem, and has little to do with the truth, as surveys of incarcerated criminals show by demonstrating that they rarely get their guns from either gun shows or random private transactions.

In any event, like any other criminal transaction, more laws are not going to prevent criminals from getting guns illegally because, well, illegal gunz is illegal. *Derp*

Nor can you get guns to the law abiding without also getting them to the criminals.

And you can't sell cars and liquor without getting them to drunks. So the fuck what? We don't regulate based on how some small minority of criminals might misuse an object. If we did that we'd all be driving ox carts.

Other nations have blocked hand gun sales to any person, law abiding or not, and the number of such guns in the hands of criminals have dropped dramatically. Also murders.

I doubt it, since it's particularly difficult to count the number of guns criminals have because, well, they're illegal and everything so they aren't interested in participating in a gun owner's census. And in spite of the UK's ban on firearms more and more illegal guns, including machine guns, are flowing into the country. To wit:

Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade

By James Slack
UPDATED: 03:42 EST, 27 October 2009

Gun crime has increased five-fold in some parts of the UK
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.
The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place.
Last week, police in London revealed they had begun carrying out armed patrols on some streets.
The move means officers armed with sub-machine guns are engaged in routine policing for the first time.

25 October 2013 Last updated at 12:54 ET

Four jailed over weapons stash bound for Scotland
From left, Craig Colquhoun, William Dempsey, James Ashdown and Barry Kelly The four men were jailed for conspiracy to buy or sell illegal firearms
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

Men guilty over train station guns

Four men have been jailed after a stash of weapons and ammunition - including an Uzi sub-machine gun with silencer - was found at a railway station.

Serving soldier William Dempsey left bags of weapons at Carlisle station after getting off a train to Glasgow.

He collected them from James Ashdown in Kent. They were destined for Barry Kelly and Craig Colquhoun in Scotland.

Dempsey and Ashdown were each jailed for eight years. Kelly was given nine years and Colquhoun seven years.

Dempsey and Ashdown had previously admitted conspiracy to buy or sell illegal firearms.

Kelly and Darvel were found guilty by a jury of the same offences earlier this month.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

I am wholly satisfied that they [the weapons] were destined for use in serious crime and had a clear potential for causing serious injury and death”

Judge Robert Warnock

Liverpool Crown Court heard how Dempsey, 29, from Paisley, left two Army camouflage bags containing the Uzi sub-machine gun, silencer, a handgun and a sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun with two cleaners at the station.

At what price to the law abiding? Never mind, I know full well that you don't actually give a fuck about anybody else or how your insane agenda harms them.

[Seth]

Gotta love the Great Equalizer...

Crime
Robber’s Stun Gun vs. Fed-Up 76-Year-Old’s Actual Gun – Guess How That Fight Turns Out
Feb. 14, 2014 8:45pm Dave Urbanski

A 76-year-old South Carolina man fatally shot a robbery suspect who assaulted him in his own driveway, Charleston’s WCSC-TV reported.

“I just shot somebody who was trying to rob me,” the man says in a 911 call obtained by WCSC. “I shot about three times before I hit him because he had me on the ground trying to tase me. And I finally got one in him.”
Image source: WCSC-TV

Image source: WCSC-TV

The resident of Lincolnville, S.C., about 30 minutes northwest of Charleston, told a police dispatcher that Sunday’s incident wasn’t the first time he was robbed.

Neighbors of the 76-year-old said criminal activity is becoming commonplace on their street and in their town and are glad the man took action.

“I think the neighborhood needs to come together and get these people off the streets,” one unidentified resident who lives a few doors away told WCSC. “And luckily that man took one of them out. Really it’s kind of just another day in Lincolnville.”

Once deputies arrived on the scene, an incident report noted the homeowner told them he was exiting the house and walking toward his car when the suspect attempted to fire at him with a stun gun or taser.

The suspect, identified as 25-year-old Robert Deziel of Summerville, was found lying in front of the carport and pronounced dead by EMS. According to a Charleston County Sheriff’s office spokesman, a stun gun was found at the scene.

The homeowner, whom the incident report said was “struck in the face” and had abrasions on his hands, was taken to a hospital for treatment.

No arrests have been made. The incident remains under investigation by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office.

[Blind groper]

As I pointed out before, Seth, you appear to have no understanding of probability or the meaning of statistical data. This is shown oncve more by your insistance on posting meaningless anecdotes as if they had some value.


Guns in Britain.
A case in point. There will always be a few guns in the hands of criminals in any and every nation on the planet. But if that number is low enough, it means a major reduction in gun crime, and especially gun murders.

You mention selling cars to drunks. There are many, and very effective methods to stop drunks driving. Those methods will never cover 100% of drunks, of course. But if they stop 90% of drtunks from driving, that is many lives saved. In the same way, I know that we can never stop all hand guns being used for crime. But if we stop 90% (which is proven possible by the fact that 23 of the 24 richest nations have already done it, and more), that is many lives saved.

On selling second hand guns.
There are in effect no laws to stop second hand guns being sold to anyone, for the simple reason that people do not have to register such sales. How are the police to know if a second hand gun is sold to a respected citizen, or to Jack the Ripper? They cannot. So the lack of appropriate regulations mean that such sales are effectively completely unregulated. End result of this silly lack of effective gun laws is 8,000 hand gun murders each year.

[Hermit]

Told you, FBM, didn't I?

As if your arguments aren't even more pedantically redundant...

I employ real world statistical facts. You invoke probability and "potential".

[Seth]

As I pointed out before, Seth, you appear to have no understanding of probability or the meaning of statistical data. This is shown oncve more by your insistance on posting meaningless anecdotes as if they had some value.

And you have no understanding of the meaning of statistical data and the root information from which statistics are drawn, which is about as stupid as it gets.

Guns in Britain.
A case in point. There will always be a few guns in the hands of criminals in any and every nation on the planet. But if that number is low enough, it means a major reduction in gun crime, and especially gun murders.

You mention selling cars to drunks. There are many, and very effective methods to stop drunks driving. Those methods will never cover 100% of drunks, of course. But if they stop 90% of drtunks from driving, that is many lives saved. In the same way, I know that we can never stop all hand guns being used for crime. But if we stop 90% (which is proven possible by the fact that 23 of the 24 richest nations have already done it, and more), that is many lives saved.

The point, which you missed by a mile is that there are many very effective ways of keeping criminals from using guns short of banning guns for everybody else.

On selling second hand guns.
There are in effect no laws to stop second hand guns being sold to anyone, for the simple reason that people do not have to register such sales.

That's what I thought you would say. You're an authoritarian who believes that nothing can be done without government permission and oversight. This sort of character fault is based in irrational fear (which we call "paranoia") of the actions of strangers, whom you do not trust. The good news is that we here in the US don't make law based on the paranoid fears of xenophobic nut cases.

How are the police to know if a second hand gun is sold to a respected citizen, or to Jack the Ripper? They cannot.

They don't need to. Moreover we don't want them to keep a record of our gun transactions for the very good reason that all it does is facilitate confiscations and harassment by the police. The appropriate response is to harshly punish those who actually use guns to commit crimes, not try to keep track of hundreds of millions of gun trades in order to try vainly to prevent criminals from getting guns. They will get guns anyway because they will simply ignore the police check/registration scheme entirely and therefore the scheme will have no effect whatsoever on the ability of criminals to get guns, as is amply demonstrated by the fact that in Chicago, which has some of the most draconian gun control laws in the country, no criminal who wants to get or carry a gun has the least bit of difficulty doing so. Only the law abiding citizens who NEED guns to defend themselves against armed criminals because the police can't and won't do so are in the list, and they don't need to be in the list in the first place.

So the lack of appropriate regulations mean that such sales are effectively completely unregulated. End result of this silly lack of effective gun laws is 8,000 hand gun murders each year.

Backpedaling and goalpost shifting. You claimed that there were "no laws" regulating private sales. You are wrong. Just admit it. Then you can try to demonstrate how registering guns to law abiding citizens is going to stop a criminal from getting a gun. Good luck with that.

[Seth]

Told you, FBM, didn't I?

As if your arguments aren't even more pedantically redundant...

I employ real world statistical facts. You invoke probability and "potential".

Of course I do. This is because the issue is one of probability and potential regarding unknown and unpredictable future events that have such serious consequences to the unprepared that it's morally repugnant to deny anyone the ability to be armed against the possibility that they will be violently victimized by an armed (or unarmed) criminal.

Ignoring the potential consequences to a crime victim of being unarmed when she needs to be armed to save her life is mendacious, appalling and morally reprehensible.

It's functionally the same as outlawing fire extinguishers for everyone because some nutcase whacked his wife over the head with one. Pure stupidity.