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10562. arkymalarky - 12/23/2012 9:02:24 PM The wild hogs are gone for the moment, but shooting them would have been a real challenge. They're dangerous. 10563. arkymalarky - 12/23/2012 9:12:44 PM Anything can happen, but I hope that when we've come further on the other side of this that we remember our schools are safe, as are malls and theaters. Incidents are very rare, and there's much more risk driving to and from those places. It's like the way people reacted to flying after 9/11 or a major airplane crash. 10564. iiibbb - 12/23/2012 9:59:57 PM 9-11 type responses is just how we roll these days. 10565. Wombat - 12/23/2012 11:56:28 PM iiibbb:
I posted this on another web site as steps I would like to see taken. NRA types went slightly batshit. What do you think?
* Mandatory firearms training and licensing. Can be administered by states, but must meet Federal standards. License information availablle to Federal and State law enforcement.
* Required liability insurance for each firearm owned. Insurance providers can set rates depending on type and use of firearm
* Portability across state lines OK
* Each firearm must be registered in a permanent national database that all state and federal law enforcement can access.
* Waiting period before purchase sufficient to conduct thorough background check. No gun show exemption, private sales must register change in ownership.
* Limit to number of firearms purchased in a given time period.
* No firearm or ammunition purchases by mail order or over the Internet.
Steps the NRA could take to restore a modicum of legitimacy:
* Permit its rented legislators to approve the nomination of a BATF director (it's been six years...)
* Permit its rented legislators to fully fund Federal and State enforcement of existing legislation pertaining to firearms use, sales, transportation and regulation.
3) Insist that its rented legislators fund Public Health studies of gun violence, misuse and its victims.
4) Fund and encourage development of "smart gun" technologies. 10566. arkymalarky - 12/24/2012 3:32:25 AM One thing my principal has always harped on (rightly) is keep your classroom doors locked. Lanza walked past a locked room rather than wasting time forcing his way in. 10567. iiibbb - 12/24/2012 4:44:57 PM Wombat--
My litmus is whether the balance between effectiveness/intrusiveness. So hopefully my answers won't sound batshit crazy to you.
* Mandatory firearms training and licensing. Can be administered by states, but must meet Federal standards. License information available to Federal and State law enforcement.
I'm all for education. They require hunter safety courses. I think if you said you had to have a "safety" course that would be doable. I'm less for proficiency. Most proficiency goes out the window when under duress, and a good bit of the time when a gun is involved, there aren't a lot of bystanders. Also, I'm not sure it's fair to hold some disabled person up to an pat proficiency standard.
I've got no issues for standards for people who carry them; and virtually all states require even a cursory level for that.
Understand that training isn't everything. One of Huffpo's 100 since Newtown is a 3 yr old that got a hold of a State Troopers firearm at home and killed himself. 10568. iiibbb - 12/24/2012 4:46:09 PM * Required liability insurance for each firearm owned. Insurance providers can set rates depending on type and use of firearm
This isn't covered by liability insurance already? Would I have to maintain coverage on a gun that was stolen from me?
Not sure I understand the mechanism here.
* Portability across state lines OK
Are you advocating portability? Not sure.
* Each firearm must be registered in a permanent national database that all state and federal law enforcement can access.
I'm still not sure what this accomplishes. Explain to me how registration prevents Newton, Virginia Tech, or Columbine.
* Waiting period before purchase sufficient to conduct thorough background check. No gun show exemption, private sales must register change in ownership.
Maybe a more thorough check for a first-time purchaser, but after that I don't know the point.
* Limit to number of firearms purchased in a given time period.
I'm ambivalent. Most of these events are conducted by people who plan them over the course of months. They would just add this to their plan.
* No firearm or ammunition purchases by mail order or over the Internet.
I am ambivalent. However, the price gouging in some states is abhorrent. You might see unintended consequences of an uptick in accidents because people start reloading their own ammunition - not to specification or with brass that's too old because they're trying to save a few cents on the round--- or 50 cents on a round. 10569. iiibbb - 12/24/2012 4:46:26 PM Steps the NRA could take to restore a modicum of legitimacy:
* Permit its rented legislators to approve the nomination of a BATF director (it's been six years...)
* Permit its rented legislators to fully fund Federal and State enforcement of existing legislation pertaining to firearms use, sales, transportation and regulation.
3) Insist that its rented legislators fund Public Health studies of gun violence, misuse and its victims.
I'm not an NRA member so I don't care about their credibility. I think these are issues related to finance reform in general.
4) Fund and encourage development of "smart gun" technologies.
Here is my problem with "smart" guns. I really dislike the whole "smart gun" movement. I actually think it is dangerous.
(1) The technology is unproven. How do you know it's going to be reliable? I'll adopt the technology when the police adopt the same technology.
(2) Guns are mechanical. You assume there would be no workaround.
(3) Smart guns over-ride the most important gun safety rules by tricking people into thinking guns are "safe". People will develop bad habits. You should not give anyone a reason to ever think that a gun is "safe" or "smart". It's like auto-correct on "smart" phones. What if you insisted that anyone using the internet adopted auto-correct to prevent typos... and people actually thought that would solve their typing problems?
No... "smart" guns are a very bad idea.
Smarter gun safes are a better idea. A subsidy for gun safes even... if you register your firearms you get a gun safe to match it. 10570. thoughtful - 12/24/2012 5:07:24 PM If you are looking at preventing another situation like in Newtown, I'm not sure what these steps would've done. The shooter was well trained and practiced. The guns he used were semi-auto but not assault as CT has an assault weapons ban in place. The guns were purchased well in advance. If there was a smart chip in them, then presumably the mother would've allowed his "signature" to be approved too as they went shooting together.
The limit on clip size is much like Bloomberg's limit on soda size...you just buy 2 instead.
Controlled access was in place...the shooter shot his way through a glass panel in the door. And you don't want to so harden access to a building that the good guys can't get in....the shooter shot himself when he heard the police coming from outside and that's when the killing stopped.
The only thing I can see that's preventative is in regards to family and mental health services....there were clearly issues in this family that went unaddressed. The fact that mental health services seem to be available if you are 18 or under or 65 and over but with a huge gap in between, is one of the biggest gaps I see in policy and needs to be addressed. 10571. Wombat - 12/24/2012 10:59:57 PM iiibbb,
Thanks for the sane input.
The overall thrust of my suggestions is to make firearms and their owners more like cars and drivers.
So...if a gun is stolen and you report it to the police and the insurance company you wouldn't be responsible for it after it's stolen. Rates might go up, though.
Portability: since the licensing and registration databases are national, a gunowner could carry and use firearms in other states. They would have to be aware of any additional restrictions individual states may have.
Background checks: Each purchase. What if a prospective buyer had an encounter with the police since the last purchase?
Price gouging and people hurting themselves trying to refill cartridges doesn't concern me. The laws of economics can deal with the former, and people have the right to do stupid things to themselves.
I take your points on smart guns. However, I would like to see more research done on them. Who knows, perhaps some day the police will adopt them.
My suggestions do not directly address Newtown. However, they add some hoops to jump through, and would force sellers and owners to act responsibly or face consequences. For the majority of gun owners, none of these suggestions should be problematic (other than financially--freedom has a price, after all). To quote our conservative friends, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about!" 10572. judithathome - 12/25/2012 12:24:05 AM I have some problems with a national databank of crazy people...do we really want to trust that the govenment/states will get this so called "list" right? The same government/state that can't run an election every four years correctly...with dead people still on voting lists and people purged from lists because their names sound "ethnic"...will be able to manage lists of people with mental difficulties?
We really want to trust that perfectly sane people won't end up on that list...with all the repercussions that entails?...and that actual nutjobs will slip through the cracks?
Seems weird to me...but not really...that a man who runs a club and whose millions are paid each year from "members of that club" doesn't want to blame the reason for i.e. guns that club at all but instead, wants to deflect blame onto those who are "less than" sane. 10573. arkymalarky - 12/25/2012 12:27:47 AM It all sounds reasonable as well as 3i's responses. Would that all discussions on the subject could be that productive. Efficiently reduce risk (no one argues changes would eliminate it) and increase responsibility--not "solve" the problem, any more than you solve drunk driving, careless wrecks, or murder with laws and regulations. The NRA's intransigence is only going to further marginalize them and the GOP with them. Even conservative Democrats and most moderate Republicans are getting off the bus here. That and the fiscal cliff are really taking a toll on conservatives. 10574. iiibbb - 12/26/2012 11:30:04 PM This is why it is hard to take "Common Sense Gun Laws" seriosuly
People play by the rules. Register their guns.... only to have their rights trampled on by a newspaper trying to prove what?
People demand registration... demand training... demand whatever else... and those who comply are vilified, while the ones who ignore the law go on their merry way.
Concealed carry permit holders should be held up as champions of what gun control advocates say they want... but then they go off and turn these law-abiding people into targets.
sheesh. 10575. arkymalarky - 12/26/2012 11:40:02 PM Stan and I have argued about the issue of how far our right to privacy goes in the Internet age. I don't think records of that type should be public information. As much as I enjoyed seeing Anonymous hack the Westboro nutjobs, I think we all have a right to a certain amount of security wrt our information being disseminated online. He thinks it's public information and people shouldn't expect it not to be. 10576. iiibbb - 12/26/2012 11:49:08 PM I wonder how many women on that list were trying to keep their addresses secret from abusive partners...
There is a difference between it being public information, and making it too easy. I can find out all kinds of personal information about people... but I have to go to a county courthouse to get it.
Another side effect of this list is that it a) tells criminals where they can find guns, and b) where people might not have guns.
But mostly it just demonstrates why people are resistant to giving in to "common sense" gun laws. Why would I willingly subject myself to this kind of thing? 10577. alistairconnor - 12/27/2012 12:44:13 PM So, that was already publicly-availailable information (the paper did nothing illegal). So any bad guys who wanted to access the information could already do so.
The paper is being accused, it seems, of bad taste.
So, the question is : transparency or not? Either the register should be confidential, or there's nothing wrong with publishing it. Any other position is self-defeating. 10578. iiibbb - 12/27/2012 3:39:54 PM There's two kinds of transparent. If you have to look up each record individually, that's one thing. If you have a database that can batch lookup and browse, that's another.
I suppose I could, as a matter of public record collect names and addresses of rape victims. Should county workers just hand me that data without cause?
But you're right, it is about taste and New York gun owners who have a registry.
Why should I be in favor of a national registry if this is how it's going to be used. Fuck that. 10579. arkymalarky - 12/27/2012 6:30:54 PM No national registry of voluntary legal behavior should be used like that IMHO. 10580. Wombat - 12/27/2012 7:00:31 PM Agreed. It being a centralized Federal registry should ease security. 10581. robertjayb - 12/28/2012 2:58:22 AM Texas Tower revisited...
AUSTIN — The Austin police officer who helped stop Charles Whitman's 1966 sniper rampage from atop the University of Texas tower has died.
Houston McCoy fired two blasts from his shotgun to bring down Whitman, who killed 16 people during nearly two hours of terror on the UT campus. Wayne Vincent, president of the Austin Police Association, said McCoy died Thursday in the rural West Texas town of Menard.
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An interesting (then and now) sidebar to the story told of motorists along Guadalupe Street (UT's main drag) who pulled deer rifles from their vehicles and either joined in the suppressing fire or gave the guns to cops.
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