Shoot a camera, not a gun

[hteasley]

Except that isn't true in this country. Gun ownership has soared in the US in recent years, while the per capita murder rate has actually fallen.

We don't have good statistics on gun ownership, actually. Background checks are up, but it appears that "% of Americans who live in a household with a gun" is steady or falling, since the 1960s, according to surveys. Which, if true, means that fewer people are more heavily armed, not that ownership is becoming more widespread.

Meanwhile, homicide rates have fallen (yay!), but compared to other industrialized nations, it's still stratospheric. I would say it's too early to declare victory, here, that the correlation is as meaningless as you imply. It's still, to me, very persuasive.

 

[Tejasican]

I agree with most of what you say, it's a complicated issue. But I've read the Mexico comparison quite a lot in the last few days and I think the problems we are talking about here are very different: a country that is basically controlled by organized crime (thus, stricter laws totally ineffective) and on the other hand a wealthy western democracy which needs to think about ways to respond to the unacceptable frequency of shootings like this one in the last few years.

In Mexico officials break the laws they pass, in the USA the officials exempt themselves and often their friends from the laws they pass so they can claim it is "legal". In so many ways it is a difference without a distinction.

 

[hteasley]

harry, the laws are in place to punish straw purchasers and those who sell to them.

My understanding is that the federal laws pertaining to straw purchases only apply to FFLs, not gun shows, and not to used gun sales. I'm happy to be corrected.

There is a patchwork of state laws to cover other aspects. In Alabama, you might have a 3 gun monthly limit, but drive across the border to Florida, and there is no monthly limit.

I'm not against gun ownership. I'm against not recognizing that there is a powerful societal cost to unrestricted gun ownership: other countries have determined that that cost is higher than they want to bear. They don't appear to be suffering an intolerable Orwellian existence, and they enjoy far less gun violence. While every place is different, I think we could get closer to what other countries enjoy, than what we have now.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Roger

The difficulty with pacifism as a working model rather than a noble aspiration is that it raises some interesting moral ambiguities.
In order to survive the pacifist must live in societies which have often come into being and are defended by violence or the threat of violence.So the pacifist can only survive in a society where others are willing to fight and die to protect their right to be a pacifist.
Somewhat parasitic .

The dilemma under discussion here is when faced with the threat of violence from "evil" the pacifist only has two courses of action both of which ,I would suggest are immoral.
He either appease the wrong doer and co operates there bye allowing the perpetrator to continue the "evil" Indeed to facilitate it there bye making the pacifist at least partially responsible .
The other course of action is to let the perpetrator kill him and in doing so also enable the perpetrator to continue.
To extend this to others by depriving them of the means or right to use force to protect themselves and leads to possible additional deaths brings about a chain of events making the pacifist responsible for the very thing they are trying to prevent...violence.
It therefore facilitates violence it doesn`t defeat it.

Best

Michael

Dear Michael,

No, you're confusing pacifism as an aspiration, ambition and goal, and a pacifism as a slave/victim mentality.

A pacifist will use every peaceful mean possible. When 'possible' runs out...

It's mainly a question of how you define the point at which 'possible' runs out'.

Cheers,

R.

 

[dcsang]

The problem, as I see it from Canada, isn't legal ownership vs illegal ownership (I'm talking registration and legally owning a gun) but it's the prevalence of the gun itself throughout the culture.

You can put laws in place banning guns.
You can put laws in place to enforce stricter background checks etc. prior to purchasing guns.
You can stop making guns completely.

There are enough guns prevalent throughout American society that even if all those things are done, there would still be heinous gun crime perpetrated by not only "criminals" but those with poor mental health.

How you correct that or fix that is beyond me (or anyone here for that matter).

Unless everyone suddenly feels the desire to beat their swords into ploughshares in America gun violence will continue as it has in the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries around the globe.

Dave

 

[PhotoMat]

My understanding is that the federal laws pertaining to straw purchases only apply to FFLs, not gun shows, and not to used gun sales. I'm happy to be corrected.

Purchases made at gunshows from a licensed dealer are subject to all federal laws, which also involves an instant background check through the FBI NICS database. The only instances in which there is no paper trail is with purchases between private individuals.

 

[Roger Hicks]

How on earth is this discussion justified on a photo forum? Not because the first post makes reference to shooting a camera???!!!

See Post 50:

This thread is why I FIRMLY believe that non-photo-related topics are VERY important on forums like RFF. We've had widely differing but generally reasonably respectful views from numerous countries, with widely differing laws and experiences, that we'd never have had if we'd logged on to the NRA website or www.woolly-minded-liberals-against-the-bomb.com (to save you the trouble, no, it doesn't exist).

In other words, we're dealing with people who, insofar as they are concerned with 'single issue politics' are more likely to be interested in the right to keep and bear cameras than in the right to keep and bear arms. How can such a multifaceted discussion not benefit intelligent, informed discourse

Those who are too frightened to discuss difficult topics in an adult manner in a forum where the responses are not a foregone conclusion (a) don't have to read the threads that offend them and (b) should be prepared to defend why they think that such things should not be discussed.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Purchases made at gunshows from a licensed dealer are subject to all federal laws, which also involves an instant background check through the FBI NICS database. The only instances in which there is no paper trail is with purchases between private individuals.

And thefts, and losses. My aunt found a .32 Colt revolver in a house she bought, and we never found my mother-in-law's Mauser automatic pistol after she died. This is why I said there are SO MANY guns in circulation in the USA that ammunition control, not gun control, is probably a much safer/easier bet. Ammo gets used up. Guns don't.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Jack Conrad]

You're all welcome to your own opinions. I'm not gonna argue.

But if you want my weapons, you'll have to come take em.

 

[Michael Markey]

Dear Michael,

No, you're confusing pacifism as an aspiration, ambition and goal, and a pacifism as a slave/victim mentality.

A pacifist will use every peaceful mean possible. When 'possible' runs out...

It's mainly a question of how you define the point at which 'possible' runs out'.

Cheers,

R.

Dear Roger

Oh I`m with you on that ; and yes that point at which "possible" runs out will be crucial.

Best

Michael

 

[E__WOK]

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms" ...

It is beyond me why a large group of US citizens take this literally, 200 years after it was postulated. "Arms" in late 1700 were muskets at worst. Correct me, if I am wrong. Not assault rifles firing 800 rounds/min. What kind of society is that, where you have to have access to weapons of war to "protect yourself"?

So for the 1st Amendment, we only have the right to speak our mind in public or on paper print.
We must ban internet, radio, and any other form of electronic speech as that technology was not available at that time the Amendment was passed.

 

[Roger Hicks]

A suggestion from my (American-born) wife.

There are two groups of people who wish to discourage rational discussion of controversial subjects.

First, there are extremists. This is a simple numbers game. Attract enough like-minded loonies, and you win.

Second, there are the intellectually challenged. They don't want to think for themselves, and they are afraid of those who do. They therefore hand the debate to the extremists.

If you think about anything that matters, it's quite likely you think about everything that matters. This does not include bokeh.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Peter_wrote:]

You're all welcome to your own opinions. I'm not gonna argue.

But if you want my weapons, you'll have to come take em.

i don't want em.

i will ask mrs. helen hill to take em.

 

[E__WOK]

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms" ...

It is beyond me why a large group of US citizens take this literally, 200 years after it was postulated. "Arms" in late 1700 were muskets at worst. Correct me, if I am wrong. Not assault rifles firing 800 rounds/min. What kind of society is that, where you have to have access to weapons of war to "protect yourself"?

The Jews in the 1940s wished they had rifles that fired 800 rounds/min.

 

[E__WOK]

the question is what type of weapon the occasional psychopath will find in his mommy's kitchen: a knife or an automatic rifle...

22 children and elderly woman stabbed outside primary school by Chinese knifeman

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248054/China-stabbing-22-children-elderly-woman-stabbed-outside-primary-school-Chinese-knifeman.html

 

[Peter_wrote:]

The Jews in the 1940s wished they had rifles that fired 800 rounds/min.

yeah. for sure :bang:

 

[Roger Hicks]

So for the 1st Amendment, we only have the right to speak our mind in public or on paper print.
We must ban internet, radio, and any other form of electronic speech as that technology was not available at that time the Amendment was passed.

No, I think handwritten is OK, and if I type by hunt-and-peck (as I do) then that's defensibly handwriting. How about handwriting on a slate, with a slate pencil (anyone else old enough/Third Wold enough to have done this?) ? This can be erased with a damp cloth: arguably less permanent than words on a screen. And if you can hear me on a megaphone, then if you were close enough, you could have heard without...

Never mind "Don't feed the trolls." This is "Don't feed the lawyers."

Cheers,

R. (LL.B.)

 

[f16sunshine]

You're all welcome to your own opinions. I'm not gonna argue.

But if you want my weapons, you'll have to come take em.

In the US when we talk about "gun control" people generally automatically hear "gun ban" ( people on both sides of the argument).
This is incorrect. Gun control need not be the removal of liberty but rather, an enhancement of liberty.
Change is coming. Folks can choose to participate or, feel put upon by not being part of the discussion.

 

[E__WOK]

there are doubtless some lives saved throughout the year because someone had a gun; we don't know how many.

But what is undeniable to any rational person, is that that number is dwarfed by killings by accident, on impulse, or suicides. There are probably more "burglars" shot and killed by accident who were in fact innocent - like the recent incident where a man shot and killed his son because he was dressed strangely - than there are genuine criminals deterred from crime.

There are 100,000 shootings a year in the US, 30,000 killed. Of these many are suicides, many of them people who acted on impulse who may well not have done so had a gun not been readily available. There are huge numbers of wives or husbands killed with a firearm who would be alive today if they hadn't been shot on impulse.

There is also one child shot by accident every two or three days.

It probably is too late to put the genie back in the bottle; the NRA are simply too powerful. They even effectively ban the gathering of statistics to study gun ownership effectively.

However, if we look at the example of Australia, following the Port Arthur massacre, in which the killer used an assault rifle, there is hope.

A right-wing administration focused on the most dangerous weapons; roughly one fifth of all the weapons in circulation were returned, and payment was made for them. it is also possible to limit the amount of ammunition, to limit the number of weapons kept at home (we hear the killer's mom had four or six). THere are also sensible measures like limiting the trade at gun fairs, where at the moment it's easy for criminals or the insane to buy guns. The Australian legislation cut down gun crime to a massive extent, and there have been no mass killings since then.

What country are you in?

Let me post some facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
There were 32,367 deaths by vehicle in 2011.



And 10,225 deaths by firearms in 2006.

 

[daveleo]

. . . . . This is why I said there are SO MANY guns in circulation in the USA that ammunition control, not gun control, is probably a much safer/easier bet. Ammo gets used up. Guns don't. . . . . Cheers,
R.

Roger, you mean well, I know, but . . .

1. Collect all the bullets currently in the USA ? (not to mention the bullet-making equipment). Shouldn't take more than a few lifetimes.
2. The day a bill goes to Congress that suggests someone is thinking about outlawing ammunition, our ammunition factories could not keep up with the demand for more ammo.
3. After a decade of wrangling and people filling their basements with ammo, when it becomes illegal, it will be imported like heroine, morphine, exotic animals, whatelse.

It is an unsolvable problem. It's that simple.