Guns in America

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
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ThisDinosaur
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Re: Guns in America

Post by ThisDinosaur »

The reason for the focus on rifles vs. handguns is not just because of the race of the victims. I think its because of the arbitrariness of the victims. In a targeted handgun homicide, there is a tendency to blame the victim a little bit. They lived in the wrong neighborhood, with the wrong crowd, married to the wrong person. A group of kids in school or strangers in a crowd have never done anything to the shooter. The "falling furniture" argument to just focus on bigger causes of mortality fails because of that.

Also, consider this. Sooner or later one of these shootings will happen while democrats hold the white house and both houses of congress. Then there will be anti-gun legislation. The consequences of that could range from them taking your guns all the way to a civil war. So trying to get people to shift their focus away from untargeted mass murders to unrelated problems is a losing strategy.

@Brute
Shapiro point 1 is backwards. The US airline industry increased safety standards partly by not scapegoating people for errors. Scapegoating incentivizes people to point fingers, save their own ass, and pretend that the problem is solved once someone is fired. The alternative is to build systems robust to human incompetence. Because only arrogant people think mistakes are the domain of stupider people than themselves.

Shapiro points 2 and 3 I've already advocated, and you replied that "rules don't work." Its possible to be too cynical. Some rules work, some rules don't. Some rules work barely or only in certain contexts. The rules in place may have prevented some deaths that we won't ever know about. Incarcerating a shooter prevents him from carrying out more attacks. The rules are incomplete, not completely ineffective.

@Campitor
Humans are naturally violent. One of the purposes of civilization is to minimize intra community violence. Not eliminate, but minimize.

vexed87
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Re: Guns in America

Post by vexed87 »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 11:30 am
What's your plan to fix bullying? Social isolation of atypical individuals is older than guns, laws, and humans.
If the problem is framed as 'How do we fix the broken society within the framework of our present political economy?', you'd be asking for the solution to the 'million dollar question'. I don't care to offer a one size fits all solution for all people, all social structures, all times, or suited toward any political ideology. IMO, it's quite likely that social inequality is at the root of it. There are many ways to skin that cat, just pick your flavour of political ideology. Whatever we do, we need to address the social malaise that results in the proliferation of these kinds of killers.

Slap a bunch of restrictive gun laws on, targeting those with traits that might lead them to become school shooters, you might just solve the problem of school shooters, but instead those same people will manifest as issues for society in other walks of life, whether that becomes petty knife crime, assault, rape, vandalism, theft/burglary or other nefarious organised criminality, it doesn't matter much, you stopped school shoot ups, but you haven't fixed the root issue, and society still suffers the consequences.

If you can't address social inequality or alter the political economy in a way that addresses modern social malaise, at least give people access to the support they need, and make damn sure you refer them before they reach crisis point. I suspect it will take some serious steps towards collapse before we can revert to any forms of 'idealised' state of tribal society. In such a society you are not going to have to worry systematic bullying to the point that a person commits mass murder. In the meantime, under the current political economy, the solution that would probably offend the least amount of people would be to give those that need it access to state funded mental health care. It's always someone else's problem, until the day it becomes your own.

Campitor
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Campitor »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:23 am

Also, consider this. Sooner or later one of these shootings will happen while democrats hold the white house and both houses of congress. Then there will be anti-gun legislation. The consequences of that could range from them taking your guns all the way to a civil war. So trying to get people to shift their focus away from untargeted mass murders to unrelated problems is a losing strategy.
It's only a losing strategy because it has never been tried. The public isn't educated on the problem which is the root of the issue in regards to finding a viable solution. The public isn't educated because the narrative of identity politics makes for increased voter rolls.

And Democrats did hold the white house and both houses several times: Visual Guide: The Balance Of Power Between Congress and The Presidency (1901-2017) yet they were unable to legislate guns away - they tried but it only resulted in the Supreme Court affirming gun ownership for private citizens. So guns getting banned/taken away IS the losing strategy. And let me stress one more time, guns bans are only targeting private citizens and not the army of armed federal and state employees. So there will ALWAYS be guns regardless of the gun ban dream being pushed by the left. These facts have been presented over and over again within this forum but yet the drum beat of focusing on guns continues. Until the 2nd amendment is repealed via constitutionally provided mechanisms, anyone advocating the removal of guns is advocating for the destruction of one of the amendments. This is wrong wrong wrong.
@Campitor
Humans are naturally violent. One of the purposes of civilization is to minimize intra community violence. Not eliminate, but minimize.
I 100% agree and the numbers show that death by gun is comparatively low compared to other preventable deaths. Stopping the press from sensationalizing mass shootings is probably the most effective means of minimizing these incidents but no one is pushing for that as hard as they are pushing for unconstitutional gun bans.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Guns in America

Post by ThisDinosaur »

Campitor wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:31 am
The public isn't educated because the narrative of identity politics makes for increased voter rolls.
Agreed. Partisanship is horseshit. Why should my opinion on gun laws have anything to do with my opinion on climate change, healthcare, or progressive tax rates?
Campitor wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:31 am
Stopping the press from sensationalizing mass shootings is probably the most effective means of minimizing these incidents but no one is pushing for that as hard as they are pushing for unconstitutional gun bans.
So....limiting the first amendment to protect the second?

George the original one
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Re: Guns in America

Post by George the original one »

Yup, running afoul of freedom of the press is not a workable solution, just as running afoul of the right to keep & bear arms is not a workable solution.

Now that's not to say that there aren't ways to have limits without running afoul of those amendments. For instance, licensing procedures for machine gun ownership is already established as constitutional and so are libel laws. Therefore there might be a way to create a workable law that limits sensationalizing mass shootings, just as it's viable to raise the minimum age for gun sales or adopt a "red flag" rule (as several states have already done).

One of the keys to successful "infringements" of the constitutional amendments is ensuring a due process. The other route is repealing an amendment. Remember that repeal, no matter how distasteful, is a possibility!

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

Also, consider this. Sooner or later one of these shootings will happen while democrats hold the white house and both houses of congress. Then there will be anti-gun legislation. The consequences of that could range from them taking your guns all the way to a civil war. So trying to get people to shift their focus away from untargeted mass murders to unrelated problems is a losing strategy.
And this is why brute says one side doesn't know enough to be wrong. This is all reasonable supposition, if you don't know the history of gun control.

The assault weapons ban of 1994 limited high capacity magazines, and certain scary looking features on firearms, bayonet lugs, folding stocks, etc. It was a Fienstien special, a signature piece of crime legislation under Clinton. It had a 10 year sunset clause. It was passed when the blue team had all three houses. It resulted in the greatest loss for the blue team in recent history, they lost the house for the first time in 40 years. It changed NRA strategy, and changed the face of the political equation. When it sunsetted, there was no attempt to extend it. Because of high capacity magazines. No guns seized, hell, the minor cosmetic changes to make AR-15s legal under that law were so slight, I doubt a none gun owner could tell the difference.

Maybe, someday, there will be the political will to do away with firearms. But I know that today, firearms are here to stay, and the politicians know they are good for beating drums of support, but you have to have a very safe seat to even talk about gun control.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

. As I boil-down your argument, I see you suggesting American citizens should be thanking you for owning your guns because it enables our free speech? "That my ownership of firearms allowed a bunch of leftist, unappreciative, spoiled kids go out and be heard in their angst and frustration is something I am proud of." Again, wow. Guns sound downright magical in their power. Thank you for allowing me the freedom of speech - I mistakenly thought it was the First Amendment.
Ok, I didn't spell out my methodology, my bad. If you are only measuring first order effects, the first amendment is certainly what protects your freedom of speech. But I rarely think in first order effects, and certainly wasn't as I was describing the benefits of firearms. I tend to model to third order effects. Change, the change in reaction to that change, and the overall change with the change and counter change baked in.

If we tried for a full on gun confiscation, where all private firearms we're legally required to be turned in for a tax credit of equal value; the primer effects would include: a large reduction in the number of private guns in circulation. Probably in the order of 2/3 of the guns. Most gun owners I know are scrupulously law abiding, but even so, this is the kind of law many would feel morally obligated to break. And of course most criminals with guns are already breaking laws by having a gun, adding this to the list won't change anything. The only parts of the current firearms industry to survive will be defense contractors, with the appropriate increase in defense costs.

Secondary effects, the tooling that used to be used in making firearms goes up for auction, some of it will be used for other machining purposes, but most will go to private owners who will continue to use it as it has always been used. A reduction in available firearms would put a dent in school shootings. I think this is clear, as school shooters tend to the "no resources" end of the spectrum. They have not the capital nor the social capital to pull firearms consistently. If we make firearms harder to get, some of these guys won't be school shooters. They won't stop being a source of problems and heartaches, but some of them won't shoot up schools. Some of them will get older, and become country music concert shooters. Or Bell tower shooters, and some will get in other forms of trouble, and some will straighten up, and fly right. But now the number of places to go on mass shootings without fear of civilian interference has gone way up. We trade school shootings for symphony shootings. Art show shootings, farmers market shootings, and better yet, we can start seeing mass killings that don't involve firearms. Gangs running wild with clubs and knives, like it's "gangs of new York", with less budget for costumes. We see this today all over the world, just not on CNN, because Americans don't care. Mass stabbings. Currently available elsewhere, soon to come to a school near you.

Tertiary effects: no decrease in violent crime, or armed resistance to law enforcement. The power dynamic between enforcers and citizens gets more lopsided. More safety in numbers, less safety for individuals. More abuse of power, and a corresponding increase in red tape to address the abuse of power. More power to the bureaucracy, less to the individual, resulting in net decreases in happiness and agency, leading more people to act out violently.

Do you see how most of these effects are not direct effects of gun control? That doesn't stop them from happening, just because they aren't first order effects. Unintended consequences is the excuse of the simple minded to the simple minded. This is all easily predictable if someone is interested. When someone excuses the effects of policy changes as unintended consequences, it means that they assume voters have such low standards that they will accept such excuses. So far, the professional politicians have been right. Most folks don't care about issues, they care about shirt color.

But the reason gun control is all talk, is there is nothing to fire up the voters like messing with gun rights. 65% general support for a policy change is no match for 35% rabid minority willing to get out and be fired up. That is the election of '96 in a nutshell, and the DNC remembers. The political reality is gun control is the realm of internet forums, and local lawmakers, national politics wants nothing to do with addressing it, only in the controversy.

And they are right. Gun control, taken as a policy is an endless, continual failure. Is Chicago safe, now that they have gun control? DC? NYC? California? Is there any good effects from gun control? Any success we should emulate? No. It has been failure, followed by failure. Well, it's a failure in that none of the promised benefits happened, but somehow, that doesn't seem important to gun grabbers. It's almost like they are saying whatever foolish nonsense will make people feel like they have the answers and they know their audience won't check the facts. I hate it when they are right.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

I guess I should come out and say it. In my experience, when mapping out effects of changes, I find the best results come of any changes that increase a sense of agency, or reduces the feelings of helplessness. The secondary effects from such changes are generally more positive than the primary effects.

I believe welfare should pay better, for a shorter time, and be less stigmatized. I believe drugs should be legal, taxed, and addicts should be reality TV stars. I believe in a system where half the potential voters don't, the vote should be restricted somehow, so more of those participating will bother to educate themselves, but I have no good ideas for how the restrictions should be done. I believe that private citizens should shop for weapons from the same catalog as the feds. I believe we would all be better off if we emphasized entrepreneurship at the same rate we promote employment.

All of these beliefs come from a belief in individuals to choose to do better, if they perceive it as a choice. Maybe that's naive of me. Maybe nobody will ever do better on their own, and all we can hope for is to stop them from being worse, but this doesn't match up with the reality I have seen.

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

Stopping the press from sensationalizing mass shootings is probably the most effective means of minimizing these incidents but no one is pushing for that as hard as they are pushing for unconstitutional gun bans.
So....limiting the first amendment to protect the second?
Actually, after Sandy Hook, I proposed something along these lines. Specifically, that advertising contracts have an opt out clause for school shootings, or terrorist activity. So if this message of dismay and terror is brought to you by Tide liquid detergent, you can act with that in mind. This is to allow companies to sponsor the news, but not sponsor sensationalism. This would allow the news to report on anything, but the "if it bleeds, it leads" philosophy will be opposed, rather than aligned with, greater revenues.

I proposed it here, and wrote up a petition to the white house. The only people to sign it were people I knew in person. Not one person from here, BTW.

All that outrage, and no action. Now we get it again. I expect similar results. People just like to cheer for their team.

Campitor
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Campitor »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:43 am
Campitor wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:31 am
Stopping the press from sensationalizing mass shootings is probably the most effective means of minimizing these incidents but no one is pushing for that as hard as they are pushing for unconstitutional gun bans.
So....limiting the first amendment to protect the second?
If taken in context with my earlier statement which I've pasted below, it's obvious I wasn't advocating for the elimination of the 1st amendment. I'm for educating the media on how they are promoting mass shootings by sensationalist coverage so they can develop guidelines for responsible reporting. I'm in no way advocating that the state take over or suppress news reporting or 1st amendment privileges unlike anti-gun advocates who want to remove gun ownership and the 2nd amendment by extraconstitutional fiat.

"Perhaps the only solution to these mass shootings is the solution that helps reduce suicide rates - the media stopped reporting suicides in a sensationalistic manner which caused a significant drop in deaths: The "Werther-effect": legend or reality? Imagine that? A solution that doesn't have anything to do with guns at all. Now if we can only convince the media to give up on those juicy advertisement dollars from the resulting viewership spike caused by their death by gun extravaganzas."
George the original one wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:02 am
Yup, running afoul of freedom of the press is not a workable solution, just as running afoul of the right to keep & bear arms is not a workable solution.

Now that's not to say that there aren't ways to have limits without running afoul of those amendments. For instance, licensing procedures for machine gun ownership is already established as constitutional and so are libel laws. Therefore there might be a way to create a workable law that limits sensationalizing mass shootings, just as it's viable to raise the minimum age for gun sales or adopt a "red flag" rule (as several states have already done).

One of the keys to successful "infringements" of the constitutional amendments is ensuring a due process. The other route is repealing an amendment. Remember that repeal, no matter how distasteful, is a possibility!
While this proposal sounds promising, I'm afraid it would be used later on by the government to suppress free speech - its the camel's nose under the tent. Remember the RICO statute? It was supposed to fight organized crime but it turned into an abuse of power: Law as a Weapon: How RICO Subverts Liberty and the True Purpose of Law.

A quote from the linked article:

In 1998, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a ten-part series dealing with misconduct by federal prosecutors. Reporter Bill Moushey, author of the series, wrote: “Hundreds of times during the past 10 years, federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law. They lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, paid for perjury and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions. Rarely were these federal officials punished for their misconduct” (qtd. in Roberts and Stratton 2000, 150).


And while the above was from 1998, this behavior hasn't changed. I don't trust government, especially the executive branch, to safeguard our constitutional privileges especially when our rights stand in their way.

IlliniDave
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Re: Guns in America

Post by IlliniDave »

Heard on local news that my current state of residence is proposing/discussing various ways to protect kids in schools by making efforts to physically protect them (i.e., take steps to deny access to intruders and be ready to meet force with force immediately) rather than by relying on some system of prescience where spree killers are denied weapons a priori. Maybe it's just the personal shortcomings inherent to be an engineer by academic credential, but it's hard for me to see why that isn't a universal first step for those whose foremost motivation is to protect children in school.

George the original one
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Re: Guns in America

Post by George the original one »

Because if you're planning an assault on schools and the kids are locked inside, then you just stall your attack until they're released out the front door so the kids are nicely bunched together. If there's one thing we're consistently seeing in mass shootings, it is PLANNING by the assailants.

nestbuilder
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Re: Guns in America

Post by nestbuilder »

I appreciate Chicago is an easy citation for gun rights folks. There are some other examples...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/nyre ... ticut.html

BRUTE
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Re: Guns in America

Post by BRUTE »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:23 am
Shapiro point 1 is backwards. The US airline industry increased safety standards partly by not scapegoating people for errors. Scapegoating incentivizes people to point fingers, save their own ass, and pretend that the problem is solved once someone is fired. The alternative is to build systems robust to human incompetence. Because only arrogant people think mistakes are the domain of stupider people than themselves.

Shapiro points 2 and 3 I've already advocated, and you replied that "rules don't work." Its possible to be too cynical. Some rules work, some rules don't.
point 1: brute would agree that scapegoating isn't productive very often, and would approve of the systems approach for sure. clearly the FBI had repeated evidence in several recent mass shootings, and the system failed. improving the system sounds very beneficial.

point 2: for reference, brute doesn't think Shapiro advocates for banning the press from reporting the names of and glorifying active shooters. Shapiro himself has self-censored on this topic - he'll report what happened, but not say the name or show the face of the shooter. brute believes Shapiro is hoping other media outlets would follow the same example.

brute does absolutely not think the 1st amendment should be limited to protect the 2nd.

point 3: brute thinks there's a huge difference between any rule that applies to specific, actionable, temporary situations ("this human has posted on facebook that he intends to shoot up a school and is in possession of a weapon") vs. blanket "gun control" measures ("all guns are bad and nobody should have them", "assault rifles sound scary", "there should exist giant hoops for gun owners to jump through in order to be allowed to own a gun").

Campitor
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Campitor »

George the original one wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:04 pm
Because if you're planning an assault on schools and the kids are locked inside, then you just stall your attack until they're released out the front door so the kids are nicely bunched together. If there's one thing we're consistently seeing in mass shootings, it is PLANNING by the assailants.
So is this PLANNING limited to violence via projectile weapons? Could other equally or more deadly attacks be crafted that don't include a single gun or bullet? A plane killed 3000 people (911), a truck killed 80+ people in France (Bastille Day), Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people with a homemade fertilizer bomb, 87 people were killed in an impromptu arson attack (Happy Land Fire), and another 192 people were killed in a train arson (Daegu subway fire). A pilot committed suicide by crashing his plane and took 144 passengers along for the ride (Germanwings Flight 9525). It seems the preferred means of mass attacks that doesn't involve guns are either arson attacks, suicides by pilots, or bombings. And arson attacks are very easy to carry out thanks to the ubiquitous supply of flammable chemicals available to every household world wide.
Last edited by Campitor on Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

George the original one
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Re: Guns in America

Post by George the original one »

And that's exactly why I've been saying that arming schools to stop school shootings is the wrong approach.

Campitor
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Campitor »

nestbuilder wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:23 pm
I appreciate Chicago is an easy citation for gun rights folks. There are some other examples...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/nyre ... ticut.html
I would hazard a guess that the Connecticut gun restrictions work because they can remove weapons from anyone making threats or undergoing psychiatric evaluation which has to be reported by Connecticut law:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Connecticut
http://lawcenter.giffords.org/mental-he ... nnecticut/

"Connecticut statutes allows police, after investigating and determining probable cause, to get a court warrant and seize guns from anyone posing an imminent risk of harming himself or someone else. A judge must hold a hearing within 14 days after the seizure and order the police to hold the guns for up to one year or return them. The judge (1) must, when assessing probable cause, consider recent acts of violence, threatening, or animal cruelty and (2) may, when assessing imminent risk, consider such factors as reckless gun use or display, violent threats, alcohol abuse, illegal drug use, and prior involuntary psychiatric confinement."[14]

Campitor
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Campitor »

George the original one wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:56 pm
And that's exactly why I've been saying that arming schools to stop school shootings is the wrong approach.
I would say that providing armed security that only focuses on building trespass is the wrong approach. External surveillance, line of sight barriers, and armed security would probably be better. Evil has all the advantages - let's try to give the good guys some too.

IlliniDave
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Re: Guns in America

Post by IlliniDave »

George the original one wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:04 pm
Because if you're planning an assault on schools and the kids are locked inside, then you just stall your attack until they're released out the front door so the kids are nicely bunched together. If there's one thing we're consistently seeing in mass shootings, it is PLANNING by the assailants.
The main planning for these spree killings is in going after people (in the case of schools, kids) where they are unprotected. You don't provide physical security for children all day and then just forget about them when they step outside after the bell to get on the bus or whatever. Nobody complains about implementing security to protect adults in places like courthouses or government buildings, but we don't want to provide physical security for children at school because it would make other venues/situations easier targets than schools and thereby deter attacks on schools?

Riggerjack
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Re: Guns in America

Post by Riggerjack »

I appreciate Chicago is an easy citation for gun rights folks. There are some other examples...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/nyre ... ticut.html
We're talking about guns, and you linked to the NYT. That's adorable!

Normally, I wouldn't do this but since you brought it up, let's talk about your article.
In the aftermath of the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 20 children and six educators were killed in 2012, state lawmakers in Connecticut set out to draft some of the toughest gun measures in the country.

They largely succeeded — significantly expanding an existing ban on the sale of assault weapons, prohibiting the sale of magazines with more than 10 rounds and requiring the registration of existing assault rifles and higher-capacity magazines. The state also required background checks for all firearms sales and created a registry of weapons offenders, including those accused of illegally possessing a firearm.
All true.
Now, in the wake of another wrenching shooting rampage — this one at a high school in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 — and in the absence of any federal action, gun-control advocates, Democratic politicians and others are pointing to the success of states like Connecticut in addressing the spiraling toll of gun violence.
Also true, leading, but true.
Analyses by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence show that, with few exceptions, states with the strictest gun-control measures, including California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, have the lowest rates of gun deaths, while those with the most lax laws like Alabama, Alaska and Louisiana, have the highest. The center is named for former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic lawmaker from Arizona who suffered a serious brain injury in 2011 during a mass shooting in which she was the intended target.
And this is where we start to see truthiness. It is true that gun grabbers say that. But since most gun deaths are suicides, and having tighter gun laws decreases the number of suicides by gun, tighter gun laws do lead to fewer gun deaths. But since those same areas have normal suicide rates, it would be equally true to say that tighter gun laws lead to hangings, people falling from buildings and bridges, and drug overdoses. But that wouldn't make you feel superior, would it?
After Connecticut’s General Assembly passed the package of gun laws, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, signed it into law, gun-related deaths started to drop. According to the chief medical examiner’s office in Connecticut, the number of deaths resulting from firearms — including homicides, suicides and accidents — fell to 164 in 2016, from 226 in 2012.
Probably true, I will dig into this further, at another time. It's just too easy to check, and way to big a change to credit a change in purchase law. Think about it. Every gun that was in Connecticut is still there, they have simply stopped importing scary black guns and hi cap magazines. In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, everyone who is into guns was buying all we could get of these. After the buying spree, I doubt very much that the size and composition of the total guns in Connecticut is much different than anywhere else. This will change with time, but it hasn't changed much yet. Certainly not enough to cause a 17.5% drop in gun deaths. I expect this to be normal volitility being misrepresented as an effect of the change, but I am not neutral.
There is no doubt that there are limits to state and local gun laws. Cities like Chicago and Baltimore, with rigorous gun laws, also have two of the highest murder rates in the country. The black market for illegal guns has thrived in those cities, with gang members and criminals turning to the streets to get firearms.
The stolen firearms market is everywhere. And the penalties for possession of stolen firearms is enough that most stolen guns stay in the hands of criminals.
And the drop in fatal shootings in Connecticut has occurred in the context of a broad, long-term decline in violent crime across the country. Citing F.B.I. statistics, the Pew Research Center reports that violent crime fell 48 percent from 1993 to 2016.

Gun-rights groups say the problem is not the guns, but the individuals using them. They argue that laws alone are no panacea, and that social issues like mental illness and unemployment must be addressed to help curb gun violence. Some gun advocates have also called for more training and security for those who legally and responsibly maintain guns.
All true, and how nice of them to throw in an irrelevant detail so you don't feel like all the facts neatly line up behind the solid thinking of gun control. They are willing to admit that they aren't the sole source of goodness here. We can all move along knowing all the pertinent information now, right?
Still, with little appetite in Congress to take on gun control, the debate is playing out at the state level, with Connecticut seen as a model for gun-control advocates.
Because Congress remembers the 94, in with the assault weapons ban, out with the Democratic party. 9 Senate seats, 54 house seats, 10 governor's mansions from blue to red.
“Connecticut’s laws are among the nation’s toughest and homicides are down,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said. “Obviously the link is a circumstantial one; cause and effect can’t be proven conclusively. But the numbers are all in the right direction. States like Connecticut can help shame Congress into adopting common-sense measures that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.”

State officials say Connecticut has experienced the fastest drop in violent crime of any state over the last four years. Gun-control advocates say the suspect in Florida, Nikolas Cruz, could not have bought the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle believed used in the attack, or the high-capacity magazines, in Connecticut.

“We really need to do a better job at making sure we have strong gun laws in every state in the country, because we are losing our most valuable resource, which is our children,” said Jeremy I. Stein, the executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Feel good, vote blue, blah, blah.
Even in Connecticut, where parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook met with lawmakers as they debated the legislation, the measures fell short of what gun-control advocates wanted. For example, the laws did not force residents to relinquish existing assault weapons and high-capacity magazines or limit the number of firearms people could own.
And that's the problem with lawmakers, never just doing what the lobbyists tell them to, except for all the times they do what the lobbyists tell them to. Maybe this paragraph was supposed to make me feel sheltered by the toughest laws on the books, and at the same time feel admiration for the restraint our heros in office have shown? IDK.
The Giffords Center, which keeps a state-by-state report card, gave Connecticut an A-minus for its gun laws — the same grade given to New York, which moved even more swiftly after Sandy Hook to pass stricter laws. The center ranked Connecticut 46th and New York 48th for their gun death rates, among the five lowest in the United States.
Again, an A- for gun death, but an A+ for hanging, overdose, and flying attempts.
In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a law a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook that is, in some respects, stricter than the one in Connecticut. The New York law not only bans the sale of assault weapons and imposes universal background checks, it also prohibits both the sale — and possession — of magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. And it requires mental health professionals to alert the authorities about at-risk patients who should not be allowed to buy a firearm. As of Feb. 8, 77,447 people deemed to be dangerously mentally ill had been added to the database.
When it comes to repressive gun law, NY ain't no slouch, Vote Blue!
Avery W. Gardiner, a president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said that generally, blue states are, not surprisingly, more likely to regulate guns and require background checks and licensing. Conservative red states either lack gun-safety laws or fail to enforce the ones they have. Her group’s strategy includes filing lawsuits to enforce existing safety laws and countering the gun lobby, which uses its muscle in statehouses as well as Congress.

The lobbying has been hard on both sides. According to the nonpartisan National Institute on Money in State Politics, in the past three election cycles the National Rifle Association, the nation’s leading gun lobby, spent a total of $10.6 million to support candidates for state office in 25 states. Between 2009 and 2016, at least two-thirds of that spending went to state contests in which the group’s chosen candidate won.
Vote blue, because some misguided people don't. Because NRA and Lobbyists.
“Florida has gone the wrong way since Sandy Hook for sensible laws,” Ms. Gardiner said, citing a Florida law that would have restricted doctors from even asking patients about gun safety. The Brady Center sued Florida on the grounds that the law violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech, and a year ago a panel of federal judges ruled in the center’s favor.
Poor Florida. Flat, about to flood, full of uncool old people, can't count votes, and now they can't even march in lockstep to protect their citizens from their rights. Good thing we don't live there, right?
In Connecticut, the question of magazine capacity became emotionally charged as the stricter gun laws were being debated. That is because the Sandy Hook attacker, Adam Lanza, like other mass gunmen, used high-capacity magazines that allowed him to rapidly fire 30 rounds. A group of first graders at Sandy Hook ran past Mr. Lanza, escaping from the hail of bullets when he had to stop and reload.

At a news conference in April 2013, on the day lawmakers announced an agreement on gun control, Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan, died at Sandy Hook, said: “We ask ourselves every day — every minute — if those magazines had held 10 rounds, forcing the shooter to reload at least six more times, would our children be alive today?”
Yes, hi cap magazines are an emotional issue. And we all know how to feel about them, right?
Connecticut’s sweeping gun laws did, however, require residents who already owned high-capacity magazines and assault rifles to register them with the State Police. Today, the registry lists 52,648 assault weapons. A single resident registered 179 assault weapons, while another registered more than 500,000 magazines exceeding the 10-round limit. Between 2013 and 2017, 248 people were charged with illegally possessing an assault weapon because they either failed to register an existing weapon or had bought a weapon after the law went into effect.
So, this law created 248 criminal charges against previously law abiding citizens. That's 248 votes we won't have to contend with, and charging, trying, and housing these previously productive citizens was free, if we don't count the costs.

There is something else they are talking around that I should take a moment to explain. Gun nuts talk. We talk about every potential law, from before it leaves committee. And we have the ability to shop online. So if you tell me that right after a horrific school shooting, there's a hi cap magazine registration law up for a vote, I will begin stocking up on high cap magazines. Because once I get that registration number on it, that $10 30 round clip is now a $50-75 thirty round clip. I'm in compliance, and the state gave me a monopoly. The same principal applies to black guns. In fact, the part that gets registered, the lower receiver, can be had for $49 online, bought and run thru an FFL in bulk, and shipment to states passing restrictions is prioritized by most sellers.

This is what people mean when they say Obama was the best gun salesman, ever. The reality of Obama and guns is strongly in my favor, but the news will tell you a completely different tale.
The state also requires that individuals admitted to psychiatric hospitals relinquish their guns, at least temporarily. The State Police is notified of such patients by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which maintains a database, and ensures that upon discharge, the gun owner turns in the weapon or transfers it to someone eligible for a gun permit. In addition, people who were previously treated in a mental hospital cannot get a permit for up to two years afterward.
All true, as far as I know.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a lobby group in Newtown, Conn., declined to comment on the impact of Connecticut’s gun laws “out of respect for the families, the community and the ongoing law enforcement investigation” in Parkland, Fla. The National Rifle Association did not respond to a request to comment.
It's like gun nuts know how the NYT plans to spin this, but how could that be? Oh, right. This story is run 2-6 times a year, every year, with updated quotes.
Connecticut is also one of a few states with another gun law with some teeth — an “extreme risk protection order.” Akin to a restraining order for domestic violence victims, the protection order, which predates Sandy Hook, gives the police the power to temporarily take away an individual’s guns if a person makes threats, acts violently, abuses drugs or commits animal cruelty.

In the Florida massacre, the authorities believe that the gunman may have made threatening comments on social media, including one last September — “I’m going to be a professional school shooter” — and had also posted a photo of a bloodied frog.

A study that examined Connecticut’s risk protection order found that, from 1999 to 2013, 99 percent of warrants led to the confiscation of at least one gun. In nearly half the cases, the gun owner wound up receiving psychiatric treatment.
So 99% of warrants, created as part of a domestic violence case, where the victim points out that the abuser has a gun, they got a gun. And nearly half of people in these extreme domestic violence cases underwent treatment. I'm torn on this one. Because the devil is in the details. I think pulling guns out of a domestic violence situation is a good idea. I think treatment is also a good idea. But I also know the difference between a domestic violence call and a domestic violence case and a domestic violence situation. They are not the same, but the Venn diagram has a lot of overlap. I could get behind this, if there were a stiff penalty for false accusations.
Mike Lawlor, the criminal justice adviser to Governor Malloy, said that the law arose from two high-profile shootings in the 1990s by people with severe mental health issues. “When there’s no law that’s actually been broken, but when there is real evidence that the person is a danger to others, the police need to have an option,” he said. “Step one is to get the guns.”
Well, I don't know. If no law has been broken, I have real concerns about confiscated property. On the other hand, I have no desire to see crazy people with guns. This has enough complications to be worthy of a thread in itself. It is not just a gun rights issue, but a mental health issue, and a civics issue.

Without even addressing the elephant in the room that most gun nuts know there will be a minimal delay between the rule that crazy people can't have guns, and the accusation of owning a gun to be proof of crazy. It sounds paranoid, but fits perfectly in the pattern of dishonest, manipulative, bureaucratic behaviors gun grabbers have already used.

The reason the NRA is so absolutely inflexible is we tried flexibility, and saw the results. Never again.

Now I had a bit of attitude in what I wrote above. Some might feel I was disrespectful. I think I showed all the respect the article deserved. But I don't want anyone to feel personally slighted. If you aren't into guns, there's no reason you should spot the inconsistencies or manipulative phrasing. I respect the folks here, even the ones I frequently disagree with. In particular, I would like to point out that nest builder has written impressive posts, well worded. While I may have been lashing out against the NYT and their campaign of misinformation, it wasn't meant as an attack on anyone here.

Peace.

Locked