Smart gun laws

[BoiseBYU]

If we could lower school shootings by even 1% with some simple changes (affecting less than 1% of gun owners), I don't see why we wouldn't. Limits, registries, waiting periods, whatever.

Are you taking about outlawing AR-15's? Again, your are talking in generic circles with no specifics. Get specific. Outlawing AR-15's would have NO effect. Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. Look at Chicago, you cannot own an AR-15 in Chicago, yet it's a bloody slaughterhouse.
Chicago 2017 there were:
625 shot and killed.
2,936 shot and wounded.
3,561 total shot.

How are all these shootings happening in Chicago without AR-15's? Instead of knee-jerk feel good reactions, we have to implement real changes. It's going to be expensive and require focused effort, will genuinely protect people, and keeps our kids safe.

With due respect, the Chicago example is evidence in my book that we need a national ban.

Ban on what? AR-15's? Or a ban on all weapons? Is it the gun? Or the culture? Are you proposing stripping away the 2nd Amendment from law abiding citizens?

How do explain Switzerland and all the weapons they have - and ZERO school shootings. Switzerland has not had a mass shooting since 2001. One study says there has been 30 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2018 alone. What's the difference? It's the culture. It is the difference in citizenry.

With the caveat that I am NOT advocating that a ban would solve the problem, I do believe I’d support a ban on all semi-automatic weaponry. The society we live in and the prospects of great harm outweigh the harm to me of such a ban.

i own exactly one semi-automatic firearm. A 22 ruger pistol that was handed down by my grandfather when he passed away. I don't use them. They're expensive. But I see the use in PROTECTING yourself and family with one.

If I believed that simply banning all SA firearms would solve the gun problem in America (which I don't think it would) I still would be very UNcomfortable with the idea of such a ban simply based on self preservation grounds. There's a reason the founders placed the 2A in the constitution. It's still valid today.
Take a look at some of the countries with strict gun laws and tell me how America will change (except the good gun owners being punished) with a gun ban.

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-my ... countries/

Most of the "ban gun" momentum seems to be very emotional, which I can understand. But it doesn't seem to justify disarming or banning guns from the vast vast majority who are responsible gun owners.

Well said. There is lots of emotion that comes up on both sides of the issue. And I do not pretend that there are easy to do answers. For me, though, I weigh the costs and benefits differently than you. I’d ban semi automatic weapons as one part of a comprehensive approach to gun safety. It is too easy for ill and evil people to get these weapons that can lay waste to so many people so quickly. I don’t think I have much more to add. I do wish you and all peace.

[Mars]

I don't think banning semi-autos and "banning guns" are the same thing. As a regular citizen you don't need a semi-auto to defend yourself if you have a pistol and a shotgun.

[scott715]

How about needing a letter of recommendation to buy a gun? Maybe from a mental health professional. I would require concealed guns on campus.

[hawkwing]

Almost all hand guns, rifles, and many shotguns are semiautomatic. I'm not sure if that is a fact some are unaware of, or if you actually believe banning 75% of all guns is actually feasible. It would be impossible to remove that many guns from the population at large and would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to even attempt.

[nuk13]

You are right again Hawk. The handguns that aren't semiautomatic are revolvers that in skilled hands can be fired as fast as a semiautomatic. Rifles on the other hand come with several actions other than semiautomatic. Semiautomatic rifles have been used in hunting for as long as I can remember albeit most hunters I know use bolt actions.

I will say that if ill and evil people have an easy time of getting guns the problem is not with the gun but how they are able to get it instead of getting help with their problem. As to banning, all I can say is I would never vote for anyone who went against a Constitution inspired by the Lord.

[Ddawg]

How about understanding what the Founding Fathers intended with the 2nd Amendment before we start breaking it down and taking guns away from law abiding American citizens.

Food for thought.

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined..."
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1776

[BoiseBYU]

Almost all hand guns, rifles, and many shotguns are semiautomatic. I'm not sure if that is a fact some are unaware of, or if you actually believe banning 75% of all guns is actually feasible. It would be impossible to remove that many guns from the population at large and would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to even attempt.

A valid point. Lines would have to be drawn. How about dealing semi automatic weapons that can fire significant numbers of bullets? What is the benefit or,purpose of these weapons? What makes the AR-15 the weapon of choice of the mentally ill and evil? And before we seek to remove weapons owned, how about we at least stop selling and making them? All the while we start dealing with our mentally ill and deformed culture? And again, so there is no misunderstanding no one is suggesting that a ban on assault weapons would solve the problem we face today any more than a ban on cigarettes in public places will stop lung cancer. It is a piece of the puzzle in my view. Not the puzzle itself.

[snoscythe]

What makes the AR-15 the weapon of choice of the mentally ill and evil?

I disagree with this "fact", based on the facts of the shootings previously posted.

Mass-shooters use whatever is available. They still tend to use pistols, shotguns, and your traditional hunting rifles more than AR-15s. They are just as, if not more, deadly using those firearms than AR-15s.

When there is a shooting like Virginia Tech, the media doesn't focus on the specific firearms used because a strike-fire pistol doesn't generate the same visceral reaction as the scarier looking AR-15. There we just hear about "gun control" and background checks. He killed 32 people.

Last week's shooting the death toll was half of the Virginia Tech shooting. But now we are concerned about the specific type of firearm used? Why?

Here's why--because an "assault weapon ban" passed once before, it's viewed as a more achievable result. But the fact of the matter is that the assault weapon ban did nothing to prevent this, and would do nothing going forward.

[Ddawg]

Sno is 100% correct. The left attacks the AR-15 because they can link it to military weapons and make it scary. The AR-15 is just a semi-auto rifle with a black scary looking stock. The left will attack and try to control anything they can related to the 2nd Amendment - a particular gun (AR-15), the amount of ammo in a magazine, ammunition, etc. etc.

The truth is, a 12 ga shotgun with 00 buck in the hands of a trained operator is far more deadly than an AR-15. But the left has been effective in demonizing the AR-15 (it's wicked and threatening). So much so that Independents and GOP folks are falling in line with their thinking. It's foolish thinking. It's not the tool. It's the mental kook or evil person wielding the tool.

FYI, last year over 1,600 children under the age of 15 died in car accidents in the U.S. 37,000 people died in car accidents. 2.35 million people were injured or disabled in car accidents. Where is the chorus to outlaw cars? Why not?

[BoiseBYU]

What makes the AR-15 the weapon of choice of the mentally ill and evil?

I disagree with this "fact", based on the facts of the shootings previously posted.

Mass-shooters use whatever is available. They still tend to use pistols, shotguns, and your traditional hunting rifles more than AR-15s. They are just as, if not more, deadly using those firearms than AR-15s.

When there is a shooting like Virginia Tech, the media doesn't focus on the specific firearms used because a strike-fire pistol doesn't generate the same visceral reaction as the scarier looking AR-15. There we just hear about "gun control" and background checks. He killed 32 people.

Last week's shooting the death toll was half of the Virginia Tech shooting. But now we are concerned about the specific type of firearm used? Why?

Here's why--because an "assault weapon ban" passed once before, it's viewed as a more achievable result. But the fact of the matter is that the assault weapon ban did nothing to prevent this, and would do nothing going forward.

The AR-15 style weapon was used gun burst into the national gun control discussion in 2012 following the shooting of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

My understanding is that the AR-15-style rifle was used in the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the theater in Aurora, Colo.; Santa Monica and San Bernardino, Calif.; the nightclub in Orlando, Florida and now Parkland. How many massacres does it take to decide we have a problem? My further understanding is that the AR-15 and other like assault weapons can easily be purchased with no waiting periods and modified, fairly easily, to be an even more powerful weapon of destruction. The Las Vegas murdered showed what modifying the AR-15 can do to people. Are my understandings wrong? The fact that the VA Tech shooter did not used an AR-15 is not an argument in my book for not banning assault weapons like the AR-15. And the fact that the Virginia Tech rampage happened years ago and nothing has happened is not because I am only now concerned. I have been concerned for a long time. But.Nothing.Has.Changed.