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FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

thehill.com

341–350 of 417 posts

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#341
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has vast and currently unimpeachable rights to weaponry. There is a huge swath of policy space between that and banning gun ownership. We can reduce gun ownership, trafficking and weapon deadliness a thousand different ways while not adversely impacting legitimate usage. Universal background checks, limiting purchase frequency, banning 100-round barrels, increasing liability for dealers.

The trouble with those policies (aside from 100-round barrels... I have no idea what that means, and I don’t think you do either) is that they’re often-mentioned, but people forget to ask the question, “Have these policies actually improved anything where they’ve been implemented?” Many of the recently-publicized shootings in the US have occurred in California, which has some of the most strict firearms laws in the n…

Barrel should have been drum. Like what the Dayton shooter used to hit 14 people in 30 seconds.

100% irrelevant. Just because there's a lot of heart disease doesn't mean we don't care about gun deaths. If we passed all this legislation and the net result is that the next mass shooters only kills 5 people instead of 10, then it's still worth it. You don't need 100 round clip to defend your home. You don't need a flash suppressors or 1000 yards of range and you don't need an arsenal.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#342
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has vast and currently unimpeachable rights to weaponry. There is a huge swath of policy space between that and banning gun ownership. We can reduce gun ownership, trafficking and weapon deadliness a thousand different ways while not adversely impacting legitimate usage. Universal background checks, limiting purchase frequency, banning 100-round barrels, increasing liability for dealers.

...banning 100-round barrels... Not sure if you're joking there -- maybe you meant magazines? Like so many other gun regulation ideas, it seems superficially reasonable based on "danger" but it's almost never the case that items like that contributed measurably to gun deaths. They don't need to be banned -- they are niche items. Mass shooters who have access to them rarely use them. They rarely use 40 or 50 round mag…

Liability like car ownership. Failure to secure your weapons imparts liability. Guns stolen or sold without a background check that are used in a crime carry a punishment for the last registered owner. Punishment ramps up rapidly with multiple offenses. This will punish traffickers but also encourage safety.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just means it will take longer for the full effects to kick in. The gun lobby puts out tons of arguments that amount to "your proposed solution isn't perfect so it shouldn't be done."

The law would be reversed long before it had a chance of actually succeeded. Lots of people care a whole lot about gun rights. And all you need to do is win 1 Congress and presidency, to temporarily reverse the law, and allow people to purchase these guns again, and reverse all the effects of the law.

Yes, unfortunate but true. And probably true of just about any controversial legislation, meaning whichever direction you want the country to go, over the long term it just swings back and forth.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#344
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, not legally without a warrant, which can be a good enough deterrent. Or at least should be if our legal process is working at all.

You could say the same about a hypothetical encryption backdoor. The question is whether consumers should be allowed to use encryption the FBI can’t crack even with a warrant. I think the answer is “yes”, but…

Right, which is why the locked door is the wrong analogy.

It's more like burying treasure. The location is a secret map (key) that only you know. The critical distinction here, I believe, is between "having" and "knowing".

And I like to believe we have even stronger rights to what we know than to what we have.

All that said, this is assuming use of working cryptography. With the exception of the technically savvy (those who know how to hid things properly) asking for backdoors into encryption is akin to registering your treasure with the feds, something I'd assume gold miners wouldn't have put up with, for example.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#345
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have to take anyone's guns. Even if we made some currently legal weapons illegal, just grandfather current ones and let attrition weed them out. I'll accept a solution that takes 30 years over nothing.

> I'll accept a solution that takes 30 years over nothing. Guns last a lot longer than 30 years. 80-120 years sounds more like it. They are not going away anytime soon even if you do ban them (which wont happen).

Then why do people keep buying them?

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to decrease "violent crime", it's enough that it reduces violent murders (in non-crime scenarios, e.g. domestic abuse, mass shootings, etc).

> (in non-crime scenarios, e.g. domestic abuse, mass shootings, etc) I don't understand your parenthetical assertion that domestic abuse and mass shootings are not crime. Of course, they certainly are crime.

>I don't understand your parenthetical assertion that domestic abuse and mass shootings are not crime. Of course, they certainly are crime.

My point is to separate the actions done by career criminals, (organized crime, burglars, gangs, drug dealers, the mob, etc). As opposed to a casual, accidental, one of, not intended, breaking of the law (even if they committed crime) by an ordinary person who doesn't live off of crime.

(Perhaps the distinction is more powerful in my language, but I think there's a distinction in casual conversation in English too. E.g. you'd call someone who abuses their spouse a "wife beater", or "creep", or "abuser" or several other terms, but you wouldn't say that they lead "a life of crime" (even tho domestic abuse is a crime). The same way you usually wouldn't call a mass shooter a "criminal", but a "deranged person", "psychopath", "terrorist", etc). If I say "criminal" or "outlaw" for example, does that bring in mind someone deep in crime, or a person involved in a DUI?

Anyway, my point is, in a total gun ban, you'll still have the gang/career criminal/etc people have guns and you could even have the same amount of gun crime of that type as now, but you'd have much less murders within a family, mass shootings, etc... -- as it would be way more difficult for lawful people to get their hands on guns, have them casually at home, and e.g. use them on a sudden rage against their spouse or parents or whatever.

(I'd say even the career criminal type of crimes will be less -- criminals will also have a worse and harder supply of guns).

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is said that "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.". I'd say this idea, that after you are guaranteed worse results, you should double down, is even more insane. If anything, what I wrote is all the more reason to find new strategies that don't involve "we'll fight them with guns". Besides who'll do the fighting? The kind of people that have guns…

> The kind of people that have guns are in more in favor of fascism and army rule than those who don't. So all it takes to get them on the side of the opressors it's to sell it to them as army control, as opposed to "big government" control. I feel like you have never talked to a gun owner before. Though they may lean towards the pro police/pro military side, they absolutely would not bow to the government implementi…

>I feel like you have never talked to a gun owner before. Though they may lean towards the pro police/pro military side, they absolutely would not bow to the government implementing some kind of mass martial law.

That's what they pay lip service too. In practice the huge majority are chickens, when they're not pro-army (and the first to cheer for an actual martial law, as long it was done by favorable politicians to them).

>Lastly, our military swears an oath to the people and the constitution, not the government. Every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, and Guardsman is bound by oath to refuse unlawful orders.

Yeah, good luck with that if push comes to shove.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, 20 round barrels can just kill like 5-6 people, 10-12 if you're lucky and it's a dense crowd, so they're ok /s

There is nothing like a 20 round barrel, the most barrels in an gun is around 7 or 8 on platform mounts and the weight it in thousands of pounds. A barrel is not a unit of measure for rounds. Learn something about what you want to discuss if you want to have any valid point, being clueless and talking is not a good idea.

>There is nothing like a 20 round barrel

I was jocking (and making a point), but you'd be surprised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrion,_Dassy_%26_Heuschen_do...

>A barrel is not a unit of measure for rounds. Learn something about what you want to discuss if you want to have any valid point, being clueless and talking is not a good idea.

Actually my whole point is that people should not care about, and not be allowed to own those things...

That said, I've been in the army myself back in the day, I just don't care for guns to keep reading about them 20 years afterwards, or to go read about the different variations on the market.

Nor is english my first language, I read that the shooter used a 100 round barrel, I guessed they mean an attached mechanism (round), or some magazine or something. I know that revolvers have barrels, and those bizarro mob guns in the 20s (tommy guns?).

Still, apparently there's a 20-bullet barrel, how about it?

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#349
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While most forum disputes are about words, I think that @frittig makes a valid point in questioning whether the lawful shooting of active criminal home invaders ought to be considered a "mass shooting" just because there happened to be a lot of home invaders. So, yes it's about words in part, but also about concepts. For my part, all else being equal, for every N criminal home invaders, the optimal number of home inv…

You are apparently looking at this from the perspective of the victims only, but the burglars were also armed and shooting. They have been arrested for it: "... charges including first-degree burglary, conspiracy, shooting with intent to kill and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony " [Oklahoma News 4, emphasis mine] > good mass shootings in with other bad mass shootings I'd certainly say that's…

That's exactly what I mean. No injuries to innocents; dangerous crime (armed home invasion) thwarted.

Re: FBI tells lawmakers it can't access Dayton gunman's phone

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be only slightly bloodier than current mass shootings, and not upon innocent (but on people breaking the law by having guns) at that!

You want to convert a tragedy into a statistic?

No, I want to avoid it, so under that scheme, I would root for people to hand in their guns voluntarily!

Now, if they want to make it a tragedy (and to perpetuate the current tragedies).

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