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United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

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Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#221

Post by anon9001 »

kasey_junk wrote: post #49
roenxi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning research funding is a decidedly more political act. Possibly but not probably. Once a situation becomes politically interesting any action or inaction could potentially be the more political act. If only highly political actors are asking for more research then doing nothing is simply fiscal prudence and not an especially political act. I expect a lot of research on violence has already been conducted and t…

We weren’t “doing nothing”. We were actively discouraging research.

Imagine if there was an initiative to research the use of cryptography in crimes, because obviously cryptography does have an impact on public safety. Also, as you know, there's powerful people that would love to see encryption regulated in ways that aren't in the public interest.

That's how gun people feel about researching gun violence.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#222

Post by ikt »

stevenicr wrote: post #191
hellisothers wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twice now “grandma” has been employed as a reason assault rifles should be legal. Come on, this has nothing to do with a fictional grandmother with a scopes rifle. It’s like some talking point gone awry.

I mentioned large capacity magazines, forward grips, and a red dot sight. Not 'scopes' - which could mean many things, but I believe are more often referring to 4x,10, 16, etc magnified scopes that are more often used for long range hunting.. My point was that some of the 'assault rifle bans' are trying to stop simple things like a grip addon, a collapsible stock, an over 10rd magazine - any one of those things could…

I personally would want my Grandma to live in a safe neighbourhood, one that doesn't require her to have a weapon to defend herself.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-...

Their findings, published Wednesday in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine, debunk the historic belief among many people in the United States that guns make a country safer, they say. On the contrary, the US, with the most guns per head in the world, has the highest rate of deaths from firearms, while Japan, which has the lowest rate of gun ownership, has the least.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#223

Post by minikites »

jakeogh wrote: post #140
beefalo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

citation needed

(1995) Kleck & Gertz estimates of 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year: https://americangunfacts.com/pdf/Armed%20Resistance%20to%20C...

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/13/602143823/how-often-do-people...

>In fact, Cook told The Washington Post that the percentage of people who told Kleck they used a gun in self-defense is similar to the percentage of Americans who said they were abducted by aliens. The Post notes that "a more reasonable estimate" of self-defense gun uses equals about 100,000 annually, according to the NCVS data.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#224

Post by rayiner »

c0nducktr wrote: post #206
ericmcer wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel some control over whether or not I’m in a gang, but little over whether I happen to be shopping at the mall at the wrong time. That’s why gang violence is more acceptable I guess?

You had control over that? You had the option to join a gang, and chose not to? Nobody gets to decide the situation in to which they're born.

That’s a ridiculously offensive viewpoint. Most kids born into tough circumstances choose not to join a gang.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#225

Post by [deleted] »

yongjik wrote: post #149
ryeights wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should curb people's rights to self defense because some people might hurt themselves with the tools involved? You can apply a similar line of reasoning to the banning of fast food and cars. Why should the people be held to the standard of their least common denominator?

Personally I see it the opposite way: America's infatuation with guns reflects a world where your fellow citizens are wild animals to be fended off with lethal threat, and your government is run by dangerous criminals ready to take you and your freedom by brute force. This is a world built upon the lowest common denominator of civilization.

[deleted]

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#226

Post by anon9001 »

stevenicr wrote: post #55
kasey_junk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a common contention of the gun advocacy community that it’s ignorance that drives awb, but that flies in the face of the evidence that veterans are disproportionately represented in elected officials, police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation & its a subject that is easily researchable. I think it’s more likely that the people who are politically motivated around this issue represent the extrem…

when "police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation" - they could have their own protection interest in mind more than yours. When they choose to carry 'high capacity magazines', SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo) - and other weaponry, it is understood these things help them be safer... If grandma is not allowed to be safer because random bad guy - you have to wonder, or should maybe.

> SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo)

It's not that bad.

The easy way is to find an SBR you want to buy, file Form 4 for $200, wait for a few months, then take receipt of your NFA item.

Or if you want to do a conversion from an existing rifle, file Form 1 (also $200) and get short barrel. The disadvantage is that you've then created an NFA weapon, so you'd have to be more careful how you handle transfer and sale.

If you don't want an NFA SBR, well, AR-15s can be pistols. Pistols can be short. Pistols can't have buttstocks, but there are legal products that are not "intended" to be used as stocks. They happen to look just like a stock, but they're totally intended to be used as an arm brace. If you do use one as a buttstock, that's not how it was intended to be used, but it is legal to do so. This approach is so popular that ATF has issued letters saying it's not illegal.

Here's most of what you need to know: http://preparedgunowners.com/2017/04/27/atf-reverses-opinion...

It's not mentioned in the article, but pistols cannot have a forward grip, as that would make them "Any Other Weapon", which is NFA. If you have a forward grip but don't have the tax stamp, you'll go to prison. Keep in mind you can start down the AR-15 pistol route, then later get your Form 1 tax stamp to convert it into a rifle by attaching a stock.

This is all quite ridiculous, but that's the law.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#227

Post by rayiner »

tomlockwood wrote: post #156
yongjik wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I see it the opposite way: America's infatuation with guns reflects a world where your fellow citizens are wild animals to be fended off with lethal threat, and your government is run by dangerous criminals ready to take you and your freedom by brute force. This is a world built upon the lowest common denominator of civilization.

> your government is run by dangerous criminals ready to take you and your freedom by brute force. Even more interesting to me is the idea that the American government has such a hold over the patriots in the military that they could be commanded to enforce tyranny. Or, that owning an assault rifle is some antidote against the best funded military in the world, which has been fighting armed insurgencies for years.

Our track record of defeating armed insurgencies is miserable. You’re also overlooking the nature of waging war on your own people. The military will follow a tyrannical dictator, until it doesn’t. In Bangladesh, for example, Pakistan killed hundreds of thousands of disarmed Bangladeshis. Thanks to smuggled arms from India, Bangladesh was able to put up some sort of resistance. Eventually, Bangladeshi members of the Pakistani military defected. Bangladesh could never have defeated the military with individual arms alone, but had they not been able to start a war they may have been brought into submission before pushing the military past the breaking point.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#228

Post by giancarlostoro »

remarkEon wrote: post #32
kasey_junk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of gun violence of all types, suicides, gang murders, mass shootings, domestic violence etc. are committed with hand guns. Hand gun ownership popularity is at a high in the US across many demographics. But assault rifle bans are the most popular form of gun control, probably because of the popularity of hand guns.

>probably because of the popularity of hand guns. I think it's more that most of those advocating for these rifle bans have limited or no experience with any firearm, let a lone rifles. Most of these things just look scary to people who are unfamiliar with them, even though they'd be functionally equivalent to rifles with wooden stocks and wooden foregrips. Edit: clarifying word

Agreed. A 9 MM rifle vs a 9 MM pistol both semiautomatic the main difference is accuracy and thats due to barrel length. You wont magically get bullets out faster.

I feel like anybody wanting to pass gun laws in congress should take basic firearms courses. It takes a lot for me to be in the range as a newcomer and just shoot. I am convinced the issue isnt guns its the culture / mental state of the person with the gun.

Worse yet you are disarming people who had a better chance against criminals who have access to worse weapons and will likely go for those.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#229

Post by rayiner »

glenstein wrote: post #103
robcohen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, you can just repeal the second amendment. I’m unsure why anti-gun advocates don’t just argue this. The constitution can be changed. Justice Stevens argued this in an op-ed: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opin...

Gun advocates should clear up confusion by lobbying for an amendment that redefines militia to encompass a wider age range. Or we can acknowledge that passing constitutional amendments in the 21st century requires amount of political capital that it is no longer possible to attain in our system. Insisting that we interpret the status quo as favoring one's preferred ideology, and that one's ideological opponents must…

Your second point is backward. The Constitution is a compromise between various ideological preferences. If it’s impossible to achieve sufficient consensus to change the bargain by amending the Constitution, that means you can’t change the bargain. You can’t subvert the requirement of a strong consensus for amendment by way of mechanisms (legislation, judicial interpretation) that require lower levels of consensus.

Re: United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze

#230

Post by minikites »

jakeogh wrote: post #104
minikites wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>gun rights derive from the Constitution Many people conveniently leave out the "well regulated militia" part of the second amendment.

Please take a moment to listen to the 2008 Heller vs DC decision: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oyez.case-media.ogg/case_data/2007/... You might change your mind.

>Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph Ellis criticized Scalia's Heller decision as political agenda disguised as originalist principles: "If Heller reads like a prolonged exercise in legalistic legerdemain, ... that is because Scalia's preordained outcome forced him to perform three challenging tasks: to show that the words of the Second Amendment do not mean what they say; to ignore the historical conditions his originalist doctrine purportedly required him to emphasize; and to obscure the radical implications of rejecting completely the accumulated wisdom of his predecessors on the court."
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