Wal-Mart gun purchase program, soon to be copied at Weapons World Options

[Larme]

Just more bullshit hoops to make law-abiding gun owners jump through (and more of our privacy to invade) in order to make the libs feel like they're doing something about violent crime (without the "doing something" being anything that might hurt the feelings of the poor, underpriviledged, violent criminals and those who love them).

The liberals want to prevent law abiding people from having guns because of the risk that some of them will use the guns in ways that will make them no longer be law abiding. And the conservatives want to strip procedural rights out of the criminal justice system to ensure that everyone accused of a crime is punished quickly and efficiently whether guilty or not. Pick your poison.

[Moon-Hawk]

Actually, don't think of runners as criminals, think of them as ... freelance spies or even professional hit men, not the amateur druggies looking to score their next high.

You really need to get your font size under control. Contrary to what you may believe, your thoughts and opinions are not more important than everyone else's, so unless you have something deserving of particular emphasis it would be good form to stick to the standard font size that everyone else is using. It's sort of like using your indoor voice.
[/passive-aggressive suggestion]

[crash2029]

I don't agree with the massive gun control fiasco. I am pretty damn far to the left but I still think people have the right to own firearms. I agree that people should be able to retain firearms for personal and home protection, sporting and whatnot. I don't feel citizens should have the right to own firearms obviously intended for military and security use unless said citizen is a licensed firearms collector. The criminal element that intends to do violence with firearms, no matter how stupid, is going to get ahold of guns somehow. Increasing the number of hoops required to legally buy a weapon to a ridiculous amount merely makes it harder for honest citizens to enjoy their freedoms. In short strict gun control legislation is expensive, ineffective, and ultimately pointless.

[hermit]

Kind of reminds me of Adolf Hitler. Before he took control of Germany he was able to have their law makers pass a law to enforce everyone who owned a gun to register it, and then shortly after he was placed in control he sent the Secret Police around to every gun owners home and confiscated their weapons.

Oh, really? I guess you're fairly alone with that, though. Don't they teach you anything about the Nazis' rise to power in school? I guess not.

1) Germany never had anything like the second amendment to begin with. Until the First Republic, only Nobles and some tightly controled associations were allowed to own weapons (the Reich before had some problems with armed student uprisings and the prussian Kaisers were pretty paranoid about another french-style revolution). The Reichstag and Chancellor (the Brüning Administration or Hitler's, I'm not sure) disarmed the armed brigades of all parties, who had absorbed Freikorps mercenaries (former Kaiser's soldiers who refused to give up their weapons after the treaty of Versailles, and just went away with them) during the mess that was the First Republic. Hitler's taking their arms was widely popular, as they were little more than thugs with political backing. Note that SA and SS just ignored that order, and were protected by Wehrmacht cadres at that time. The commie rebels were effectively shut down by that, to everyone's relief, though.
2) Hunting guns weren't disallowed, neither were hunters' associations - everything stayed the way it was under the Kaiser, more or less. They were forcibly recruited into the SS lateron, but that's another story.

This prevented the people from forming an armed malitia to challenge him.

No. That was prevented by him effectively gutting SA in 1938's 'Night of long knives", where the entire SA leadership were killed (by SS troopers mainly), ending the era of party militrias in Germany for the most part and restoring the Wehrmacht as only major armed force in the county. There still was resistance in Germany - mainly from Wehrmacht cadres who still adhered to the old prussian honor ideals.

I see the security cameras as another step towards the action that happened in Germany before World War II.

If I were you, I'd worry more about your country's many secret services abducting people off the streets and shipping them into concentration camps to torture them for information, but that's propably just me. CCTV cameras aren't quite as useful as humint in spying on the populace, anyway. Also, the Nazis weren't particularily good at that. That would be the commies.

[kzt]

No, the Nazis were pretty good at that. The commies were just better at it. The bit I saw yesterday was that of the 36 people who formed a political opposition group in Prague 7 of them were government informers.

Of course, I've been told that by the end of 60s a significant percentage of the members of the KKK were FBI informers, so the West can do that also, when we feel like it.

[Serial_Peacemake...]

Why do I suddenly imagine the 'subversive group with informers' as taken to its logical extreme, with a resistence group being completely made out of informants from different agencies? Not realistic I'm sure, but rather funny.

[hyzmarca]

You've played to much Shadowrun. Criminals are as a group are a bunch of pathetic losers, not highly competent professionals. Some would almost certainly be stupid and careless enough to buy their guns at a regular shop.

There is a difference between criminals and people who commit crimes. Lots of people commit crimes, most of them on the spur of the moment with little planning and under a great deal of stress. Criminals, on the other hand, are rare compared to people who commit crimes. People who make their living committing crimes are rather smart and savvy. They have to be. It is, after all, what they do for a living. They tend to be highly organized (which is why they call it organized crime) and they keep up with all of the latest tricks and perils.

The people who attempt to buy guns at gunshops and are stopped by the NICBCS are not criminals. They're people who were convinced of crimes, usually marijuana possession, sometimes decades earlier and either forgot about the conviction or were unaware that it would disqualify them from firearm ownership. Sometimes they believe it was expunged when it was not and if was was supposed to be expunged then they have to jump through some hoops to fix that bureaucratic oversight.

[Cthulhudreams]

The liberals want to prevent law abiding people from having guns because of the risk that some of them will use the guns in ways that will make them no longer be law abiding. And the conservatives want to strip procedural rights out of the criminal justice system to ensure that everyone accused of a crime is punished quickly and efficiently whether guilty or not. Pick your poison.

The biggest single use of guns in illegal killings in australia is when the owner uses it to commit suicide. I'm pretty sure thats closely followed by someone accidentally getting shot thanks to an improperly secured firearm.

That said i'm in favour of australia's current gun control regime now that they've removed the retarded that allowed one to assemble illegal firearms from legally acquired parts. Apparently almost all the illegal guns in circulation and used in crimes are from that loophole being exploited because the state governments are/where too fat and retarded to fix the problem.

The biggest single gains from gun control laws are to be made by requiring safe storage of the weapon to prevent people shoot themselves, or others, or others accidently shooting themselves with the weapon.

[CanRay]

I still say that Gun Control consists in Shooting Straight and Reloading Quickly.

[Wounded Ronin]

That's why my preferred gun shop is a FLGS (see, just replace "game" with "gun") and not a big chain.

[Critias]

The biggest single gains from gun control laws are to be made by requiring safe storage of the weapon to prevent people shoot themselves, or others, or others accidently shooting themselves with the weapon.

Which also, of course, keeps you from being able to get ahold of the weapon when a couple crackheads kick in your door at two in the afternoon, so you can't use it to defend yourself.

Legal requirements for "safe" storage of a firearms makes the firearm nothing more than a sporting and novelty item, and removes all vestiges of usefulness from it for any sort of self-defense role. There are people out there that own their firearms not just to blast tin cans (or even deer/rabbits/whatever) and paper targets, but because we understand the cops can't be everywhere and we've got a family that, God forbid, we might have to protect some day.

I shouldn't have to lock up my guns seperate from my locked up ammo, just because some schmuck somewhere else decided to use his gun to off himself, in much the same way there's no law against pulling my car into a garage because someone decided to kill themselves by sucking on an exhaust pipe, in much the same way I'm allowed to have a decent steak knife or a nice shaving razor despite people slitting their wrists, and in much the same way I can get some sleeping tablets to help me adjust to a new work schedule despite other people ODing on them.

[Method]

I don't think the majority of anti-gun libs really understand the scope of the illegal gun problem we have in the US. They need to look at what's happening on a global scale. It may sound like a movie but there is a direct correlation between things like Victor Bout and illegal Ak-47's turning up on the streets.

But you know, disarming law abiding citizens will make us safe... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/question.gif)

[kzt]

And when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

[Cthulhudreams]

Which also, of course, keeps you from being able to get ahold of the weapon when a couple crackheads kick in your door at two in the afternoon, so you can't use it to defend yourself.

I mean plan B is to accept that the US has an ingrained culture of violence. It's not a threat that I feel is actually likely. The last report of an armed home invasion in the ACT I can find is from 2003 and that was with a baseball bat. If I shot that guy i'd be arrested for assault for a deadly weapon because shotting him is a grossly disproportionate response.

We had 216 armed robberies in that time, the majorit of which where against organisations.

I have been a victim of crime, one B&E when I wasn't home, and having my old 1989 beater nicked a few years back, hotwired from outside my workplace when I pulled a late one! Not going to help me in these circumstances.

Incidentally, in australia's regime you could because you can store ammo in the same cabinet just in a different section. it's never been an issue to for me as the only guns in my household are period black powder rifles, (Which I'm not going to use in a home invasion, because really I'd be better off the bayonet, and the firehazard from the powder is more significant) but I imagine if you had the safe in your bedroom and wore the key it would be within a realistic response time to get the shotgun, open the second container and load before someone finished kicking through my front door.

They'd need a crowbar and several minutes. A window would be much faster, but I suspect i'd still have time, especially as they wouldn't be familiar with the layout.

And to be brutally racist, most gun crime in australia is committed by and against a few immigrant groups.

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi158.html

Breakdown of crime by weapon type for those that are intrested.

[Critias]

I mean plan B is to accept that the US has an ingrained culture of violence.

Replace "the US" with "humanity," and I'm right there with ya.

If you look at the nations (on the macro-scale) or the cities/states (just here in the US) with the strictest gun control laws, you'll find they can still be pretty friggin' violent places to live. There's still plenty of rape, assault, and yes, even murder, going on. They just recently passed five new gun control laws in Philadelphia, and I'll bet anyone $100 right now that the shithole parts of that town that get it called "Killadelphia" will still be shitholes one year from now, folks will still be dying, etc, etc, etc.

Humans are violent by nature. We watch races for the crashes, football for the tackles, and baseball for the batters rushing the mounds. If someone has something, there has always been a section of human society that's been just fine with rolling up their sleeves, murdering them, and taking it from them. There are all sorts of laws against all that, but since laws against killing don't work, someone got the bright idea to start passing laws against the stuff folks sometimes use to do that killing. "Gun Free Zones" really do a great job, don't they? All those little signs saying not to bring a gun here sure worked about a year ago in Virginia, huh?

The last report of an armed home invasion in the ACT I can find is from 2003 and that was with a baseball bat. If I shot that guy i'd be arrested for assault for a deadly weapon because shotting him is a grossly disproportionate response.

What? Are you saying you should be arrested (IE, you agree with that idea), or just saying that's what you think would happen? If so, why?

Because someone feels a baseball bat can't kill you? Or because someone feels you should have to retreat before an armed invader in your very own home? Or both? There's nothing "grossly disproportionate" about using the right tool for the job. If someone kicks in your door and decides to beat on you and take your things, you stop him. Using a gun to do that, rather than trying to engage in the manly art of fisticuffs (and getting brained by a sociopath with a club), makes perfect sense to me.

And to be brutally racist, most gun crime in australia is committed by and against a few immigrant groups.

It saddens me that saying so is "brutally racist," because the simple fact is it's largely the case here, too (though they mostly aren't "immigrant" groups, nowadays). But even when a civil rights leader and good-natured father figure type to multiple generations (Bill Cosby, one of the most sincere guys to come out of Hollywood) says so, and tries to address the issue of thugs and murderers instead of the issue of the guns they use, he get labelled a racist by his own race.

It's a sad state of affairs, where all anyone needs to do to deflect any sort of blame is shout "racist" and point at you.

[kzt]

I mean plan B is to accept that the US has an ingrained culture of violence. It's not a threat that I feel is actually likely. The last report of an armed home invasion in the ACT I can find is from 2003 and that was with a baseball bat. If I shot that guy i'd be arrested for assault for a deadly weapon because shotting him is a grossly disproportionate response.

I take it you've never seen someone who got hit in the head with a baseball bat? It's not disproportional at all.

[Cthulhudreams]

Replace "the US" with "humanity," and I'm right there with ya.

What? Are you saying you should be arrested (IE, you agree with that idea), or just saying that's what you think would happen? If so, why?

Dat's da law. It's something the courts really struggle with and depends on the circumstances, but if shoot up a kid breaking into my home with a shotgun (as happened in a highly publicized case here some years ago, most of the problems really started when he shot the kid as the kid was going to run away), I've got problems (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

There is a huge body of caselaw on the topic if you are the sort of mutant that enjoys reading that sort of thing and it isn't a clear cut question with easy answers that is extremely dependent on the circumstances. some samplers from high court judgements on the matter of proportionate response:

\

There is a real distinction in the degree of culpability of an accused who has killed having formed the requisite intention without any mitigating circumstance, and an accused who, in response to a real or a reasonably apprehended attack, strikes a blow in order to defend himself, but uses force beyond that required by the occasion and thereby kills the attacker.

and

A person who is subjected to a violent and felonious attack and who, in endeavoring, by way of self-defense, to prevent the consummation of that attack by force exercises more force than a reasonable man would consider necessary in the circumstances, but no more than what he honestly believed to be necessary in the circumstances, is guilty of manslaughter and not of murder.

from the crimes act

(a) the person uses force that involves the intentional or reckless infliction of death, and
(b) the conduct is not a reasonable response in the circumstances as he or she perceives them, but the person believes the conduct is necessary:
© to defend himself or herself or another person, or
(d) to prevent or terminate the unlawful deprivation of his or her liberty or the liberty of another person.

but s420 of the NSW Crimes Act explicitly states that self-defence is not available as a defence to murder if death is inflicted to prevent criminal trespass. It IS allowable in south australia though. Hurrah.

Reasonable man is a very specific legal construction and doesn't actually mean anything to do with the conversational definition of reasonable.
However, Charges are pressed in the overwhelming majority of armed robbery cases here in 30 days, so eh, I have insurance he can have my wallet. Whatever.

It saddens me that saying so is "brutally racist," because the simple fact is it's largely the case here, too (though they mostly aren't "immigrant" groups, nowadays).

It's just a tough thing to say in polite company, but the reality is gun crime only really occurs in a few postcodes in Australia. I would prefer not to say 'Those damn Asians, bringing in their triads!' *shake fist* because it while it is actually true in that some Vietnamese immigrants have brought in a rather questionable culture, the majority haven't and as most immigrants work harder than the population they left behind, they've done quite well and deservedly so.

[hyzmarca]

Dat's da law. It's something the courts really struggle with and depends on the circumstances, but if shoot up a kid breaking into my home with a shotgun (as happened in a highly publicized case here some years ago, most of the problems really started when he shot the kid as the kid was going to run away), I've got problems (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

This is why you should keep a large Polyethylene tub and several gallons of hydrofloric acid in your home. Chemical disincorporation is a great way to dispose of bodies and you won't have to worry about those pesky legal technicalities if no one knows that you've killed someone. In fact, it is a win-win for everybody. The state won't have to waste money prosecuting you, after all.

[Wounded Ronin]

Heh, I don't have any ammunition for my Mosin Nagant. I imagine that I'd have to use the bayonet in the event of a home invasion. Whee!

[Fuchs]

Over here in Switzerland, we've got about 200'000+ assault rifles stored at home. That's the full auto military version. They recently passed a law that mandates giving back the "emergency ammo" of 50 5.6mm rounds back to the army, but that's ammo one can easly buy in any store. Add even more rifles for hunting and target shooting to that, and I think we've got more firepower per capita than Texas.

We're not really known for having rampant crime. Most weapons used in murder cases are knives, and illegally acquired weapons, mostly handguns, come before rifles in the "criminal's choice" category.

I don't really see a problem with people shooting themselves, being able to choose when and how you die is a basic human right as far as I am concerned.

[Wounded Ronin]

and illegal Ak-47's turning up on the streets.

I learned from that article that AK 47 = excalibur.

[hyzmarca]

Heh, I don't have any ammunition for my Mosin Nagant. I imagine that I'd have to use the bayonet in the event of a home invasion. Whee!

You should knock the theoretical intruder unconscious with the butt of the weapon while accusing him of being a "capatalist spy" in a thick faux-Russian accent, tie him up, and demand to know what agency he works for and where the "nuclear wessles" are.

[Critias]

They recently passed a law that mandates giving back the "emergency ammo" of 50 5.6mm rounds back to the army, but that's ammo one can easly buy in any store...

I thought I'd heard you guys just got a law passed saying no ammo can be stored in homes (or that such a law was being worked on, or something). Any news on that?

[hermit]

Why do I suddenly imagine the 'subversive group with informers' as taken to its logical extreme, with a resistence group being completely made out of informants from different agencies? Not realistic I'm sure, but rather funny.

That describes the situation of modern German Nazi parties pretty well (the country has 18 interior security services, all of which have informers in both major Nazi parties).

If you look at the nations (on the macro-scale) or the cities/states (just here in the US) with the strictest gun control laws, you'll find they can still be pretty friggin' violent places to live.

Sorry, no. No European country (all of which have rather strict gun control laws) comes even close to US levels of gun-related violence. With Third World shitholes, other factors enter the equasion too, like failure of the state to ensure it's power monopoly (hello Pakistan!) or crack down on armed militias that go afterr their own population (hello Sudan!), but in states roughly comparable to the US in terms of wealth and social structure, stricter gun control equals less gun-related crimes.

All those little signs saying not to bring a gun here sure worked about a year ago in Virginia, huh?

The fine point of laws is that youn also have to enforce them, or they end up as citizens' basic rights end up in China - they're oblivious. Signs wouldn't work. Roadblocks where gun-wielders are thoroughly searched and their weapons confiscated (to be destroyed later on) might, though.

There are people out there that own their firearms not just to blast tin cans (or even deer/rabbits/whatever) and paper targets, but because we understand the cops can't be everywhere and we've got a family that, God forbid, we might have to protect some day.

Hunh. And since you don't store your firerms in some sort of safe to be able to access them quickly, your kids can find them and shoot themselves while playing with an item they see their father handling like it was some sort of applicance and don't really understand how dangerous it is. Brilliant way to protect your family.

It saddens me that saying so is "brutally racist," because the simple fact is it's largely the case here, too (though they mostly aren't "immigrant" groups, nowadays). But even when a civil rights leader and good-natured father figure type to multiple generations (Bill Cosby, one of the most sincere guys to come out of Hollywood) says so, and tries to address the issue of thugs and murderers instead of the issue of the guns they use, he get labelled a racist by his own race.

It's a sad state of affairs, where all anyone needs to do to deflect any sort of blame is shout "racist" and point at you.

Western culture of blame ... same over here, though it's less of an issue in Germany to say that all OC groups are foreign (Albanians, Russians, Lebanese, Turks and Italians, for the most part, with some Vietnahmese and chiense heavikly invested into the non-taxed smokes smugle market) than in France, where saying so actually constitutes a crime and studies about that matter are forbidden.

However, arming the rest of the populace obviously doesn't work, it just escalates things, as seen in the US.

But of course, that cuts into the immigrants' pride (Blacks, in case of the US, or rather, indigenous Blacks, as immigrant Blacks from Africa fare notably better than US native Blacks, much to their displeasure), and by appealing to (white) Westerners' constant feeling/culture of guilt and blame, they can easily deflect having to do anything meaningful about the rotten parts of their communities - much easier way of 'solving' a problem than actually taking it on and asking themselves a couple of painful questions.

[kzt]

No European country (all of which have rather strict gun control laws) comes even close to US levels of gun-related violence. With Third World shitholes, other factors enter the equasion too, like failure of the state to ensure it's power monopoly (hello Pakistan!) or crack down on armed militias that go afterr their own population (hello Sudan!), but in states roughly comparable to the US in terms of wealth and social structure, stricter gun control equals less gun-related crimes.

Yeah, the endemic violence of Switzerland due to the tens of thousands of automatic weapons that they foolishly allow their citizens to possess is known worldwide. It has a horrible murder rate of 0.9 per 100000. Unlike the civilized UK with its the draconian gun laws, where the rate was 50% higher. Or France, where it's only 95% higher. So clearly, as these examples show, more gun control reduces gun crime.