If you care about facts, your freedom, and current/past events...you will read this.

[HeavyMetal]

This is a spectacular piece on guns, shootings, and all in between. It isnt just a mindless pro gun rant, not even close.

It is a normal guy that took time to compile a lot of useful data and information into one informative piece. It touches on the Sandy Hook stuff, as well as many other situations.

If you are on the fence about what is going on now (or would like a deeper understanding to educate yourself), both with shootings, and guns, either or, assault weapons, or just in general want a good read, I HIGHLY suggest you set aside a little time and read this piece. Maybe 20 minutes of your time. This is a great thing to pass along to people who may lack a fundamental understanding of shootings and the weapons/laws involved. It also presents a good perspective on what we are lacking in gun control and what we can do to fix it.

I am blown away how well put together this is, and am thankful someone dedicated the time to writing something like this to bring things into perspective at a time when emotions are making all the waves. Every thing in it is backed up by hard evidence, and the personal views are kept personal. The information in this piece is what the media should have been reporting for the past 20 years, instead of the widespread misinformation they have pushed out for the purpose of viewership.

http://8minutesoffame.com/america-freedom-vs-freedom/

[Ruepart Hoaxley]

This writer lays it out perfectly.

Like he says, "gun control" and "firearm prohibition" aren't the same. I like how he points out that only one of the shootings listed was actually committed with an "assault rifle", especially after the post you made about the conversation with Mama Dukes about banning assault weapons. A ban on assault weapons, judging by the historical numbers, would prevent *maybe* ten percent (a decently generous margin) of the deaths that occurred in the incidents listed... a ban on guns altogether likely wouldn't have changed anything, given the point made in the other thread. Murderers, if a gun is wanted, will acquire a gun if the want is great enough. Greater gun control will only tighten up the black market and increase the black market price, not stop the gun violence altogether.

Sadly, the issue will never go away...

[HeavyMetal]

A ban on assault weapons, judging by the historical numbers, would prevent *maybe* ten percent (a decently generous margin) of the deaths that occurred in the incidents listed...

If we wanna get technical, in massacres since 1999, assault weapons have killed 5 people out of the 183 total figure.

Which equates to 3% of deaths in mass shootings.

With 80 million LEGAL REGISTERED gun owners in the united states, 1 person has used an assault weapon in a mass shooting in 14 years.

[Buffalo Phil]

Everything in the article is cool except for his Background Check part.

I walked into the Pitt County Sheriff’s office years ago at about 9:00 AM and asked to purchase two handgun purchase permits. I filled out my fingerprint cards, entered my info on the paperwork, and passed the sheriff’s deputy my ten dollars. (they’re five dollars each in most counties here). I expected to have to come back the following week, which was OK with me, because I really wanted them for the gun-show that was coming to town soon.

The sheriff’s deputy said “Oh, that’s no problem. C’mon by after lunch and pick ‘em up.”

Huh? Excuse me? What? Were you talking to me?

She explained that background checks can now be done in only a matter of minutes, so right before her lunch break she’d enter them all into the computer, run all the checks, and have all the approved permits in a matter of minutes. Since I didn’t particularly WANT to wait the seven days if I could have them right then, I agreed and came back after lunch. Sure enough, I had two handgun purchase permits the same day.

My complaint is this – Sure, I’m a normal guy who’s never been in trouble. I happen to be the type that will never commit a gun crime. But for all they know I could have been a total sociopath who planned to…oh, I dunno, murder a school full of children that afternoon! I was in and out of there lickety-split, with the power in my hands to purchase two brand new shiny guns!

Not totally sure what the problem here is...he did the paperwork and fingerprints and then the Sheriff's office gave him the pistol purchase permit after running a background check. Am I missing something here? Background checks can be done in a matter of minutes...you call the state and the verify that you aren't a criminal after typing your name into a national database. Does the national database have a fucking crystal ball that I'm not aware of to tell you if a person is going to commit a crime in the near or far future?

Half the point in the seven day waiting period is to have that time to cool off, to change your mind. Maybe you’re upset that day and you really don’t NEED to do what you’re thinking of doing. Being forced to wait a week will settle a lot of problems before they start. We should go back to that. There’s no reason, shy of poor planning, that you can’t wait a week before getting a handgun, no matter the circumstance. And you ARE in that circumstance then you DEFINITELY don’t need one.

Okay...and what if you are one of the thousands of people that aren't going to use it to kill anyone...you get punished for following the law?

New Rule: Every licensed gun dealer is required to have a way to communicate to the federal database, whether it be phone or website entry into the national federal database (Every Wal-mart has this for their rifle sales already. It takes ten minutes.) From now on, every customer that wants to even ASK about purchasing a gun has to register first. First name, Last name, address, Social, and a physical ID that matches that information.

That's actually an OLD RULE and if you are a gun store and cannot prove who you sold a gun to but the gun isn't in the store, guess what, the ATF fucks you. My shop doesn't even sell firearms and we have logs of every gun that has ever passed through our doors because if we didn't, our FFL would get revoked and we would get fined. Ask about purchasing a gun requires you to fill out paperwork? No thanks, maybe the Federal Government can spend the money to pay back the shop owners for their lost time to fill out paperwork to have some asshole ask a few stupid questions about prices and leave.

Don’t go getting all pissed off. ALL OF THAT is required before you get one anyway, in every state, so it’s nothing you don’t have to do already. It’s just an effort to stop the freaks who slip through the cracks.

Okay...so why did you just spend the time to type out that last paragraph? Even if you make it a law, people may still sell guns out the back door. Isn't this whole thing about how people don't follow laws?

Further, every store is required to have a security camera system that has 30-day playback ability focused over that counter at all times. Failure to record that information AND capture that video is a ten-thousand dollar fine, and a potential revocation of your FFL license. If it happens twice, your store gets closed permanently!

That'll never happen because it isn't going to solve anything. If the killer kills himself after a shooting (or even doesn't) how is a video of him purchasing a gun going to do anything for anyone. "Oh look, he passed the background check and filled out all the paperwork to a T, waited 2 weeks and still murdered 20 people...but we have him doing the paperwork on TAPE!!"

What did I just do? I just voided all the FFL’s of the back-woods home-brew gun shops that don’t want to report to authorities. Now, if you want to sell a gun to someone, YOU at least have to be reputable.

No, you didn't. If you sell a gun to a criminal you ARE reputable, but only after the ATF proves otherwise. Straw purchases are already illegal. You sell a gun to a criminal and he DIDN'T pass or do paperwork, you're fucked. If you sell a gun out the back door to someone who just doesn't want to do paperwork or wait 2 weeks, you're fucked. He's going over problems that already have solutions, but unless you have an ATF agent sitting at the desk doing the paper work with everyone, nothing is going to happen unless the gun shows up in a crime.

Should that be legal? In my opinion, no. Many professional industries have certain requirements that have to be met before someone can participate in them. Doctors have to have insurances and certain practice standards. Accountants have to have certain levels of service instituted by their industry. I don’t think slapping a few common-sense rules on gun dealers is too far a reach, do you?

You're selling a product, and if you sell it to people who can't buy them, you go to jail and your FFL gets revoked, I am still failing to see how he thinks so highly of himself here by writing this stuff. If he buys guns from a store and then puts them on his shelf, what's the big deal? Buy from distributors? Now if a gun is sold to you, the distributor and manufacturer have records. ATF starts at the top and works their way down. AssholeGuns sold you a Fartbox 500? Okay, we're the ATF, where is it? "I sold it." Where is the paperwork? "I don't have it". You're fucked. You can cross state lines? I'm sorry, you should be able to do that anyway, and not having the ability to cross state lines with a gun, once again, isn't going to solve anything. If you are going to kill someone across the country, transportation laws aren't going to concern you. Yeah, Doctors have insurance for when they fuck up, if you have an FFL and you fuck up, you get fined or go to jail.

If you want to stop guns from getting to the wrong people, stop trying to punish people who don’t do anything wrong. Instead, start punishing people who sell them to people we all know they shouldn’t.

So we should punish all the people who sell guns legally by implementing more restrictions and increasing their fines if they sell to a criminal who passed a background check?

What about the public paying for that? Is that too expensive a program to institute? Let’s make it self-funding. (I really should work in the Federal government. I can churn out these ideas all day long.) Give a reward of $2,000 to anyone who can go into a gun shop and purchase a firearm without following all the rules, dependent on that person notifying the FBI and turning over the weapon. The government gets to slap fines on a shit-load of gun dealers to make their money back and a few people make a few bucks. Within 30 days nationwide, the gun-dealers in America would get VERY damned picky about whom they sold guns to and no one would accidentally forget to double-check the paperwork again. After that, the Federal government can have a gun auction to LEGAL permit-holders and make ALL the money back and then some, considering the illegal guns were probably sold for less than street value anyway.

So...you want people to play narc and have your own home brew sting operations? Have at it.

[HeavyMetal]

You dont have to agree with every sentence, but the "article" (blog post) is nothing short of a miracle in a myriad of bullshit we have seen relentlessly.

We can either choose to pick it apart and be self destructive (kind of like off roaders and land use), or look at the bigger picture.

If this article represented something posted by an elected official (or hell, a mainstream news outlet), the gun world would have its new God.

[Buffalo Phil]

You dont have to agree with every sentence, but the "article" (blog post) is nothing short of a miracle in a myriad of bullshit we have seen relentlessly.

We can either choose to pick it apart and be self destructive (kind of like off roaders and land use), or look at the bigger picture.

If this article represented something posted by an elected official (or hell, a mainstream news outlet), the gun world would have its new God.

I only picked the Background check part apart because he let his feeling get in the way of the facts. He did a very good job of presenting facts throughout the article only to stumble in one area.

If this article represented something posted by an elected official (or hell, a mainstream news outlet), the gun world would have its new God.

You'd be very surprised to see that he actually wouldn't be. There are elected officials that are actually more pro-gun that that guy and they still get shit on left and right. Everyone is picky picky picky. If that was a CT Democrat, yeah, maybe, but if he was an Arizona Republican, they'd all be ready to set his house on fire.

[HeavyMetal]

totally fair

[HeavyMetal]

You'd be very surprised to see that he actually wouldn't be. There are elected officials that are actually more pro-gun that that guy and they still get shit on left and right. Everyone is picky picky picky. If that was a CT Democrat, yeah, maybe, but if he was an Arizona Republican, they'd all be ready to set his house on fire.

so just like off roaders and land use. actually, maybe worse. makes me sick.

[Buffalo Phil]

so just like off roaders and land use. makes me sick.

Just like? Try 10000x worse.

Look up the guy Jim Zumbo. He is a huge hunting enthusiast and did wonders for the firearm community only to one day say that people had no right to own or hunt with military style rifles.

The entire industry hung him out to dry over a paragraph stating his opinion. He doesn't do too much in the industry anymore these days, to say the least.

You either embrace all firearms or you're a gutless communist.

Bill Ruger, he is the founder of one of the most successful gun companies out there, but he helped in the creation and fulled supported the 1994 assault weapon ban. Ruger never believe in black rifles, never believed in magazines that held more than 10 rounds, and when he died, not many in the industry cried for him. When he passed, the next CEO started turning the gears to change the company, and when that CEO resigned to become the president of the NSSF, Mike Fifer took over Ruger and turned the company into something that Bill Ruger would never have even though about. Bill Ruger is spinning so fast in his grave that he probably dug himself to the core of this planet.

[Ruepart Hoaxley]

Tell him to mine us depleted uranium for tank rounds while he's spinning.

All this talk about banning handguns... when anyone in Britain or Australia (where, fwiw, handguns and most rifles are outlawed for most people) can buy a military-surplus tank or APC with functional weapons after very very minor modifications...

[Zullock Holmes]

I wanna note that the only congressmen who have addressed the "gun control" issue are the far left and mayor bloomberg (no one gives a fuck what he thinks). The liberals in fact are pissed at Obama for purposely not declaring this was the gun's fault. He even acknowledged in his speech that not one law or set of laws would be the solution, and that there were MANY issues behind these crimes that need to be addressed. He has these same numbers, he knows these same facts

The media can spew all the shit they want, if anyone on here actually believes the republican majority in the house will vote for anything more than the past assault weapons ban, which i believe is already in effect in this state, then you're the dillusional ones. They'll do that, wash there hands, declare problem solved, whooo hooo! re-elect us! and everyone will be happy until it doesn't work and this happens again.

This is why i am trying so hard to stay away from this debate, because even with how terrible this event was. The fiscal cliff comes january 1st and if you think anyone is going to keep talking about it, that's silly. Right now, everyone is emotional knee jerk reaction mode, Washington will forget about this soon enough and the issue will slide back into inaction.

I know that more gun laws isn't the answer, the N.R.A. knows that, the 80 million gun owners know that. No one is removing the 2nd amendment from the constitution.

Let's just all take a breather, relax a little bit, and let things settle down. The conversation will be much different a week from now, like it always is.

[HeavyMetal]

Let's just all take a breather, relax a little bit, and let things settle down. The conversation will be much different a week from now, like it always is.

That is precisely why I posted the article I did. Did you read it? Things like this are the start of logical discussion. There is nothing inflammatory or knee jerk about it. It touches on things people need to know, plain and simple, regardless of anyones stance or beliefs.

[HeavyMetal]

I will add, this is about educating a vastly purposely misinformed public, not fear mongering that the government is going to steal our guns.

[Zullock Holmes]

Yes i read it. Full of all things that WE already know and believe. And very well put together.

My point is that logical discussion cannot and will not ever happen in our society with the way the media and most politicians act. People will read that information and simply not care, just slide back into their old prejudices about "assault weapons".

Pro-gun people will always be pro-gun and anti-gun people will always be anti-gun. No amount of education will fix that.

The investigation from Sandy Hook hasn't even been released to the public. And when it is, i bet we see a mother who impromperly stored her guns (no safe, no trigger locks) and her son who has had a long history of warning signs, including writings and behavior that wasn't properly addressed. We need to wait for that information before we all start killing each other over causes and actions that need to be taken.

There is no reason though at this point to be non-stop with pro-gun or anti-gun sentiment. Thread after thread, facebook post after facebook post. We fucking get it. Let's all take a chill pill. No one is taking guns away.

[HeavyMetal]

There is no reason though at this point to be non-stop with pro-gun or anti-gun sentiment. Thread after thread, facebook post after facebook post. We fucking get it. Let's all take a chill pill. No one is taking guns away.

I respectfully disagree with your opinion, fully. The public is wildly misinformed, to say it is pointless to educate, even on a small scale, is ignorant and careless. Like I said, this isnt about fear mongering or being pro gun, it is about educating with facts.

You are polarizing, not to mention arguing about something that isnt even occurring here. There are MANY people that exist on the fence (or as a neutral that wants to learn) that can benefit from education. I dont intend to sway anyone on either extreme...that can be said for anything in life.