[kevhito]

The reason I think people are talking about repealing the 2nd is because the NRA won't budge an inch. Extremism begets extremism. If people can't get sensible gun regulation, extreme gun regulation starts to seem more attractive.

Conservatism, I though, was all about making slow and slight tweaks to society, rather than radical changes. But refusal to allow even the slightest evolution or deviation on some issue, like gun rights, leads to the opposite: at times it feels like we are heading towards outright civil war.

In the face of an obvious societal problem like gun violence, real conservatism would say sure, lets make some small changes to gun regulation, see how that goes for a few years or decades, then re-evaluate our position to see if society is better or worse off. Instead, seemingly obvious minor tweaks to gun regulation get cast as the first giant step towards impending repeal of the 2nd amendment. Maybe we are past the point of no return, I don't know.

[makomk]

The "sensible gun regulation" isn't, that's the thing. Indeed, the people calling for it are so proud of being so ignorant about guns and gun laws that they often can't even accurately say what class of guns they want banned, they've coined a term - "gunsplaining" - to mock those who point out when they don't know what they're talking about.

Features of the current US pro-gun-control movement include the notion that it's somehow absurd handguns, which are used in the vast majority of US gun homicides, are more tightly restricted than rifles. The idea that the gun used in your deadliest school shooting, the VA Tech massacre, is basically useless and ineffective. The belief that the AR-15 is some kind of super-powerful danger rifle too powerful for anything but murder (it's actually a tad underpowered as hunting rifles go). Also unyielding, full-throated defence of the elected official in charge of the police department which ignored all the warning signs about the Parkland shooter. Pretty much only pro-gun folks seem to be questioning any of this.

To give some idea about the quality of this debate, the founder of gun control group Moms Demand Action literally pointed her followers at a photo of a scary-looking black gun, trying to make it look like some incredibly dangerous killing machine, and demanded they pressure the retailer into not selling it to under-21s https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/969572513154936833 It was actually a .22 LR bolt-action rifle, probably the least effective long rifle in widespread use it you want to kill anyone or anything, that was optimised entirely for competitive target shooting. I can't think of any other country off-hand that considers 18 year olds incapable of buying and owning those. Her follow-up was to accuse the NRA of misogyny for pointing out how stupid and clueless this was, with the help of Media Matters for America.

The campaigns for "sensible gun control" basically just use the term as a talking point that avoids having to actually explain and justify what they're calling for; after all who could be against sensible, common-sense restrictions other than some gun nut whackjob?

[soundwave106]

I don't think this is a terribly good counterargument, personally. To me, the gun control movement is basically reacting to several high profile mass shooting cases. Your argument to me seems to be the equivalent of countering, say, a mother who lost a child to a drunk driver, with an argument that they shouldn't be concerned, because they don't know about the technical details of engine displacement or the neuropharmacology behind ethanol. That would be nonsense.

Obviously, with drunk driving, no one tends to blame the tool, either, as gun control movements often are doing. It is worth pointing out that automobiles are fairly regulated, though. There is a "street legal" definition for a car, you have to have an operator's license, and there are things you cannot do in a car -- elsewise, your license gets taken away. For better or for worse, America's one of the few places out there with a relatively high minimum age to purchase alcohol -- 21 -- and drunk driving was one of the reasons it ended up this way (https://www.boston.com/culture/health/2014/07/17/why-21-a-lo...).

I personally think it's fine to counter over-emotional focus on the tool (after all, 99% of AR-15 owners are just normal, average folks who don't commit mass shootings or indeed violence of any kind). Ultimately, though, "what they're calling for" is a reduction of gun violence. If "they" don't get a reasonable counter-answer to their concerns (and in my opinion, the NRA is doing a poor job here, themselves often being overly-emotional in response), it's entirely possible the regulations "they" want will result in the end.

[Frondo]

Well, people who get caught driving drunk a few times can have their license taken away or a blood alcohol interlock put on their car.

What if gun owners who didn't keep their guns locked in gun safes had their bullets replaced with rubber ones, or had mandatory trigger locks installed on their guns?

I dunno, I'm just spitballing here, but cars are heavily regulated, licensed, the whole nine yards, and if we had a tenth of that applied to guns, we could probably do a lot to reduce gun deaths and gun violence across the country.

[soundwave106]

One of the ideas floating around after Parkland that seems to have gotten bipartisan support (even the National Review warmed up to it! -- https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/gun-control-republica...) is a "gun violence restraining order". This provides a framework for those close to someone, and law enforcement, to temporarily restrict their ability to purchase weapons. I think (as the National Review columnist says) there is broad conceptual agreement that someone can demonstrate through their conduct that they should not possess a weapon. Parkland was a clear failure in this regard -- the perpetrator was this close to being "Baker Acted" (Florida's involuntary institutionalization law).

From my perspective, I welcome ideas like these. Limited access control ideas along the line of this framework is where I think the focus needs to be.

Some discussion also could be reserved for equipment like "bump stocks", that at first glance seems to solely be designed to circumvent existing law (it is highly illegal to modify a semi-automatic into a fully-automatic gun). Again, treating these type of equipment like the extremely highly regulated machine gun class is something even the National Review agrees with. (https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/bump-stocks-machine-g...)

[mtreis86]

The 5.56 round is designed to tumble upon impact to maximize internal damage. It really is a poor choice for anything but warfare.

[robgibbons]

This is an old misconception, and incorrect. All Spitzer-tip (pointed) boat tail bullets are prone to destabilization upon impact with anything hard in their path, deflecting easily off of surfaces (eg. wood, metal, bone). They were not designed to tumble on impact, but to fly straight, fast (high ballistic coefficient).

The same shape (Spitzer-tip boat tail) is used for virtually all modern target and hunting rounds. 5.56 (and .223) is basically a glorified varmint round. Certain 5.56 rounds, however, are designed to be frangible, which causes the bullet to break up on impact and causes more wound channels. Hunting ammo in 5.56/.223 does not do this, as it is designed to stay in one piece.

[krapp]

You're mocking the intelligence of gun control supporters and doubting their sincerity and credibility. As you seem to be knowledgeable about the subject, and seem to believe that only persons such as yourself are qualified to have an opinion on the matter, what would you consider to be actually sensible gun regulation?

[prepend]

I don’t know if OP is stating that only s/he is qualified. But that if someone wants to explain knowledge of guns enough to control them, they should spend some time understanding their subject.

And saying someone is stupid isn’t mocking. (Although it can be)

It’s like old men legislating abortion laws who know nothing about female specific health topics.

[hueving]

Pointing out ignorance is not mocking intelligence.

[krapp]

The tone of the comment seems intended to dismiss through ridicule, but that's beside the point. Its thesis that that one should have knowledge of guns and gun culture to have a credible opinion on gun legislation, so I'm merely asking that be followed up on, with an opinion on gun legislation from those with credible opinions.

I see a lot of dismissal of gun control advocates in threads like these, but arguments regarding gun control from those who claim authority on the matter tend to devolve towards strident defiance - "if you try to take my gun I will shoot you with it." That doesn't make for constructive discussion.

[maltwhiskey]

Most firearm violence is committed using handguns and most illegal guns are obtained through straw purchases. The best thing we could do would be to implement universal background checks (i.e. require background checks for private sales) but in a privacy-conscious and convenient way that will maintain support from the pro-gun side. Some kind of app or mobile website that allows the background check to be conducted for free on a smartphone, perhaps using token-based authentication to avoid the need to share personal information.

People who sell guns want a way to perform background checks on the people they sell to, but there's no way to do it because only licensed dealers can access NICS. As long as the private background check system has the same privacy invariants as the existing paper system for dealers (primarily that it is not possible to look up which guns someone owns, only to take a serial number and see who owns it) there won't be significant opposition.

[chillwaves]

Still waiting for the answer here.

What the NRA is doing is a disservice to gun owners. They are making a gun ban more likely by not offering any reasonable alternatives.

My opinion is we need state run (but federally funded) gun licensing to ensure safe owners and gun registry to ensure the guns stay with those owners.

Other countries do it. It works just fine. We are not having that conversation in America today in part because of the extremist views of the NRA.

[logfromblammo]

The registry is a non-starter. A significant fraction of gun owners will see registration as a precursor to confiscation. A smaller fraction fear that the registry will either be public from the start or significantly breached within a short time frame, such that gun owners will be selectively targeted for harassment or burglaries.

Given what New York has done recently, I presume that a lot of gun owners will also simply refuse to comply with any registration orders. And, as usual, the black market guns will remain nigh-untraceable, especially among those who are barred by law from owning them.

The best you could do is a database of last-known locations, maintained entirely without cooperation by owners, that will probably consist mainly of business locations of licensed firearm dealers and crime scenes.

[snerbles]

> A smaller fraction fear that the registry will either be public from the start or significantly breached within a short time frame, such that gun owners will be selectively targeted for harassment or burglaries.

Gawker is well ahead of you here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-09/gawker-po...

[makomk]

It's not clear whether there is, in fact, any obvious or easy improvement on what the US has already. If there was it'd likely have happened already. I mean, I live in the UK which has outright banned handguns and doesn't consider self-defense justification for gun ownership, but that won't fly in the US - it's unconstitutional and goes against the principles the country was founded on, and it'd require an lot more trust in your police force and a much less rural population - and probably wouldn't be enough to satisfy gun control supporters anyway.

Surely the burden for coming up with a reasonable, sensible gun control proposal should be on the people who're insisting we could have one if it wasn't for the pesky NRA and their gun nut supporters?

[chillwaves]

I already put it out there. Gun licenses and gun registry.

Without that there is no room to enforce regulation. The NRA and the gun culture will never budge on these two items, so they make an outright ban inevitable.

People can call things reasonable or unreasonable, that's fine but try to argue that registering a gun or obtaining a license is such an undue burden for the individual gun owner vs the harm of vast unchecked gun profileration for the rest of society.

NRA supporters are gun nuts. I am a gun owner.

There is a difference.

Here is a recent ad from the NRA,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrnIVVWtAag

That doesn't come off as at least a little unhinged to you?

The NRA does a disservice to gun owners and the whole country with their amped-up, violent rhetoric.

[splintercell]

> The NRA and the gun culture will never budge on these two items, so they make an outright ban inevitable. > ... > NRA supporters are gun nuts. I am a gun owner.

Well I don't want to give an inch more to gun control proponents because they have already made their intent clear, they believe that a completely gunless society is much more admirable than what we have today.

It's like this, imagine if a British politician Nigel Windsor calls for the 'assassination of the Queen' and overthrowing of Monarchy. Upon failing to achieve support on that, he proposes bill such as "Full budgetary accountability of Queen's security" or "Transparency of Queen's Expenditures" where Queen's security details be made published or "How about we reduce the number of Queen's guards by just one".

Who in their right mind would believe that Nigel Farage wants "sensible expenditure on Queen's security" since we know that at the end he wants to overthrow the British Monarchy?

This is the same case with gun control. We know that most gun grabbers don't own guns, have never owned guns and will never own guns, it's not in their culture. They also fantasize European countries regarding Healthcare, gun control, hate speech, discrimination laws and Australian style complete gun confiscation. Now they say "Come to a reasonable gun reform or a complete ban is inevitable", which to gun right proponents sounds like "Publish Queen's security detail or else an assassination of the Queen is imminent", I'd say if they could ban guns, then they would have.

[humanrebar]

Bump stocks are likely on their way out. They seem to be only suited for throwing a lot of bullets around indiscriminately.

[lostapathy]

In some states, sure.

At a federal level, it's not that easy. If there was an easy way to ban them, the ATF would have already. It's really hard to define a bump stock in a way that wouldn't either ban a lot of other things, short of classifying them as machine guns. If you classify them as machine guns, at this point, you pretty much have to let people who already have them enroll them on the NFA registry (federally, there is no legal basis to confiscate property that was legally acquired and legal to acquire when acquired), which is not necessarily what you want either.

[cgag]

I would view it as a fundamental parts of the system not to be flexed with. You're also never going to get back anything you give up.

You could easily live through 50+ years of incrementally handing over bits and pieces of your right to bear arms to the government before things turn ugly. It's San Francisco relaxing its building codes since it hasn't had a big earthquake in 100 years.

[Karunamon]

>NRA won't budge an inch. Extremism begets extremism. If people can't get sensible gun regulation, extreme gun regulation starts to seem more attractive.

You realize that "sensible" is both subjective, and cuts both ways, right? Have you ever noticed that the "compromise" touted by gun control advocates is always, 100% of the time, entirely one-sided?

That isn't compromise, that's capitulation. Compromise would be "Okay, universal NICS checks for all gun sales, but private citizens can access it for free". Compromise would be "per the full faith and credit clause, CCW permits are now legally recognized in all 50 states and become shall-issue, but there will be a standardized framework to get them".

Compromise is unambiguously not "ban bump stocks" and everyone who disagrees going "okay!".

So long as gun control compromise is a one-way street, I remain a dues-paying NRA member.

[jakeogh]

Requiring citizens to ask permission for a sale means they don't really own their firearms. It also breaks plausible deniability in a confiscation scenario.

[jdanp]

NRA won't budge an inch? What do you call the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Hughes Amendment of 1986, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1994, not to mention all the state based bans on everything under the sun from a pistol grip to a "shoulder thing that goes up to two year waiting periods to possess a simple handgun.

[chillwaves]

As mentioned, the NRA did not support those initiatives, secondly the NRA today, right now, is not willing to compromise. As a gun owner, this hurts us all.

Common sense gun regulation is a benefit to safe gun owners and less people will die from misuse, less criminals will have access to guns, less mentally unstable people will be able to go on killing sprees.

This is all in benefit to gun owners. How does sensible gun control (not bans) hurt a legal and safe gun owner?

[jdanp]

This is false, the NRA has compromised as recently as last year. Here's an article from their website congratulating the concealed carry reciprocity act being coupled with the background check fixing bill - https://www.nraila.org/articles/20171206/house-passes-concea....

That's what a compromise looks like, gun owners get easier concealed carry rules and everybody gets safer gun purchases via enhancements to the NICS system.

[dragonwriter]

> NRA won't budge an inch? What do you call the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the Hughes Amendment of 1986, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1994, not to mention all the state based bans on everything under the sun from a pistol grip to a "shoulder thing that goes up to two year waiting periods to possess a simple handgun.

Not sure of the first two off the top of my head, but the other two of the named examples are things that the NRA vociferously opposed, and (especially Brady) fought to repeal after they were adopted, so not exactly examples of the NRA budging. Ditto with many of them state laws you wave your hand at.

The NRA may lose sometimes, but thats different than budging.

[jdanp]

Last year they allowed Fix NICS to be coupled with the concealed carry reciprocity act, so one side gets enhanced background checks and the other side gets an easier time concealed carrying - https://www.nraila.org/articles/20171206/house-passes-concea....

That sounds like budging to me.

[sheepmullet]

> The reason I think people are talking about repealing the 2nd is because the NRA won't budge an inch.

Because the anti-firearm crowd won't budge an inch either.

All the evidence points towards gun-free zones failing to reduce violence. Will the anti-gun crowd work with gun owners to expand where law abiding citizens can carry?

> If people can't get sensible gun regulation

Without making this partisan - you can't have strict gun control without strict border control.

Should we try and meet the conservatives in the middle and help them secure our southern border?

[kevhito]

This isn't a game or a horse trade, I win one, you win one.

"I'll agree not to shoot your kids today, but only if you let me beat up your cousin instead." That's more or less what your argument sounds like to me. Can we agree that gun violence is a problem in the US, on a level vastly higher than many other parts of the world? Can we talk about how to move towards a society with less gun violence? Let's work together to find things that will help reduce gun violence. I'm willing to give up a lot of things I care about to move that way. You seem to only be willing to head that direction if you get something else you want in return. And it's especially jarring when the thing you want in return seems a to always move things back in the exact opposite direction, expanding access to and availability of guns.

[sheepmullet]

> Can we talk about how to move towards a society with less gun violence?

Yes - by implementing proven policies and removing ineffectual ones.

> You seem to only be willing to head that direction if you get something else you want in return.

Because we don't trust anti-gun people.

> expanding access to and availability of guns.

^ and this is why we don't trust anti-gun people.

Like I said above gun free zones have been shown to be ineffectual.

Yet you don't want to remove this ineffectual policy and try a different approach. You just want stricter and stricter gun control.

> I'm willing to give up a lot of things I care about to move that way.

Are you?

So if the evidence supports arming teachers and reducing the number of places that qualify as gun free zones will you support these changes?

[kevhito]

You don't trust "anti-gun people" so you therefore don't want to enact policies that you think will reduce gun violence? You seem to be saying you'd rather have more gun violence than work together with "anti-gun people". I don't understand that, on a fundamental level.

I never said anything about "gun free zones". I'm not sure what they are, I don't know how effective they are, but I don't see how they hurt either. To me, it seems like more guns, easier and cheaper availability of guns, more destructive guns, less strict and less comprehensive / universal background checks are all things that lead pretty clearly to more gun violence. That's why I'm against those things. I'm willing to change my mind. But the NRA is too busy disparaging victims of gun violence.

I really don't see how arming teachers helps. I've heard arguments for it, but those arguments really just don't ring true to me, and it seems that more guns will lead to more violence. I haven't read studies that seem credible and support what you are saying. Do you have any? I've looked, and there is a lot of really contradictory stuff out there. I'm willing to support anything that will reduce gun violence, in general.

I've been thinking about this thread for a while, and I think what bothers me is this. If you think expanded background checks (for example) will help reduce gun violence, why will you only support it if you get something else in return? Why can't we find things both sides thinks will help, and enact those things? Why must you hold those things hostage until you get some other thing that the other side fears will make the situation worse?

[sheepmullet]

> You don't trust "anti-gun people" so you therefore don't want to enact policies that you think will reduce gun violence?

You have it all wrong. I don't believe they will reduce gun violence.

I'm saying if anti-gun people were trustworthy I'd be willing to try some of these policies - then if they didn't work we could just stop them - no harm done.

> but I don't see how they hurt either.

And that's the problem: You are happy to infringe upon a fundamental right without clear evidence that it's a big win for society.

That mentality needs to be opposed at every step.

> To me, it seems like more guns, easier and cheaper availability of guns, more destructive guns, less strict and less comprehensive / universal background checks are all things that lead pretty clearly to more gun violence.

But the actual evidence for these is not at all conclusive.

What is conclusive is firearms are used for self defence all the time: https://fee.org/articles/defensive-gun-use-is-more-than-shoo...

Your anti-gun policies can just as easily ensure more women are raped and sexually assaulted.

[chillwaves]

> you can't have strict gun control without strict border control.

The irony of your statement when guns flow from the US to Mexico, not the other way around.

Maybe the Mexicans should build a wall to protect them from illegal US guns?

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/...

[sheepmullet]

> The irony of your statement when guns flow from the US to Mexico, not the other way around.

Does it make my statement any less true?

Does the current direction of gun flow matter when we are talking about a future US gun ban?

[chillwaves]

I'm not sure how guns flowing from the US to Mexico hurts the prospect of gun control in the US.

The logic that makes more sense to me is gun control in the US would result in less guns going over the border to Mexico.

[sheepmullet]

> I'm not sure how guns flowing from the US to Mexico hurts the prospect of gun control in the US.

With strong gun controls in the US what will stop guns from traveling in the other direction from Mexico to the US?

The only reason they don't today is because nobody in the US wants lower quality firearms from Mexico.

[sheepmullet]

To expand upon my above comment:

Basic firearms are significantly less complex than you would think.

Any one of the cartels is big enough and rich enough to make hundreds of thousands of firearms/year.

But why do that when you can get them dirt cheap and higher quality from the US?