The Gun Control Debate Thread

[Larry]

47 minutes ago, tshile said:

Why? It’s been provided.

 

Because your proposal has no chance of being implemented without some support. 

 

Where've I heard that before?  

[nonniey]

Anyone want to reconsider approaching this by tackling gun safety? Bio metric gun locks have been available going on 20 years and yet they are essentially banned because of the extremists on both sides (Whole loaf or nothing approach striking again).

Edited May 9, 2019 by nonniey

[tshile]

2 hours ago, Larry said:

 

The NRA (and tshile) has rejected every proposal

You’re a liar. 

[tshile]

2 hours ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

You're so full of **** dude.

I got a little carried away with the issue. 

 

I am sick of gun control people only wanting gun control and anti control people refusing to accept anything control-related. 

 

Overly sick of it. 

 

Like punch people in the face sick of it. 

 

Children are dying, in school of all places, and adults can’t figure out how to adult. 

[nonniey]

25 minutes ago, tshile said:

I got a little carried away with the issue. 

 

I am sick of gun control people only wanting gun control and anti control people refusing to accept anything control-related. 

 

Overly sick of it. 

 

Like punch people in the face sick of it. 

 

Children are dying, in school of all places, and adults can’t figure out how to adult. 

Whole loaf or nothing syndrome.

[Larry]

A no doubt long winded summary of my opinion regarding some of the proposals mentioned.  

 

Extremely short version:  Beware of the collateral costs of the proposal.  

 

For example, the "Arm the teachers" proposal.  Just some basic math.  

 

From what I've found, there are just under 100,000 public schools in the US.  (And note, that's just the public schools.  There's what, one private school for every 2 public?  Every 3?  But to make the math simpler, let's stick to 100,000 public schools.)  

 

Also I found a site that says that in 2018, there were 24 school shootings in the US.  They define it as any firearm discharge at any school in which one or more people were killed or wounded.  So they're not saying there were 24 Columbines.  They're counting every accidental discharge (if the bullet touched anybody), suicide, or whatever.  

 

So let's say we want to do a text study, to test arming teachers.  

 

How many guns do we have to put in how many schools, for us to have even one data point for our study?  

 

Well, you would think that you could put guns in 4,000 schools, and have 1 school shooting.  (100,000 schools divided by 24 shootings equals 4,000 schools.)  But the math doesn't actually work that way.  Put guns in 4,000 schools, and there's actually a 36% chance that none of those schools will be one of the 24 schools that has a shooting.  

 

(That number seems really weird to me.  But if there is one school shooting per every 4,000 schools, then the odds of School X not having a shooting is 3,999/4,000.  Which my calculator tells me is 0.99975.  And the odds of 4,000 schools not having a single shooting is 0.99975^4,000 which my calculator tells me is 0.3678.)  

 

But, my calculations also tell me that, if you put guns in 2,800 schools (actually, 2,772), then there's a 50/50 chance that one of your "gun schools" will have a gun shooting, some time this year.  

 

OK, so you've put guns in 2,800 schools.  Now, there's a 50/50 chance that a shooting will happen in a school where a gun is present.  

 

What's the odds that that gun being present has any impact on the shooting whatsoever?  

 

Remember, "school shooting" does not equal "Columbine".  That shooting that happened in one of your test tube schools might be a Columbine.  But it might be a kid who brought a gun from home, and had an accidental discharge.  

 

And even it one of those 2,800 guns happens to be present at a Columbine, what's the odds that the gun's presence affects the events in any way?  Does the armed teacher in the one lucky school simply hide his students in his classroom, and stand there with his pistol aimed at the door?  What's the odds of the shooter actually choosing to walk into the one classroom with the gun?  One in 5?  One in 50?  

 

I'll point out that there have been lots of situations in the US of mass shootings, at which other guns were present, but it's really hard to find any where the other guns, in civilian hands, actually saved anybody.  Many of the examples I've seen posted in this thread turn out to be off duty police officers intervening  Or people intervening after the shooter's gun jammed.  Surely I assume that there's got to be at least one case where a bystander made a difference.  But it sure seems to be hard to find many.  Out or an incredibly large numbers in which people were shooting.  

 

Our experiment now has:

 

1)  A 50-50 chance that a shooting takes place in a school which is participating in the experiment.  (This year. Obviously, if we run the experiment for a longer period, the odds of us "getting lucky" and having a school shooting go up.) 

2)  An unknown probability (I'd assume less than 50-50  But I sure wouldn't put a lot of certainty behind that) that the shooting is actually a mass shooting situation.

3)  An unknown (but it appears pretty low) probability, if it is a mass shooting situation, that the gun actually makes a difference.     

 

So, by the way, how many guns per school?  Put, say, three guns per school, and now the odds that one of the guns actually makes a difference isn't quite as slim.  But, since I'm setting up the experiment, I'm going to assume one gun per school, to make the math easier.  

 

So, OK, Our experiment has now put 2,800 guns into 2,800 schools.  And the odds of one of those guns actually doing anything good are what?  1%?  0.1%?  

 

"But even if there's only one chance out of 1,000 that it saves even one life, why not do it?", I hear.  

 

Not so fast.  

 

How many of those 2,800 guns wind up being used incorrectly?  

 

How many accidental shootings because a kid found the gun?  Or spur of the moment shootings where some kid breaks up with another kid, and one kid knows where the gun is?  How many times where a teacher grabs it to break up a fight?  Or sees somebody who he thinks is a threat, and he's actually not?  

 

How much did we increase the danger in our schools, chasing that slim chance that maybe someday it might prevent something bad?  

 

 

 

Now, I'm not 100% opposed to the idea.  

 

One reason why I approve of the concealed carry laws we've passed in a lot of states, is because I approve of the notion of Joe Citizen having the ability to defend himself, or others, if he just happens to be present.  

 

Just saying, if you want to push this notion, be prepared to own the collateral damage that it will produce, too.  

 

And don't try to push me into supporting the notion by pointing at some pundit or some expert who doesn't factor in the collateral damage at all.  

 

 

 

A similar thing exists with another idea that gets kicked around in here - taking away guns from people with mental illness  

 

We hear it after some mass shootings.  We find out that the shooter had something funny about him.  (Either some actual diagnosis, or something which the audience just points at and finds weird).  "Well, we should have taken away that guy's guns"  

 

Unfortunately, I assert that many such posters are actually saying "Well, if we had a time machine, then knowing what we know now, I would approve of going back in time and taking away the guns of this one person.  But only this one person."  

 

Unfortunately, for every "person with mental illness who just shot up some place", there are a huge number of people who didn't.  

 

You're going to have to take away the guns from a lot of people, to stop one nut from going postal.  

 

I can't come up with even an amateur ratio, but just to pull up some numbers, I find that according to the NIMH, in 2017, 18% of Americans suffered from "Any mental illness", and 4.5% from "Serious Mental Illness".  

 

According to Pew Research, (Pew! Pew! Pew!), 30% of Americans own guns, which would work out to around 98M.  Assuming that gun owners have the same rate of mental illness as all Americans (Shut up, you!), if you take away the guns from the 4.5% of gun owners who have "Serious Mental Illness", that's 4.4M people you've taken away guns from.  And how many of them would have shot up a dozen people, two?  

 

And remember, if you do take away the guns from 4.4M people, and you prevent two mass shootings?  At the end of the year, you will have:

 

1)  4.5M people who can be pointed at and say "You took away this person's gun".  And

2)  Not one single person you can point at and say "I prevented a mass shooting."  

 

Maybe two mass shootings don't happen.  But you won't be able to prove it.  

 

So again, if you want to implement this plan?  Be prepared to own the collateral damage that it costs.  And be prepared to do it, without any actual success you can point to.  

Edited May 10, 2019 by Larry

[China]

1 hour ago, Larry said:

 

For example, the "Arm the teachers" proposal.  Just some basic math.  

 

From what I've found, there are just under 100,000 public schools in the US.  (And note, that's just the public schools.  There's what, one private school for every 2 public?  Every 3?  But to make the math simpler, let's stick to 100,000 public schools.)  

 

Also I found a site that says that in 2018, there were 24 school shootings in the US.  They define it as any firearm discharge at any school in which one or more people were killed or wounded.  So they're not saying there were 24 Columbines.  They're counting every accidental discharge (if the bullet touched anybody), suicide, or whatever.  

 

So let's say we want to do a text study, to test arming teachers.  

 

How many guns do we have to put in how many schools, for us to have even one data point for our study?  

 

Well, you would think that you could put guns in 40,000 schools, and have 1 school shooting.  (100,000 schools divided by 24 shootings equals 40,000 schools.)  But the math doesn't actually work that way.  Put guns in 40,000 schools, and there's actually a 36% chance that none of those schools will be one of the 24 schools that has a shooting.  

 

 

 

Your basic math is off.  100,000 divided by 24 would be 4,000 (4,166), not 40,000. 

[Larry]

3 minutes ago, China said:

 

Your basic math is off.  100,000 divided by 24 would be 4,000 (4,166), not 40,000. 

 

Eh.  Close enough.  (I'll recalculate, and edit.)  

[Cooked Crack]

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Quote

Trump plan calls for nationwide concealed carry and an end to gun bans

 

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump -- who said he has a concealed carry permit -- called for the expansion of gun rights Friday, including making those permits applicable nationwide.

In a position paper published on his website Friday afternoon, Trump called for the elimination of gun and magazine bans, labeling them a "total failure."

"Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own," Trump wrote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/18/trump-plan-calls-for-nationwide-concealed-carry-and-an-end-to-gun-bans/?fbclid=IwAR1ypFR7q4iWkl5gFcqQm5IYwqr65N8Lp-7gHrx7GYLiMtOvWCU-hQYO1S4&noredirect=on&postshare=7341462568706847&utm_term=.f4d5e1e54733

 

I've supported a national permit for a while now though I support more than just a background check to get it.  

 

Quote

"All of the tragic mass murders that occurred in the past several years have something in common – there were red flags that were ignored," Trump said. "And why does this matter to law-abiding gun owners? Once again, because they get blamed by anti-gun politicians, gun control groups and the media for the acts of deranged madmen."

 

So is he supporting red flag laws now?

 

I honestly don't think he is going to change anything.  I think he is just pandering to his base.  Military still isn't allowed to carry on base even though that was one of his big campaign promises.  In general, I'd support what he says but would have to know a lot more of the details.

[Larry]

57 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I've supported a national permit for a while now though I support more than just a background check to get it.  

 

I could certainly see some kind of reciprocity rule.  That any permit from State X is valid in State Y, as if it were issued in State Y.  

 

But I din't want to trample on the rights of states to have tougher laws.  I'd say that if a state chooses not to have concealed carry, then an out of state permit shouldn't trump that.  

 

Think there need to be some other restrictions.  I remember that at one point, I think it was Arizona had a deal where they'd issue a permit to anybody for 10 bucks, with no requirements at all, as long as they didn't live in Arizona.  So, yeah, if you're going to have federal reciprocity, then there need to be federal minimums to get it, too.  

 

Or, maybe the feds can issue a federal card, and each individual state can decide how much they'll accept that card.  

 

57 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

So is he supporting red flag laws now?

 

I honestly don't think he is going to change anything.  I think he is just pandering to his base. 

 

I guarantee you his base doesn't support anything close to a red flag law.  For the reasons I detailed in a really long post, a while back.  Any law that actually takes guns away from people with danger signals is guaranteed to take guns away from thousands, maybe millions of people, for every mass shooting actually prevented.  

 

Which doesn't mean that preventing mass shootings isn't worth paying that price.  Just saying that there's no way his base will be willing to pay it.  

Edited May 14, 2019 by Larry

[TheGreatBuzz]

34 minutes ago, Larry said:

I could certainly see some kind of reciprocity rule.  That any permit from State X is valid in State Y, as if it were issued in State Y.  

 

But I din't want to trample on the rights of states to have tougher laws.  I'd say that if a state chooses not to have concealed carry, then an out of state permit shouldn't trump that.  

I struggle with that also especially since I am more of a states rights guy.  But the drivers license analogy isn't far off.  Different states have different requirements regarding what it takes to get a license.  Should a state be able to not allow an out of state person to drive in their state?  I don't have a perfect answer.  I just know that I hate each state being different considering how often I travel out of state.

 

36 minutes ago, Larry said:

I guarantee you his base doesn't support anything close to a red flag law.

I should have been more clear.  I was asking if that was what he was saying regarding red flag laws.  I would be surprised if that is what he meant because I know his base is so against them.  The pandering to the base comment was more about the loosining of gun laws in general and not about the red flag law part of it.  Sorry.

[Larry]

23 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I struggle with that also especially since I am more of a states rights guy.  But the drivers license analogy isn't far off.  Different states have different requirements regarding what it takes to get a license.  Should a state be able to not allow an out of state person to drive in their state?  I don't have a perfect answer.  I just know that I hate each state being different considering how often I travel out of state.

OT, but I was stopped, and convicted, of driving on a suspended license in Virginia, while carrying a valid Oklahoma drivers license. (Long story.) 

But I do think that states really ought to allow people visiting the same rights they allow their own citizens. Unless there's some reason why not, like some state just handing them out to anybody. 
 

23 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I should have been more clear.  I was asking if that was what he was saying regarding red flag laws.  I would be surprised if that is what he meant because I know his base is so against them.  The pandering to the base comment was more about the loosining of gun laws in general and not about the red flag law part of it.  Sorry.

 

[tshile]

5 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I've supported a national permit for a while now though I support more than just a background check to get it.  

 

Same

 

national permit is a must in my book, but you have to have some sort of standard check before one can be issued and it’s clear the current checks are not good enough. 

 

Ive often felt a national permit should require yearly training of some sort. 

 

I also would like a tiered system - more training means right to carry in more places (a lot of places can be or are off limits even if you have a permit)

 

the problem with the drivers license analogy is that driving isn’t treated nearly as differently as carrying a gun. 

 

In Va you can carry on school property

try to do that in another state and you may get into a lot of trouble. 

 

There would be a lot to iron out for a national permit. As much as I support the idea, it’s hard to think this administration could do it the right way. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by tshile

[China]

Man working on roof dead after coworker trips, gun goes off in Riverview

 

RIVERVIEW, Fla. (WFLA) - The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office is investigating a homicide that occurred Wednesday afternoon.

 

Officers responded to the area of to the 8900 block of Riverlachen Way in Riverview sometime around 1:45 p.m. The house deputies responded to is being remodeled and no one currently lives there. 

 

According to officials, the shooter, who is part of the construction team, said that he had just gotten out of his vehicle and was moving his gun from his waist band to his pocket when he slipped on construction debris and his gun fired.

 

The victim, a 44 year old man who was working on the roof, was shot. Detectives explained that the victim was roughly ten feet from the shooter's own son working on the roof at the time. 

 

The victim was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead.

 

The man who shot the gun is cooperating with deputies. He told deputies that he and the victim are longtime friends.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

 

[China]

Loaded gun, knives found in 4th grade Pinellas teacher's backpack, cops say

 

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – A fourth grade teacher at Starkey Elementary School was arrested on Monday.

 

The 49-year-old is accused of having weapons in her backpack, including a Glock 9mm handgun loaded with seven rounds of ammunition, a six-inch fighting knife and a two-inch finger knife.

 

According to deputies, all of the weapons were in her classroom where students were present.

 

Erica Kennedy is a parent of two children who attend Starkey Elementary School in Seminole. She was stunned to learn the news.

 

"Shock, absolute shock," the mother-of-three told WFLA. "Almost disbelief. I can't believe something like that would happen at this school. I almost think they're going to have to start checking teacher's bags, or maybe even have a metal detector to set something off."

 

According to the school district, Betty Soto was acting suspcious Monday morning, carrying her backpack everywhere she went, guarding it closely.

 

The principal noticed the "strange" behavior and notified the authorities.

 

Police officers with Pinellas County Schools and deputies with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office arrived on campus after being alerted by the principal. Law enforcement officers say they interviewed Soto and found the weapons in her backpack.

 

She bonded out of jail Monday night shortly after 9 p.m.

 

Soto was angry, defiant and unwilling to answer questions as WFLA asked several times, "Why would you bring a loaded gun and two knives to school?"

 

"Ask Desantis," she answered. "Ask your governor."

 

Erica Kennedy says, with two children at Starkey Elementary, she's worried. She described Soto's behavior as militant and suspicious.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[TheGreatBuzz]

New gun porn.

 

[China]

 

Texas Senate votes to allow people to carry guns without a license during disaster evacuations

 

 

The Texas Senate approved a bill Friday that would allow handgun owners to carry their concealed firearms without a license for up to 48 hours when leaving an area due to a mandatory evacuation order.

 

The legislation — House Bill 1177 by Republican state Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont — would allow those complying with an evacuation order to take their guns with them and temporarily carry them without a license so long as they’re not prohibited by state or federal law from possessing a gun.

 

The version of the bill is slightly different from the language passed by the House last month. State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, introduced a reworked version that shortened the amount of time Texans leaving a disaster area can carry their handguns without a license and added a provision allowing the governor to extend the two-day time period, if needed.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Worth noting that there are studies that show the opposite.  I'm leery of almost any study because it is easy to do a study in a manner to get whatever is your desired outcome.  Not saying this study is wrong, just something to keep in mind.  Also, I'd like to see some research as to why it went down in some places.  What did they do differently and could it be applied to other locations. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Thanks @Larry for keeping us straight.   So what part do we want to discuss?

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

6 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Worth noting that there are studies that show the opposite.  I'm leery of almost any study because it is easy to do a study in a manner to get whatever is your desired outcome.

Data is pretty clear. States & countries with more guns have more gun deaths.

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

5 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Data is pretty clear. States & countries with more guns have more gun deaths.

Is that from the article?  Those seem to be just about number of guns in circulation, not related to the carry laws.  Unless I'm missing something. 

 

 

In the right hands, much is possible.  3.4 miles.  That's insane!

 

https://www.ballisticmag.com/2019/04/15/global-precision-group-hits-3-4-mile-shot/

[twa]

7 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Worth noting that there are studies that show the opposite.  I'm leery of almost any study because it is easy to do a study in a manner to get whatever is your desired outcome.  Not saying this study is wrong, just something to keep in mind.  Also, I'd like to see some research as to why it went down in some places.  What did they do differently and could it be applied to other locations. 

 

The study is claiming crime rates that actually went down in states WOULD have went down even more w/o the right to carry laws.

 

Seems suspect

 

https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/23/right-to-carry-crime-rates-john-donohue/