The Gun Control Debate Thread

[TheGreatBuzz]

Not when the vote is pretty much right down party lines. That to me shows a lot more "voting my team" than "voting for something that a helps". My understanding is the rights Bill was much softer. But isn't that better than nothing? Pass that and say "see we at least got SOME gun reform passed and we're willing to work together". Things like that would go a lot further towards pulling me across the aisle.

[Larry]

Again, I suspect it depends on the law.

I remember reading that one proposal the Right made, was a law that would allow the Director of Homeland Security to block someone from buying a gun. For three days.  Sorry.  that's not an attempt to solve the problem.  That's a way to give your middle finger to the idea of solving the problem. 

 

Now, I haven't read much about these proposals.  So I don't know if they were intentionally designed to be completely useless, just so they could say "See?  We did something, and it didn't work.  This proves that we shouldn't do anything else, for the next 20 years". 

 

But after the last 20 years, it sure wouldn't surprise me. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Well there were 4 bills proposed. 2 from each side. The rights bills were much softer versions of the lefts. But they all just voted down party lines. Larry do you think the DH director having that power would be a BAD thing or just not as much as you want? If you can get the right to budge even a millimeter why wouldn't you take it seeing how that's huge progress? If nothing else it would have made me and the other 80% who support reform say well at least one side is trying.

[Larry]

Larry do you think the DH director having that power would be a BAD thing or just not as much as you want?

I could have sworn that my post made it clear that I thought such a proposal could not have been made more intentionally, insultingly, useless if somebody had spent months working on it.

Maybe passing a law that prohibits Omar Mateen from buying more guns would have been worse. But not much.

[Burgold]

I think the question is whether you think it is a bad law. I will agree with you that moving forward a foot or an inch would still be something good, however, if you think the bill would ultimately be harmful... then passing a bill just so you can say you passed something is wrongheaded. I don't know if this is the case. It's very probable both sides are playing politics in an election year. The R bill was probably full of poison pills and unpassable, but now they get to say they proposed something. Likewise, the D bill was probably aggressive enough that they knew the R's would reject it so the D's could continue to use it as an election wedge. If that's the case and I wouldn't be surprised that it is then both sides suck. 

 

I would hope that someone could put up an honest bill and it would be debated on and voted on honestly. Maybe one of the four bills was honest. Maybe all of them were. Somehow I doubt it.

Edited June 22, 2016 by Burgold

[TheGreatBuzz]

Copy. So the fact that that wasn't the bill that was voted on makes the argument moot. And the fact that the rights Bill would have at least moved us a millimeter closers to where we need to is a bad thing. The left missed an opportunity to move at least one voter closer to their side.

Larry here is the meat of the rights Bill pulled from CNN. Sorry I'm on my phone or it would be prettier. Please tell me what part of this was BAD, not just what wasn't as much as the left wanted.

The Senate rejected first a Republican proposal to update the background check system for gun purchases, which would have required states to add more information on mental health records to a national database. It also included a provision to alert law enforcement agencies when an individual who was on a government terror watch list in the last five years buys a gun.

[Burgold]

What would be cool is now that they have rejected each other's bills is if they could cobble a new one using the best ideas of each. Let's see a real compromise bill. I'm with Great Buzz to the extent that taking a first step is still an accomplishment even if after that you still have the rest of the marathon to run.

 

Again, I don't think that'll happen. I think they will play politics and that each will rail against the other side being the problem in this fight, but wouldn't it be something if government worked the way it was supposed to for once?

Edited June 22, 2016 by Burgold

[TheGreatBuzz]

Burgold if you think that will ever happen I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you. Our system is broken. And I'm afraid it's beyond repair.

[tshile]

What is this 'more informations' about mental health it was going to add? We already have that capability.

And what is 'altering law enforcement agencies' supposed to do? Are they expected to surveillance this person now? Even if they've been cleared from the watch list?

[TheGreatBuzz]

Dunno. Just read the cliff notes (the news).

[DogofWar1]

I don't really see the point of Conryn's bill.  It seemingly is superfluous, unless you assume the FBI isn't doing its job of actually bringing in people for whom they have probable cause.

 

I mean, if a government agency has probable cause that a person is a terrorist on hand, such that they can provide it within 3 days of an attempted purchase, that person probably should have been arrested already.

 

It's kind of comedic actually, in a way.

 

Gun shop owner: "Hey, so this dude got flagged, you have probable cause against him?"

FBI: "oooooooOOOh yeah.  Dude is 100% certified terrorist.  Trips to ISIS hotbeds, contact on interwebs with radicals, thank you NSA, heck, guy even tweeted out 'Death to America.'  So yeah, totally a terrorist."

GSO: "So...you gonna arrest him?  Should I hold him at gunpoint or something, you know, until you get here?"

FBI: "Nah.  We're lettin' him have a long leash, boys will be boys, after all.  But no guns."

 

 

Basically, I can sort of see how Conryn's plan is a "step" forward, but it seems more like marching in place, quite frankly.

 

 

As for Grassley's, my understanding is that his bill would have made it harder to get a mental health flag for someone on a background check, with an added system to contest a flag.

 

The second part I'm fine with, depending on the details, but the first part seems to be going in the wrong direction.

 

 

 

But on the whole, I'm hopeful Susan Collins, who is supposedly working on her own proposal, will pull together the best ideas from across the political spectrum and put forth something 60 senators can live with.  From the limited speculation I've seen on her proposal, it sound pretty close to Feinstein's "reasonable suspicion" idea, but might be more constrained in time frame than "previous five years" for investigation.  We'll see.

 

 

So why include the number of suicides

 

I'm okay with a limited pulling out of justified homicides and certain types of accidents, but suicides, or at least the vast majority of suicides should stay in.

 

Suicide attempts are actually pretty rarely successful, something like 1 in 25 to 1 in 33 attempts are successful, so we're talking 3-4% of all suicide attempts actually work.

 

Compare that with the firearm suicide attempt success rate, which is something like 85% or 87%.

 

Thoughts of suicide are generally fleeting, and if not, they are often identified, so most people who attempt suicide are one attempt and then either better on their own, or get help.  Not all, but most.

 

People attempt suicide with what's around them, and what's easiest to use.  The more steps involved in the process of committing suicide, the more someone thinks about it, and the more likely they are to reconsider.

 

People in society attempt suicide.  It's an unfortunate fact.  They attempt it with what is perceived to be the quickest, most available option, usually.  In a heavily armed society, that means attempts via guns, and more successful suicide attempts.

 

 

This isn't to say we lump all the numbers together and find a one-size-fits-all solution, that doesn't exist.  A good measure for the reduction of mass shootings will differ heavily from one tackling domestic shootings, which will both differ from gang violence, which will all differ from suicides.

 

But not including suicides is problematic, and leaves a huge number of deaths unaddressed.  They should be counted among "gun deaths," we just need to remember that they present a separate set of challenges compared to other forms of gun violence.

[Fergasun]

Here's how legislation works fellow posters. Both sides in the Senate have incentives to push for their preferred legislation, and prevent the other sides preferred legislation.

There are multiple rationales (no specific order):

- Each party thinks this can be used as an election year issue. Voters can choose which side represents them.

- GOP Senate doesn't want this to end up in the House. It could put undue pressure on Reps.

- Democrats could be afraid that if they pass gun control now, some voters will qurstion why they would want to revisit it next term - GOP would complain.

Think about this in terms of immigration reform, like the GOP have a bill with a 25 ft wall instead of a 50 foot wall, That is compromise, but Dems can't support any wall.

To me, the Democratic position is more reasonable.

[LadySkinsFan]

Not when the vote is pretty much right down party lines. That to me shows a lot more "voting my team" than "voting for something that a helps". My understanding is the rights Bill was much softer. But isn't that better than nothing? Pass that and say "see we at least got SOME gun reform passed and we're willing to work together". Things like that would go a lot further towards pulling me across the aisle.

We see what happens when the left caves to the right, the Affordable Care Act, which benefits mostly insurance companies. We should have had single payer, universal health care. Instead every one's insurance rates went up, people who couldn't get insured due to pre-existing conditions got insurance at an exorbitant price, people were forced to buy insurance or penalized, and some actually got insurance at reduced rates if their state offered it. Big winners: the insurance companies hands down.

[LadySkinsFan]

Well there were 4 bills proposed. 2 from each side. The rights bills were much softer versions of the lefts. But they all just voted down party lines. Larry do you think the DH director having that power would be a BAD thing or just not as much as you want? If you can get the right to budge even a millimeter why wouldn't you take it seeing how that's huge progress? If nothing else it would have made me and the other 80% who support reform say well at least one side is trying.

So a highly placed gov't executive is going to be available to make a decision like this every time there's an occurrence of someone attempting to buy a gun that is suspect for the purchase? How many gun sales are there a day? I'm guessing a lot. It's ridiculous to assign such a responsibility to one person, and would they be allowed to delegate and to whom.

[TheGreatBuzz]

We see what happens when the left caves to the right, the Affordable Care Act, which benefits mostly insurance companies. We should have had single payer, universal health care. Instead every one's insurance rates went up, people who couldn't get insured due to pre-existing conditions got insurance at an exorbitant price, people were forced to buy insurance or penalized, and some actually got insurance at reduced rates if their state offered it. Big winners: the insurance companies hands down.

 

I'm not going to debate Obamacare here, it's the wrong thread.  But did you see something in the Rights bill that would have just been a huge pay day for the gun makers?  Who was getting paid off in that bill?

 

So a highly placed gov't executive is going to be available to make a decision like this every time there's an occurrence of someone attempting to buy a gun that is suspect for the purchase? How many gun sales are there a day? I'm guessing a lot. It's ridiculous to assign such a responsibility to one person, and would they be allowed to delegate and to whom.

I think you were missing the point of my post.  I wasn't saying I agreed that the DHS director should be doing that.  I was more making a point about making progress, any progress.  And none of the bills voted on required that anyways so I don't know why it keeps getting brought up.  If you want to ignore my overall point and debate the bills, what do you think was BAD in the R bill?  Not just what you didn't think went far enough but what was actually HARMFUL?

[LadySkinsFan]

If a bill doesn't go far enough to solve the problems, it's inherently harmful. Which is my point in bringing up ACA as an example, not a topic.

Like Burgold, if Senators and Representatives don't stop with the politics and really get on board to solve the problems, they aren't doing what we pay them for.

I really see the Republicans stonewalling everything unless they get exactly what they want, which in my view is pro-business and the rich and anti-human being, I.e. the rest of us.

[Larry]

If a bill doesn't go far enough to solve the problems, it's inherently harmful.

Disagree.

For example, I've pointed out that I suspect that any gun control that I'm willing to accept might well have still allowed Mateen to buy guns legally.

 

I think that demanding a gun control law that would have stopped a licensed, armed security guard from purchasing a gun, and refusing to permit any law that doesn't clear that bar, is probably demanding too much. 

 

The expression I've heard is "the perfect becomes the enemy of the good." 

 

Me, I'd be perfectly happy to vote for a bill that would make it tougher for people to get "assault weapons", even if that bill doesn't go far enough that it would have stopped Mateen. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

But who decides what far enough is?  You won't get 100% of people to agree on a perfect solution.  That's why there are negotiations and compromise.  I don't expect that from my party which is why they are barely holding on to me by a thread.  But the left showed they aren't much better by not agreeing to something that was at least better than the current situation.  As I said before, our government system is broken and I fear it may be beyond repair.  And the ACA was a **** show on both sides.  Neither should be using that as an example of how they can do things well.

[Burgold]

But who decides what far enough is?  

Ideally: The will of the people and a combo of the legislative branch and executive branch

Realistically: The Gun Lobby and Gun Manufacturers (but not the members of the Gun Lobby who want something different, but are too inept to vote their leadership out)

Ultimately: The Supreme Court.

 

signed Captain Obvious.

Edited June 22, 2016 by Burgold

[Fergasun]

Larry,

The problem from gun control proponent side is that once the imperfect half measure bill passes the GOP will say, "We are done with gun control for awhile - the door is closed for 5 years."

This is election politics, but I think that is quite fine. People can look at the proposals and decide if they prefer the party that disagrees with 80% of America, or not. Or they prefer the party that will stand up to 2nd amendment infringements.

A Democratic Senate bill needs to be pretty mild in itself... I think the strogest bill should be sent to the House... House Ds are also being aggressive on this.

[TheGreatBuzz]

Ideally: The will of the people and a combo of the legislative branch and executive branch

Realistically: The Gun Lobby and Gun Manufacturers (but not the members of the Gun Lobby who want something different, but are too inept to vote their leadership out)

Ultimately: The Supreme Court.

 

signed Captain Obvious.

Sorry.  That was meant as a response to LSF.  I know that but I was getting the impression that she gets to decide and if she doesn't like it, it's wrong.

[tshile]

This is election politics, but I think that is quite fine. People can look at the proposals and decide if they prefer the party that disagrees with 80% of America, or not. Or they prefer the party that will stand up to 2nd amendment infringements.

 

 

If history is any indicator:

The pro gun people will choose the party that stands up to 2nd amendment infringements

Everyone else will chose the party that best fits their views on a handful (or two) of other issues before they consider gun control

The pro gun control people will go nuts for the next two years complaining that congress doesn't represent 80%+ of the country on the issue

Edited June 22, 2016 by tshile

[LadySkinsFan]

Look, I bought 2 guns. One I had to wait 2 weeks, the other same day but I had to come back because the computers were backed up the day before Thanksgiving.

I don't have anything to hide, I don't mind a waiting period. Neither should anyone who has nothing to hide. The end result is that if nothing comes up, the purchase will go through, so 2nd Amendment right isn't hindered, right?

[twa]

Look, I bought 2 guns. 

 

TWO?....how many people are you planning to kill? 

 

I think I bought my last one in the 70's, but have had a number given to me since then.

[TradeTheBeal!]

An old-fashioned Sit-In!