Gun Control III

Actually, no I wouldn't say that. Personally I even agree that having 20 or thirty round clips is certainly not a necessity for most sport or self defense. Actually I don't own any truly high round count magazines.(Just an aside and an example of why we need to use the correct wording. There are no 20 or 30 round clips.)Yes, there would be a major stink from many gun owners BUT the fact remains that such a restriction on new purchases might help.The issue again is reality.While it's possible to write a Federal law that makes it illegal to sell new magazines that have a capacity of 20 rounds or more it does not address two reality factors.First, it does not address the number of such magazines that already exist.Second, for those who wish to be socially violent it would only mean having to carry several smaller capacity magazines.Another aside.I firearm training one fairly common requirement is to require magazine swaps during a timed session.Again, yes there is a problem with violence in the US and laws such as magazine capacity might make some difference over the long term it would be minimal.Remember, people that decide to commit mass shooting are not folk that tend to be deterred by laws.And we still need to address the things I mentioned in Message 937 and perhaps try to figure out a way they could be implemented.

I agree that crazy people make crazy choices.And in reality an AR15 is not a horrible hunting weapons. It's not what I would choose but there are hunters that do use an AR15.Again though, you are not suggesting something that could reasonable have ANY effect in the future. There are a whole lots of AR15s out there already.What is needed are things that might actually have a beneficial effect.

Might help. It certainly helped with drugs.Fortunately I'm old and so even if the production or sale of ammo was banned I'd likely do just fine.But again, the problem is violence not guns.The US needs to address the root causes of the extreme violence so common in the US.

I can't really disagree with much of what you post.Trying to stick to reality, when it comes to handguns there is really only a small difference in effectiveness or a one shot stop between any of the various calibers. For example, for a long time the Israeli Mossad and Air Marshall's choice of weapon was a Beretta Series 70 22LR (Long Rifle) caliber. The gun was small, extremely reliable, extremely accurate and just as in real estate, the three most important factors in handgun effectiveness are location, Location, LOCATION.Rifles, all rifles and all calibers are far better at one shot stops than any handgun.Second. Semi-automatic is really not a factor. I can shoot a revolver (almost all revolvers are also semi-automatics) as accurately or more accurately than one of my semi-automatic pistols and reload almost as quickly.But that takes lots of practice.It's important to use terms that actually have a specific meaning.In handguns it's better to talk about revolvers (handguns with a rotating cylinder that holds the cartridges) and pistols (handguns that hold the cartridges in a detachable container called a magazine) than use terms like semi-automatic.Revolvers have a limited capacity that is dependent on three things; the diameter of the cylinder, the diameter of the cartridge and the strength of the cylinders material. There is only so much area in a cylinder and there has to be enough material around each cartridge hole to withstand the pressures involved during firing.Pistols though can hold as many cartridges as the length of the magazine will hold. There is no reason that a pistol can not just use a longer magazine and so hold more rounds.Again, some reality.Rifles are almost always longer and much harder to conceal than a handgun.Rifles can be classified by their types similar to what we use in handguns.There are rifles that use some form of detachable magazine to hold the cartridges and rifles that have a fixed magazine. Usually the fixed magazine is a tube with a spring plunger to force the rounds into the action but the capacity is pretty much limited to the original design. Fixed magazines are also considerably slower to reload than detachable magazines.Another differentiation point is the type of actions. There are three main types, a bolt action where each cartridge is loaded and ejected by manually cycling the bolt, a lever action where the functions of loading and ejecting spent rounds is from a lever usually making up the trigger guard and hand hold and semi-automatics that use the recoil created by firing a round to eject and reload another cartridge.The first two generally have a slower rate of fire than the third type but again, with practice the differences become minimal.While many rifle cartridges are longer than handgun cartridges there are quite a few that are pretty much the same length and size. The most common cartridge for the AK47 and SKS are a great example.If there are going to be laws passed they need to be specific and stop using really stupid undefinable terms like "assault weapon" or "military grade weapon".And finally, the laws need to actually be something achievable. We have tried outright banning of sales with drugs and prohibition and prostitution and gambling and ...Lets not just try yet another doomed to not just fail but make things worse feel good solution.

So what is the model, method, mechanism. process and procedure that has even a slightly greater than zero chance of working?Consider our neighbor to the south. There is only ONE gun dealer store in all of Mexico.

Exactly, yet there is only one gun store in all of Mexico.

Sorry Percy but that is simply a stupid comment.What gun did Timothy McVeigh use?And it is also stupid unless you can offer some model, method, mechanism, process or procedure that might have actually kept them from having guns.There are some possibilities as I have mentioned several times in this thread but they are not easy, not cheap and not quick.A realistic Federal Red Flag law would have helped. In all of the cases there were indicators that the person was unstable and potentially dangerous but we have no mental health care system or universal reporting system or set processes, procedures, models, methods or mechanisms in place to create such systems and no public support to educate and fund the necessary staff to implement such systems.

First, does the qute attribution need to get fixed?And second, yup. Lots of people do not obey even really simple laws like a loaded gun should be either on the owners person or securely locked away.

There is a process, procedure, model, method and mechanism to amend the US Constitution and it's been suggest that would be a potential solution.But again, reality intrudes.Twenty-seven Amendments have been ratified to the US Constitution but remember ten of that 27 number were the original Ten Amendments.Six more amendments have not yet been ratified including what should be simple and universally accepted such as an Equal Right Amendment.There are also 22 Proposed Amendments that have not even been approved by Congress.

Come on Ringo. Are you sure you can't come up with a method of killing other than the choice of guns or a teaspoon?And again, reality.There are over 400 MILLION guns already in the US.

Agreed.But it's not just gun owners that need to change their thinking.And that takes time and effort.Again, the private individual that has invested the time and money and resources to get a carry license is demonstrably among the most law abiding people in the US, more law abiding than the police or politicians as a population. But they invested in educating themselves about the dangers involved in firearms.My guns other than the one I am carrying at the time stay locked away and ammo is stored separately. My home security is designed to make needing to use a gun as unlikely as possible. And today, that level of security can be less expensive than buying a firearm.But how to change the general public mindset?There's no doubt that the NRA for the last half century has been part of the problem rather than a potential solution. But there are other organizations struggling to change the mindset. The Liberal Gun Owners is one and another is NAAGA (National African American Gun association.Unfortunately both organizations are in the minority and so their voices are simply not a prominent as the NRA.

I still hope that things can be done but realistically it ain't likely.

As I have said, there is currently no reasonable expectation that a Red Flag law could be effective BUT you are wrong that most mass murderers do not show signs beforehand. Unfortunately those signs are most often pointed out after the fact.But the reality is that there is no support in the US for true Universal Background Checks, general licensing of firearm owners, even really basic things like requiring all firearms to have some form of a safety.You mentioned the two year old that may have shot a father (it's also possible it was the five year old and 'Billy Did It') and one factor is that the gun is one that a two year old can fire. Some of the more popular handguns today are 'Glocks', polymer framed relatively light weight guns with no safeties. There is no way to safe a loaded Glock.So in that and far too many other instances the problem is that a whole host of rules and safety measures were ignored.By the way, Glock is not alone when it comes to safeties. Smith & Wesson handguns can be ordered with or without a manual safety.As long as there is no desire on the part of gun owners to make them as safe as possible there will continue to be such tragedies.We have the nation we desire.

LOLCome on now Percy.You have listed the things we do that we should not do.Nor have you explained why it would be impossible if we had the resources to tell whether someone is truly dangerous or simple mouthing off.But the reason we don't have such resources is because we have not funded the metal health system that would be needed.And that is the pattern.We have the society the majority of Americans wanted and created.You might want it to be different, I might want it to be different but the reality is that wanting simply doesn't change reality.If things are going to change then reasonable and achievable programs, processes, procedure, models or methods must be presented, approved, funded and implemented.So far I have been the only person in this thread to actually proposes such things.Unfortunately, it seems that there is simply no desire to actually approve, fund and implement what needs to be done.Everyone says they want an answer now but so far no one has suggested a way that reasonable and achievable programs, processes, procedure, models or methods must be presented, approved, funded and implemented that might have any real impact in less than a half century.

So are you suggesting a magazine capacity limit?Remember, there are hundreds of millions of what many would call High Capacity magazines.Whatever law you want passed needs to be achievable.