The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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Presumably the new class of gun license would also be checked any time someone wanted to purchase ammo. So people with the old kind of license would eventually not be able to purchase ammo.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha dudes I was mostly just being funny about the DMV vision test, but if your response to that is "driving is more like carrying concealed weapons," does that suggest you're fine with psychological testing and opening medical records for c&c permits, or telling people they have to have psychological testing in order to get them? (That's a genuine question, BTW, not a rhetorical one.)

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

I've never had a psych or medical test for my driver's license. I go up, put on my glasses, and look in the little vision box.

A Texas concealed handgun license is quite a bit more stringent than that. 8 hours of classes, a shooting proficiency test, fingerprints sent to the state police and the FBI for background checks, etc..

My father's got held up for three or four extra months because he'd been arrested for fighting in California. In 1967.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I may be mistaken about this, but I don't think ammo has as long as shelf-life as a gun, so the license-check on ammo part would help to address the legacy gun problem.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

I wouldn't use old ammo.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Milo you've been tricked: that little vision box is an eye test! It is secretly assessing whether or not you have untreated DIZEEZES of the EYE and BRANE! RUN!!!

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Nope, ammo doesn't last quite as long. Problem is, you can make it yourself, so that won't work either.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:28 (seventeen years ago) link

You can't make it from scratch, you need to purchase certain things like primers, gunpowder, casings, etc. These would also require a license check.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

jesus christ, who knew guns were so boring?

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I still haven't seen any statistics on the number of gun-related deaths caused by mentally unstable people.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

ORLY? I wonder if anyone already has any of those things? I wonder if the casings are reusable? Primers and powder, properly stored, last for a long, long time.

xposts

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:30 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, shit - polygraph tests?? For INNOCENT people? Pardon me, but fuck you.

1) polygraph tests are completely useless at anything besides getting people to confess shit

2) everyone in america having their records accessed or being questioned by police is INNOCENT until conviction

― and what, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I still haven't seen any statistics on the number of gun-related deaths caused by mentally unstable people.

Err, isn't – excepting immediate and inarguable self defense / accidental firing – the act of pointing a gun at somebody and pulling the trigger an unstable act?

― remy bean, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Any, John J, sure there's going to be some dead-enders who stockpile gunpowder and bullets and so on in airtight, temperature controlled chambers so that when the One World Government comes to stamp the Number of the Beast on their foreheads they'll be ready to stop it like true red-blooded patriots. No solution is going to get rid of every single gun- but it doesn't have to to make a difference for the better.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Dude, tons of people reload and really wouldn't enjoy being characterized that way, and they'd be completely right.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:35 (seventeen years ago) link

1) polygraph tests are completely useless at anything besides getting people to confess shit

Such as whether they might be purchasing the gun with the intent of killing scores of innocent people?

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

o. nate, there are also people who shoot a lot (for fun) and want to keep costs down. Buying primers in the thousands at a time isn't unheard of.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Err, isn't – excepting immediate and inarguable self defense / accidental firing – the act of pointing a gun at somebody and pulling the trigger an unstable act?

The contortions involved there aren't even worth responding to.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not talking about everyone who reloads, I'm talking about the people in John's scenario who would refuse to be psychologically screened and would stockpile their (illegal) guns.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:36 (seventeen years ago) link

oh great now there's some shooting thing goin on at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh boy. How about ammonia, nate? Can I still buy that without turning my head and coughing? Robitussin? How about that? Do I need to submit to fingerprinting for that?

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not talking about everyone who reloads, I'm talking about the people in John's scenario who would refuse to be psychologically screened and would stockpile their (illegal) guns.

-- o. nate, Friday, April 20, 2007 2:36 PM (50 seconds ago)

WHAT?

You know, the thing that's making this whole thread particularly irritating is that a bunch of people keep presenting uninformed "Hmmm, I think this might be true" data as facts.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, I realize that the factual statement "Many people buy thousands of primers at a time" is inconvenient for you, but it's still true.

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

"Any, John J, sure there's going to be some dead-enders who stockpile gunpowder and bullets and so on in airtight, temperature controlled chambers so that when the One World Government comes to stamp the Number of the Beast on their foreheads they'll be ready to stop it like true red-blooded patriots."

You have a lot of strange ass ideas, man. Where do you come up with this shit?

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Why are proposing legislating psychological profiling? Have we investigated whether this is actually a significant problem in need of a solution.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:40 (seventeen years ago) link

"You know, the thing that's making this whole thread particularly irritating is that a bunch of people keep presenting uninformed "Hmmm, I think this might be true" data as facts."

This is by far the most sensible thing NOT said by me on this entire thread.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I've tried to avoid speculative generalizations myself - I think the only generalization I've made was about the rarity of people committing mass murder/violent crimes with really old outdated guns

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh boy. How about ammonia, nate? Can I still buy that without turning my head and coughing? Robitussin? How about that? Do I need to submit to fingerprinting for that?

Obviously guns are quite different in their potential for harm from those things. The idea is to make it harder for the occasional nut job to carry out his murderous fantasy. Guns are by far the easiest way for people to do go on these kinds of rampages, hence why they are so often used for that purpose. Obviously there are other ways people can carry out mass murder - the 9/11 hijackers only needed box cutters to kill thousands - but those incidents are extremely rare, because of the difficulty involved.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:42 (seventeen years ago) link

o. nate, what you don't seem to be taking into account is that VT-like incidents are themselves "extremely rare" - in terms of overall population, prevalence of firearms and their use.

Which then goes to what Fluffy and I've been requesting - hard numbers on the amount of gun violence related to mental instability/illness/etc..

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, I realize that the factual statement "Many people buy thousands of primers at a time" is inconvenient for you, but it's still true.

Somewhere this train got onto the wrong track. I never meant to imply anything about people who buy primers in bulk. I'm talking about a potential group of people in a possible future scenario that obviously I didn't communicate very well in this thread. Never mind - it's not important. The important point I'm trying to make is that the legacy gun problem will shrink over time.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Uninformed non-factual things like Roger thinking he can still buy OTC cough medicine without having to sign in a little book if it has any ephedrine in it. :(

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:49 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost Good luck with that, partner.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:50 (seventeen years ago) link

No solution is going to get rid of every single gun- but it doesn't have to to make a difference for the better.

Wait, I thought you just wanted to keep guns out of the hands of crazies.

Guns are by far the easiest way for people to do go on these kinds of rampages

So why do Palestinians often use bombs instead of guns?

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link

You can get high as hell on Robitussin DM. That's a fact. I can walk into Duane Reade right now and buy a gallon of the shit.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:51 (seventeen years ago) link

All of the violence I have seen in my life firsthand thus far has not involved guns.

― Manalishi, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, but you live in a world where you can break seven dudes' noses in a Hulk-style group fight, so getting all Steven Seagal Zen-wisdom on us isn't very enlightening.

― nabisco, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:54 (seventeen years ago) link

The important point I'm trying to make is that the legacy gun problem will shrink over time.

this is my thinking too - moving forward make new weapons more difficult to purchase/restrict their manufacture etc., and let time and inconvenience reduce the problem of the guns already in circulation.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:54 (seventeen years ago) link

No solution is going to get rid of every single gun- but it doesn't have to to make a difference for the better.

Wait, I thought you just wanted to keep guns out of the hands of crazies.

Guns are by far the easiest way for people to do go on these kinds of rampages

So why do Palestinians often use bombs instead of guns?

Obviously Palestine is very different situation to the US, in terms of what materials are available as well as whether you are dealing with a highly-skilled terrorist organization or a lone nut.

Sorry, I left out the word "unlicensed" above. The sentence should have read: "No solution is going to get rid of every single unlicensed gun."

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Wait, I thought you just wanted to keep guns out of the hands of crazies.

I'm not proposing any gun control past what exists now (except I might make concealed-carry a national program so that every state has equally stringent checks - some states are looser now).

I'm saying that the only effective method of control, if you wanted to pursue one, is to eliminate them as completely as possible. All the mental-health checks and bans on scary-looking guns in the world aren't going to solve anything.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:58 (seventeen years ago) link

oh wait, that wasn't directed at me. I misread what you quoted.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 19:58 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of guns available in Palestine. I'm also pretty sure there's a lot of explosive-making material in the US.

xposts

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:00 (seventeen years ago) link

nah, not an AK-47 to be found in Palestine.

― milo z, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:01 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm also pretty sure there's a lot of explosive-making material in the US

If you don't see any difference in difficulty between what it takes to buy a gun in this country vs. to find someone willing to sell you high explosives, and to have the know-how to fashion it into an effective bomb, then you are living in a different world than I am.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Palestinian terrorists use bombs because they have a good bomb-making infrastructure, you're saying?

So the idea is that they're more fanatical than crazy, which makes them more determined than most random American crazies, so if you took guns away from americans, the crazies would just not bother instead of learning how to make bombs?

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:02 (seventeen years ago) link

A lot of crazies wouldn't. Yes, that is what I'm saying.

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:04 (seventeen years ago) link

OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY STOP DOING THIS.

Have you heard of these strange "fertilizers" the arms merchants are selling? Often right in the middle of the heartland of the USA?

xpost

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Or they might try - and fail, or get caught.

xpost

― o. nate, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Or perhaps this new fangled liquid death machine called "kerosene in an enclosed container"?

― John Justen, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:05 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm just strolling through o.nate's reasoning, John. Making sure I follow it.

I think he has a flashier concept of what it takes to make an effective bomb than bombers do.

― Kerm, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/images/smilies/new6-05/jackoff.gif

― félix pié, Friday, 20 April 2007 20:08 (seventeen years ago) link

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