The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

Tampa.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reports in a news release that ATF agents, along with FBI bomb technicians and Tampa police, executed a search warrant Monday at the home of 24-year-old Michael Ramos. Tampa police had passed along a tip about the explosives to ATF. The news release says Ramos had previously expressed anti-government sentiment and acknowledged being in possession of explosives. Besides the bombs, agents reported finding an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, a .45 caliber pistol and large amounts of ammunition.

After his arrest, Ramos admitted to making a number of pipe bombs and identified websites he used as reference in making them. He told detectives he bought fuses from Phantom Fireworks, PVC pipe from Home Depot, and other bomb-making materials from Amazon.com. He also admitted to having tear gas, which he bought from keepshooting.com, and smoke grenades at his house. Ramos continued, saying he recently sold a Mossberg, pump action shotgun with a shortened barrel, which he purchased at a Walmart in Lakeland. Ramos told detectives in a written statement he manufactured eight black-powder-based pipe bombs for "preparedness/protective" reasons. He also wrote he never had intentions of harming anyone with the bombs.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a41746/anti-government-extremists-terrorism/

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

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-silencers-idUSKCN0WA19E

just curious, what is the argument for silencers, from the perspective of people who love guns and claim they want them for self-protection? is it so that if there are multiple attackers in your home, you can go from room to room (after detecting the intruders with your advanced recon eq and donning your nightvision goggles, of course) taking them down one by one without the others hearing and fleeing, so you can achieve a 100% kill rate?

is it so that you can go hunting with your pistol a little bit closer to the area you live without angering the neighbors with the noise?

I've heard hunters claim it's good for not scaring away other animals, and the same argument from animal control people. But I think that's largely bullshit. I also heard (hilariously/darkly) someone anti-silencer say that in an active shooter scenario silencers would make it too difficult for anyone to take credit for taking out the bad guy.

The arguments I've heard from gun loving relatives for having them boils down to "freedom" and "slippery slope."

First, they came for our silencers ...

It reminds me of the argument for privacy rights: it's not about why they're (silencers, assault rifles, etc) needed, it's about the government not meddling in individuals' lives, even in the face of safety or security concerns.

I have relatives who buy guns COMPLETELY as an expression of the freedom to do so. They never even look at them (but they do talk about them) but they occasionally buy more.

My brother recently bought another handgun (with a gift certificate I gave him....). I asked him why he would buy it and he said, with surprise and no irony, "Why wouldn't I buy it?" O_o

...but I did not speak out, because I was not silent*.

*(I am a gun-hugging windbag).

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/gun-loving-florida-mom-shot-by-4-year-old-son-hours-after-bragging-he-gets-jacked-up-to-shoot

If only she had a gun to defend herself from future attempted carjackings.

just curious, what is the argument for silencers, from the perspective of people who love guns and claim they want them for self-protection? is it so that if there are multiple attackers in your home, you can go from room to room (after detecting the intruders with your advanced recon eq and donning your nightvision goggles, of course) taking them down one by one without the others hearing and fleeing, so you can achieve a 100% kill rate?

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, March 9, 2016 8:15 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they don't really work all that well. the sound of a gun being fired is always pretty loud, even with the suppressor collecting all the gas that's vented. i think in a building interior there's still no mistaking a gun being fired. most of the benefit is protecting people's ears!

ironically in some countries guns are *required* to have suppressors, for sound-pollution reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZU5TGljAmw

they don't really work all that well. the sound of a gun being fired is always pretty loud, even with the suppressor collecting all the gas that's vented. i think in a building interior there's still no mistaking a gun being fired. most of the benefit is protecting people's ears!

ironically in some countries guns are *required* to have suppressors, for sound-pollution reasons.

― goole, Wednesday, March 9, 2016 12:16 PM (47 minutes ago)

i get that it might be second-nature if you're from gun country but one thing i really wish is that lefties would't cede rhetorical ground by using industry-approved terms like "suppressor" or "long gun"

Dick enhancer

Muzzle muzzle

serious question - what would be a better term for "suppressor"? "silencer"? if so why would that be better?

because it's the more common lay term and evokes a sense of criminality whereas "suppressor" is the industry-approved euphemism. words can be powerful. conservatives made "partial-birth abortion" a common term and no doubt that terminology helped pass that law

interesting, i hadn't thought of silencer as implying more criminality - i thought the distinction was just bc silencers are not really silent (but they do suppress).

i mean typically when people think "silencer" they think like, james bond and hit men, no?

i guess - i think of video games immediately. but i don't know that james bond associations are necessarily a negative.

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/30/silencers_the_nras_latest_big_lie/

Good history of silencers here.

kevin i think your objection -- and specifically the comparison to "partial birth abortion" -- are way off

one thing i wish is that lefties didn't sound totally ignorant when they talk about guns! like not knowing what caliber means or the various contextual meanings of "automatic" or using really meaningless categories like "military" or w/e

"suppressor" afaik isn't an industry-approved marketing euphemism, it's what the things are really called and always have been. and as far as the connotations go, it's letting you know that the gun will not be silent. "silencer" is a longtime marketing term, and a hollywood-ism.

"PBA" was completely made up by prolife activists of course.

i don't get the objection to 'long gun' either. "shotgun and/or rifle" is like x2 the letters

serious question - what would be a better term for "suppressor"? "silencer"? if so why would that be better?

― Mordy, Wednesday, March 9, 2016 12:42 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Murdershusher?

xp. just seems to lump a huge variety of weapons, some of which are old rickety bolt action rifles, some of which are civilian versions of rifles used by the army to shoot people, under the vague term "long gun"

seems weird doh

the whole point is to lump things together, it's a broad category. as i understand it the meaning is "he had a gun (and it wasn't a pistol but we don't know what it was specifically)"

in a lot of video games you can hold one long gun and one short? gun at a time. apropos of nothing.

like they conflate shotguns with assault rifles with sniper rifles etc

My brother recently bought another handgun (with a gift certificate I gave him....)

Given the concept of just buying guns from a depsartment store blows my mind anyway, all I can imagine here is he's popped into IKEA and purchased a PJISTÄL.

20 years today since this happened:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre

The Labour government that got in the next year banned handguns in the UK due to this outrage.

There has only been one mass-shooting in the United Kingdom since then.

Ditto here, and technically we've had none (since Port Arthur), tho there's been a couple of grey-area cases where 1-2 people were killed,and that siege in martin place.

My father has many hunting rifles that he hasn't touched in decades. He just likes having them. He's never really been a gun nut though, just like having them around?

i had heard of Port Arthur but never really knew what happened. jeez i don't recommend reading about it before bed, i think it gave me a nightmare. also one of the few incidents like that where i think "hmm yeah maybe it would have been good if someone else had been packing heat that day..."

http://i.imgur.com/mH7AUrg.jpg

James City County, Va. - NewsChannel 3 spoke exclusively to the man who police say shot and killed a person inside of a Farm Fresh.

NewsChannel 3 sat down with the suspect, 55-year-old Brian Hicks, Monday morning inside the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail to try and get insight into what unfolded inside the Farm Fresh Supermarket in James City County.

Police said Hicks shot and killed 34 year-old Gabriel Maness, but it's unclear why.

NewsChannel 3's MaKenzie Walter asked Hicks, “Do you feel badly about what happened yesterday?” He said, "Yes, I do."

She said, “Are you apologizing for what happened yesterday?” He said, "Yes. I feel so bad."

Hicks said God told him to commit the crime and called himself God. He also spoke in a British accent and referred to himself as John Lennon.

Police said Hicks and the victim did not know each other and there didn't seem to be an argument before the shooting.

The retired Air Force veteran was armed with a .45 caliber hand gun and had two other magazines in his pocket, according to law enforcement.

Police said he opened fire inside the supermarket on aisle six. They said there is no surveillance video of the shooting.

"I was in the spirit. I was in confusion. The spirit of confusion," Hick said, “Your God, my father, made me kill my best friend.”

At one point in the interview Hicks got on his knees to pray.​

Police said they spent the day continuing to interview witnesses.

They said Hicks was two hours from his home, so they are trying to figure out what brought him to James City County.

Police said they arrested Hicks soon after the shooting. He put his gun down in the supermarket and surrendered.

http://jezebel.com/several-children-reportedly-injured-at-elementary-schoo-1787194310

This is one of those cases - maybe the only case, ever - where I will say it: READ THE COMMENTS.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C44_PrpUoAA2iJt.jpg

huh, didn't see this coming:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/21/appeals_court_holds_second_amendment_doesn_t_protect_assault_weapons.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/27/us/oklahoma-three-dead-home-burglary/index.html

i mean i get the self-defense thing a bit here but....idk. hmm.

The homeowner's family is saddened that their son had to take three lives, Mahoney said.

jesus christ

hard to think of circumstances under which in a reasonable world the shooter would not be charged with manslaughter or murder. maybe if the three were lunging at him simultaneously with their knife and brass knuckles

btw it appears the getaway driver, who was not present in the house, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder. that is insanity

yeah that law is fucked, I read about it last year. it's been used to pin murder on people in the most absurd of scenarios.

castle doctrine is so ingrained now that pretty much everybody accepts you can plug a dude that walks into your house. I had a friend who had an invader actually break his screen door and walk into his house with his full family there, he merely chased him off without a weapon.

I'm not saying there's not a valid reason to shoot an invader but I would wager a guess that after one individual was shot, the other two weren't trying to become Jackie Chan. would be interested to see if any of the victims were running when they were shot.

yawn

I know two dear friends who have had family members killed during home invasions in the last two years. I wish they had been armed. IDGAF about these dudes who got shot, they deserved it.

(and yes, I know that those guns are more likely to be used on a family member, just that this particular instance seems like a particularly useless test case for liberal outrage)