The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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)

Why US liberals are now buying guns too

i think we have to hold our ground in these cases. these are the sorts of scenarios NRA types use to defend the right to possess firearms.

"we"?

and yeah those getaway driver charges are bullshit, agreed

xp we had a whole thread on this phenomenon right after the election. i get why people think is the correct personal decision (even though i strongly disagree) but i will never support an individual's right to own a gun

"we" meaning liberals, anti-gun advocates, whatever. ilx has swung way left over the past 5 years, not an unsafe assumption

yes I am aware that we will never agree on this issue.

I think u mean "way center" w/r/t ILX, but ymmv

FYI most hard leftists are OK with armed self-defense.

thing is this guy *was* armed and presumably had the upper hand when he killed his invaders.

I admit I would give benefit of the doubt in the case of a home invasion and it isn't as much "feeling sorry" for these guys (though they were just teens), as much as not being a fan of vigilante justice

yeah the Che Guevara types but that's cos they're always plotting to overthrow somebody

if the three invaders had guns themselves.....i'd probably let that one go

this was self defense during a home invasion, not vigilante justice meted out on some poor person in public. I hear ya on the "not a fan" thing, though, and I generally agree.

and there was probably no way for the homeowner to know whether or not these dues are armed, those are the risks one takes when planning a masked home invasion/robbery I guess.

-dudes-

personally I don't need no gun cos I already *spit hot fire*

saying ilx has swung hard left is maybe not precisely correct -- we essentially have no one (american) left who is by any reasonable, non-internet measure a moderate or conservative, but the shift has definitely been more pronounced on issues of identity (for lack of a better term, and i don't necessarily mean this in a negative way) than it has on pure policy. but yes, in general ilx has gotten more liberal over the last several years, and this includes gun-rights discussions, in my experience

xp it seems pretty unlikely that fatally shooting, with a shotgun, three unarmed people was strictly speaking necessary, but we will never know the actual facts of the case because the principals are dead. saying three teenagers "deserved it" is pretty sick regardless imo

this was self defense during a home invasion, not vigilante justice meted out on some poor person in public. I hear ya on the "not a fan" thing, though, and I generally agree.

and there was probably no way for the homeowner to know whether or not these dues are armed, those are the risks one takes when planning a masked home invasion/robbery I guess.

^^ yup

i have no plans to ever own a gun but if someone were to break into my house i wouldn't be above trying to take them out by any means necessary to ensure the safety of myself & my loved ones

the story made me (*steeples fingers*) very interested in how this all came to pass but obviously home invasions are terrifying scenarios to put it mildly, the worst case scenarios are kinda horrific and my middle school librarian and her husband were murdered in a specifically targeted home invasion by their high school daughter's psycho ex bf. A bit different than the random In Cold Blood type scenario but still...

These guys might have been high on some shit and acting pretty deranged, who knows. I do find it all pretty interesting, just curious to see how it plays out in the end. I do think that charge against the girl is bullshit.

IDGAF about these dudes who got shot, they deserved it.

I hate to get all Gandalf here but fuck this "deserved" bullshit. If the crime they were in the process of committing is not punishable by death then lethal force is not an appropriate response by anyone, homeowner or otherwise.

And before anyone asks, yes, my house has been broken into when I and my wife were in it. Asleep.

presumably the reason why ppl in gun-bearing countries are so afraid of home invasions compared to over here is that yr worried the invaders are armed

yup

meant it more in a "people who do really stupid shit deserve the potential consequences" Darwin Awards IDGAF way than an actively prejudiced "bad, unworthy people" way but I am just so so tired of discussing this issue with ILX and defer to Tombot and gbx who have made excellent points upthread that can be boiled down to "most of ILX really doesn't get this issue"

yr logic there applies to cops, sure, but not to someone resisting a masked home invasion IMO. I would certainly have assumed they were armed.

this thread is so long & US-centric I haven't waded through a lot of it, but there are two quite different discussions: whether it is better when private gun ownership is introduced in countries where it doesn't exist, and the US-style one taking place here about the practicalities of removing them once they're established.

would/have any ilxors made a case for the US situation being preferable to e.g. the UK?

i think most of ilx "gets" the issue just fine. you could use the same argument for any conservative belief that stems from a particular upbringing/way of life. doesn't make it right

there's a lot about this story that just weirds me out, i guess. like i think it's pretty unlikely that three teenagers seeing a dude walking towards them with...

http://files.harrispublications.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2015/03/ar15-tw-m15-ruger-682x382.1426183524.png

...would do anything other than run away.

The trio allegedly forced their way into the residence through a back door and were killed after exchanging words with Peters, who fired multiple shots.

i don't know, of course. only five people know for sure and three of them are dead.

I'd still rather be murdered in my own home than own a gun.

...would do anything other than run away.

I wonder about the one whose body was in the driveway.

Does castle doctrine still apply if the intruders are running away?

You generally have to believe you were in danger. There have been cases where people have been convicted of murder for killing people who were running away or already too injured to pose a threat.

there are also cases where the opposite is true, or where castle doctrine has been extended even to cover a neighbor's property (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Horn_shooting_controversy)

seems like it depends on the state and ,as usual in the US justice system, the homeowners race vs the race of the "intruder" (in quotes because sometimes the intruder isn't an intruder at all)

The two other variables tend to be whether the belief that you were in danger has to be reasonable and whether you can, as in the case of the Joe Horn shooting, leave somewhere safe and confront the intruders while still claiming self-defence - but yes, there is a huge racial element to the way the law operates that makes it particularly dangerous to unwaiveringly back the right to shoot with few questions asked.

here's a murky example for you:

My cousin had a high school friend who had a neighbor who was harassing his mother through criminal vandalism. Slashing her tires, defacing property, etc. It was upsetting her greatly and I guess nothing ever happened to the kid because nobody could "prove" it was him to the police, and the dad was doing nothing about it.

In a particularly ill-advised move, the son dressed up in all black one night and entered the neighbor's yard. It's been about 12 years since he told me the story so I have forgotten what the friend was doing, but he was not armed. I believe he was trying to surreptitiously plant a camera overnight to catch him in the act.

Dude's father caught him in the yard, believing him a prowler, and shot him dead right then and there.

Now - do we think THAT was an acceptable reason for shooting? Obviously, the friend was trespassing, and being decked out in black doesn't exactly do much to convince a homeowner you're not a thief. But it was in his yard, not in his home. Since he's dead, nobody can say for sure what happened, if there was any confrontation on the lawn, etc. The friend was definitely not armed, though, just holding a camera/camcorder.

In that case, Stand Your Ground and not 'castle doctrine' is what granted the shooter immunity from prosecution. My cousin admits it was a terrible idea on behalf of his friend, who definitely broke the law himself and created a murky scenario, but stated his friend was doing it because authorities or the next door boy's parents had failed to act to protect his mother.

Obviously home invasions of the kind k3v posted above are different but really want to see this talked out.

that story is cited here though zero details are given, just a brief mention: http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20120711/in-arcadia-varied-opinions-on-law

I'd still rather be murdered in my own home than own a gun.

― softie (silby), Wednesday, March 29, 2017 9:00 AM (four hours ago)

call me crazy, but i skew a little towards gun ownership if those are my only choices