GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, OR DO THEY?

[HairOfTheDog]

I think Gunnar was comparing homicide rates in Australia before and after the national gun restrictions took effect, user.

He's right. The homicide rate held pretty steady after the national restrictions took effect, up until just a few years ago when it started to decline.

He's right that some criminals intent on committing violent crimes turned to knives instead too. Knives are now the number one murder weapon in the country, though guns remain the number one weapon used in attempted homicides and number two used in homicides (illegal gun trafficking and black market sales are challenges for law enforcement in Australia).

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/...Offences~9

[Blindgreed1]

I think Gunnar was comparing homicide rates in Australia before and after the national gun restrictions took effect, user.

He's right. The homicide rate held pretty steady after the national restrictions took effect, up until just a few years ago when it started to decline.

He's right that some criminals intent on committing violent crimes turned to knives instead too. Knives are now the number one murder weapon in the country, though guns remain the number one weapon used in attempted homicides and number two used in homicides (illegal gun trafficking and black market sales are challenges for law enforcement in Australia).

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/...Offences~9

Yep.

[HairOfTheDog]

Could it be possible that the murder rate has remained the same after the guns were removed from the equation because people no longer feared encountering a armed victim when the decided to commit a crime. Ok lets just say I want to rob someone of their purse and know they wont be armed. Then they resist so I beat them to death. Its still a death/murder and it may not have happened if the bad guy thought there was a chance that their victim could have ben armed.
Fuck, I almost confused myself with that question.
Just thinking outloud.

I think that's possible, F.U.

It's also possible that bans/restrictions are mostly respected by law-abiding citizens and gun owners; not criminals or would-be criminals. Most criminals will continue to possess guns illegally or turn to other weapons. You and others have stated such many times before and that contention seems to hold true when you look at the homicide ad crime rate statistics before and after bans in U.S. cities and in other countries (unless guns are banned altogether).

I support banning automatic weapons in the U.S., though they don't appear to be used much in crimes these days (let's keep it that way).

I also support banning 100 round cartridges and the like, which I don't see as necessary for anyone but are appealing to mass murderers (like Holmes).

Tightening up and expanding the background check system for gun purchases, more consistency in states' reporting into NICS, national gun regulations applied to all states, national child safety protection regulations, dedicated national research/ tracking/ and reporting of gun violence statistics, strict prosecution of all gun-related crimes everywhere in the country, and a license or certificate of competency requirement for all citizens who want to bear arms <-- all gun control/safety measures which, in my opinion, would prevent some intentional and unintentional deaths and likely stymie some mass murderers. Those are laudable goals that help improve public safety without infringing on the right to reasonably bear arms in self defense or for other reasons.

But, based on historical gun control results, no gun controls are likely to significantly impact the overall homicide and violent crime rates unless there is a simultaneous/strong law enforcement effort in every state to eliminate illegal trafficking and black market sales.

Personally, I think poverty is a significant contributor to crime, gun crime and all crime. If the U.S. effectively reduced the poverty rate, crime rates would likely be reduced in correlation (more directly than the correlation between gun control and crime rates). That's just my opinion.

[Blindgreed1]

Miss the point much?

Just ignore him, he's been slapped around by the tard brush.

The thing is with that mass shooting you refer to, in that case the person WAS actually mentally ill too. So if that person had been medicated or properly supervised in the community, this may have prevented that tragedy you refer to. Now he is locked up for life and many lives ruined including his own.

Can you imagine Australia if we did have the 'right to bear arms'? I mean, going out on a Friday night would be impossible, or even shopping centres. What about car parking/road rage? Especially at Christmas time. It is crazy here, if you put arms into the equation, it would be chaotic.

A man wearing a Darth Vader-like mask and armed with a sword went on a rampage at a Swedish elementary school Thursday, killing a teacher and a student.The attacker died later of gunshot wounds inflicted by police who rushed to the scene, authorities said.

[Donovan]

The problem is the glorification of violence in all its forms. As long as we're ok with nuking the shit out of a home problem placed before us, the western culture is going to remain violent. And don't think that comment excludes the Australians, whose xenophobic and violent history isn't nearly far enough back for you to be lining up for the high horse ride.

We are a violent race, plain and simple. We like to kill the ever - loving shit out of each other in as many different ways possible, and when we run out of ways we invent new ones. Until we get a handle on that basic impulse, that greed, that need for attention and tendency toward wanton cruelty, it doesn't matter whether we have zero guns or a million each.

I watched a horrifying documentary via Netflix on the genocide in 1960's indonesia, an act perpetrated by gangsters who had US support in which over a million Chinese nationals and Communists were murdered.

Few guns. The gangsters, who now basically run the country as a corrupt personal piggy bank, describe bragging how they killed using twisted wire garrotes, bricks, machetes, table legs, whatever was handy. The name of the show escapes me but it was horrific.

My point is that a violent culture, whether affluent or dirtpoor, will find ways to commit violence on a massive scale. They just use what tools are available to them.

[Blindgreed1]

The problem is the glorification of violence in all its forms. As long as we're ok with nuking the shit out of a home problem placed before us, the western culture is going to remain violent. And don't think that comment excludes the Australians, whose xenophobic and violent history isn't nearly far enough back for you to be lining up for the high horse ride.

We are a violent race, plain and simple. We like to kill the ever - loving shit out of each other in as many different ways possible, and when we run out of ways we invent new ones. Until we get a handle on that basic impulse, that greed, that need for attention and tendency toward wanton cruelty, it doesn't matter whether we have zero guns or a million each.

I watched a horrifying documentary via Netflix on the genocide in 1960's indonesia, an act perpetrated by gangsters who had US support in which over a million Chinese nationals and Communists were murdered.

Few guns. The gangsters, who now basically run the country as a corrupt personal piggy bank, describe bragging how they killed using twisted wire garrotes, bricks, machetes, table legs, whatever was handy. The name of the show escapes me but it was horrific.

My point is that a violent culture, whether affluent or dirtpoor, will find ways to commit violence on a massive scale. They just use what tools are available to them.

Apparently we're both retarded and are completely missing the point because that is exactly what I'm smoking. It's the culture that needs to change. Not the tools.

[HairOfTheDog]

My point is that a violent culture, whether affluent or dirtpoor, will find ways to commit violence on a massive scale. They just use what tools are available to them.

I get your point.

I think poverty contributes to a violent culture. Unfettered power and greed can too. There are undoubtedly (in my mind) many other contributors to violent crime as well.

Fortunately, we don't have a tyrannical government, not in my view at least. But, we do have too many people living below the poverty level, in my view at least.

Of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the U.S., in terms of violent crime per capita, 8 have poverty rates above 20%. The other two cities are just under 20% and still far above the national poverty rate. ( Ref: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/15...64864.html ) That's not proof of causal relationship, just an example to support what is, in my opinion, a correlation.

Anyway, some tools/weapons used to inflict violence, in rich or poor hands, are easier and more efficient means of threatening/killing people and causing accidental death than others - guns being at the top of that list.

So, while I agree that better gun safety/control measures will not eliminate violent crime, I do think that some additional gun safety/control measures and better enforcement will prevent some intentional and unintentional deaths of non-criminal U.S. citizens. That's a worthwhile pursuit, in my view.

[HairOfTheDog]

BIG BUST



Chesterfield County, South Carolina Sheriff Jay Brooks said deputies made a startling discovery at the Pageland home of ^ Brent Nicholson, 51, who has been charged with possession of stolen property. “There’s like 150 chainsaws, probably 250 to 300 taxidermy mounts, somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 stolen weapons,” Brooks said.

The sheriff said that almost all of the weapons were shotguns and hunting rifles and that it looked like Nicholson was hoarding guns others had stolen for him. There was no indication Nicholson was a gun trafficker, he said. The guns may have been stolen from North Carolina homes and hunting clubs. Nicholson's home is near the state's border. There was no indication Nicholson was a gun trafficker, he said.

“There were so many guns we quit counting after a while,” the sheriff told the paper. Also found were crossbows, ammunition, tools, air compressors and 4-wheelers that authorities also believe were stolen. The weapons and the loot were hauled away in four 40-foot tractor-trailers.

Nicholson had been charged earlier in the week with selling opium and heroin in Union County. Deputies in that case went to Nicholson’s house on Friday to serve him with a subpoena.

They found chainsaws and a welder “in plain sight” on the front lawn that had been reported stolen only days earlier, according to press reports. The deputies knew because they had written the stolen property reports.

“They went to a judge and got a search warrant and went back to the house and found literally thousands of guns,” Brooks told The Observer. “They secured the scene and called everybody in. We’ve been there ever since and we’ll probably be working on this into next week.”

Brooks said Nicholson has a “lengthy record,” according to the newspaper.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/25/sou...warehouse/
------------------------------

Hell of a haul for law enforcement.

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Read this in the paper today, thats one hell of a lot of hardware

[crash]

A man wearing a Darth Vader-like mask and armed with a sword went on a rampage at a Swedish elementary school Thursday, killing a teacher and a student.The attacker died later of gunshot wounds inflicted by police who rushed to the scene, authorities said.

Two people were killed. Remind me what happened at Roseburg, Maryville, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech (and all the others) again?

[HairOfTheDog]

That Swedish swordsman was able to stab 4 people in more than 10 minutes, killing two of them before police arrived and shot him to death.

It's very likely that he'd have been able to shoot many more people than that in the same amount of time. You can't stab people who are running at least a blade's distance ahead of you or stab through doors easily. The killer entered through the cafeteria which was completely open to the public. Now, Swedish authorities are considering beefing up school security.



The killer is said to be a ^ 21 year old local who identified with Nazi propaganda. The school he chose had a high percentage of immigrant students and authorities are investigating whether the right-wing anti-immigration movement within Sweden contributed to what they believe was a "racial hate crime". There have been several attempted arsons at asylum camps recently too.

The student he killed was a Somalian immigrant. The teacher's assistant who was killed told students to run and tried to overpower the killer.

The killer left a note indicating that he'd planned the attack and expected to be killed himself. The last school attack in Sweden was in 1961, when a 17-year-old man opened fire at a school dancehall in the south-western part of the country, wounding seven students, one of whom later died.

Violent crime is rare in the country, which has strict gun-control laws. In 2013, there were 87 homicides reported in Sweden, a country of about 10 million people.

Story: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oc...for-double

[BlueTiki]

You did miss the point. You can't kill masses of people at once with knives and baseball bats, you can only do that with guns.

You're mistaken.

I'm hoping the point you were trying to make is that a firearm is more efficient than other hand-held implements, to obtain mass casualties.

If not, here a few examples of mass casualties with "bladed" implements.

All of these occurred in China during a three year period. Unfortunately, many of the details were censored by the Chinese government . . . some speculate to prevent copy-cat incidents.

2010

—A forty-one-year-old man stabbed an unknown number of students in an elementary school. Eight were reported to be killed.

—A thirty-three-year-old man stabbed sixteen students and a teacher in an elementary school. Death toll unknown.

—A forty-seven-year-old man stabbed twenty-eight students, two teachers, and one security guard in a kindergarten. Most of the students were four years old. Death toll unknown.

—A man (age unknown) armed with a hammer attacked children in a preschool. He then committed suicide by dousing himself in gasoline and setting himself on fire. The number of injured and killed is unknown.

—A forty-eight-year-old man, armed with a cleaver, attacked a kindergarten class, where he murdered seven children and two adults and injured eleven others.

—A twenty-six-year-old man slashed more than twenty children and staff at a kindergarten, killing three children and one teacher.

2011

—An employee at a child-care center (age unknown), armed with a box-cutter, slashed eight children, all aged four or five. Death toll unknown.

—A thirty-year-old man, armed with an axe, murdered a one-year-old and a four-year-old and four adults who where taking their children to a nursery school.

2012

—A thirty-six-year-old man hacked and stabbed an elderly woman and twenty-three children at an elementary school. It was reported that, due to immediate trauma care in three different hospitals, none of the victims died, although some were seriously injured, with fingers and ears cut off.

—A seventeen-year-old man stabbed to death nine people and wounded four others with a knife in China’s Liaoning Province following an argument with his girlfriend.

And here's one from Japan:

In 2008, a thirty-seven-year-old man entered an elementary school in Osaka , Japan, armed with a kitchen knife. He murdered eight children and seriously wounded thirteen other kids, along with two teachers.

And to illustrate the "gun-free" Utopian land of Oz . . .

A study, done by Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi of the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, at the University of Melbourne, concluded that the “results of these tests suggest that the NFA [the 1996– 97 National Firearms Agreement] did not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates.”

A second study, done by Jeanine Baker of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia and Samara McPhedran of the University of Sydney, and published in the British Journal of Criminology, reached a similar conclusion: “Homicide patterns (firearm and non-firearm) were not influenced by the NFA, the conclusion being that the gun buy -back and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia.”

One final note on the agreement’s impact on Australian crime.

Armed robberies exploded after the new laws, from about 6,000 in 1996 to around 10,000 between 1998 and 2001 , before declining to pre-buyback levels in 2004. BTW - More government funding was made available for additional police forces, in 2003.

In other words, fewer guns resulted in more armed robberies and roughly the same number of murders— not exactly a shining example of the Utopian society that awaits all of us if only we’d agree to ban semi-automatics and high capacity mags.

[sally]

Well I wasn't including the Orientals because they're fast on their feet and can take out a room full of people with just a set of nunchucks.

[BlueTiki]

[SIXFOOTERsez]

Well I wasn't including the Orientals because they're fast on their feet and can take out a room full of people with just a set of nunchucks.

Asians, Orientals is for furniture and carpet

And those little bastards are fast

[HairOfTheDog]

Another Local Attempt to Reduce Gun Violence in Chicago - Straw Purchase Crackdown on Gun Shops

The village of Lyons on Tuesday took a step toward keeping guns out of the wrong hands, approving an ordinance aimed at cracking down sales to straw purchasers.

The ordinance comes about three months after anti-violence activists filed a civil rights lawsuit demanding three suburbs do more to stop guns from reaching the streets of Chicago.

Straw purchasers have clean records that allow them to get an Illinois firearm owner’s identification card. With a FOID card, they can buy guns for people banned from owning them. They sign a federal form saying they’re the “actual” buyer when they really aren’t.

Lyons expects to be dropped from the suit since the ordinance fulfills many of the lawsuit’s demands.

The village’s ordinance will require Midwest Sporting Goods to undergo at least two random inspections by Lyons police and the Cook County Sheriff’s police. The store will have to pass an inspection for an anti-theft safety plan that will include exterior lighting, surveillance video cameras, alarm systems and the safe storage of weapons and ammunition.

It will also require the store to provide information on legal FOID cardholders who are denied purchase of a gun to Lyons police within 48 hours. And the shop’s employees must undergo background checks.

The store also must share with Lyons police any “trace” information about prospective illegal gun purchases it already is required to send to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or the Illinois State Police. The store must also maintain a “do not sell” list, and record all people who buy multiple guns within a 12-month period, according to the ordinance.

Lyons and the Cook County Sheriff’s police will work collectively in doing inspections and sharing documents. The store’s business license could also be pulled if there are more than two violations of regulations, the ordinance said.

Full story: http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/10...-purchases

[BlueTiki]

The village of Lyons on Tuesday took a step toward keeping guns out of the wrong hands, approving an ordinance aimed at cracking down sales to straw purchasers.

The ordinance comes about three months after anti-violence activists filed a civil rights lawsuit demanding three suburbs do more to stop guns from reaching the streets of Chicago.

Straw purchasers have clean records that allow them to get an Illinois firearm owner’s identification card. With a FOID card, they can buy guns for people banned from owning them. They sign a federal form saying they’re the “actual” buyer when they really aren’t.

"The suit claimed Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, Midwest Sporting Goods in Lyons and Shore Galleries in Lincolnwood — along with Westforth Sports in Gary, Indiana — accounted for nearly 20 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes in Chicago between 2009 and 2013."

I'm tickled this is happening.

However, this is another example of criminals circumventing existing laws.

NO . . . and I mean NO current or proposed piece of legislation will prevent this from happening again.

It's odd that Obama didn't mention this "fact" (the 20 percent recovered guns) during his speech on Monday.

He left me with the impression that Indiana was Chicago's go-to gun source, for criminals.

I say prosecute every one of the fuckers who acted as straw buyers to the fullest extent of the law . . . NO FUCKING PLEA BARGAINS!

Straw buying should be both a federal and state felony.

What disturbed me the most, in the article, was the "new" requirement that employees will be required to be background checked.

FFS!

I can't believe this isn't already a requirement.

[HairOfTheDog]

^ I feel the same.

I think cracking down hard on straw purchases will keep some guns out of the wrong hands, but certainly not all of them. Prosecution of straw purchasers should be stricter too.

Gun dealers should be screening would-be purchasers according to the laws; this is the second story I've read recently where a large percentage of guns used in crimes came from the same gun shop and were purchased primarily by straw buyers. Those types of shops give reputable dealers a bad name.

I'm curious, from his experience, if F.U. feels this new Lyons ordinance would be a good thing if replicated in/near other problem cities.

[F.U.]

It looks like a good thing at first glance and a lot of that already happens.
We, as a example, have random inspections already. We already have video cameras, security systems and exterior lighting. It wouldn't take a bit of work to figure out a safe storage setup since we have over 500 guns in stock, but I think it would be worth looking at.

When it comes to info on those denied purchase, the ATF already follows up on that after a NICS denial. So I am not sure what would be gained by informing the local LEO.

The do not sell list I would have to hear more on to make a decision about.
The notifying on people that purchase multiple guns in a 12 month period is crazy in my eyes. There is already a multiple purchase form that we must fill out and send in [most people don't know about this] if a person buys more than 1 handgun in a week. Anything more than that would just be to much paperwork in my eyes. For instance. Before I got my first FFL there was a year that I actually bought one firearm ever week for a year. That's a lot of paperwork!

[HairOfTheDog]

Thanks F.U.

I think the provision about 'multiple guns' is very broad and could be unnecessarily cumbersome too. A specific and reasonable number/boundary should be set.

Maybe the multiple purchase from you use now is a state, rather than federal, requirement?

I do like that straw purchases are becoming a topic of higher focus when it comes to gun control/safety. I like anything that potentially stops a violent crime before it happens, even if it therefore never makes the stats.