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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Lord Shonus]

Just as a basic example, one such incentive could be a discount on ammunition. Make the discount large enough, and registered persons would buy significantly more, stressing the supply. Stretching the supply makes the price go up, until getting ammo without a registration discount is nigh-impossible. Alternatively, the incentive could be acces to milsurp ammunition, which is a major source for people shooting foreign weapons or dedicated shooters that buy in bulk. So suddenly to fire your SVD or Makarov, you have to pay massive premiums on the small import supply, reload the relatively small quantities of brass you already have, or hope a domestic manufacturer starts making and selling your preferred obscure cartridge.

There is an extremely good argument for not requiring mandatory safety classes. All a state such as California would need to do to introduce an outright gun ban would be to simply make the safety classes impossibly rigourous, impose excessive fees, or simply underfund the program so much that there's no classes available. It is far, far too easy to abuse.

As for reducing "media fetishism", you're talking about putting restrictions on what is shown in the media in order to advance your perception of a better society. In other words, it is advocacy of Censorship For The Greater Good, which is probably the most obscene concept in human history.

[10ebbor10]

So, basically, the argument is that since you might not be able to deal with the problem properly, you should ignore that it exists?

[GavJ]

Just as a basic example, one such incentive could be a discount on ammunition.

1) I said incentives for handing guns in, not for registration. I didn't mention registration at all, in fact.
2) Even if you are talking about registration, what sort of ridiculous plan is it to incentivize gun-regulating programs by subsidizing ammo?! "In exchange for helping us de-escalating your gun arsenal, we are going to give you something you can ONLY use to escalate your gun arsenal..." Lol? If you were going to pay money for registration (not that I find that to even be a very wise approach in generla), you'd simply go cut a check to registrating people at most, not go out of your way to feed it back into armaments!

Re, safety training, you guys have already managed to rack up a whole basketful of strawmen in just two posts:
* Didn't say anything about government classes
* Didn't say anything about state funding
* Didn't say anything about curriculum being left to states
* Didn't say anything about states or municipalities being allowed to decide on availability or distribution.

Both of us said safety training not gov. classes. Government classes might be one source. Private companies can potentially provide training too, possibly even private individuals depending on what sort of test or accountability you desire. Etc. etc.

The fact that there might be some physically possible way to do something to fit a biased agenda if carefully engineered that way is not an argument against the obviousness of a general concept.

Such as the obviousness of reasonable safety training to be allowed to own and operate specially designed killing machines. Equally as obvious as requiring flying lessons for airliner pilots, or driving tests for driving licenses.

As for reducing "media fetishism", you're talking about putting restrictions on what is shown in the media in order to advance your perception of a better society. In other words, it is advocacy of Censorship For The Greater Good, which is probably the most obscene concept in human history.

Um, we were talking about culture... paranoid much?

[Strife26]

So, basically, the argument is that since you might not be able to deal with the problem properly, you should ignore that it exists?

No, the argument is effectively that fucking around with 2nd amendment rights is not something to be done lightly

[GavJ]

is not something to be done lightly

It's almost like you have some other browser window up and everything is in response to some whole other conversation nobody else can see.

Nobody suggested taking it lightly. Clearly any legislation has to be carefully thought out, and would have loopholes and problems if some complete moron penned it. That's true of any legislation about anything! It doesn't need to be explicitly mentioned that "oh and this law shouldn't be written by an idiot in 45 minutes"

[Lord Shonus]

Ok, let's look at things from a broader perspective. THe gun control lobby in this country is well known for spewing rhetoric such as "Weapons nobody should have, ever", label every gun owner as a delusional, murderous psycho, and are well-known for basing campaigns on distorted data (one study in the 90s that was key to the introduction of the "assault weapon" ban proved to be entirely made up), and outright lies about what sort of weapons are on the market. Multiple cities, and at least one state, have already used the exact same chicanery I described to ban large categories of guns de facto even though they don't have the support (not to mention the legality) to ban them de jure. You are describing a system that makes such deceptive practices extremely easy, while billing it as a way to sneak gun control in over time. And you wonder why people who don't support gun control in the first place view it with extreme suspicion.

[GavJ]

You are describing a system

Nobody has as of yet described any system, actually. Which is why you have no idea whether the hypothetical systems we haven't described make anything easier...

If gun owners don't want people to think that they are wingnuts, maybe gun owners shouldn't start flipping out in response to something as simple and utterly reasonable as "There should be safety training for extremely dangerous machinery," prior to ANY other details about it being discussed.



Edit: By the way, "it's not what the people want" is BS:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/24/577091/nra-members-agree-regulating-guns-makes-sense/
several of the things explicitly mentioned here are supported not only by most gun-owning citizens, but even by most NRA members...

If you're talking about things that are more neutral and controversial like concealed carry in general being allowed, well then no, people don't clearly want anything / people are very split. But reasonable, common sense, obvious things like safety training and closing background check loopholes, etc. are very favorably polled across the board.

(for a much more comprehensive and neutral, although more boring questions: http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm Of especial interest is around 2/3 support for licensing/registration/even fingerprinting in one poll, and around 80-85% support for background checks, even a majority in favor for between family members in one poll)

[lordcooper]

Actually Ferguson did happen in the UK. Remember the London riots? Those riots started because at the time there were unconfirmed media reports of the police pinning down a black youth suspected of carrying a firearm and shot him in the head in police custody.

Not all police in the UK are unarmed - there's various units and dedicated squads and all sorts that carry guns. In Glasgow Airport the police have semi automatic rifles and you regularly see cops walking around sensitive buildings in London with MP5s.

To throw some actual numbers out, about 5% of police officers (around 6500) are trained to use firearms.  During 2010-2011 five guns were fired by police in the line of duty.  A 2006 poll showed that 77% or 82% (depending on which site you're reading, unfortunately the poll itself seems to no longer be online) of UK police officers were opposed to being routinely armed.

[Duuvian]

In Michigan when I was a youth you had to take hunter safety classes to get a youth hunting license. I didn't get the feel it was designed to discourage people from getting one at all. It actually seemed to be run by the sort of people who would like to see more hunters. It seems like gun safety classes, mandatory or not, would likely be organized and run by people who would like to see more gun owners.

As for public support waning a few months after mass shootings it's not really a surprise; there isn't a large industry funding and firing up the gun control side to protect sales. I'd imagine many of those people still support what they did initially, it's just that their focus had moved onto other things by then.

What GavJ said about the NRA policies on some matters opposing the majority of it's members should also be taken into consideration even by gun owning individuals such as myself. My dad, an outdoorsman who's only hobbies are hunting and fishing, previously used to be an NRA member. He is no longer though, and it's partially related to the link from GavJ, though he quit a few years earlier than the year of the story. I should clarify; when those sort of statistics came out it seemed to be positive affirmation for his decision rather than the cause, or in his words 'I'm glad I'm not a member anymore.'

[Sheb]

Re: public support, it is true that most people support some form of gun control, but those that support it don't care about it nearly as much as those that oppose it.

[Lord Shonus]

Edit: By the way, "it's not what the people want" is BS:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/24/577091/nra-members-agree-regulating-guns-makes-sense/
several of the things explicitly mentioned here are supported not only by most gun-owning citizens, but even by most NRA members...

Let's look at the poll questions you linked to:

1. Requiring criminal background checks on gun owners and gun shop employees. 87 percent of non-NRA gun-owners and 74 percent of NRA gun owners support the former, and 80 percent and 79 percent, respectively, endorse the latter.

2. Prohibiting terrorist watch list members from acquiring guns. Support ranges from 80 percent among non-NRA gun-owners to 71 percent among NRA members.

3. Mandating that gun-owners tell the police when their gun is stolen. 71 percent non-NRA gun-owners support this measure, as do 64 percent of NRA members.

4. Concealed carry permits should only be restricted to individuals who have completed a safety training course and are 21 and older. 84 percent of non-NRA and 74 percent of NRA member gun-owners support the safety training restriction, and the numbers are 74 percent and 63 percent for the age restriction.

5. Concealed carry permits shouldn’t be given to perpetrators of violent misdemeanors or individuals arrested for domestic violence. The NRA/non-NRA gun-owner split on these issues is 81 percent and 75 percent in favor of the violent misdemeanors provision and 78 percent/68 percent in favor of the domestic violence restriction.

Nothing in there about mandatory training for possession, any form of registration voluntary or otherwise, no ownership or ballistic database, in other words NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT YOU PROPOSED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Never mind that it was sponsered by an extreme anti-gun lobby group in response to the NRA promoting a law that required all states with concealed carry to honor those issued by other states or opposing legislation that would allow the government to declare any gun owner a terrorist and immediately arrest them for owning a gun (the entire reason why question #2 on that list exists.)

@Duuvian

There's a significant difference between requiring a safety class to participate in a heavily regulated activity such as hunting, and requiring a safety class to own something. The average person has ready access to plenty of things that have just as great (if not more) potential for accident as a gun, but we don't see people advocating for requiring liscences for ownership of space heaters, automobiles (liscences are required only to drive on public streets, simply owning the vehicle or driving it on private property does not require one), alcohol, or power tools, despite all three causing as much destruction due to recklessness as any gun. (For that matter, cars may  eclipse firearms in suicides (this is impossible to determine, because an unknown percentage of automobile suicides involve driving the vehicle into an obstacle at very high speeds, which is rarely distinguishable from an accident unless they leave a note).)

[Sheb]

Now, that's bullshit, yeah, technically you can own a car without a license, but in effect, since the purpose of a car is mostly to drive on public road, virtually all car owners requires a permit to use their car as they intend to. It's like requiring no license for owning guns but requiring one for owning ammo and pretending you didn't put a restriction on gun ownership.

[GavJ]

Shonus, in the second link:

"Requiring gun owners to register with the state or local government and provide a set of fingerprints"
= 66% Americans in favor, 33% opposed

if you'll then recall your own quote from earlier:

That's only a "good plan" if you agree that less guns is a good thing. For someone who considers weapon legislation as "light" as Canada's to be an abomination and a crime against humanity, they will look at that sort of plan and see exactly what it is, a prelude to much greater weapon restrictions, particularly any form of "voluntary" registration*.

So,
1) You believe that registration is a "much greater restriction" than safety training
2) 2/3 of Americans already support registration, even to the extent of fingerprints

You still want to argue that safety training wouldn't be supported by even a majority?

[Lord Shonus]

First, you seem to have edited that second link in while I was replying earlier, and I never saw it. I'm looking over the site now.

EDIT: Studies in the same general timeframes at that link show drastic differences depending on who ran the poll. This suggests flawed polling methods, as the majority were conducted by news organizations, most of which have well-known partisan leanings. Those polls conducted by universities tend to show a direct party-line split on the issue.

The specific quote in question was from a CNN news poll, with a fairly small sample size, and contradicts itself within the poll.

"Do you think the federal government should or should not use the information from background checks to create a national list of people who own guns and the kind of guns they own?"

 
44% Yes   55% No   1% Undecided.   


This strongly suggests poor polling technique (if the two questions were asked of different people) or badly designed questions (if they were addressed to the same group.) Either way, the poll is severely flawed. If you can find a more reliable poll to support the assertion, feel free to bring it up.

Note that a university poll from the same time period (and a month after Sandy Hook, when the drive for gun control was at a peak) found only 50% support for increasing regulation at all, and only 44% support for a sales-only database.

(There's plenty of polls there that show MUCH less support for gun control, but those come from sources which are likely to be heavily biased. Ive been focusing on the university studies because those aren't as likely to let their prejudices into the collection or analysis of data.)
Second, you've misinterpred me. I said that registration is a stepping stone to stricter regulation, not that it was stricter in and of itself.

[GavJ]

Well whatever. Despite not being able to find a poll asking EXACTLY the question relevant to our conversation in the thread, I think it's pretty blatantly clear from the various polls there that simple safety training for ownership would garner a majority of support from Americans.

Another example of something far more overt than that that still gets huge majorities of poll support:
"Do you favor or oppose creating a national database that would track all gun sales in the United States?"
78% yes   20% No   2% N/A

Also several different polls consistently show 90% or more approval for mental health problems precluding gun ownership, which would require medical records checks, sign release forms, possibly have screening or checkups in gray area cases, etc. and offers nearly as many "exploitable opportunities" as safety training...