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[Strife26]

Was there a point to that, or was it just nonspecific complaining about gun ownership or restriction thereof being an emotional issue?

[mainiac]

Was there a point to that, or was it just nonspecific complaining about gun ownership or restriction thereof being an emotional issue?

I said it was based on empty emotional appeals.  You said I was attacking a strawman.  Someone posts an empty emotional appeal.  I point out it's an empty emotional appeal.  You ask why I would point that out...

[smjjames]

Patently illegal under American law standards, going back to the strict scrutiny test. The rest of the Commonwealth abandoned the personal weapon part of English Common law some time ago. The result is that they have no legal reason not to ban whatever weapon they want. I'd argue it's a dangerous and bad idea in general (but the virtues of an armed versus an unarmed society is such a sociology self masturbatory cluster of a discussion, it's not one that's especially useful to have), but it ain't my country unless some really cool opportunity pops up to get me to emigrate from the States.

Look, IS there a way to compromise somewhere? So maybe England isn't the place to look, but what about elsewhere? There has to be some sort of compromise in order to get anywhere with solving the problem.

You said yourself that dirtbags like the Oregon shooter shouldn't have had those guns, so, how do you propose to go around doing that while preserving rights?

[Strife26]

Create an additional narrow restriction to gun ownership for individuals with mental health problems, as a subset to an improved mental healthcare system for the entirety of country (which would also be a subset of trying to improve the giant clusterfuck of a twisted market that is general healthcare). This mental health problem list would require carefully maintained in regards to patient  transparency as a component of  medical records (as well as the required privacy requirements, which will be a fun balancing act) to make it clear to affected individuals when they are placed on it and the steps that have to be taken off of said list.

I would also be willing to provide a cursory background check to private  transfers of firearms, provided that there is a clear system to ensue that information is not saved. I think that a phone call based system would be appropriate for it.


As long as I'm listing things, I'd do a serious gutting and rewrite of ATF regulations, but coming up with a good proposal for that would take me at least a fair bit of research and drafting work, so I'll leave it a hypothetical. At the least, I would greatly extend the ability of people to get cool weaponry without gunsmithing licences, probably combined with a registry system for the very energetic things. Destructive devices, collector weapon qualifications, and any other weapon would all get significant retooling as well.



I'd strongly consider doing something about state and local ordinances that are effectively "shall not issue" but that's really more a matter for the Judicial branch to strike down as they go, as part of continued incorporation tendencies.

Edit: fixed some instances of wording poorly

[smjjames]

Aren't the 'very energetic things', that is, explosives, already well regulated for good reason?

Among other things (though if you guys still want to talk about gun control, that's fine), Chaffetz (who's running for the House Speaker position) wants to put the debt default and shutdown on the table. http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/05/politics/jason-chaffetz-house-speaker-race-confrontational/index.html

I don't know if he is just going to use the debt default as a 'this is what will happen if we don't decide' thing or actively push for a debt defaut, but wanting to push for a default will be a massive mistake. He does have a point on not wanting to raise the debt ceiling without changing the trajectory, but a default isn't the way to do it.

What McCarthy has said he is going to put on the deal, I have no idea.

[Lord Shonus]

Aren't the 'very energetic things', that is, explosives, already well regulated for good reason?

Not exactly. While military or construction grade explosives such as trinitrotoluene or Composition 4 are quite well regulated, there are a great many explosive substances that can be obtained with great ease because their primary use is peaceful - the two best known examples being ammonium nitrate and liquid natural gas. It is nothing short of a miracle that mass killings are not carried out with explosives more often - getting ahold of a decent-size truck and packing it with a pretty nasty bomb would cost a similar amount to what some of these killers spend on guns, and have far nastier results. The 1995 Oklahoma City bomb would probably have cost less than 10-20k had McVeigh not simply stolen most of the ingredients, and that killed 163 people when detonated in the wrong spot.

[Culise]

Aye.  That said, this isn't always true when you look globally.  Multiple governments, including China, Germany, Ireland, and Afghanistan, have banned ammonium nitrate fertilizers for precisely that reason, though the US is not among that list.  Attempts at regulating it have tended to fall prey to the farmers in warm states and (especially) the last two fertilizer manufacturers who still supply them, since the best alternatives are more chemically volatile - not in the sense of being explosive or unstable, but in the sense that more of the nitrogen vaporizes instead of being released into the soil.  The closest the US has come is in tracking sales through corporate self-reporting, which has its own obvious issues.

[mainiac]

There was a great documentary on that called Breaking Bad.

[Grim Portent]

There was a great documentary on that called Breaking Bad.

We need a like button, cause this made me chuckle. 

[scriver]

Well, Sweden just moved hand grenades to the "weapon" list from the "fireworks" list, so you're not alone in that line of thought.

[smjjames]

Edit: Nvm, read what scriver said backwards.

Why were they in the fireworks list though??? lol

[scriver]

It's more of an "all explosive things go here" group but it had the effect that the punishment for using hand grenades against people was not worse than mishandling of fireworks. Which allegedly is part of the reason why Swedish gangs have developed the habit of lobbing grenades at each other rather than using guns - the sentences are much shorter. Turns out that while grenades are super good at scaring common people they aren't actually that good for targeting individuals the way guns are, so most of the grenade incidents have been without casualties, though. But it became a big enough problem for the government to eventually go "duuuuurr... Moibbe we shodd treat grenoids liek any otha weppin" and change the laws.

[redwallzyl]

It's more of an "all explosive things go here" group but it had the effect that the punishment for using hand grenades against people was not worse than mishandling of fireworks. Which allegedly is part of the reason why Swedish gangs have developed the habit of lobbing grenades at each other rather than using guns - the sentences are much shorter. Turns out that while grenades are super good at scaring common people they aren't actually that good for targeting individuals the way guns are, so most of the grenade incidents have been without casualties, though. But it became a big enough problem for the government to eventually go "duuuuurr... Moibbe we shodd treat grenoids liek any otha weppin" and change the laws.

you can throw grenades at people in Sweden and get a misdomener?

[darkrider2]

It's more of an "all explosive things go here" group but it had the effect that the punishment for using hand grenades against people was not worse than mishandling of fireworks. Which allegedly is part of the reason why Swedish gangs have developed the habit of lobbing grenades at each other rather than using guns - the sentences are much shorter. Turns out that while grenades are super good at scaring common people they aren't actually that good for targeting individuals the way guns are, so most of the grenade incidents have been without casualties, though. But it became a big enough problem for the government to eventually go "duuuuurr... Moibbe we shodd treat grenoids liek any otha weppin" and change the laws.

you can throw grenades at people in Sweden and get a misdomener?

Dear lord I'm hoping to all gods that this gets brought up in one of those Facebook "sweden's gun-related deaths are so low!" postings. TWIST ENDING: their grenade-related deaths are through the roof... or not, apparently.

[mainiac]

"duuuuurr... Moibbe we shodd treat grenoids liek any otha weppin"

Sweden can greenskins into social democracy?  Explains the vikings.