Gun Violence Tracker (2 Viewers)

Obviously the conversation was about general violence but I'll entertain the diversion....

"Mass shooters" are what percent of total gun owners in the US?

I agree, the conversation is about general violence.

Your claim was that we "don't have a problem in this country with 'negligent gun owners'." Evidence shows that you are wrong.
 
I already know where this is going....is there an argumentative playbook that the NRA distributes to people like you?

Mass shooters are a small part of the gun owning population, that's true.

People wth STDs are a small part of the population. Does that mean we should just forget about condoms?

It's a stupid argument. The impact of the very small number of mass shooters is significant, both from an actual death perspective and general distrust and fear (it's one of the many reasons that other countries have started to put the US on their travel warning list).

Still no answer as to why gun deaths per capita are so fucking high here and so relatively low in Europe.
 
I already know where this is going....is there an argumentative playbook that the NRA distributes to people like you?

Mass shooters are a small part of the gun owning population, that's true.

People wth STDs are a small part of the population. Does that mean we should just forget about condoms?

It's a stupid argument. The impact of the very small number of mass shooters is significant, both from an actual death perspective and general distrust and fear (it's one of the many reasons that other countries have started to put the US on their travel warning list).

Still no answer as to why gun deaths per capita are so fucking high here and so relatively low in Europe.

I look at no playbook. My only "playbook" is reason, logic, and statistics. Rather I am well practiced in your playbook. I mean if you just watch the news you will see your points repeated for the last 25 years. You offer nothing new to the conversation

There are millions of cases of STIs in US every year. Worst analogy ever. Even if there were 10 mass shooters a year that would be less than one of every 10million gun owners (again, I'm talking psychopath type shooters, not gang land shootings of over 3 people that some organizations list as "mass shootings")
There are 106 cases in 100K of gonorrhea alone.

The travel warnings are political statements.
 
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I look at no playbook. My only "playbook" is reason, logic, and statistics. Rather I am well practiced in your playbook. I mean if you just watch the news you will see your points repeated for the last 25 years. You offer nothing new to the conversation

There are millions of cases of STIs in US every year. Worst analogy ever. Even if there were 10 mass shooters a year that would be less than one of every 10million gun owners (again, I'm talking psychopath type shooters, not gang land shootings of over 3 people that some organizations list as "mass shootings")

The travel warnings are political statements.

I live pretty close to the center on this topic, and from my perspective, both sides have been talking past each other with the same canned arguments for as far back as I can remember. I have yet to see anything new added to the conversation from anyone in this thread. I don't expect to see a meaningful change in gun laws or in the conditions that drive violence in this country in my lifetime. Despite this, it is the safest time in the history of the world to be alive today, and living in the US puts you near the top of safest places in the world to live today despite the gun violence.
 
Despite this, it is the safest time in the history of the world to be alive today, and living in the US puts you near the top of safest places in the world to live today despite the gun violence.

This is correct. However, I find it interesting that some seem only concerned with violence committed with guns rather than total violence......which is an issue in many countries with limited amounts of firearms.

BTW, total STI infections are 110M a year....1 of every three people....if you were wondering. My company is the market leader in manufacturing several of the assays to detect these things
 
This is correct. However, I find it interesting that some seem only concerned with violence committed with guns rather than total violence.....

This particular thread is "Gun Violence Tracker" and not "Total Violence Tracker".
 
This is correct. However, I find it interesting that some seem only concerned with violence committed with guns rather than total violence......which is an issue in many countries with limited amounts of firearms.

Do you show up to breast cancer 5Ks and yell at people about how they should be running 5Ks for all cancers?
 
I'd like to invest in a handgun vending machine. Insert your ID, it runs a background check and either approves or denies you. Then push button B3 for your pistol of choice.
 
I'd like to invest in a handgun vending machine. Insert your ID, it runs a background check and either approves or denies you. Then push button B3 for your pistol of choice.

I think you just got yourself a writing gig on Idiocracy 2.

Only catch is that the guns have to be Carl's Jr. brand guns.
 
Ahh man. I came for the Horseshoe sale, stayed for one of Meddler's gun control threads... Oh well. *Opens a Beer* Here we go...

Guns need to be registered in much the same way and for many of the same reasons that vehicles are registered. Public safety is only a part of the value of registration. There are other valuable benefits to a comprehensive registry of firearms.

Title and registration of a motor vehicle is part of the agreement you enter in with your state to in order to get access to public roads. If you have a vehicle on private property that will never use a public road, registration may be omitted in most states. In addition to that, 8 states do not require a title. It is possible to own a car in the US and operate it on private property without the knowledge of the government.

A better analogy would be licensing and registration of firearm owners who carry a firearm in public. In the interest of public safety, the state has a right to register and screen those would like to use that right in public. That's already being done. The difference here is that it doesn't associate a license holder with a particular firearm. The possibility of adding that to the license wouldn't be out of the question in my mind. The list of license holders is basically a de facto list of firearm owners, so having serials of carry firearms wouldn't be that much of a stretch.

How can we understand the mechanics of the flow of guns from legal manufacturing, through the chain of commerce into lawful public ownership but then into the hands of criminals without tracking via registration? I want to try and stem the flow of guns into criminal channels, especially focusing on the profit seeking suppliers of guns to criminals. Right now we have limited information at best.

I agree the we need to better understand how criminals obtain firearms. How about setting aside some money for the ATF to deep dive the abundance of trace data they currently have? Currently, some of the most cited statistics rely on inmate surveys (Table 2, pg 730), and how honest do you think they really are? We can effectively make the decision to implement a firearm registry without having a clue as to what the actual impact would be.

Lets say we take the inmate survey numvbers as fact. If we have 100% registration requirement, you may be able to cut down the cited 41% of purchases made friends and family, but what about the remaining 59% that remains unaffected. You'll never turn that 41% to 0%, so how much are we actually going to accomplish? Is it actually worth the burden an individual's protected right? Also, the problem with registration is that failure to register a firearm can not be used to prosecute a criminal. (Haynes v. United States)

How can owners gain proper insurance coverage for their guns without registration? The insurance companies are going to need to know what guns the citizen holds to properly price the insurance and to limit coverage only to the firearms registered to the insured party.

This one is easy. Do homeowners / flood insurance companies require you to have the serial numbers of all the appliances you lost when you made a claim? Not at all. Pictures go a long way in supporting an insurance claim. There would be a tremendous amount of overhead cost associated with maintaining a current list of insurable goods in the average household. I'm not sure why we would expect exceptional treatment for items that are similarly priced.

How can a gun owner expect to recover stolen property without some proof of ownership? A nation-wide registration would help reunite legitimate owners with their missing property.

Do you have three minutes and a file? Then you have a gun that is not traceable by registration. How about ten minutes and some steel wool? Twenty minutes and a paperclip? Removing serial numbers from a firearm is a trivial matter at best.

Registration is one of the ways we separate law abiding citizens from criminals. If you have an unregistered gun in your possession, then you are open to criminal sanctions.

Again, not possible with Haynes v. United States.

I advocate that accessories to gun related destruction and death to be held civilly and criminally liable. Negligent owners need to held to account but that is hard to do when we don't have a good way to prove who owned a gun in the first place. Registration is as much about fiscal responsibility as anything else. If one of the guns registered in your name ends up in the hands of a criminal or even an unauthorized user and damage results, then the registered owner would be expected to show their police report for the stolen weapon or expect to be subject to civil and/or criminal sanctions.

Negligent gun owners should be held liable for their actions. The issue is that criminal negligence of a firearm varies by state, and is not often defined as in a manner that compels prosecutors to bring cases. Cases require more effort, and prosecution offices with finite budgets tend to shy away from cases with high effort and modest effect. They could still do it if it were priority, but this is currently a case of not enforcing the laws we currently have. As far as holding firearms owners who have their firearms stolen liable, whats the point? The inmate study indicates that very few criminals use stolen guns. If the stolen gun was registered, the criminal cannot be charged with possession of an unregistered firearm. The only person that can be punished is the owner. Is it the owner's fault that it was stolen? How does the owner prove they were storing it properly?

Registration is needed to facilitate mandatory training and licensing. Gun permits need to be matched to the weapons the citizen is qualified to own. A citizen needs to have a license for each gun they own. Law enforcement can not effectively do their role in this type of regulation without a proper registration.

Commonsense gun safety and public safety benefit from good gun tracking. We need this data to make better informed decisions, to effectively enforce the laws of the nation and to facilitate fiscal responsibility.

The Canadian Firearms registry has been costly and ineffective. A US version would have to operate on a larger scale, so I am very hesitant to believe that we can accomplish more than Canada has with this approach. Law enforcement needs more tools, but I don't think the registry is a silver bullet.

I'd also like to say that we need the exact opposite of commonsense for gun control (or for any new law for that matter). Commonsense is "sound judgment derived from experience rather than study," What we really need is rigorous statistical analysis and evaluation to better understand the root causes of gun violence in the US. Only then can be begin to change our situation for the better. If we don't, then we're just wildly swinging a hammer around trying to hit a nail because it feels like the right think to do.

Now after typing out this detailed post, knowing firmly in my heart that nothing I say on the Internet will every change anyone's option, I'd like to thank you for stating your opinion and giving me the opportunity to respond.

Now, back to the pr0n...
 
What we really need is rigorous statistical analysis and evaluation to better understand the root causes of gun violence in the US. Only then can be begin to change our situation for the better. If we don't, then we're just wildly swinging a hammer around trying to hit a nail because it feels like the right think to do.
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This was the original reason I entered this thread. The problem is, the anti gun crowd isn't interested in actual statistics and facts or the root causes of violence. They simply dislike guns and this is an emotion based discussion.

Hence why the media and some people here ignore data sourced from places like the FBI and instead quote "data" from heavily partisan blogs like Mother Jones, Daily KOS, etc.

Instead of objectively looking at objective data and making a decision, the decision is made then data is looked for to support it. This "gun violence tracker" is the creation of a partisan group with dubious data points to supply support for the preconceived conclusions.
 
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Also, the problem with registration is that failure to register a firearm can not be used to prosecute a criminal. (Haynes v. United States)

Registration is one of the ways we separate law abiding citizens from criminals. If you have an unregistered gun in your possession, then you are open to criminal sanctions.

Again, not possible with Haynes v. United States.

This was a re-education for me. I remember reading Haynes in school years ago, but it was at a time when either I was as interested in debating the Second Amendment or it wasn't as hot a topic, so I don't know that I'd thought about it other than in the context of the Fifth Amendment implications.

I don't want to suppose that you're misreading the case because you are correct in your first statement above that it held that the government cannot prosecute a previously convicted felon for possession of an unregistered firearm, but your second statement might be misleading to someone reading this thread.

Haynes certainly does not stand for the proposition that the government cannot prosecute individuals for possession of an unregistered firearm. It is only prohibited from prosecuting a convicted felon for possession of a registered firearm, the rationale being that because a convicted felon is prohibited by federal law from possessing a firearm, to require him to register a firearm would be a violation of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

So to respond to DrStrange's statement that "If you have an unregistered gun in your possession, then you are open to criminal sanctions" that such a prosecution is "not possible with Haynes" is not accurate. There remain state and federal laws against possession of unregistered firearms.

(Fear not, all who want to crow about how this protects felons. The point is also made in the decision that this does not prohibit prosecution of the convicted felon based on the same facts. The prosecution would simply be for possession of the firearm by a convicted felon rather than for possession of an unregistered firearm.)

I'd also like to say that we need the exact opposite of commonsense for gun control (or for any new law for that matter). Commonsense is "sound judgment derived from experience rather than study," What we really need is rigorous statistical analysis and evaluation to better understand the root causes of gun violence in the US. Only then can be begin to change our situation for the better. If we don't, then we're just wildly swinging a hammer around trying to hit a nail because it feels like the right think to do.

I think we all reasonable people can agree on this, but the difference for a lot of us is going to come down to something you said above:

Lets say we take the inmate survey numvbers as fact. If we have 100% registration requirement, you may be able to cut down the cited 41% of purchases made friends and family, but what about the remaining 59% that remains unaffected. You'll never turn that 41% to 0%, so how much are we actually going to accomplish? Is it actually worth the burden an individual's protected right?

My view is that registration is the least substantial burden possible and so even the slightest value that it might provide to law enforcement and the slightest reduction in violence is clearly justified. I think even as we travel down the rational path in search of a solution, this divide will be the nub of most disagreements as one side will have a predilection against accepting any purported burden and the other will have a predilection against recognizing recognizing the burden as such.
 
A National registry isn't illegal because is burdensome. It's illegal for the government to "officially" keep a registry of firearms because it is directly in conflict with the intent of the 2nd Amendment
 
A National registry isn't illegal because is burdensome. It's illegal for the government to "officially" keep a registry of firearms because it is directly in conflict with the intent of the 2nd Amendment

2nd Amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

How is registering, or even keeping an "official" registry of fireams infringing this right?
 
2nd Amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

How is registering, or even keeping an "official" registry of fireams infringing this right?

If simply reading the text without any historical context for the creation of the law was all that was needed, why did this or any case ever go to court?

We have already had this discussion...several pages worth.
 
The Revolutionary War officer and Law Professor at William and Mary (also served on the VA Supreme Court) explained things this way:

"This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty .... The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorize the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty."

The main purpose of a registry, despite the reasons given, has always been to identify where all the guns are for future confiscation scenarios. An impossible scenario now but who knows what the future holds.

In 18th century Britain the excuse was to "preserve" wild game. In 21st Century America, it's to marginally assist law enforcement, even though most LE finds it pointless.

There is a substantial progressive push to reinterpret the Constituion...as evident on this thread. All we need after all to pack the courts with judges who dont believe people should have guns, right? That has been suggested here.
 
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Everything you quoted from the law professor addresses the government confining the right to bear arms. Nothing in what you just quoted makes the leap the keeping a registry will lead to infringing on that right.

You wrote the main purpose of the registry is to "identify where all the guns are for future confiscation scenarios". I agree that the purpose is to identify where the guns are (that is obvious) but see nothing that leads me to thing it will lead to a confiscation scenario.
 
The Revolutionary War officer and Law Professor at William and Mary (also served on the VA Supreme Court) explained things this way:

"This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty .... The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorize the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty."

The main purpose of a registry, despite the reasons given, has always been to identify where all the guns are for future confiscation scenarios. An impossible scenario now but who knows what the future holds.

In 18th century Britain the excuse was to "preserve" wild game. In 21st Century America, it's to marginally assist law enforcement, even though most LE finds it pointless.

There is a substantial progressive push to reinterpret the Constituion...as evident on this thread. All we need after all to pack the courts with judges who dont believe people should have guns, right? That has been suggested here.

I love that you chastise "progressives" for "reinterpreting" the Constitution and yet your position is that the 27 words of the Second Amendment don't mean what they say.
 
Everything you quoted from the law professor addresses the government confining the right to bear arms. Nothing in what you just quoted makes the leap the keeping a registry will lead to infringing on that right.

You wrote the main purpose of the registry is to "identify where all the guns are for future confiscation scenarios". I agree that the purpose is to identify where the guns are (that is obvious) but see nothing that leads me to thing it will lead to a confiscation scenario.

If one of the main points of the Second Amednement was to protect the peoples ability to defend themselves against the government, having the government have a list of where all,the guns are would be a conflict of interest.
 
I love that you chastise "progressives" for "reinterpreting" the Constitution and yet your position is that the 27 words of the Second Amendment don't mean what they say.

This is shocking to hear this comment from a lawyer. You know it's not that simple. After all, great discussion was made over what the meaning of "is" is.

According to progressives the Commerse Clause means all kinds of things it doesn't say.
 
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If one of the main points of the Second Amendment was to protect the peoples ability to defend themselves against the government, having the government have a list of where all,the guns are would be a conflict of interest.
If you felt the government was going to take away the guns, (which we have established is illegal) then yes, it would. be a conflict of interest. If the government is not going to take away the guns, then no, it would certainly not be a conflict of interest.
 
If you felt the government was going to take away the guns, (which we have established is illegal) then yes, it would. be a conflict of interest. If the government is not going to take away the guns, then no, it would certainly not be a conflict of interest.
But all we need to do is pack the court with the right kind of people and we can reverse anything, right?
 
This is shocking to hear this comment from a lawyer. You know it's not that simple.

According to progressives the Commerse Clause means all kinds of things it doesn't say.

If you want to have a separate discussion about the Commerce Clause maybe you should start another thread, but as it stands it's simply true that the text of the Second Amendment doesn't say what you wish it did. It prohibits infringement of the right of possession. Registration does nothing to infringe upon that right.
 
But all we need to do is pack the court with the right kind of people and we can reverse anything, right?

That still does not have anything to do with the fact that the 2nd amendment does not address gun registration or keeping a gun registry at all.
 

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