Obama considering an executive order on gun control (Page 3)

It depends what level of government we are having that debate, the State or Federal level. What is good for San Francisco isn't good for Northern Maine.

Edited: because I can't do basic grammar and approve company bills at the same time.

Should I just have said jumbo shrimp, minor catastrophe, military intelligence...?

Personality tests taken during numerous corporate retreats revealed that I am pragmatic and optimistic. I bailed from the corporate world

But you know what I am trying to say.

Two wrongs don't make a right. 

Same thing happens in IL, TX, NY, FL, etc.  Essentially a state is regulated by what happens in the largest city in that state.  Hell, that pretty much happens in other countries too. 

All I have is what's been introduced to this point as well as what Feinstein has said.  With those, pretty much every gun I own would have to be registered and confiscated upon my death.  Also, with the type of registration that is being thrown around it would make any semi-auto declared as a fully auto is today.  This would require permits to cross state lines with multi-month waits for permission effectively rendering them useless for anything but home defense.

Obviously Sandy Hook was terrible and nobody on either side of the debate ever wants that to happen again.  However, I feel very strongly that nothing being proposed to date would have had any effect on it happening or prevent another tragedy like that from occurring again.

And there is NO CORRELATION between tragic shooting rampages and loose gun laws.  Some happen in states with liberal gun laws (VA).  Some happen in states with strict gun laws (CT).  Tightening the laws will NOT reduce these tragedies.  Only the elimination of all firearms would achieve this.

Do you think they would have any effect on minimizing the overall damage instead?  So instead of 26 dead it would only be 20.  Or 10?  Or just a few?  Just curious.

You make interesting points as to the limit of weapons covered by the 2A.

The only part I take issue with is the AR15 being a gun whose primary purpose is military use. It is not used in any military anywhere in the world. The M4 is, the AR15 looks like an M4 but is very different, ie no selective fire option. We have limited the use of military weapons in that it takes money and paperwork and a very long wait to get an M4. The AR15 is no different than a Ruger 1022 in function, it just looks more scary. Heck even my dad's hunting rifle, a 30-06 is semi automatic and can hold 5 rounds, it is definitely not used by any military.

Also I don't fully agree that a citizenry couldn't defend itself from a tyrannical government with small arms. Look at any of the rebellions in the middle east, look at our efforts in Afghanistan. There is a big advantage to knowing and using the terrain as well as the advantage of fighting in urban settings which usually tones down the weapons used by the government.

Take Idaho for instance. We have a large military presence in the Air Force base 30 miles outside of the capitol city and a large National Guard installation in the capitol city. There are enough civilians and soldiers loyal to the constitution around here to easily overthrow those installations and thus gain access to heavier weapons. 

Yes this is all a huge hypothetical. But I wouldn't discount a well civilian armed populace from being able to put up a very good fight. The AR15 would be a very good tool in that instance, as well as the normal self defense and target shooting uses, while still not being a "military use" weapon. 

In that instance even if he had a bolt action rifle I think it would be over 20. In other things like the movie theater shooting it might make a bit of a difference but people would have still been injured. As sad as it all is should they ban or limit the Simi auto rifle? I personally don't think so and don't think it will make much of a change for the number of incidents.

No.  These attacks are planned.....they don't run out of ammo. 

Limit the magazine capacioty to 10?  No problem.......I bet I can change mags in under 5 seconds....or switch to another gun (most carry multiple weapons)

If someone wants to kill alot of people, they will prepare to kill alot of people....that's the idea in their warped brain.

Really?  American Revolution.  French Revolution.  Both of those worked out pretty well.

It is estimated that the US military has 3 million firearms (2 different sources agreed on this #).

There are an estimated 300 million private guns.

While I don't want to get off onto tangents of "who would win" there are a lot more private citizens than military personnel.  Really it's an absurd notion.

It's not a argument of who has the most, best guns.  It's like the M.A.D (mutually assured destruction) of the 1960s-1980s.  Merely having the weapons deters any radical actions by the government.

The mere act of defying an (currently mythical) order to turn in guns is a powerful statement.

Would make zero difference.  The only reason these people stop is when they decide to stop themselves or when somebody with a gun shows up.  In a defenseless area like a school, he could take all the time he needed to change magazines and he did.

“Lanza changed magazines frequently as he fired his way through the first-grade classrooms of Lauren Rousseau and Victoria Soto, sometimes shooting as few as 15 shots from a 30-round magazine, sources said.”

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/newtown-sandy-hook-school-shooting/hc-sandyhook-lanza-earplugs-20130106,0,2370630.story

Magazine capacity was a complete non issue in the tragedy, yet that is the number one thing everybody wants to ban.  It literally takes a second to change a magazine.

that made me laugh. 

I for one do not. Take the following video as an example. The world record for shooting 12 shots out of a 6 shot revolver is under 3 seconds. So he shot 6 times, unloaded, reloaded and shot 6 times again in under 3 seconds with a revolver. 

Now obviously not everyone is a speed revolver shooting expert like this guy. But go uber conservative and say it takes a normal person 15 seconds to do the same thing. That is still close to one shot per second. 

In the CT example the guy shot himself before any LEO or anyone else intervened. IMO he had plenty of time to kill 26 people with or without a semi auto gun. 

IMO what does work is armed resistance to a shooter. IE the Oregon mall where an AR15 was used but only 2 died. Not that any MSM wants to show it but the reason he only killed 2 people is a concealed carry permit holder drew on him so he ran away and shot himself. 

Here is the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLk1v5bSFPw

Believe it or not, I'm actually open to changes that will help.  I just don't think any of the proposals that have come out so far will help in any way.

I'm ok with expanding the background checks to have better access to mental health.
I'm ok with gun show background checks, but I honestly don't think there's any way to implement it.
I'm ok with penalties for not keeping your guns locked up that results in theft.

But magazine size is an easy thing to go after as it has been done before and is currently done in some states. So some can push for it and others can cave on it to save face. 

But what happens when the next school gets shot up? What do we cave on then? That is the plan I believe. They can't confiscate guns overnight, but 20-30 years down they road they can make it a lot different than it is now. Slow bites at liberty. 

I struggle with what would be effective as well. Sure background checks at a gun show sound good, but how is a private seller going to comply with that? And how would you enforce it anyway? Instead of gun shows it would just be parking lot shows. Also I don't like the requirement to list the gun and serial number. How bout just a person check but no info on the gun being purchased is documented. That would alleviate the registration for future confiscation concerns.

One thing I wonder about is requiring training for open carry as well as concealed carry. I don't like the idea of restricting a constitutional right, but at the same time I recognize that not everyone was raised around guns and properly trained with guns. 

I recently participated in a concealed carry class and there was at least one person that I was very uncomfortable with them having a gun. No respect for it and no idea how to properly handle it. IMO they required a lot more training before I would be comfortable around them. But if it is in their home what is the worry to me? So perhaps training to carry open or concealed but do what you want in your home?

But the reality is none of this would stop what happened in CT. I have no idea what would aside from locking people up at the first sign of mental instability, which is obviously not going to work either. 

I guess I'm unaware of the roles of militias in the French Revolution.  In fact, a common argument of the founders for the need for 2A was that European rulers kept their populations unarmed and supposedly this kept them from overcoming tyranny.  The French Revolution seems to prove them wrong although it should also be noted that the French Revolution did not end in a free state, it ended in a different tyrannical rule by an emperor this time so I don't know if I'd call that successful.

If like you say, it doesn't matter who has the most, best guns (merely owning a weapon is all you need, capability doesn't matter) when it comes to defying tyranny, than a ban on military style weapons such as the AR-15 should be fine as long as everyone has say, a bolt action .22, right? 

But those militias were made up of individual citizens with their own weaponry coming together to form a cohesive resistance group.  Most were not trained soldiers as I recall.

The fact that the militias were made up of individual citizens though is why I have a hard time squaring how you could have any sorts of restrictions at all. If 2A is meant as a last defense against state power, than means that all of the other protections of the BOR are gone and any type of restriction, even on military hardware is handicapping the ability to resist against a strong oppressor.  But if you allow restrictions, say on military style weapons like in Heller, you're basically saying that it's all symbolic.  You're allowed to fight against tyranny but only up to a point and the real defenses against oppression lie in the other amendments.

The US had far fewer muskets than the British.  Also the British has cannons, the equivalent of today's machine guns (one shot multiple kills).  Both are examples of the under-armed populous overthrowing the current government.  That's the only point I was trying to make.