27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[devogue]

lol + raise you 20 dead children

and a half-eaten foetus.

in your cold dead hands.

and your cold dead children at my feet.

This isn't funny anymore.

Agreed. I didn't realise I would end up with a mental image of my children lying slaughtered at the feet of an American pro-gun nut, but there you go.

[tattuchu]

And the killer's mum (now deceased) was a gun enthusiast herself, and stockpiled guns with a survivalist mentality. You know. For protection

[Coito ergo sum]

Apparently, the killer pre-planned the murders because he thought his mother was going to send him to a psychiatric facility for treatment. He stole the guns, shot his mother, and proceeded to the school - which he thought his mom loved more than she loved him -- where he killed a bunch of defenseless children and adults.

[devogue]

Apparently, the killer pre-planned the murders because he thought his mother was going to send him to a psychiatric facility for treatment. He stole the guns, shot his mother, and proceeded to the school - which he thought his mom loved more than she loved him -- where he killed a bunch of defenseless children and adults.

Why couldn't she have loved Pat Robertson?

[Coito ergo sum]

I wonder if adopting Norway's gun control regime would work?

They allow citizens to own guns -- you have to set forth a need for the gun, but hunting and sport shooting are both legitimate needs, and if you say you're going to hunt or sport shoot, you can have rifles and such.

Would doing what Norway does be sufficient for the anti-gun folks? Or, is Norway's regime of allowing private citizens to own guns a crazy, gun-nut culture?

[Kristie]

Agreed. I didn't realise I would end up with a mental image of my children lying slaughtered at the feet of an American pro-gun nut, but there you go.

He's more like a pro-guns with tight restrictions Canadian. Still, that little banter went one post too far, IMO.

[mozg]

Has exactly the same functionality as the scary looking black rifle that you're calling an 'assault weapon'.

You know nothing about firearms if you wrote that in earnest.[/quote]

I know a hell of a lot about firearms.

That is functionally identical to the constantly demonized AR-15.

They are both semi-automatic rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO. There's not one difference between the two of them that affects rate of fire or ballistics.

Let me point out 4 essential features which deliver greatly different functionality:

1) The foregrip
2) The pistol grip
3) The collapsible stock
4) The length

None of those things affect functionality in the slightest, let alone deliver 'greatly different functionality'.

A vertical foregrip doesn't have any effect whatsoever on the overall length of the firearm at all. It's an add-on accessory that some people choose to use because they find it more comfortable when target shooting for long periods of time.

The pistol grip also has nothing to do with the ballistics, rate of fire, or accuracy of the firearm. It's a matter of the shooter's personal choice regarding hand position. I shoot both pistol grips and non pistol grips with the same accuracy.

The collapsible stock doesn't affect functionality at all. Yeah, you can make the rifle a little bit shorter. Great. That 3.5 inches is really going to turn that rifle from a giant piece of metal into some easily concealable tiny thing you can just shove into a pocket. The overall lenght of the rifle with that stock extended is 35.5 inches. Collapsed it's 32. You can buy a rifle with a fixed, non collapsible stock that's six inches shorter than that and as long as it's brown and made out of wood, people don't shit their pants about it being an evil assault rifle. Hell, you can put a shorter stock on that Mini 14 and get its overall length down to 26 inches if you want.

Length? Well, like I said, the minimum overall length for a long gun without having to do all of the federal class III paperwork and getting the fingerprints and waiting six months and having a tax stamp is 26 inches for every long gun. That means every semi-auto, bolt action, lever action, single shot musket, pump action shotgun, double barrel shotgun, single barrel shotgun, and muzzle loader has to be at least 26 inches in overall length and a minimum of 16 inches barrel length. The difference in barrel length on my AR and my .280 is a whopping 2 inches, which offers absolutely no significant 'close quarters' advantage at all.

I thought we had pretty much agreed that banning military style weapons would not achieve much.

That ten yer experiment from 1994 to 2004 demonstrated quite clearly that banning so-called 'assault weapons' had absolutely no measurable impact upon crimes commited with firearms whatsoever.

Handgun ownership is defensible on the grounds that it is one of the most effective means of self-defence. Assault weapon ownership is not.

If you're going to make the argument that what you call assault weapons are suitable for military purposes, then the SCOTUS decision in Miller is very clear. They are exactly the kind of firearms the Second Amendment protects, as their ruling in Miller was that the only reason his sawed-off shotgun was not protected by the Second Amendment was that they had no evidence presented to them that the sawed-off shotgun had a military purpose.

So the more strenuously you argue that my AR-15 is a clearly militarily purposed weapon, the more you are arguing that it absolutely is protected by the Second Amendment.

I wonder if adopting Norway's gun control regime would work?

Of course it did. That's why there has never, ever been a mass shooting in Norway.

Body counts are always higher when the victims are defenseless.

[Woodbutcher]

So, everybody should be armed at all times. It would make for some interesting flash crowds. You can keep your gun worship in the States then. We'll see you in the news. You did say before that a few mass murders should not hinder you from gun ownership. Seth said anyone is allowed to carry until proven insane. Gallstones worships Seth. What a fucking trio.

[Coito ergo sum]

Everybody good with Norway's gun laws? If so, they sound good to me. 33 guns per Norwegian citizen out there, and they have hunting and sport shooting weapons, and some strict regulations on the amount of ammo and all that, and the kinds of guns. I did a quick read through Norway's law and it seems quite reasonable. They didn't ban guns. They regulated them well.

[Tyrannical]

So, everybody should be armed at all times. It would make for some interesting flash crowds.

We call them "gun shows" in the States. Not only is everyone there usually armed, they even sell more guns there!
The only interesting part is watching people getting upset when dealers refuse a sale. No wanton violence like and cowboy gun slinging though

[Tyrannical]

Everybody good with Norway's gun laws? If so, they sound good to me. 33 guns per Norwegian citizen out there, and they have hunting and sport shooting weapons, and some strict regulations on the amount of ammo and all that, and the kinds of guns. I did a quick read through Norway's law and it seems quite reasonable. They didn't ban guns. They regulated them well.

33 guns per Norwegian citizen? That can't be right. Maybe 0.33 guns per person

[Coito ergo sum]

Everybody good with Norway's gun laws? If so, they sound good to me. 33 guns per Norwegian citizen out there, and they have hunting and sport shooting weapons, and some strict regulations on the amount of ammo and all that, and the kinds of guns. I did a quick read through Norway's law and it seems quite reasonable. They didn't ban guns. They regulated them well.

33 guns per Norwegian citizen? That can't be right. Maybe 0.33 guns per person

Yes, I did misstate -- it's 33 per 100 citizens. Norway is 11th in the world in per capita gun ownership. Other than that pesky Anders Breivik mass shooting, they do pretty darn well in terms of keeping violence down. Two more European countries - Serbia and Switzerland, are 2nd and 4th in per capita firearm ownership. Finland and Sweden are 8 and 10. Iceland is 15th. The only Scandinavian country that isn't in the top 15 is Denmark, which is 54th, with 12 guns per 100 citizens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_ ... by_country

The US is far and away number 1, though. That's an interesting statistic. But, I wonder where it comes from. 88 guns per 100 citizens. I wonder if there are small numbers of people that skew the stats up -- like folks with 100 guns or more as collectors and such. I guess, though, that maybe gun owners in the US like to get another gun once they have one. Or, they'll have a rifle and a handgun and such.

Given the ease of getting guns in Norway and Sweden, though, something must account for the lower per capita gun ownership in those places. I have a sneaking suspicion that "price" has a lot to do with the reduced "demand" for guns. Just my initial hypothesis. But, in the US, guns have traditionally been really inexpensive, relatively speaking. Even today, when I was pricing rifles and shotguns and such, a pretty good gun is not that much money, and people in the US tend to have more discretionary income than Yerpeeins. We have lots of toys here -- bigger houses, bigger and more cars, more stuff in the houses -- more guns. We have more money here, per capita, than in most countries, so a guy interested in guns will have the capacity to buy more of them.

[mozg]

Everybody good with Norway's gun laws? If so, they sound good to me. 33 guns per Norwegian citizen out there, and they have hunting and sport shooting weapons, and some strict regulations on the amount of ammo and all that, and the kinds of guns. I did a quick read through Norway's law and it seems quite reasonable. They didn't ban guns. They regulated them well.

I'm not good with Norway's gun laws. I'm actually thinking we here in the US need to get rid of a few of the more ridiculous ones (like those that create defenseless victim zones) and move on with life.

If you like Norway's laws so much, move to Norway.

[Tyrannical]

The US is far and away number 1, though. That's an interesting statistic. But, I wonder where it comes from. 88 guns per 100 citizens. I wonder if there are small numbers of people that skew the stats up -- like folks with 100 guns or more as collectors and such. I guess, though, that maybe gun owners in the US like to get another gun once they have one. Or, they'll have a rifle and a handgun and such.

The better stat is percentage of households that own at least one gun. Gotta know who is defenseless

There are many people that like to buy guns with a capital Plural.
I worked with one guy that had around 20 guns, but his main thing seemed to be ammo hoarding. Seriously, what do you do with 10,000 rounds of 9mm? When ammo prices started to spiral up, he gave his wife standing orders to buy a few hundred rounds at Walmart whenever they had it in stock. Why buy Gold when you can buy lead I guess
The other gun nut I work with has 30+guns and buys two or three a year. Would be a lot more if the wife let him.

[Coito ergo sum]

Everybody good with Norway's gun laws? If so, they sound good to me. 33 guns per Norwegian citizen out there, and they have hunting and sport shooting weapons, and some strict regulations on the amount of ammo and all that, and the kinds of guns. I did a quick read through Norway's law and it seems quite reasonable. They didn't ban guns. They regulated them well.

If you like Norway's laws so much, move to Norway.

No thanks. I'm an American, and as such I am not required to agree with or like current legislation. Nor do I have to leave the country if I advocate a different regulatory scheme. If you don't like that, you are welcome to leave.