The Liberal Gun Club Forum

p0lyhuman wrote:None of what has been suggested here regarding the banning of various non-firearm parts, which are even easier to manufacture than firearms, would do anything to prevent another incident like this if someone were determined.

Did you all just discover that these devices exist? They have been sold for more than a decade and they have not been showing up at crime scenes as far as I know.

p0lyhuman wrote:Determined mass murderers with resources and no criminal record are exactly who will be willing to overcome whatever barriers are put up. I don't know what the answer is but trying to wipe a piece of plastic out of existence probably isn't it.

Mitch McConnell did not want to discuss gun control on Tuesday. The Senate majority leader shut down all talk of legislative remedies to gun violence after a man killed 58 people in Las Vegas on Sunday night and injured hundreds more, mirroring the Tuesday morning remarks by his GOP counterpart in the House, Speaker Paul Ryan. McConnell declared this is simply not the time to be talking about legislation targeting firearms. Asked if he could support a bill banning the conversion of semi-automatic guns to automatic guns being written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), McConnell responded: "The investigation has not even been completed. I think it's premature to be discussing legislative solutions, if there are any."

The GOP leader similarly parried when pressed on why Democratic efforts have failed to resonate with voters. Senate Democrats put forward a universal background checks bill in 2013 that won the support of four GOP senators but was filibustered by most other Republicans. They lost the Senate in 2014 and the effort has never regained steam. "It's particularly inappropriate to politicize an event like this. It just happened within the last day and half. Entirely premature to be discussing about legislative solutions if any," McConnell said. Finally, McConnell was asked whether converting semi-automatic weapons to automatic weapons should ever be legal, to which he responded that the investigation is ongoing and "at the end of that there will be an appropriate time to discuss that."

He then switched to more comfortable territory before ending his weekly press conference. "In the meantime, our priority is on tax reform. We're going to move ahead with that in the budget committee this week and it will be out on the floor after recess. Thank you very much," McConnell said. Earlier Tuesday, Ryan also dodged questions about legislation that would loosen restrictions on gun silencers by talking about the House's budget resolution, and saying the House has not scheduled a vote on the silencer legislation. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested that President Donald Trump is the only Republican that can break the logjam in the congressional GOP, and referred to earlier statements by Trump that suggested he could support some new safeguards on firearm purchases. "Let's hold him to that," Schumer said. "Break from the NRA, which is making things worse, and work with us to get things done."

Wino wrote: Please, anyone, spare me the normal bull shit comparing auto accidents, drug over doses, medical errors, knife/machete, etal causing more deaths than guns cause there is no correlation. What happened in Vegas, Sandy Hook, etc horror has no relationship to other methods of death.

CDFingers wrote:[
While i'm totally OK with registration and back ground checks, I'm not strongly enamored of a ban on anything. it's true that no one "needs" a bump fire stock. The "needs" argument is specious and should be suspect, as it calls up the slippery slope.

Nothing has changed since Newtown, and Congress is complicit in this unspeakable slaughter. If not now, when?

In Congress and across the country, every option must be on the table.

Every strategy to end these tragedies must be considered. #LasVegas

SailDesign wrote:

CDFingers wrote:[
While i'm totally OK with registration and back ground checks, I'm not strongly enamored of a ban on anything. it's true that no one "needs" a bump fire stock. The "needs" argument is specious and should be suspect, as it calls up the slippery slope.

Sadly, every time I see "slippery slope" my gut feeling is "You're wimping out!" It is a feeble excuse (with all due respect) for doing nothing.

I know I'm likely to be outspoken on this one - but it's the way I see it. I don't like anyone any less, just expressing my feels.

SailDesign wrote:

CDFingers wrote:[
While i'm totally OK with registration and back ground checks, I'm not strongly enamored of a ban on anything. it's true that no one "needs" a bump fire stock. The "needs" argument is specious and should be suspect, as it calls up the slippery slope.

Sadly, every time I see "slippery slope" my gut feeling is "You're wimping out!" It is a feeble excuse (with all due respect) for doing nothing.

I know I'm likely to be outspoken on this one - but it's the way I see it. I don't like anyone any less, just expressing my feels.

CDFingers wrote:<snippage!>

It is appropriate to talk about this stuff. Imagine all the folks who read these discussions who are guests and don't post. They should be able to see their ideas represented and also to see the cogent replies.

But we should not just pass a generic law to see what happens, so eelj's sarcasm is well taken.

CDFingers

An Australian man who came to know Stephen Paddock intimately in recent years has offered the most detailed public portrait yet of the Las Vegas mass killer. He said Paddock was a highly intelligent, strategic though “guarded” individual who won a fortune applying algorithms to gambling, and studied arguments for his right to own weapons under the US constitution. Their encounters came via their respective girlfriends, Philippine-born sisters – one of whom, Marilou Danley, has returned to the US to be interviewed by the FBI in the wake of Paddock’s meticulously planned massacre.

Their acquaintanceship, through more than half a dozen encounters in the US and the Philippines between 2013 and 2015, revealed Paddock’s generosity – which had his overseas guests living in “palatial” style – and the existence of a “gun room” at his home in Mesquite, Nevada. “Yes, I was familiar with him,” the man, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Guardian at his Brisbane home on Wednesday. “He was extremely intelligent, methodical, conservative – guarded – and strategic. A planning, thinking type of guy.”

But nothing at the time, including their “robust” discussions about US gun laws, rang alarm bells to suggest that he was capable of “such an inhumane, terrible, vicious act”. Investigators hope Danley can provide clues to unlock the motives that drove her partner to a premeditated onslaught that killed 59 and injured more than 500 at a country music concert. Paddock reportedly dispatched Danley to the Philippines and wired her $100,000 before carrying out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history on Sunday night. The Brisbane man said he met Paddock “on a number of occasions” in the Philippines, where the sisters’ family held reunions.

They also met up in in Reno, California, and in Las Vegas, where the man and his then partner stayed in extravagant accommodation courtesy of Paddock via casinos where he was a frequent and prodigious gambler. “We lived fairly palatially for quite some time,” the man said. “That was quite a lovely experience and he was a generous man.” The couples also met at the Venice Beach home of Danley’s daughter, who is a successful entrepreneur in Los Angeles. The man says he further spent time with Paddock at his apartment in Reno opposite a casino that was his regular haunt, as a well as “a fair degree of time” at the home Paddock shared with Danley in Mesquite, Nevada.

It was on that first stay in Mesquite that Paddock gestured in passing to his “gun room”. Its presence in the two-bedroom home made an impression on the man – who opposes the US’s lax gun laws – but he “didn’t pursue it” with Paddock. “His comments were that it’s a substantial hobby that needs to be protected: ‘a gun room’,” the man said. Paddock did not take him inside or show off his collection of weapons, “nor was I interested – it was left at that”. What did pique the Australian’s curiosity was Paddock’s way of making a living, “as I’d not met a professional gambler” before. Paddock was forthcoming in “great detail” on matters from his “float”, or cash gambling base, to his annual income, which was “very much well over a senior executive’s wage in the US”.

“And how he obtained that: the algorithms behind his methodology of gambling – only on machines, not on tables,” he said. The men came to have “robust conversations” about the second amendment of the US constitution and the right to bear arms. It is a debate the Australian said he had had many times – but Paddock’s grasp of the detail seemed superior to most defenders of the second amendment. “I’ve asked that question of many people I know from the US, and sadly enough, the answer is very similar in many ways: that people have this belief that the constitutional amendment is their right, with very little understanding of the content of that actual bill,” the man said.

“I think it’d be fair to say [Paddock] indicated to me that he certainly knew more than most.” Asked if he could reconcile what he knew of Paddock’s personality and his brutal acts in Las Vegas, the man said it was “unimaginable” to foresee this in anyone. “It’s not within my nature to see the activity that is generating this terrible loss and tragedy into the demeanour of any individual that I’ve met,” he said. “I could never really imagine that another human being could bring such an inhumane, terrible, vicious act upon any single soul – let alone the many hundreds and literally thousands of people that this horrible situation will impact for many, many years to come.”

Black markets and illegal acts exist everywhere, under every legal regime. I've written at length about the long history, not just in the United States, but around the world, of overwhelming defiance of gun laws. In recent years, Connecticut achieved an underwhelming 15 percent compliance rate when it attempted to require the registration of semiautomatic (not machine guns) "assault weapons," and New York's similar requirement resulted in 5 percent compliance (both addressed here).

After Colorado imposed a requirement for universal background checks on private sales, the results were unimpressive. "People are just ignoring this law," Colorado Sen. Greg Brophy (R-Wray) said.

Last word to NYU's Jacobs, from his 2002 book. Pointing to the long-term decline in violent crime—a trend that, despite recent blips, keeps crime rates far below the level of a quarter-century ago—he concluded, "Criminologists and policy makers should not be distracted by unrealistic proposals and slogans for 'gun control,' Rather, they should look to building on other anti-crime strategies and constructive social welfare policies that might be contributing to this unprecedented decrease of violent crime and gun crime."

SailDesign wrote:

CDFingers wrote:<snippage!>

It is appropriate to talk about this stuff. Imagine all the folks who read these discussions who are guests and don't post. They should be able to see their ideas represented and also to see the cogent replies.

But we should not just pass a generic law to see what happens, so eelj's sarcasm is well taken.

CDFingers

(boldness added)

Very true. Doing anything"just to see what happens" is stupid.

senorgrand wrote:If you want to avoid the "slippery slope" pitfall, just ask both sides what their limits are...what guns are OK and shouldn't be banned under any circumstances?

Sadly, the NRA seems to be more honest about their end game than do the gun prohibitionists.

TrueTexan wrote:

SailDesign wrote:

CDFingers wrote:<snippage!>

It is appropriate to talk about this stuff. Imagine all the folks who read these discussions who are guests and don't post. They should be able to see their ideas represented and also to see the cogent replies.

But we should not just pass a generic law to see what happens, so eelj's sarcasm is well taken.

CDFingers

(boldness added)

Very true. Doing anything"just to see what happens" is stupid.

Just to pass a law makes them feel good. Then let’s pass this as a law.

Require all EBRs (Evil Black Rifles for those that don’t know) to be painted hot pink and all fore-guards be exchange for ones that are black and shaped like a penis, also all magazines for such EBRs will be required to have the LGBT Rainbow painted on both sides.

Let them pass this as a law and then they can be happy.

TrueTexan wrote:all magazines for such EBRs will be required to have the LGBT Rainbow painted on both sides.

lurker wrote:imo, root cause mitigation is the only rational approach, but i'm not convinced it would have mattered in this case.

TrueTexan wrote: Require all EBRs (Evil Black Rifles for those that don’t know) to be painted hot pink and all fore-guards be exchange for ones that are black and shaped like a penis, also all magazines for such EBRs will be required to have the LGBT Rainbow painted on both sides.

Let them pass this as a law and then they can be happy.

harriss wrote:But it was no misunderstanding.

whitey wrote:Just to add to the stupid argument, why have any laws at all for anything? People are just gonna break the law so whatevs. It also goes back to what someone once said after one of the many mass shootings, if your first reaction is what’s gonna happen to my guns, you’re an asshole.

senorgrand wrote:I'm cool with bump-fire stocks going to tax stamp status. But since gun owners are asked by prohibitionists to "compromise" on new gun laws, what thing will they give up in return?

highdesert wrote:
.......
I'm a strong believer in an evidence-based approach to new gun legislation. There is clean data out there that would help in developing new laws.

MaxWyatt wrote:

senorgrand wrote:I'm cool with bump-fire stocks going to tax stamp status. But since gun owners are asked by prohibitionists to "compromise" on new gun laws, what thing will they give up in return?

Perhaps relaxing background checks for CHL holders or other who have already been vetted at a higher standard than the normal background check? Seems like a rational give/take scenario to me. ...not that rational has anything to do with it.

highdesert wrote:
.......
I'm a strong believer in an evidence-based approach to new gun legislation. There is clean data out there that would help in developing new laws.

IMO, we need to use this approach. The recent 538 article pointed this out with great clarity.