cozumel

Another DH member requested me to start a poll on the probability of gun deaths being reduced or increasing if the law was changed. So I have obliged. Please don't turn this into a thread on the US system vs the world!!

I would like to see changes in the law - maybe something along the lines of:

All States must follow Federal law. IE Every State must apply and enforce the law in the exact same way.
All firearms sales (within every US state) would be prohibited without a valid permit.
Permits must be renewed annually.
The following conditions must be met before a permit can be issued.
All checks and assessments would be carried out by relevant State or Federal agencies.
All administrative costs would be paid by the Firearm Permit Applicant

1. Official proof of ID, address and all other permanent members of the household
2. Full written criminal checks on all household member with 'markers' being placed against anyone with history of violence.
3. Full written medical records on all household memeber with 'marker' being placed against anyone with a forensic history, current diagnosis or suspected diagnosis of an an enduring mental health illness.
4. If members of the household fall within the criteria of parts 1&2 then a permit will only be issued to the applicant once a home visit has been made by Federal Authorities to assess against a Risk Matrix System. If the household fails to pass the matrix then a firearms permit will not be issued to anyone who lives in that property.
5. The applicant must pay a Federal approved agency to install and maintain a secure storage area for all firearms and ammunition. A valid yearly inspection certificate must be supplied for renewal of a permit

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mike2h

the 2 problems with your idea(s) that i have is that this country does not need another beuracracy. & 2nd the amount of money you are talking about people having to spend to have a gun will mean that only rich people & poor people(because laws will be passed to give them federal assistance)& of course criminals will have guns.
i agree that gun control should be standardised across the country. i also agree that people with diagnosed mental disorders should be placed on a database just like felons. a lot of this already in place & just needs to be standardised & implemeted.
every individual that purchases a handgun should be required to show proof of purchase of a gunsafe before recieving the handgun. there should be basic reqs for theses safes.
but having the government running around in peoples houses is not viable or desireable imo.
i also beleive that any person that purchases a handgun, or rifles/shotguns for that matter, & has children., should have to send those children to a gun safety course.

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cozumel

Yup the costs could be a problem. But hell, I'm just trying to start a debate on what I think is massive problem.

I'm saying that this should only happen when a risk has been identified due to a history of violence or mental health within the household. This would allow a risk assessment and final decision on whether a permit should or should not be issued based on current level of risk.


That's a damned good idea

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Falstaff

I carried a gun in highschool but I never used it, we all did, and I got it from my father, who carried one when he was in school. I would shoot bottles and such off of fence posts and plink cans. All of us in school respected the fact that we each had something besides pointed sticks to poke things with.
Gun Laws are a joke pure and simple. I remember when they tried to stop whiskey from being made or imported, etc etc.
Death from weapons is inevitable, it is up to our society and each other to put away our sword and pickup our plowshares.
In the world at large, big guns, big money and sugar and oil drive the world markets, I certainly dont think any law will make it guns safer or reduce the number of gun deaths.
Guns laws are a farce, and mental masturbation for liberals and socialists.

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OmegaRED

Obviously there should be tighter gun control in America and it would result in less deaths. Guns should be respected more than they are, too many families own a gun legally and don't keep it safe from kids and results in a fatality. If there were extremely high fines for firearms ending up in the hands of unlicensed people I bet the gun owners would keep them locked up like family jewels. Also, people with histories of mental illness shouldn't be able to own guns.

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coldfrontt

I think everyone should carry a gun. It might deter a lot of crap if you know the other person carries, and may know how to use it better than you.

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TANSTAAFL!

OmegaRED

NRA needs to have a gun massacre prevented by a bystander armed with a gun, surprised this hasn't happened yet.

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cozumel

I find it quite interesting though. The right to bear arms is in the psyche of Americans and prohibition would not work (in the US). Anyone can buy a gun on the black market. Prohibition is satisfactory in other countries as their culture is a different one. Whenever there is a shooting in the US there is an argument about prohibition and everyone gets there back up. Buts its the wrong discussion imo. The real debate should be about what we are discussing here. imo a poll along these lines should be taken in every major US city.

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Gabriel_Etranil

I find this humorous to say the least.

Motor vehicle deaths is a bigger problem then guns, you look at some statistics and car accident deaths always tower over guns deaths.

When a guy using a gun kills somebody in heinous act and immediately it's an attack towards guns, yet any time somebody plows a car into a crowd or similar nobody ever says that we should rethink our policies on vehicle control.

How many kids have gotten killed in a car accident by going joy riding after swiping their parents keys? I'd like to see that statistic compared with children killed by firearms.

How many crimes are commited with the use of a vehicle? Not one person would refer to a car as an the instument of the crime yet it is far more deadly than a firearm by far.

Firearms is not the worst problem around, if people want to kill people they can find other means to do so. I hate to bring 9/11 into this but those people were able to hijack some planes with boxcutters and we all know what happened with those 'vehicles' after that.

People are resourceful just be glad that these shootings(the Virginia Tech one) were just that shootings and he didn't do something like build a bomb and mail it every classroom or do something similar like arson(or an Oklahoma City recurrence). Then you probably would be calling for the regulation of education right now instead of guns. Let's just be thankful the only insident he decided to emulate was Columbine.

(I am in no way saying it was a good thing for him killing people, just that it could have been much worse if options were limited to him)

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"I want to believe the voice in my head, but it lies"

coldfrontt

Yes, it could have been worse. We only have ourselves to blaim in creating a culture where we cannot defend ourselves against idiots waving a gun because we aren't allowed to carry them ourselves.

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TANSTAAFL!

kris23

if its tightened it MAY or may not go down, i mean if you prohibit the use of guns all together, then people will probably go with much more inhumane ways of killing each other that are relatively available, sharp pointy things, rope gasoline, pipe, and wrecking hammers people use to cut down walls. or a combination of the listed items......... a gas bomb propelled steak into the head of an annoying person, or a hammer and turning someone into a pile of mush,

guns just get the job done faster and more "painlessly"

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Dowaco

Completely banning guns does not work. In Brazil, gun ownership is prohibited, yet the death rate (#/100,000) from guns is in the top three countries in the world. In China, people make their own guns if they cannot get them otherwise. In the US, banning guns is unconstitutional since gun ownership is one of the basic founding concepts of the nation.

Restricting guns is sensible. The last time I bought a gun, I had to have an FBI background check, was fingerprinted, and had to wait several months. Theoretically, children, ex-felons, and mentally impaired individuals should not have access, but this is very hard to do in real life. There are laws in place to restrict gun sales and to prevent the carrying of a concealed weapon, but outside of places like airports and courthouses (and some schools) it is not practical or desirable to search every citizen for contraband.

I voted: things are OK as is, and we need to actually enforce the laws that we already have.

We live in a "close the barn door after the horse runs away" world. Every time an unforeseen incident happens, the world focuses attention on the issue and over-reacts.

We have strict seat belt laws in the state I live in. Cops can stop and ticket you just for not wearing one as a passenger. The governor of the state was recently in an accident with his car driven by a state trooper doing over 90 mph in a 65 mph zone and was not wearing his belt. He is expected to recover from a broken femur and ribs. Can we call for improved seat belt laws? They don't get any tougher than they are now and the head of the state ignores them with a police officer sitting right next to him.

Government intrusion into our lives and even more unenforceable draconian laws will not stop people from getting killed. Something that does seem to correlate with lower crime is a good economy. So just lower taxes, cut government waste and crime will go down.

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The above is my opinion and in no way reflects the views of this website.

Sandok

Here's a nifty site that does statisitcs based on anything you can choose out of the list. No bias, no nothing. It's simply gathers numbers and shows them.

NationMaster

The interesting thing is that out of the countries with offical numbers (published by the country or be independant groups), the US is ranked eight, so not too bad. Yet it's the first "First World" country to have such high gun murders per capita when the next "First World" country is all the way down in 17th is Portugal (and that's one of the poorer European countries, not counting Eastern Europe).

All the rest (before Portugal) are poor countries (or post-USSR) still in development. As for the "First World" countries, they all have tougher regulations and as a result, less gun murders in total. I think the numbers speak for themselves But oh well, its not my country and I really couldn't care less.

Dowaco

Yes, I found that site the other day. Interesting fodder for all sorts of discussions.

Other factoids from that site. The US has the highest percent of its population in prison (.7%). Making gun laws tougher will only add to that number.

Police per capita. The US is not even on the list of the top 50. The US is not a police state. Giving the police access to your home to "inspect" it is not something that will be embraced.

Switzerland, for example, has an ungodly high suicide rate. People can kill themselves or others with guns, drugs, pointy things, cars, you name it. Humans are very inventive.

Why do poor people get a pass for killing others and "rich" people are held to a higher moral standard?

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The above is my opinion and in no way reflects the views of this website.

Sandok

Switzerland has a high suicide rate because of guns and they want to stop that. My goverment apparently wants to protect its people, if yours doesn't too bad.

But let's stay on topic, when it comes to guns, they do kill, it's a fact. A machine gun can kill more people than a rock and anyone who says otherwise is either delusional or just I dunno, crazy? Now whether the american population wants to remove guns, wants to change its laws and wants less gun murders/crime, that's another thing but numbers don't lie.