Gun Control

[knapplc]

So you are honestly implying that it would take air and sea transport to get bulk quantities of terrorists on American Soil?

You really need to explain this better, because nothing short of a Red Dawn type of invasion is going to require Joe America to get his AR-15 out of the gun cabinet to defend hearth & home.

Or maybe I just have more faith in our boys & girls in uniform than some people.

 

[zoogs]

So you are honestly implying that it would take air and sea transport to get bulk quantities of terrorists on American Soil?

Um ... yes?

What's the alternative?

 

[knapplc]

I have a question on banning guns.

It is correct that we have some cities that have banned hand guns....correct? Also, it is correct that some of these cities have the highest murder rates and gun crime rates in the nation. NO....I'm not correlating the two. BUT....if the guns are banned, why don't police get the guns off the streets?

Chicago bans guns unless you have a conceal carry permit. I highly doubt if 10% of the gun owners in Chicago have permits. There are gun murders their every day. 677 murders this year. So....if the guns are banned, why are they still on the streets?

What I'm pointing out is that even IF someone gets a gun law passed that bans guns, it's totally worthless legislation. It would absolutely be meaningless legislation.

City-wide gun bans don't work because all you have to do is step five feet outside the city limits to get a gun. Those laws are largely window dressing. For such laws to work they would have to be nation-wide.

But the reality is, we're not going to get rid of guns unless the vast majority wants to. Look at Prohibition - it didn't work because the people still clearly wanted their liquor & cigarettes. Unless the vast majority are behind different gun laws, they'll never work.

 

[Landlord]

We could very easily make aquiring a purchase permit much more difficult. There have to be steps we can take that don't go to the extreme of making firearms illegal to own or purchase. I'm open to hearing them, but 9/10 people just suggest they be made illegal.

B.S.

So was your original post where you said nobody wants to take our guns and nobody has a problem with responsible citizens owning guns.

Okay obviously I shouldn't have to spell out that if I say "nobody" that doesn't actually literally mean that there isn't a single person living in our country who might hold that position. But no legislators are fighting for making guns illegal. There are no laws being drafted towards this end. There are no conversations about banning guns entirely. You either hang out with the weirdest people on the planet or you're full of sh#t with your 9/10 claim, whereas I was being slightly hyperbolic because I didn't find it necessary to spell out, "The majority of the population and also the majority of our elected officials are not at all talking about the idea of making guns illegal"

let's not be so naive to think that they can't inflict a lot of carnage with our lackadaisical border policies.

lacksadaisical huh?

if you guys want to seriously talk about the potential of ISIS doing damage on American soil, then what you need to be talking about is censoring and controlling internet access, where US citizens are being exposed/indoctrinated into ISIS sympathy. Stop talking about them loading up the active troops from the Middle East to get over here, because it just aint happening.

 

[Redux]

So there's no chance that they are already here? No chance they have been coming in for years under false identities? No possible way they could go undetected then unite together to go on a mass killing spree?

K...

 

[Redux]

We could very easily make aquiring a purchase permit much more difficult. There have to be steps we can take that don't go to the extreme of making firearms illegal to own or purchase. I'm open to hearing them, but 9/10 people just suggest they be made illegal.

B.S.

So was your original post where you said nobody wants to take our guns and nobody has a problem with responsible citizens owning guns.

Okay obviously I shouldn't have to spell out that if I say "nobody" that doesn't actually literally mean that there isn't a single person living in our country who might hold that position. But no legislators are fighting for making guns illegal

I was throwing out a quick stat, sorr I don't have the time to download and share white house charts and graphs.

And for the record, if the talks of removing guns were happening, we wouldn't know about it until the act was well under way.

 

[TAKODA]

Okay, that was really funny

In all seriousness, I believe I read a distinctly "We need guns, or else ISIS" point made earlier by you, Redux. And I'd really, really like to see that substantiated -- I'm enormously skeptical of any appeal to policy with "or else terrorism" attached. That's what leads well-meaning, good-hearted people down some awfully twisted paths.

If we need guns, it's because we want them, not because they save us from the terrorists. That's my thesis.

I'm on that train as well. Guns are a "want," not a "need." America needs to collectively come to terms with this, and then we can make progress.

I understand that we have to make significant changes to our society before people will be willing to give up their guns, and that's going to take generations. But we can get there.

Knapp, you recently brought up the "unicorn" as an example within a religious thread. Are you now bringing into the fold a "fairy"?

Because if you are not, good luck on getting rural america or past servicemen to agree to give up their arms, which I may add were used to protect the very rights of gun ownership along with other rights everyone seems to take for granted.

 

[zoogs]

Chicago bans guns unless you have a conceal carry permit. I highly doubt if 10% of the gun owners in Chicago have permits. There are gun murders their every day. 677 murders this year. So....if the guns are banned, why are they still on the streets?

What I'm pointing out is that even IF someone gets a gun law passed that bans guns, it's totally worthless legislation. It would absolutely be meaningless legislation.

I'm not completely familiar with the Chicago situation. What happened after the landmark 2010 case that overturned their prior gun restrictions, in the wake of DC v. Heller?

...which highlights the thing that really chafes at me. Cities should be able to try things more freely. But they're hamstrung by the efforts of the NRA-ILA to overturn everything.

To the latter point, I guess what I'd say is you have to reduce the number of guns. If that isn't accomplished, I don't think you can make many real gains.

 

[Landlord]

So there's no chance that they are already here? No chance they have been coming in for years under false identities? No possible way they could go undetected then unite together to go on a mass killing spree?

K...

if you're actually genuinely asking the questions, why don't you do like 10 minutes of research for yourself? you'll find a few things out, such as the fact that the screening process is very effective but can never be 100%, that they are here, but that our government has flagged and stopped essentially any and all strategized terrorist attacks, and that pretty much all of the successful deaths at the hands of ISIS sympathizers came at the hands of american citizens

why you insist on spouting off these insane opinions, scenarios, and rhetorical questions without actually researching any of this is beyond me, but like zoogs I'm still waiting to hear about this "if we take guns away then ISIS invades" scenario

 

[knapplc]

So there's no chance that they are already here? No chance they have been coming in for years under false identities? No possible way they could go undetected then unite together to go on a mass killing spree?

K...

I hope you know I'm trying to inject a bit of humor in an otherwise dark conversation, and don't take it personally. If it's too inappropriate for anyone, I'll stop.

To answer your question, it's likely there are terror cells here in America. But I'm confident in our protectors, the police & armed services, to take care of the situation before it ever devolves into a situation where I personally need to take up arms.

 

[Landlord]

Chicago bans guns unless you have a conceal carry permit. I highly doubt if 10% of the gun owners in Chicago have permits. There are gun murders their every day. 677 murders this year. So....if the guns are banned, why are they still on the streets?

What I'm pointing out is that even IF someone gets a gun law passed that bans guns, it's totally worthless legislation. It would absolutely be meaningless legislation.

I'm not completely familiar with the Chicago situation. What happened after the landmark 2010 case that overturned their prior gun restrictions, in the wake of DC v. Heller?

...which highlights the thing that really chafes at me. Cities should be able to try things more freely. But they're hamstrung by the efforts of the NRA-ILA to overturn everything.

To the latter point, I guess what I'd say is you have to reduce the number of guns. If that isn't accomplished, I don't think you can make many real gains.

Chicago is a city. Chicago isn't a country. I live here, I've had enough conversations with law enforcement officers and city officials to know that the guns on the streets aren't guns that are coming from Chicago.

 

[zoogs]

So there's no chance that they are already here? No chance they have been coming in for years under false identities? No possible way they could go undetected then unite together to go on a mass killing spree?

K...

So is this a scenario where America has already been infiltrated en masse with ISIS terrorists, and we have no idea who or where they are?

1) In what sense are they being stopped, currently, by civilian gun ownership from causing another mass casualty public event?

2) Is it better or worse for Americans for these under-the-radar sleepers to probably be able to purchase all the firearms and ammunition they could want, legally?

 

[Redux]

So there's no chance that they are already here? No chance they have been coming in for years under false identities? No possible way they could go undetected then unite together to go on a mass killing spree?

K...

if you're actually genuinely asking the questions, why don't you do like 10 minutes of research for yourself? you'll find a few things out, such as the fact that the screening process is very effective but can never be 100%, that they are here, but that our government has flagged and stopped essentially any and all strategized terrorist attacks, and that pretty much all of the successful deaths at the hands of ISIS sympathizers came at the hands of american citizens

why you insist on spouting off these insane opinions, scenarios, and rhetorical questions without actually researching any of this is beyond me, but like zoogs I'm still waiting to hear about this "if we take guns away then ISIS invades" scenario

You pretty much believe anything the government says huh?

And again, it was just an extreme scenario. But please keep being standoffish, just like the liberal handbook says to.

 

[TGHusker]

France has some of the toughest gun laws in existence and yet we have that mass shooting over there. Banning guns won't solve the problem.

What gets me is whether we have gunmen who are psyco (Sandy Hook, VT) or radicalized - in some many cases authorities knew something about them. Wt VT and Sandy Hook the psyco killers had known mental issues but the system didn't go far enough to either help them or detain them (until they were healed or in control of their mental condition ) In the case of San Bernardino, Boston, Orlando - authorities knew these people, had investigated them but just didn't have quite enough evidence to detain them. But when it comes to after the event, they can point to their 'due diligence' and say - "Well we weren't caught completely by surprise!". But what good is due diligence without some restraining action? Yes there is a fine line here between liberty and having a police state. Somehow the system is failing us in these cases. Yes, our investigations have stopped others and maybe we should consider ourselves fortunate that there haven't been a dozen more attacks.

One concern I have is that this will play into Trump's dialogue for the campaign (not that I want Hillary's dialogue to win out either). We could end up wt a benevolent dictator if the next president can't balance the liberty/security scales properly. Here is Trump's speech on the subject:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/transcript-donald-trump-national-security-speech-224273

 

[Redux]

It only took 1 ISIS sympathizer born in America to pullnoff the deadliest mass shooting in American History.

What do you think would happen if all the actual ISIS plants already here orchestrated an attack? I'm asking honestly because if you think it's outside the realm of possibility you'rr lying to yourself.