Thanks for reading!

1) The “drive by knifing” point makes sense so long as assault rifle bans alters the space-time continuum and un-invents gunpowder. Yes, guns make it easier to kill more people more quickly, but weapons bans do nothing to eliminate the (for example) 1.5 million AR-15s in circulation and ten times that many 30 round magazines. A ban coupled with confiscation would double down on the unconstitutionality of the whole deal, and besides most people wouldn’t comply, and you’d succeed in making law abiding citizens into criminals overnight. All of which is a moot point…even if we transcended the superficiality of the current ban (we haven’t), it doesn’t matter, because statistically, gun crime is usually committed with illegally purchased or semi-legally obtained (e.g. from a family member), unregistered weapons, almost always handguns. From the DOJ.gov:

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf

2) Unless you want to argue that Cuomo has more authority than the Supreme Court of the United States, the current legislation is unconstitutional. That’s a disconcerting precedent. I would also argue that the method by which it was passed was immoral…also should be disconcerting, even to those thrilled by the content of the ban. Think about it in this sense:

“In light of increasing occurrences of asteroid strikes in and around earth, President Obama has issued an executive order temporarily stationing troops in every household on the west coast, as well as bivouacking soldiers in every garage in Appalachia, in a continued, sustained and dedicated effort to minimize strikes and maximize recovery. The order will be put to congressional vote next week, but the President has already committed the necessary resources, saying ‘If congress won’t act to do what’s necessary to protect the children from space rock, then I will.’”

3) Guns are used more often for self defense than is reported. Here’s a combined .edu and .gov source that found in the mid 90s, ten thousand murders per year were committed with guns, while a hundred and sixty thousand crimes per year were thwarted with legally owned guns…crimes in which victims “‘almost certainly would have been killed’” if they “‘had not used a gun for protection.’” Lots of other similar statistics on this site, backed by .gov or .edu sources:

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#crime

4) SSRIs are the link between recent mass murderers (as well as attempted mass murders, suicides, and other violent episodes.) I’m really surprised that more people on the political left, who are typically the most vocal about gun violence and big money lobbyists, aren’t doing more to tackle this issue, and instead choose to focus their energy on legislation that was already tried (1994-2004), and didn’t work.

5) Gun Control is more about control and less about guns. This is where I sound more like a conspiracy theorist than I’d like, but it doesn’t take much scratching of the surface to expose the truth. There is plenty we should be angry about, and plenty we should be worried about, and plenty we should mobilize over, but the “guns are bad” rhetoric is a red herring. There are more worthwhile battles, like how government allows banks to aid and abet murderers and terrorists:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214

I promise, I’m done. I’m excited for your next article.

I’m particularly interested in the first source’s treatment of other nations’ gun control measures. Take Australia for instance—it makes clear that armed robberies have gone up 44%, but no sources here are cited. That’s a very large number to just put in print at face value. I’m sure it’s true and probably just a matter of not citing in one instance for one reason or another; I’m just saying they’re making very bold, clearly one-sided arguments (and of course, the other side is prone to such errors as well).

FactCheck is possibly the greatest. Completely agreed that there’s no causal relation here, and even if there was, it would be borderline impossible to prove, ethically speaking at least. Also completely agreed with Wellford that “if there were no guns, the lethality of crimes would be less. You can’t have a drive-by knifing.” And completely agreed that surveys are hardly infallible, though there aren’t really any other effective methods of doing the necessary research.

I understand that the rate of gun violence has gone down—yes, we’ve taken effective steps up to this point, and to a large extent the illusion that the case is otherwise is basically propagated by the media. You say this decline is “not bad”; I agree, but it’s also not good. There’s still room for improvement, room that can still fit within the context of the Second Amendment as it stands. The school shooting clarification, though necessary, does not change the point—as FactCheck admits, 130 is still “a shocking high number,” one which must be addressed.

Again, just because there’s been no significant link between shooting and weapon used thus far doesn’t mean this can’t change. It’s more an issue of capabilities than of practice. There will always be crime, and we can’t eliminate that, but we can limit it insofar as our liberties aren’t compromised.

Outlawing all guns at this time would be irrational. It probably always will be, too. And sure, they’ve been used in many, many protective cases…and yet that still doesn’t mean AR-15s and the like are necessary to do so. We can still pursue tighter restrictions without infringing upon our own security. This would not be a case of the government proving unwilling to defend the people, assuming it’s done correctly (presently this doesn’t seem to be the case…).

Agreed that misdistribution of medication is a serious issue, one that increases the severity and relative frequency of these incidents. But had they not been granted access to such high caliber weapons in the first place…well, you know how this plays out. Both the issues of medication and gun distribution need to be addressed.

Completely agreed that we are becoming far too complacent a people for our own good. President Obama has indeed made some blatant mistakes, as had President Bush. One relatively minute point I want to bring up: The Humble Libertarian mentions the failure of both presidents’ stimulus packages (point 70). I would chalk that up more to us than to them. Stimulus works in theory: the government distributes reasonable sums of money, the people spend this money, the economy is thus stimulated. The problem is that in face of economic hardships, people generally opted to instead save the money, defeating the entire process. But the basic point of complacency still stands, though I still don’t regret voting for President Obama given his opponents. We’re not exactly dealing with the cream of the crop here.

The consolidation of power is inevitable anywhere there’s government. It’s not if, it’s when. This is more an issue of human nature than of politics. If there’s any situation in which one individual can be considered the “head” of something…he’s going to want the power, the glory, the everything all for himself. And like you said, this trend becomes more entrenched as more and more eras pass. This, however, raises the question of redefining, perhaps even doing away with, the government; how does one do that correctly? It’s a very delicate issue, one which we can never really solve, for where there are humans, there will be greed.

The government’s need for us to need them is only predicated by us. If there weren’t so many of us committing these senseless crimes (even if the number’s relatively small compared to justice, it’s still far too large to go unattended), then why would the government have to intervene? It wouldn’t have to, and if it did so without having to then we would have fair reason to cry foul. Unfortunately that’s just not the case.

Your arguments are growing repetitive, as are my responses. Yes, the numbers are going down; no, the numbers have not gone down enough. Inanimate objects are not the bad guys; the bad guys are the bad guys, and the bad guys do bad things with inanimate objects. Again, when’s the last time you heard of a drive-by knifing? But I do agree that we should do more than just say we have to do something…and honestly, I think that’s exactly the direction in which we’re headed.

scopeny.org/ARCHIVES/GunFacts.pdf

https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/legal-issues/gun-control/get-your-facts-straight-with-guy-smiths/

http://factcheck.org/2012/12/gun-rhetoric-vs-gun-facts/

Let’s take a step back and reevaluate what it is we are really arguing for here. The goal is, I presume, to reduce gun violence, generally, and mass killings, specifically. The former has dropped every year for the past three years and is today at its lowest since 1981 at 3.6 murders per 100,000 people (the highest in that time was in 1993 at 7 per 100,000, which correlates more with the prevalence of crack cocaine than it does with the availability of certain types of firearms). That’s not bad, considering gun sales have only been increasing since the ‘80s.

As to the latter, there is no common link between mass killings and the type of firearm used. True, Lanza used an AR…but the Virginia Tech shooter used pistols, the Columbine kids used shotguns and handguns, and so on. Scroll through a list of mass killings…there will be no link whatsoever to “killer” and “type of gun”. It’s like saying we’re going to combat obesity by outlawing double layered chocolate cake and nacho flavored popcorn, and that’s it.

You might say then we should outlaw all guns. Again, if we step back from our left/right paradigms and look at the facts as they are, not as what the media or our favorite politician would have them be, we would see that more times than not guns are used in the prevention, not the commission, of crime. For every Zimmerman-type that is out there, there are a hundred people whose lives were saved by being armed:

http://www.akdart.com/gun3.html

Also, although correlation does not imply causation, it is a fact that in states that have adopted carry and conceal laws (permits/laws that allow citizens to carry pistols either in plain view or hidden), violent crime has dropped. Some might say that an armed populous helps to prevent crime…due to a multitude of factors there’s no way we can know that for sure, but what we can say for certainty is that the existence of a legally armed populous in the streets does not increase violent crime. If anything, there is either no effect, or a lessoning effect, on crime. Similarly, Malcolm X believed legal gun ownership in the Black community would have gone a long way towards their safety and protection of liberties. “White people been buying rifles all their lives…no commotion. The only thing I’ve ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves.” I would say that applies to all Americans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz3isgUZe5Y

http://factcheck.org/2012/12/gun-rhetoric-vs-gun-facts/

There is a common link, however, between almost all of the mass killers, and it has nothing to do with the type or caliber of weapon…it’s the use of, or withdrawal from, SSRIs (Prozac, etc), which are medications that are literally designed to chemically alter your mood and emotions (adverse effects, among others, are extremely vivid or strange dreams, depression, suicide and suicide ideations, mania and psychotic episodes). 1 in every 10 Americans are on these powerful medications, mostly White, mostly middle to upper class. I’m not a doctor or a mathematician, but I can’t imagine that this equation is accurate:

20% < # Of Affluent White Americans That Require SSRIs to Function Normally

The medications are overprescribed because it is a billion dollar plus industry…and billion dollar plus industries have lobbyists of billion dollar plus quality. The more people that take the meds, the higher the probability that we see a manifestation of those “rare cases” of psychotic behavior.

Here is some information:

http://www.ssristories.com/index.php?sort=date&p=school

http://beforeitsnews.com/health/2012/07/mass-murders-and-the-ssris-connection-2417899.html

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/19/more-than-1-in-10-in-u-s-take-antidepressants/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/adam-lanza-is-recalled-as-a-rambunctious-kid-with-family-problems/2012/12/14/795ad0fe-4641-11e2-8e70-e1993528222d_story.html

I’m starting to believe that the problem is we, as a nation, are losing our ability to think critically about political issues. If it doesn’t fit a certain narrative that sits neatly on our left or right (in other words, if we can’t picture Bill Maher or Bill O’Reilly saying it, depending on your leaning), then it’s just not what we’ll believe. We’ll make arguments like “You have to be an idiot not to believe…” or we’ll just regurgitate John Stewart talking points and never bother to fact check anything. Our thinking has become lazy to the peril of our society. For example, in the second to last Presidential debates, both candidates told some blatant lies and more misleading half-truths. The fact checkers called them on it, but instead of the candidates correcting themselves or avoiding the questions, they both told the same exact lies again, verbatim. Citizens put up with this because it’s more of a football game than it is liberties to be defended, with us the spectators waving our big foam finger for our candidate de’jour. We don’t care about truth or freedom or accountability or reliability or even competence, and we can’t bother to be cynical outside our left/right comfort zone…we just care that our horse gets the win. This is why it doesn’t even matter that we don’t really have a choice in presidential candidates anymore (if we ever did)…the difference between Barack Obama and George W. Bush has mostly been in their rhetoric (sometimes not even that). Their agendas are almost exactly the same:

http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2011/08/bush-20-100-ways-barack-obama-is-just.html

They’ve been telling us since the ‘90s that Clinton left us with a surplus, and that’s a blatant lie:

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

Both sides of the aisle claim they have answer to the tax/spend/debt question, but neither side is being genuine about it because our government has already dug a ditch that is impossible to get out of:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-06/it-doesnt-matter

The Federal Reserve prints money for the big banks that lend the majority to the .01% wealthiest people at close to zero, or even negative, interest rates. Taxation, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the polarization of wealth. It has everything to do with a secret society of banks and politicians making decisions on the money supply and who gets what and when. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, it’s a fact:

http://www.mises.org/books/fed.pdf

The executive branch is a one-way ratchet for power. In other words, the office of the presidency gains a little more authority every election cycle and subsequent presidents never relinquish it. The same works for the federal government as a whole…the accumulation of power is at the top, rather than at the state and local levels, which makes it easy for, among other things, the drug companies to spend money to ensure the narrative doesn’t include anything about their side effects like psychotic behavior and suicide. The executive branch has expanded its reach to the point where troops can be sent anywhere for any reason, ambiguous domestic “wars” on drugs and terror targets our own people for surveillance and incarceration while sucking our resources dry, and big banks write their own checks in exchange for an election.

http://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/bulr/documents/MARSHALL.pdf

James Madison said "The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." Why is it that Republicans think the government has our best interests at heart when waging endless wars and holding people indefinitely, but is the bane of the free market economy? Why is it that Democrats believe the government is waging illegal wars and is the scourge of the world but is economically, through entitlements and bail-outs, the only thing keeping our country from descending into a Mad Max movie? They need us to need them to protect us from terrorism and to set up our retirements and to feed us when we’re hungry and clothe us when we’re homeless. Now we need them to protect us from ourselves by banning certain types of guns and letting us know how many rounds we can put in what magazines. Thanks Big Brother, what would I do without you? How many trillions of dollars in debt are we again?

Gun bans are nothing but another attempt to control us, and have nothing to do with curbing gun violence. Gun violence has actually been decreasing for the past fifteen or twenty years, and like I said, “assault weapons” are rarely used in crime, and there’s nothing that says the crimes they have been used in (e.g. Newtown) couldn’t have just as easily occurred with shotguns (e.g. Columbine) or with pistols (e.g. Virginia Tech). Around a thousand instances of lawful gun owners repelling criminals and saving family, friends, and bystanders happen every year, and largely go unreported. But I guess inanimate objects are the bad guys. There’s a Chinese proverb: “When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger.”

I’ve made the constitutional argument; I’ve made the supply-side argument; now I’ve made the statistics regarding gun violence and the “Big Brother” argument. I’ve yet to hear a very compelling argument on the other side besides the same old rhetoric: “But we have to do something!” You want to do something? How about this…right around the next primary season, you and 10,000 of your closest friends go sit on the White House lawn and stay there until they change the rules and let a third party into the debates. I’d prefer the Libertarians, but I’d settle for the Green party. Take your 10,000 friends over to the Justice Department and sit there until they charge HSBC or Goldman Sachs with something more than a fine. Take your 10,000 friends over to wherever it is they manufacture drones and sit on the conveyor belts until they shut the place down.

They are relying on our lack of information in an age when more information than ever is available instantly to us.

The black market is indeed a problem, one that can’t feasibly resolved in the immediate future (unless you back the raiding ideas you propose in theory, which I don’t). The idea behind implementing such gun control laws nationwide, however, is to erode at the glorification of guns (I’ll stick to this terminology as opposed to gun culture; though I really only meant “gun culture” insofar as glorification goes in the first place, and not the conventional use of guns, I understand it has multiple connotations and so will refrain from using it in such a way). Again, this won’t happen in the short-term—but if these laws are implemented and enforced, along with stricter punishments for violations of said laws and a number of other measures already discussed, it will happen, and ultimately the black market will cease in kind.

I completely agree that such tragedies as that in Aurora are deviations from the norm, and although I wouldn’t draw the comparison between them and, say, pool drowning—yes, the numbers are striking, but how does one truly compare to the other?—I would certainly raise the question of condoning drone strikes but not guns, for one example. Yet I don’t see any of this as reason not to change the way things are. Though small in number, the deaths seen with these tragedies (beyond everyday street shootings, no less) are easily preventable through common sense measures. So why not? I’d argue that the only reason we’re not making changes with regard to lightning strikes, pool drowning, and so on is that it would be implausible, even impossible, to do so. If we could, we would, as we should.

Interesting to read about how little the Obama administration has done to resolve the issue. Also interesting to note how little publicized said response is. Sure, the blog post is outdated now, but it’s still relevant. I appreciate its explanation of the specific fallacies of such laws as pertains to image over practicality. But—and in fairness, I’m speaking strictly in theory now—can there not be some better, more comprehensive legislature to sort out the issue? Legislature that focuses on distribution in relation to capability and not image. Perhaps instead of a ban on high capacity magazines, a limit on number of magazines per gun at a given time. How many magazines would be needed to defend a home? …Versus committing a mass shooting (however statistically unlikely this may be, it still needs to be addressed)?

The issue of grandfathering alludes to exactly what I’ve been talking about with this whole “gun glorification” thing. Why not check the guns already distributed? If they’re banned, they’re banned. Again, while I understand that guns under consideration could be used for home defense, I don’t think they’re necessary to do so. So maybe even provide the gun owners with a decidedly legal and capable gun for purposes of protection. As far those residing in the black market…again, this issue will dissolve itself should everything come to fruition.

I hate the “very small impact” argument. So what? We shouldn’t take common sense measures to save lives (regardless of “how few,” they’re still lives subject to tragedy for no irreversible reason) because it’s not statistically significant? I’d certainly hope that’s not the case. So is it a slippery slope, or a stepping stone? I’d still argue the latter. It really comes down to whether you more deeply value security or liberty, and we’ve had that conversation already.

So to address the summary of points: “Why ban cosmetic features?” Agreed; lest said features actually affect capability (which it seems is seldom the case), they shouldn’t factor into the discussion. “Why ban guns used in a mere 2% of crime?” …2% of crime is still crime, isn’t it? “Why base gun control legislation on rare and statistically insignificant mass shootings to begin with?” Quite simply, because these things happen and are totally in our control, so really, why not? “Why base gun control legislation on rare and statistically insignificant mass shootings to begin with?” Agreed, at least generally; focus instead on limiting number of magazines at a given time. “How would banning these magazines have saved lives, given that all a shooter needs is multiple magazines and 3 seconds of time (i.e. Cho)?” Again—limit numbers. “How will a ban on either these weapons or magazines reduce crime, since there are many millions of them legal and available anyway, especially since production has ramped up after the ban’s expiration?” Decrease legality (where fit) and availability; halt the increase in production; let nature take its way as previously discussed. “After a decade of failure, why assume that the bans will reduce violent crime THIS time around?” The bans can work in theory, so why not in practice? Modifications we’ve touched upon are likely necessary, as is stricter and more consistent enforcement (sounds like the Big-Coat Policy all over again…).

I have to admit, in the week or so since we’ve begun this conversation, several incidents have occurred pushing me more toward your side of things as far as government control is concerned, the white paper on drones being most paramount. This doesn’t particularly sway me as far as the gun control issue is concerned, but it is making me rethink the role of government generally. In other words: if power is for those who know what to do with it, and the question of drones is any indicator, then it is not presently for the government.

I very much appreciate Alan Gura’s take on the issue. As he says, the issue really is a matter of striking a necessary balance between our security and our rights. We have to move carefully so as not to erode either too greatly. But we must move nonetheless.

I’ve already addressed the way I’ve been using the term “gun culture” and how the fact that not all gun owners are criminals doesn’t mean the laws don’t have to change. I’ve also discussed issues pertaining to capabilities and rounds. As for handguns being more controlled than rifles and shotguns—I will take your word for it, but understand that that hurts your case more than it helps it. I think we can agree that, generally speaking, rifles and shotguns have greater capabilities than handguns. So why are handguns more heavily restricted? If anything, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

I agree, unfortunately, that most, if not all, if the bill’s supporters don’t know enough about guns’ specific capabilities. I think that’s where you and other gun rights advocates should come in. I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that we both see ways to improve the system as is (if I’m wrong, tell me). So the two groups, let’s say—stricter control advocates versus protection of rights advocates—should come together to reach some sort of reasonable consensus. And I have to believe there is indeed a reasonable consensus. We just have to find it.

I’ll leave going through the bill piece by piece to you. If you want to, feel free. I’m sure it would be prove very informative. I’m also sure that, beyond providing a basic framework by which we can progress, it wouldn’t change the fact we need to make changes to the system as it stands.

I’m at nearly 1,300 words—that word limit may prove very difficult to enforce. I do, however, resolve to refrain from posting after midnight again…

Finally, on a much more lighthearted note: http://www.theonion.com/articles/breaking-it-wouldnt-surprise-you-if-this-headline,31210/