Excuses..

[pasayten]

You could just address the issues I raised.

My posts were clear and can stand alone... your issues with them are not worth the time or bandwidth to reply...

Maybe start posting with your real name...

[pasayten]

Please don't project on to me what ever you are feeling...

Likewise dude... Jeesh

[mister_coffee]

Laws only work for people willing to obey them....

Can you please specifically describe what you mean by that? What does it even mean for a law to "work"?

Are you seriously arguing if that (somehow) murder became legal we would all kill each other until only one person was left?

[PAL]

Ah, Chitta your words of wisdom never cease to amaze me. You are part of this echo chamber too.
Do that many police officers commit suicide? Can you give a link that cites the percentages?
You who are above it all from your lofty perch. How insightful you are. Never have seen anything like it.
By the way, I know who you are.

[Chitta]

Nothing penetrates the Disneyland echo chamber of hypocritical ill informed opinion in desperate need of validation. Police "outgunned" HAHAHA-NOPE! The biggest threat to a police officer is their OWN gun in their OWN hand. More die by suicide than shot by a criminal on the job. That is why some are not allowed to take police issue guns home.
Laws only work for people willing to obey them. We have an example set from the top down that it is OK to ignore laws you don't like if you just have enough money and power. Those claiming to "care" about guns say nothing of the RAPE, influence pedaling, ILLEGAL GUN owned by a rampant drug addict(passed a background check by lying), mass of weapons donated to the Taliban, people killed off by inflation, people killed by Covid imported across the border, and with fentanyl, behaving like (in his OWN words and description) a DICTATOR. Not one word from the good people. Such intense integrity you might begin to think these shells will spend life in Okanogan.

[mister_coffee]

I don't know.

I think everyone can agree that the second amendment, whatever your interpretation, does not give an absolute and unlimited right to own any weapon. No sane person would advocate for personal thermonuclear weapons. And we have restrictions on fully automatic weapons and sawed-off shotguns that don't seem to cause law-abiding firearm users any problems (even though a short-barreled shotgun would be an eminently practical self-defense weapon). For that matter, we already have substantial magazine size restrictions on hunting weapons (though they vary weirdly from state to state).

So it really comes down to where you'd like to draw the line.

For myself, I think there are plenty of dials on this machine and we ought to try some of those other dials. I've mentioned several that I think would be very effective and won't bore you all by repeating myself here.

Honestly, threads like this are exhausting because people are never going to agree.

[PAL]

Make sure you read the article that Rideback sent above, about the police officers perspective on why regular citizens should not have an AR15.
But I would think the reason someone would want one is for their "protection" if a mob was attacking their home.
Another is to feel the sheer force of power when out shooting it somewhere. Gee, a 22 Savage was enough for me, plus a black powder gun. Learning to load it correctly. An antique, really. Not a good weapon for defense however.

[pasayten]

Ray, a good negotiator always asks for more than he or she expects to receive. Fact is you've been lied to about that whole "they want to take your guns" meme.

I haven't been lied to as I never listened to whomever you are talking about in the first place... Go back and reread all the posts... I was pointing out that all your gnashing of teeth and hyperventilating about a specific gun are not effective when the issues of U.S. society are totally beyond that. Good negotiator??? I wouldn't pat yourself on the back too hard... that's quite a stretch...

[Chitta]

Zero concern about laws, my dealer family doesn't obey them! Hunter takes arse/crack or grass as payment. Then I can do and rape whatever I want just like the big guy.
echo chamber out!

[Rideback]

Pasayten, the goal all along has been to negotiate background checks, raise the age to 21 for the assault weapons but never to take away 2nd amendment rights from law abiding citizens. It's always been about access.

An officer speaks out about why no civilian should have an AR15

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/05/opinions ... index.html

(CNN)No weapon has been more in the public eye in America of late than the AR-15, in large part because of its tragic role in some of this country's deadliest shootings.

The AR-15 has the dubious distinction of being America's most popular semi-automatic rifle. I'm more familiar with the gun than most people: I own one. And one thing I know for sure is that this weapon doesn't belong in the hands of the average civilian.

I've owned multiple firearms for most of my life. I spent two decades in the Washington Metropolitan Police Department in a number of different roles, as a street cop walking the beat and on various special mission units.
I'm also a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association. And when I wasn't at my job doing police work, I worked part-time for several years in firearm sales as well as training law enforcement officers, members of the military and civilians.

I purchased my different guns over the years for the same that you might purchase a flathead screwdriver along with a Phillips screwdriver: Each one serves a different purpose. As an avid hunter, I've got a gun that I use for turkey hunting, one that I use for waterfowl and one I use to hunt deer and larger game like elk.
I purchased my AR-15 because I was assigned one as part of my police duties. But officers weren't allowed to take our department-issued weapons home. I felt it was my responsibility to become proficient with any weapon I'd been assigned, so I bought one. And I've spent hundreds of hours training so that I could properly use it.
I've sold guns at big box retailers and I've also sold firearms at a small retail gun store. Some gun buyers have been misled into thinking that the AR-15 is somehow practical for self-defense. But frankly, it's the last gun that I would recommend for that purpose.


Gunman posted images of guns days earlier on social media 01:15
Usually, the motivation for purchasing the AR-15 is simple: People want one because they want one. Most times, the person who buys an AR-15 comes into the store already knowing that they intend to purchase one.
I've pressed some customers about why they want an AR-15, but no one could ever come up with a legitimate justification for needing that particular weapon.
Some members of the tinfoil hat brigade have come up with the reply, "We need these weapons because we want to be effective against the government if it becomes tyrannical. That's part of our Second Amendment right." Personally, I think that's ludicrous, but it has become an increasingly popular justification for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle.
The AR-15 was given to law enforcement because more and more frequently police officers were encountering these types of weapons on the street and finding that they were outgunned. One example that springs to mind is the famous 1997 North Hollywood, California, shootout at the Bank of America.
In that incident, two individuals clad in body armor held up a bank in the Los Angeles neighborhood. Police who responded at the scene literally had to run to a nearby gun store to purchase more powerful weapons, because they were using 9 mm pistols, while the bad guys were armed with semi-automatic rifles.
The standoff was one of the most infamous gun battles in American history, with 11 officers wounded -- luckily, none fatally -- and both robbery suspects shot dead. While it's an extreme example, it is in many ways the situation encountered by officers all across this country: Police simply are outgunned against semi- and fully automatic firearms.
The bullet that comes out of the barrel of an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle can easily penetrate the target -- the intruder or whatever person you are using deadly force to defend yourself or others from.
Pallbearers carry the casket of Nevaeh Bravo during a funeral service at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on June 2 in Uvalde, Texas. Bravo was killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School.
Pallbearers carry the casket of Nevaeh Bravo during a funeral service at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on June 2 in Uvalde, Texas. Bravo was killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School.
But it also will go through the wall behind that person, and potentially through that room and into the next wall. That power and accuracy are useful for military purposes, which is obviously what they were designed for. But it's far more power than should ever be in the hands of the average civilian.
The bullet fired by the AR-15 is capable of defeating the average police officer's body armor, like a knife slicing through butter. SWAT teams and some of the more specialized units typically are equipped with level IV Kevlar or steel-plated armor, which would stop maybe two or three direct hits, but eventually body armor breaks down after being hit with multiple rounds.
A person wielding an AR-15 has a range beyond 300 yards. For an officer armed with a 9 mm pistol, hitting a target beyond 50 yards is going to be difficult, even for the most accomplished marksman. A bullet fired by an AR-15 travels at three times the velocity as one fired by a 9 mm handgun. And magazines that can feed dozens of rounds into the weapon in the space of minutes clearly were meant for use only on the battlefield.
The prevalence of these weapons means police sometimes are overmatched, as we saw with the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month. In a situation where you have small children near the shooter, you want to remove the threat as quickly as possible.
But we all saw the tragic consequences at that elementary school, where police waited for more than an hour before engaging with the teenage gunman armed with an AR-15 who killed 19 young children and two teachers.
I have no doubt that police in Uvalde wish they had had weapons as powerful as the one carried by the shooter who snuffed out the lives of the victims in that school. But a far better outcome would have been if the shooter didn't have an AR-15 in the first place.
Now that I'm no longer on the police force, my AR-15 collects dust in my gun safe. Rifle ranges that permit the type of training required to use this weapon system effectively are few and far between and the cost of ammunition exceeding a dollar per round is more than this guy can afford. I no longer need it. But neither, to be honest, do most of the people flocking to guns stores to buy one.
Banning these powerful weapons from the civilian marketplace is a no-brainer, as are universal background checks. Neither move is going to solve all the gun problems that we have, but it would be a start.
And outlawing these AR-15s would not require confiscating them from people who already have them. Once you've made these weapons illegal, anyone found with one would be subject to arrest, since possession of these weapons would be a crime. I think it's likely that you would see a lot of people opting to turn them in.
A makeshift memorial surrounds the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at the Uvalde, Texas, school on May 26.
A makeshift memorial surrounds the Robb Elementary School sign following the mass shooting at the Uvalde, Texas, school on May 26.
If banning them outright seems like too extreme a solution to be politically palatable, here's another option: Reclassify semi-automatic rifles as Class 3 firearms.
That would mean that someone wanting to purchase an AR-15 would have to go through a background check, fingerprinting and review by an official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- a process that takes anywhere from 12 to 16 months. And since Class 3 weapons can't be purchased by anyone younger than 21, it would solve the issue of emotionally unstable 18-year-olds buying them.
A Class 3 firearm reclassification would also make those who are approved to purchase these weapons subject to an annual check that they are complying with federal regulations regarding secure storage of the firearm, and to confirm their licensing and other paperwork is up to date. All of these hoops and hurdles are sure to reduce the civilian demand for these weapons.

I can't overstate how dangerous it is to have semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 in the hands of civilians. Our public officials have it within their power to help make it harder for people who shouldn't have these weapons to get them.
A police officer should never have to worry about being outgunned by the bad guy they're protecting the public against.

[PAL]

It would be nice if they would really define what the 2nd amendment is. I mean we can all read it. But Joe Public probably doesn't give it much thought. However, maybe now the public is.
It really is a collapsing society, with the strife mostly in the cities. Pent up anger.
Every state should at least have background checks. That's not taking anyone's rights away, unless they shouldn't have a gun. Background checks won't eliminate this violence, but I do think it will help.

[pasayten]

After all the the hyperventilating, realities are setting in...

Democratic senator says Second Amendment restrictions are off the table
Max Thornberry - 7h ago

Congress is talking about changing the nation’s gun laws but won’t touch the idea of banning “assault weapons.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said on Sunday the current negotiations in response to the recent spate of mass shootings are spurring the most serious and productive talks he’s ever been a part of.

“I’ve never been part of negotiations as serious as these,” Murphy said. “There are more Republicans at the table talking about changing our gun laws and investing in mental health than at any time since Sandy Hook.”

Major conversations on the table are about hashing out what Congress might do to expand background checks for people looking to purchase guns, establishing red flag laws, and making large investments in mental health systems, Murphy said. Texas does not have a red flag law in place, though Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said he would be open to talking with Murphy to learn more about them.

Cornyn recently tweeted about Senate negotiations over gun control restrictions. Even with all the cooperation, there won't be a vote to restrict anyone's Second Amendment rights, Cornyn said.

On Sunday, Murphy said he agreed with Cornyn.

“We’re not going to do anything that compromises people’s Second Amendment rights,” Murphy said. “We’re not going to do anything that compromises the ability of a law-abiding American to be able to buy a weapon. What we’re talking about is trying to make sure that dangerous or potentially dangerous individuals don’t have their hands on weapons.”

Jake Tapper pressed Murphy on gun statistics showing that most gun deaths in the country are suicides and more murders are committed using handguns than AR-style semi-automatic weapons.

Murphy returned to the emphasis on red flag laws, saying they are “probably the most important here.”

Lawmakers are also considering raising the age requirement for purchasing AR-style semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21, which is the current requirement for purchasing a handgun

.

[PAL]

Big taxes on ammo of certain kinds of guns.
Put the assault weapons ban back on the books. It was shown to reduce deaths.

[Rideback]

Yes there are more guns in circulation than there are people in the US. The VOX article makes some great points about the reality of where we stand today. Like I've said numerous times here, tossing more things like religion and games into the mix only makes dealing with the reality of gun ownership by the bad guys that much harder to mitigate, and that's the NRA's intent. They want to muddy the waters, they want to toss so much stuff into the mix that the discussion becomes impossible to manage much less resolve.

So, just saying it's time to focus on access. We didn't get this many guns into the hands of the bad guys in one day so it seems reasonable to assume it's going to take some time to get them out of the bad guy's hands. There's also the issue of ammo, it could be set up to have background checks, limiting only the worst of the worst.

[PAL]

Well...you know who the real mentally ill are? Look at the NRA, Ted Cruz, Jim(looking stressed out)Jordon, Marjorie Taylor, Boabart.
Yep, post being diluted. My god and guns don't go together. Let's ask, what would Jesus do? Maybe he would have gunned down all those putting him on the cross if he had had an AR-14. More effective than a handgun, when there is a group, don't ya think?
The "cartoons", especially the one with a baby holding the barrel to it's mouth was striking. I'd like to put that up on a big ole billboard all over the country. If I was Elon, I could too.
Chitta, where are you?
PS Rideback, I like the long article about America's culture of violence and gun problems.

[pasayten]

So, what to do about the 20 million AR-15 style guns already in circulation... Not going to happen... You claim any view other than yours a "dilution"... Gee, I view yours the same way... I guess we will just let new laws and the Supreme Court (now right leaning) figure it out. Maybe we can let the government legislate society to become less violent.

America has 20 million AR-15 style rifles in circulation, and more guns than people in the country
Matthew Loh May 29, 2022, 11:40 PM

The American public owns around 393 million guns, according to Swiss-based project Small Arms Survey. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

There are 20 million AR-style weapons in circulation in the US, according to the NSSF.

They're part of a total 393 million guns owned by US civilians, more than the American population.
Debate on gun ownership has reignited after a massacre at an elementary school in Texas last week.

Around 19.8 million AR-15 style rifles are in circulation in the US, a nationwide tally that's surged from around 8.5 million since a federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004.

The more recent estimate comes from a November 2020 statement by the National Shooting Sports Foundation. In the statement, its President and CEO Joseph Bartozzi called the AR-15 the "most popular rifle sold in America" and a "commonly-owned firearm."

The debate over gun ownership and the public sale of AR-15-style weapons has intensified after the killing of 19 children and two adults in an elementary school shooting last week in Uvalde, Texas.

The gunman carried an AR-15 variant during the attack, and the semi-automatic weapon type has been used in other high-profile shootings and incidents, such as the massacre in Buffalo and in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted in November after fatally shooting two people and injuring a third.

Statistics show that the number of AR-15s owned by the American public has increased dramatically in the last two decades.

There were around 8.5 million AR-platform rifles in circulation in the US before 1994, when the weapons were prohibited under a federal assault weapons ban, per the Associated Press.

The bill, signed by then-President Bill Clinton, only applied to assault weapons manufactured after the law was enacted.

During the 10-year ban, many AR-style weapons were still legally used because they could be heavily modified so they wouldn't fall under the bill, and the number of such rifles in circulation stayed the same, according to the AP.

After the ban expired in 2004, the net import and manufacturing of AR-15 style weapons jumped from 314,000 that year to more than 1 million in 2009, according to the latest firearms production report by the NSSF.

The production rate has consistently stayed above 1 million per year since 2012, and surpassed 2.2 million rifles per year in 2013 and 2016.

An average of 4.14 million guns were manufactured every year between 1990 and 1999. And an average of 3.7 million were manufactured annually between 2000 and 2009, according to the 2021 Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives report by the Department of Justice. That annual average jumped to 8.57 million per year from 2010 to 2019, according to the ATF.

US consumers own around 393 million firearms, both legal and illegal, according to 2018 data from the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based project from the Geneva Graduate Institute. That means there are more guns than people in the US.

Of that total, around 741,000 are fully automatic machine guns registered in the US, up from almost 457,000 in 2010, per ATF reports.

A November 2020 Gallup poll found that 44% of Americans said they live in households with guns. That would mean that of the 122 million households in the US, the hundreds of millions of firearms owned by Americans are spread among 53.7 million households.

[Rideback]

What's happening here is the topic of AR15's being the weapon of choice for mass shooters is, again, diluted by the various comments about God, teachers having guns, mental health...those are all important issues but when the conversation adds them to the debate we'll end up with a list of things a mile long that can't be removed from our culture.

Once the conversation links God and prayer to gun control automatically a whole new conundrum arrives that makes it all the more impossible to focus on what new legislature can achieve. Asking teachers to carry guns AND to use them and threatening their careers if they don't is red flag kind of wrong headedness. As the Vox article points out, blaming mental illness is a non starter and again will sideline the discussion because mental illness is a tiny percentage of mass shootings.

Whether it's the screwups of a 140 trained good guys in Uvalde or the righteous response of the Tulsa, Oklahoma police force in the end people still were able to buy guns for the wrong reasons and people got shot. Two more incidents over the weekend, it will be endless but that's no reason to quit trying to stop the bad guys from getting guns.

[pasayten]

So you are expanding your AR-15 ban to all guns and their magazines now? So I have a handgun and a bag with 30 x 6 standard clip magazines... same firepower as an extended magazine... BTW, upcoming new WA law magazine purchase ban is "great than 10 rounds"... Doesn't address magazines already owned... Wonder what logic they used to settle on 10???

Plus you miss the point about Jesus and society and free will choice. Society has become pretty God-less... Separation or not of church and state. Seems you can talk about a lot of stuff in schools now... Just not God.

[Rideback]

America’s unique, enduring gun problem, explained
The factors that lead to tragedies like those in Tulsa and Uvalde are deeply ingrained in US politics, culture, and law.

By Nicole Narea, Li Zhou, and Ian Millhiser Updated Jun 2, 2022, 8:23pm EDT
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Four people were killed in a shooting at a medical complex in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Wednesday, marking the third major shooting in a month, following the mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

The shooter is dead, apparently by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was carrying an AR-style rifle and a handgun, both of which were believed to have been purchased legally in the days before the rampage. His target was his surgeon Dr. Preston Phillips, whom he blamed for continuing pain from a recent back operation. The other victims were Dr. Stephanie Husen; Amanda Glenn, a receptionist at the St. Francis Health System medical complex; and visitor William Love.

Once again, it has brought American exceptionalism on gun violence into stark relief.

No other high-income country has suffered such a high death toll from gun violence. Every day, more than 110 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 40,620 per year. Since 2009, there has been an annual average of 19 mass shootings, when defined as shootings in which at least four people are killed. The US gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times higher.

Addressing those high numbers in a national address on gun violence Thursday evening, President Joe Biden said, “I’ll never give up. If Congress fails, I believe this time the majority of American people won’t give up, either.”

Gun control opponents, including virtually every Republican, have typically framed the gun violence epidemic in the US as a symptom of a broader mental health crisis. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott reiterated that rhetoric in a press conference, suggesting that improving access to mental health resources, not reevaluating his state’s lax gun laws, should be the primary response to the Uvalde shooting.

But every country has people with mental health issues and extremists like the Buffalo shooter; those problems aren’t unique. What is unique is the US’s expansive view of civilian gun ownership, ingrained in politics, in culture, and in the law since the nation’s founding, and a national political process that has so far proved incapable of changing that norm.

“America is unique in that guns have always been present, there is wide civilian ownership, and the government hasn’t claimed more of a monopoly on them,” said David Yamane, a professor at Wake Forest University who studies American gun culture.

That’s left many wondering how many more people — including children — need to die before the US takes federal action.

The US has a lot of guns, and more guns means more gun deaths
It’s hard to estimate the number of privately owned guns in America since there is no countrywide database where people register whether they own guns, and there is a thriving black market for them in the absence of strong federal gun trafficking laws.


One estimate from the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based research project, found that there were approximately 390 million guns in circulation in the US in 2018, or about 120.5 firearms per 100 residents. That number has likely climbed in the years since, given that one in five households purchased a gun during the pandemic. But even without accounting for that increase, US gun ownership is still well above any other country: Yemen, which has the world’s second-highest level of gun ownership, has only 52.8 guns per 100 residents; in Iceland, it’s 31.7.

American guns are concentrated in a tiny minority of households: just 3 percent own about half the nation’s guns, according to a 2016 Harvard and Northeastern University study. They’re called “super owners” who have an average of 17 guns each. Gallup, using a different methodology, found that 42 percent of American households overall owned guns in 2021.

Researchers have found a clear link between gun ownership in the US and gun violence, and some argue that it’s causal. One 2013 Boston University-led study, for instance, found that for each percentage point increase in gun ownership at the household level, the state firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9 percent. And states with weaker gun laws have higher rates of gun-related homicides and suicides, according to a January study by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The link between gun deaths and gun ownership is much stronger than the link between violence and mental health issues. If it were possible to cure all schizophrenia, bipolar, and depressive disorders, violent crime in the US would fall by only 4 percent, according to a study from Duke University professor Jeffrey Swanson, who examines policies to reduce gun violence.

There’s still a pervasive idea, pushed by gun manufacturers and gun rights organizations like the National Rifle Association, that further arming America is the answer to preventing gun violence — the “good guy with a gun” theory. But a 2021 study from Hamline University and Metropolitan State University found that the rate of deaths in 133 mass school shootings between 1980 and 2019 was 2.83 times greater in cases where there was an armed guard present.

“The idea that the solution to mass shootings is that we need more guns in the hands of more people in more places so that we’ll be able to protect ourselves — there’s no evidence that that’s true,” Swanson said.


Church members after a Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25, one day after a gunman in body armor killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images
The prevalence of the self-defense narrative is part of what sets apart the gun rights movement in the US from similar movements in places like Canada and Australia, according to Robert Spitzer, a professor at SUNY Cortland who studies the politics of gun control.

Self-defense has become by far the most prominent reason for gun ownership in the US today, eclipsing hunting, recreation, or owning guns because they’re antiques, heirlooms, or work-related. That’s also reflected in ballooning handgun sales, since the primary purpose of those guns isn’t recreational, but self-defense.

American gun culture “brings together the hunting-sporting tradition with the militia-frontier tradition, but in modern times the hunting element has been eclipsed by a heavily politicized notion that gun carrying is an expression of freedom, individuality, hostility to government, and personal self-protection,” Spitzer said.

That culture of gun ownership in the US has made it all the more difficult to explore serious policy solutions to gun violence after mass shootings. In high-income countries lacking that culture, mass shootings have historically galvanized public support behind gun control measures that would seem extreme by US standards.

Canada banned military-style assault weapons two weeks after a 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia. In 2019, less than a month after the Christchurch massacre, New Zealand lawmakers passed a gun buyback scheme, as well as restrictions on AR-15s and other semiautomatic weapons, and they later established a firearms registry. The 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Australia spurred the government to buy back 650,000 firearms within a year, and murders and suicides plummeted as a result.

By contrast, it’s been nearly a decade since the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and still nothing has been done on a federal level to address gun violence.


People gather at Sacred Heart Catholic Church to pray for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
“Other countries look at this problem and say, ‘People walking around in the community with handguns is just way too dangerous, so we’re going to broadly limit legal access to that and make exceptions on the margins for people who might have a good reason to have a gun,’” Swanson said. “Here we do just the opposite: We say that, because of the way that the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment, everybody has the right to a gun for personal protection, and then we tried to make exceptions for really dangerous people, but we can’t figure out who they are.”

The political state of gun control
Despite the surge in mass shootings across the US, the politics of gun control has been the same for years.

As vice president, Joe Biden led a push for universal background checks, a new assault weapons ban, and a prohibition on high-capacity gun clips that went nowhere. Now, his presidential administration faces even tougher odds for narrower policies.

While the majority of Americans support more gun control restrictions, including universal background checks, a vocal Republican minority unequivocally opposes such laws — and is willing to put pressure on GOP lawmakers to do the same. Alongside the NRA, and a well-funded gun lobby, this contingent of voters sees gun control as a deciding issue, and one that could warrant a primary challenge for a lawmaker who votes for it.

The last major bipartisan bill that Congress considered was a 2013 compromise worked out by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), introduced after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, that would have established universal background checks. It ultimately failed to pass the Senate filibuster in a 54-46 vote, with just four Republicans signing on and five Democrats opposed.

Before the Manchin-Toomey compromise, the most significant gun control measure in recent history was an assault weapons ban that Congress passed in 1994, which sunsetted in 2004. Since then, lawmakers have struggled to get the votes to approve any other bills.

The gun lobby has the advantage of enthusiasm. “​​Despite being outnumbered, Americans who oppose gun control are more likely to contact public officials about it and to base their votes on it,” Barnard College’s Matthew Lacombe explained in 2020. “As a result, many politicians believe that supporting gun regulation is more likely to lose them votes than to gain them votes.”


American flags are seen at half-staff surrounding the Washington Monument, in front of the US Capitol, on May 25. President Joe Biden ordered flags at the White House, federal buildings, and military posts to be flown at half-staff for the victims of the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The result is a dearth of Republican support for any form of gun control legislation, leaving bills to stall in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass most measures because of the filibuster. Since Democrats currently have a 50-person majority in the upper chamber, that means they’d need at least 10 Republicans to sign onto any bill in order for it to pass.

Despite some bipartisan interest in narrow reforms in the wake of the Uvalde mass shooting, getting that degree of GOP support is still unlikely. Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) also continue to oppose changing or eliminating the filibuster, which would allow Democrats to pass legislation with the simple majority they possess.

“In the conversations I’ve had with colleagues, they are disturbed, upset, troubled, but not willing to change where they are,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told reporters after the Uvalde mass shooting.

All that leaves Congress in the same place it has been for a decade.

For now, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is leading an attempt to find a bipartisan compromise on legislation. In a tweet the day after the Uvalde mass shooting, Murphy said that he’d spend the next 10 days trying to hammer out an agreement that could get 10 Republican votes. If that effort fails as it has in the past, the Senate will then vote on two House-passed gun control bills to get Republicans on the record on the issue.

“Hopefully we succeed and the Senate can vote on a bipartisan bill that saves lives,” Murphy said in his post. “But if we can’t find common ground, then we are going to take a vote on gun violence. The Senate will not ignore this crisis.”


It’s not yet clear what shape a bipartisan agreement would take. After the Uvalde mass shooting, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she’d be open to discussing red flag laws, a policy that enables law enforcement to curb an individual’s access to a firearm if they are viewed as posing a danger to themselves or others. Toomey, meanwhile, said he believed universal background checks might be the most likely policy to pick up Republican support.

In the case that there is no bipartisan deal, the Senate intends to vote on the Bipartisan Background Checks Act and the Enhanced Background Checks Act — two bills that seek to require more vetting of anyone who wants to obtain a gun.

The Bipartisan Background Checks Act would require background checks for all gun sales and close loopholes that currently exist for gun shows and online sales. The Enhanced Background Checks Act, meanwhile, would address what’s known as the Charleston loophole, which enables an individual to buy a firearm without a completed background check if three days have elapsed. That bill would extend the window to 10 days, and directly addresses how the shooter who killed nine Black Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 was able to purchase a gun.

Both measures advanced with a handful of Republican votes in the House, and are widely expected to fail in the Senate.

Neither bill would be sufficient to fully address the causes of mass shootings, and certain studies suggest that universal background checks may have limited effects on gun violence. These policies would still be important first steps toward addressing gun access, however. Background checks are intended to prevent people with past felony and domestic violence convictions from being able to buy a gun, for example. And roughly 1 in 5 gun sales is currently made without a background check.

“These are no magic wand panaceas, but a greater focus on the process by which people obtain guns in the first place would be worthy and helpful,” SUNY Cortland’s Spitzer said.

Whether Congress actually takes action on the issue this year will become more apparent in the next two weeks. “It’s not impossible, but the chances are extremely remote,” said Spitzer.


Gun control advocates hold a vigil outside of the NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, on May 25. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The Supreme Court has made it impossible to cure America’s gun violence epidemic
In 2008, the Supreme Court effectively wrote NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s “good guy with a gun” theory into the Constitution. The Court’s 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) was the first Supreme Court decision in American history to hold that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm. But it also went much further than that.

Heller held that one of the primary purposes of the Second Amendment is to protect the right of individuals — good guys with a gun, in LaPierre’s framework — to use firearms to stop bad guys with guns. As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in Heller, an “inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right.”

As a matter of textual interpretation, this holding makes no sense. The Second Amendment provides that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

We don’t need to guess why the Second Amendment protects a right to firearms because it is right there in the Constitution. The Second Amendment’s purpose is to preserve “a well-regulated Militia,” not to allow individuals to use their weapons for personal self-defense.

For many years, the Supreme Court took the first 13 words of the Second Amendment seriously. As the Court said in United States v. Miller (1939), the “obvious purpose” of the Second Amendment was to “render possible the effectiveness” of militias. And thus the amendment must be “interpreted and applied with that end in view.” Heller abandoned that approach.

Heller also reached another important policy conclusion. Handguns, according to Scalia, are “overwhelmingly chosen” by gun owners who wish to carry a firearm for self-defense. For this reason, he wrote, handguns enjoy a kind of super-legal status. Lawmakers are not allowed to ban what Scalia described as “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family.”

This declaration regarding handguns matters because this easily concealed weapon is responsible for far more deaths than any other weapon in the United States — and it isn’t close. In 2019, for example, a total of 13,927 people were murdered in the US, according to the FBI. Of these murder victims, at least 6,368 — just over 45 percent — were killed by handguns.


A woman holds a photo of Nevaeh Bravo, who was killed in the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, during a vigil for the victims in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25. Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images
It is likely, moreover, that the Supreme Court is going to make it even harder for federal and state lawmakers to combat gun violence very soon.

Early this summer, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a lawsuit challenging a 108-year-old New York law requiring anyone who wishes to carry a gun outside of their home to demonstrate “proper cause” before they can obtain a license permitting them to do so.

When the Court heard oral arguments in this case last fall, a majority of the Court appeared eager to strike down the New York law. Justice Samuel Alito even suggested that guns should be allowed in the cramped, often-crowded cars of New York City’s subway system.

“All these people with illegal guns, they’re on the subway,” Alito claimed. “They’re walking around the streets, but the ordinary hard-working, law-abiding people ... they can’t be armed?”

Bruen will likely kick off a host of decisions striking down laws intended to combat gun violence.

The Heller opinion contains a fair amount of language emphasizing that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” Among other things, Scalia wrote that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.”

He also suggested that “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms” are lawful, as are bans on “dangerous and unusual weapons” such as machine guns.

But Justice John Paul Stevens revealed shortly before his death in 2019 that this language was added to the Heller opinion at the insistence of the relatively moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy is no longer on the Court, and his replacement, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, reads the Second Amendment expansively. So does Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Ginsburg dissented in Heller.

It’s not yet clear how much of the language Kennedy pushed for in Heller is now in danger. But the Supreme Court of 2022 is far more conservative than the Court that decided Heller in 2008, and its newest members are especially eager to expand gun rights.

The future of firearm regulation looks grim for anyone who believes that the government should help protect us from gun violence.

[Rideback]

Gun control doesn't mean having everyone's guns taken away. No legislature in the US will ever even write that legislation.
But stronger and better enforced background checks, insurance to carry and to sell, gun manufacturers that face liability for their heavy handed advertising that create 'guns are the answer' attitudes will take up the strain from those who pay the price of too many bad guys having too many guns.

The evolving talking point from the NRA that society is to blame is meant to dilute the severity of gun access, it's the new version of the 'victim is to blame' and is being touted widely by the Right's talking heads.

Religion isn't the answer, never has been and in 1962 there was an end to prayer in school, thankfully. The gun culture didn't appear until decades after that when the NRA realized how much political power and money it could make from lobbying and advertising to the public.

[pasayten]

Ray, the incident in your link describes a gun with an "extended magazine". Not understanding your point.

Exactly my point... a handgun with an extended magazine is just as lethal as an AR-15... Or somebody could just have a bunch of standard clips for a handgun... Targeting a specific gun for control is useless...

Regarding the Vietnam War... LBJ/89th Congress (Both chambers had a Democratic supermajority) were a big part of that and democrats to boot...

Jesus is shedding tears to what the U.S. has become... Our freewill choices are not going well...

[pasayten]

AR-15 is just a rally support meme... A distraction for not focusing on the real problem... our screwed up society...

Handguns... Violent society... More innocent deaths... Enough said...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/3- ... li=BBorjTa

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/i- ... acffd4fb4a

For MM...

[Rideback]

'banning guns' is a distraction meme. The role of guns in the hands of the bad guys is ever present which is why legislation needs to create better laws and enforcement to gun ownership. With the gangs, 90% of their guns are not bought through retail outlets. That problem is actually separate from the problem of the mass shooters who buy AR15's from legal outlets.

The inner cities where the gangs operate have only begun to deal with the illegal guns, nearly all of which are not AR15's, and their new policies are beginning to make a dent, albeit a small one, but they are making the effort which needs to be recognized because the mass shooter scenarios in contrast are exploding in numbers.

Access remains the largest problem, just looking at the May shootings demonstrates that. None of the shooters should have had access. If they hadn't had access to guns I seriously doubt they would have carried a knife into the disaster nor would the Uvalde police have stayed outside of the classrooms while he stabbed the kids and their teachers.

[pasayten]

Banning cetain guns will not solve the problem... other guns will just be used... What needs to be addressed are the elements of violence and confrontational nature instilled in our society... movies, tv, and video games graphically depicting gun violence, blood, and death... We have become a society addicted and accustomed to violence. We need a change of heart... Maybe even bring God back into our society, schools, and the raising of children.

Otherwise, we will just see a lot of gnashing of teeth in the political arena, useless laws, and court challenges to restrictive laws of gun control as it pertains to the 2nd ammendment. The deaths will surely continue...

[Rideback]

It's been interesting to watch the PR machine of the NRA move into action. Gov Abbott & Ted Cruz swung into immediate response mode with the mental illness memes; then, when it was pointed out to Abbott that his administration had cut funding for mental health drastically, and as late as just this April, he began to side step. Cruz started in with the good guy with a gun meme only to find himself challenged by the Uvalde facts that over 100 officers were on scene and did not breech the scene for over an hour. This weekend Tucker Carlson and Fox are turning to the Covid lockdown to say it created a public that is mentally ill. That also is getting knocked down pretty quickly because when you compare other countries in Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Australia there's been no uptick in mental illness observed. Also, for Europe, Australia, NZ, Russia and most of Asia there are stricter laws governing gun ownership. So it's getting harder to escape the reality that access has a role in culpability.

This last week Canada tightened their gun laws after observing the shootings south of their border.

There's also been talk from the NRA to develop a way to dilute the role of guns in the mass shootings by noting that people get killed by knives as well. That one is getting sliced down to size with the observation that throwing a knife or stabbing a room full of people is a whole lot more problematic than shooting rounds from an AR15.

But the NRA are experts at messaging so I'm sure they'll come up with some doozey's in the weeks to come. This time civil suits are already hitting the courts because the gun manufacturers are well protected from liabilities in criminal cases.