Issues Poll 2: Gun Control

[Dunefar]

Final results of the last poll:

I am pro life.    - 4 (10.5%)
I am pro choice.    - 32 (84.2%)
I am undecided.    - 0 (0%)
Other (Elaborate)    - 2 (5.3%)

A little more lefty than I expected from the DL, but no great deviation. I wonder if it's a trend or just this one issue that skews that far?  Anyway, let's do a less controversial issue this time. This one is specifically related to the US; the majority of the DL is from there. Feel free to chime in with foreign views, though! Again, feel free to vote and explain your position.

Bear in mind the poll choices are approximations, there's a lot of gradients to gun control so just grab which you feel fits you best.

[Dunefar]

I went with moderate gun control. I'm okay with some regulation and safeguards, though I feel gun ownership is an acceptable part of being a mature citizen. We have a right to defend ourselves if we so choose, including and up to firearms. I prefer not to go too much in either direction beyond this. Too many gun controls leave me cold, too few have stupid things going on. Let's be honest, 99.99% of citizens don't need automatic weapons.

[SnowFire]

Moderate gun control.  Specifically, I'd like strong registration requirements, background checks on buying a gun legally (make it harder for crazines / felons to get them), and certainly grant discretion to any location to set its own gun policy.  For example, the incredibly Big Brother bill in Arizona would forbid universities from banning guns from their own campuses.  And of course it's supported by theoretically pro-citizen's rights Republicans who hate the government micromanaging businesses normally, unless it's to force universities to allow guns on campus, which is a crazy bad idea for a variety of reasons.  That said, if somebody checks out, go ahead and let 'em have your average gun.  This is ignoring automatic weapons of course, handguns and rifles should be fine for both personal protection and hunting - automatic weapons are only useful for SWAT teams or the military or crazed mass murderers.

I'd also be willing to give states a fair amount of leeway.  It seems clear to me that there's more cause for citizen guns in, say, Montana rather than Washington, DC.  A big city should have police always nearby and extra guns just becomes hazardous.  Out in the plains, I can respect the need for civilian defense a bit more.  Unfortunately, in this age of interstate highways, this doesn't really work so well anymore.  If South Carolina has super-lax gun laws, they can easily sell far in excess of local demand with the understanding that the extras will be sold on the black market in the Northeast.  And of course the South Carolina government is okay with this.  Alas.  In the 80s, it used to be that plenty of Republicans supported gun control, but now very few do, and the Democrats have had to back off more than I'd like on this issue to try and take the West.  Oh well.  A sacrifice I'm entirely willing to make for the sake of expediency, but still annoying that the NRA will still freak out over crazy stuff like "force Amtrak to allow guns on board" as if they were the same as the far stronger gun control legislation of the 80s and early 90s.

[Sierra]

Option C. I wouldn't complain if Option D happened, but that's such a wildly unrealistic event that I can't countenance voting for it.

I totally fail to comprehend the attraction of guns as a hobby. Grokking does not occur on any level and mostly I can only conclude it's a power fantasy thing for guys. Self defense isn't a terrible argument in their favor, as such things go, but even then I don't see needing anything more than a handgun to get the job done. No to automatic weapons being commercially available, there's no reason a civilian needs one.

(Edit: Mild hilarity when I read this and then glance at my avatar. Oh well. He's a cop, though!)

[superaielman]

I waffle between B and C on this. I don't like passing laws that are going to be hilariously ineffective (The last time this came up, the numbers of guns in the US was in the hundreds of millions), but I'd support some type of registration for every new gun made, if only to help combat some of the horrible effects of the US drug war.

[metroid composite]

Option D, but I'm voting with respect to the Canadian system where there aren't already tons of guns in circulation.

For the record, in Canada you can buy hunting rifles, certain limited handguns, and not a lot else.  Notably, there's restrictions on silencers, large magazines, certain types of ammunition (armor piercing).  They also need to be stored unloaded, which cuts down on accidents.

But I don't have a lot of research or knowledge in this field.  Mostly voting with the status quo: whatever Canada was doing seemed to work fine.

[DomaDragoon]

Not voting due to non-USness, but I support a total gun ban for the U.S. because that will make it much easier for us when Canada invades.

Seriously, though, I'm willing to let people have guns as long as they keep them out of firing range of me. Probably moderate control based on what the poll says.

[Grefter]

Picked Moderate, it is pretty much where I would like to see Australia back to.  I am not much of a gun dude, although I can totally understand collecting them (it is no worse than collecting little clown figurines or some shit), I don't see a need for them to be massively available.

That said though, down here at the moment?  It is getting a bit out of control.  To even own a pistol you need to be an active member of a shooting club.  I think the theory is that enforces some basic level of proficiency?  It doesn't really achieve much of anything at all other than cause more paperwork following it up and work as a deterrent for regular citizens by being a pain in the arse.  I really dislike regulation via annoyance policies.

On the other hand?  I know most of our population lives in cities.  Most people organising gun control stuff have no idea what it is like out in the bush with regards to wild animals.  There is just straight up times where it is a DAMN good idea to have access to a shotgun out there.  I can't imagine that the US is that massively different that you don't have potentially dangerious vermin that need to be violently removed from properties to ensure safety of people and product.

Ideally I would want something between BAN FUCKING EVERYTHING and moderate, but it is good enough for what we are looking at here like you have said in the starting post Dune.

[Yakumo]

I personally feel like the moderate option is the way to go.  People do use guns for more than just self defense, and I don't want to see people's freedoms for things like deer hunting to be taken away by overly stringent control.  On the other hand, you don't go deer hunting with a fully automatic weapon.  Obviously this is less common in cities but America has a lot of area where you can do things like this.

For the record, I'm of the opinion that hunting is great if you're actually going to use what you kill.  My family used to go hunting every year for the meat, venison is excellent.  Sport hunting for nothing but trophies is stupid, though.  Not that anyone asked or probably cares. <_<

[metroid composite]

Actually, Gref, quick Google search says "Of the 10 most dangerous snakes in the world, 8 are Australian."  In most places I've lived and gone camping, wildlife actually isn't much of a danger at all.  Bears are the biggest danger, but they won't come near if you make enough noise, and they don't tend to live close to farmland.  So...needing guns to defend farmland is...probably more of a southern hemisphere thing.  (The rest of the deadlies are mostly native to Africa and South America, I think?)

[Lady Door]

I have no opinion on gun control. I want pretty much what everyone else wants - keep them out of the hands of the crazies, but don't kill someone else's right to their choice of entertainment/protection/collecting, etc., which is about the most untenable thing I can imagine as a basis for law.

I WILL comment on the guns as vermin control point, though. My cousin has a cow farm/horse ranch in Montana, and they really do have to worry about mountain lions and wolves and bears. Those bastards are not to be trifled with.

... none of which require an automatic, or really even silencers or other such paraphernalia.

[Cmdr_King]

Voted for limited, although that's not totally accurate.  What I'd like to see is a system where people buying guns are required to go through basic gun safety courses (think driver's training), except giving those instructors fairly broad powers to deny folks permits.  Less so to weed out crazies (though yeah, bonus) but instead to nail the people who won't take the thing seriously.  The gun is always loaded.  If you pull the trigger, you killed someone.

Just, once you've gotten the hint, not a whole lot else is needed.

[Ranmilia]

Moderate.  I'd like stronger restrictions on the manufacturing and registration end of things, giving every gun produced a hard to destroy identification and tracking number similar to what's done with vehicles.  Gun contol in general isn't really a big issue to me though - in this day and age there are so many other ways to kill people that, well, I don't understand why this one weapon type is such a big deal.

[SageAcrin]

Actually, Gref, quick Google search says "Of the 10 most dangerous snakes in the world, 8 are Australian."  In most places I've lived and gone camping, wildlife actually isn't much of a danger at all.  Bears are the biggest danger, but they won't come near if you make enough noise, and they don't tend to live close to farmland.  So...needing guns to defend farmland is...probably more of a southern hemisphere thing.  (The rest of the deadlies are mostly native to Africa and South America, I think?)

True enough, but seeing as how I had a rattlesnake in my back yard a week ago...it's still a point to be made.

I went with moderate, though my ideas on what constitutes moderate is pretty broad. Shotguns, okay, they're used for hunting. Rifles, sure, but try to keep it to bolt action, you don't need a semi-auto rifle to shoot a deer and bolt actions have the benefit of being harder to kill a lot of people with(not impossible, at all, but.). Pistols, okay, they make solid self-defense weaponry against wildlife and are a lot more convenient than the other two. Avoid all forms of heavy duty ammo, etc, you get the idea.

But if you try to just keep guns away from specific people without a general ban, only some broad sweeping stuff(like the "don't let felons walk off with guns from a store" laws we have) will have a real effect. Past that, I think the returns are too diminishing.

Serial number registration is a good idea, but it strikes me as too after-the-fact. Sure, you'll probably find out who killed someone-or at least, whose gun did-but that doesn't stop them from getting shot, or guns getting shuffled around out of proper channels. Nothing wrong with it, but I don't think it's going to prevent much, sadly.

CK's idea is pretty good, though. Not so much for the ignorance, but for the snap decision. If you make a gun actual effort, people are going to think twice. There are a rather amazing amount of stabbing deaths, last I heard, and it's not because stabbing is a more pleasant, cleaner, more effective, or, er, anything, way to kill than shooting is. It's because a person already had a knife. If you make guns actual work to get, only the people that actually have a purpose or a serious hobby involving them will have guns.

It's probably too late overall, though. I can't fathom how many guns are in the US, and many are far under the radar, getting passed through families or given to other people or being sold person to person without paper trails, etc. Barn door, etc., at least until old guns hit a point where they can no longer fire, any new laws are going to be low impact at best.

[Grefter]

It is much less the snakes met than wild pigs/dogs/generic local carnivorous beast.  Alternately just straight up handling generic vermin infestations.  They aren't a solution to wild rabbits as an example, but they certainly are a contributing factor.  Areas lacking in the former are going to have a bigger problem with the latter, so I would say it applies fairly well world wide.

I think I understated how much of a pain it is to own a pistol down here.  I don't mean at point of purchase you need to prove this shit.  I mean consistently over time you need to prove this stuff.  I think it is at a higher frequency than people renew drivers licenses (haha old double standards). 

Serial number registration is pretty much nothing at all to do with prevention and is an entirely reactive tool for control.  It is a damned good one though.  It is much less about identifying a firearm after it has been used and more for helping to identify when one has gone missing.  Ergh to doing inventory on objects without a unique identifier just as a minor.  Definitely a highly useful practice to have for many reasons. 

[superaielman]

Every figure I've seen pegs it at least 200 million guns, Sage. The other fun part of that stat: Guns don't really break down as they get older. The figures I'm seeing are at least 10000 shots for a modern pistol before breaking, and estimates on gun boards/Wikis places that much higher.

[Pyro]

Moderate Gun Control.

In an ideal situation I would honestly prefer for most guns to be banned (with the exception of hunting rifles, I think). Having countless firearms around the united states has I think been one of the factors for our rather alarming violent crime rate compared to other modern/western countries. But the floodgate has already been opened, so to speak, and we aren't going to be able to close it. Incorporating a gun ban would be completely ineffective because of how many guns are in circulation right now.

One sort of unrelated aspect I WOULD like to mention is this: The US shouldn't be giving away our firearms to every organization outside our borders who may be very temporarily advance some of our interests (if you can call them interests). I'm pretty sure we've armed everyone from the Taliban to Saddam Hussein, and it really hasn't proven that good an idea.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Voted strong control, mostly due to my stance on handguns which is harsher than the norm. I don't think private citizens have a right to small, easily concealed, deadly weapons. The individual's right to "self defence" (not that firearms are actually good at this in practice from all the numbers I've seen) is pretty soundly trumped by society's right not to have millions of these things flying around, and if they're available to ordinary citizens the criminals will have a way easier time getting them and this -will- lead to more deaths. Yeah, the floodgates have been opened, but changing laws now is how you make things better decades in the future. Not that politicians ever think that far ahead.

Other than that my views pretty much mirror the common ones here so far. I'm totally fine with hunting rifles and shotguns in situations where they are appropriate, and am generally quite supportive of efforts to regulate guns in a similar manner that we regulate cars (plenty of parallels between them after all).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Strong gun control here as well. Private citizens shouldn't have the right to carry around something as easily deadly as a handgun as far as I'm concerned either - and one way to disencourage production of firearms that can end up in the hands of loonies and criminals is making them harder to access in general. Long-term-only solution? Sure, but hey. I'm pretty much parroting Elfboy here. The issue that bandits won't buy -legal- firearms to me is irrelevant to the discussion: civillians having access to them doesn't make the issue itself any better either, and the measure -can- lower gun availability long-term.

[Captain K.]

I picked moderate.  I have no problem with someone owning a gun for self defense or recreation (skeet shooting/hunting).  I don't think we need an actual Constitutional Amendment explicitly allowing them - that was a product of the time period in which the Constitution was written.  Obviously not all guns should be allowed.  There is no reason to own an automatic weapon/silencer/rocket launcher unless you specifically plan to kill humans.

Here in Texas you are required to take a "driver's ed" course to buy a handgun, and there are background checks.  Seems to work pretty well.  There are still gun crimes of course, but not that many.  You're less inclined to pull a gun on someone when you don't know if they're packing also.

"Get down!  He's got a gun!"
"This is Texas.  Everyone has a gun."  -- Miss Congeniality

[metroid composite]

The individual's right to "self defence" (not that firearms are actually good at this in practice from all the numbers I've seen)

What numbers have you seen?  Is there a website with these statistics?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Weapons should be registered to an individual and it should be that person's responsibility as to what is done with them. It is your personal responsibility to keep your weapons secure and to use them responsibly. A criminal record results means you demonstrated an inability to handle your rights responsibly, so you can't buy them. So! Fuck up and the law comes down on you hard. Like Connecticut Jackhammer hard.

[Dunefar]

This one's been fairly uneventful and it looks like discussion has died down. Last call to vote and post, I'm gonna be closing this tomorrow or Monday for the third poll.

[Dunefar]

Thanks to everyone that voted! Locking this and preparing the new topic.