“Judge upholds Chicago's handgun ban” Obama says what works in Cheyenne may not work in Chicago.

[jody]

Judge upholds Chicago's handgun ban

A federal judge today upheld Chicago’s 1982 handgun ban as Mayor Daley disclosed plans to strengthen it by following Washington D.C.’s lead.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Earlier this week, the D.C. Council replaced its overturned law with new regulations that require gun owners to receive five hours of safety training and register their firearms every three years.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“I believe the court’s ruling presents us with an opportunity to continue our efforts to enact reasonable, common sense gun laws that put conditions on gun ownership and sales and that also puts limitations on where guns are permitted, all of which the court’s ruling allows,” the mayor said.

Asked point-blank whether he intends to use the city’s sweeping home-rule powers to mimic the D.C. changes, Daley said, “That’s what we’re looking at. You’re not gonna rush into something so quickly. That’s why you have a conference and listen to people.”

Obama with his Warren affair has riled the GLBT community against him so GLBT may find they have lots in common with 80+ million gun-owners.

[villager]

1. Exactly right! Just like traffic laws on rural highways vs. city streets!

What works -- or doesn't -- in Cheyenne, may not work in Chicago. Or Los Angeles.

Common sense to all but the NRA-smitten.

[jody]

2. Obviously you support free speech etc. in rural areas but not Chicago & LA. "Common sense to all but

the NRA-smitten."

[villager]

4. I don't support Antonin Scalia's interpretations of either the first or second amendments...

And again, you do "God's work" for gangbangers, insuring a free flow of guns to them.

Some of us have other views....

[jody]

5. You don't agree but the law of the land is the 2nd protects an individual's RKBA for self-defense.

Get used to it because that's the way it's always going to be.

[villager]

8. i don't agree with the spin you and the Federalist Society put on that amendment

Nor do I believe that rural gun fetishists should impose laws on urban areas.

[jody]

10. No spin, just read SCOTUS opinions on D.C. v. Heller including the dissent. Note that the dissent

did not say individual RKBA was not protected by the 9th Amendment as an unenumerated right but the dissent did recognize that PA (1776) and VT (1777) declared RKBA for self-defense is a natural, inherent, inalienable/unalienable right.

Either learn to live with the law of the land or remain bitter for the rest of your life.

That's what losers have to do.

[iverglas]

12. that southern charm

it just oozes from your posts, jody.

Amazing how the bitterness seems to be on the other foot whenever you speak.

[Abq_Sarah]

28. rural gun fetishists?

To be honest, I see more of an obsession with firearms from people who do not support the 2nd amendment than from those that do.

[iverglas]

30. yeah, eh?

Kinda like how all those research scientists working for a cure are just obsessed with cancer ...

[bossy22]

63. so...

what about urban gun controllers imposing laws on rural areas?

[SteveM]

65. Sounds like you got a Jones for more culture war...

Your "rural gun fetishists" reveals your general animosity toward things rural, but even here your characterization is probably wrong as there are millions of gun-owners who rarely do anything more out-doorsy than take a walk from their apartment building to the car.

No one (even your "rural gun fetishists") has the right to impose a law which is unconstitutional. That includes you.

[iverglas]

3. and that would be useful

if there were moats and drawbridges around Chicago ... or Cheyenne ... to keep the firearms bought in Cheyenne from ending up in Chicago ...

I can't think of any reason why mandatory training + registration wouldn't work in Cheyenne, for starters, myself.

Are people in Cheyenne suffering from a rash of murderous burglaries, for instance, that they have some enormous need for handguns that people in Chicago don't have?

[rrneck]

11. As a liberal

I'm all for education whenever it can happen. Just offhand maybe training in conflict resolution and non-violent intervention is not a bad idea as well. If you have a gun, you are responsible for more power than others and you should be held to a higher standard for it. Don't know about the registration though. I'll have to think about that.

[jody]

16. The problem with registration is no one can guarantee 100% that a data bank from registration will

not be used by a rogue government to confiscate firearms.

99.999999999....% is not enough, only 100% guarantee against confiscation is acceptable for discussing registration.

I know people who believed "I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away" who felt betrayed when they found out that promise did not cover popular semiautomatic firearms covered by the infamous, useless assault weapons ban.

As the Post Turtle said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

[iverglas]

21. jody needs a guarantee!

Why just this one? Why not a guarantee that his house and his car aren't going to be confiscated? How about his kids??? I'll bet they're all REGISTERED.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/rapidfire/form.html

[AtheistCrusader]

31. What?

If you have purchased a firearm from an FFL, the Government already has all the information it needs to track you down. Hell, just a NICS request with your name on it could give a 'rogue government' all it needs to identify you as a 'person of interest'.

I don't see any reason why we can't work out some useful form of registration when A) The Government already has everything it needs to make your worst fears come true, and B) If your worst fears come true, it'll be time to use those firearms anyway.

Give me a legal provision that any legally owned firearm at the time of registration will not be post-facto banned and taken away, and I'm on board with registration. That's all I need. It would make such an enormous dent in straw purchases alone, it's totally worth it.

[jody]

32. I assume you ignored the simple fact that millions of firearms are legally owned that have no record

in government files.

[AtheistCrusader]

35. What's your point?

You think the number of arms that have no paper trail whatsoever alone are enough to enforce the 2nd Amendment? I own some. Guess what, they're sitting in the same safe as the others.

Have you ever worked with data mining? It's amazing what you can find out about people if you ignore the rules. Ever been a member of the NRA? Person of interest. Ever joined a gun range? Person of interest. Ever bought anything at a gun store with a credit or debit card? Person of interest. Ever bought reloading supplies? Person of interest. Gun safe? Person of interest. Leather holster at a sporting goods store? Person of interest.


If the Government really went nuts on us, they have so many options right now to figure out who the gun owners are, to say nothing of informants, it's hilarious. The 'anonymous' nature of gun ownership really only exists in our minds, if the worst happens.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AtheistCrusader]

43. If you elaborate beyond the subject line

As to exactly what points I am trying to make do not make sense, then maybe I can resolve your confusion.

Maybe this will help:

1. If you have purchased a new firearm, you did so through an FFL. That means the government can find you.
2. If you have purchased a used firearm from an FFL, the Government can find you.
3. If the Government goes nuts and starts trying to find out who owns firearms without regard to rule of law, they can seize plenty of records that will identify you, me, etc.

So my point is, the anonymity of no registration of firearms is an illusion. It is no protection at all. So instead of stonewalling on the issue while people abuse the lack of registration to illegally traffick in weapons in this country, why don't we sieze the opportunity to craft sensible registration that protects what we have from post-facto banning, and just do it. Get it done. Close this vector that gets guns into the hands of criminals with no trail to find the person who shifted that weapon from the legal firearms trade, over to the illegal. Give our law enforcement tools to combat this problem.

[spin]

64. Most people have no idea what government data mining is...

or how it is used/misused.

Even though subject-based data-mining, sometimes called link analysis, can help government investigators track down associates of known terrorists, it can also lead them to monitor huge numbers of innocent people as people grow increasingly interconnected, Sparapani said.

"If in fact we are all separated by only a few degrees of linkage, then as we move out from an individual who's under review ... pretty soon all of us become suspects," Sparapani said. "We find ourselves in a position where everyone is under the guise of suspicion; everyone is being investigated by the government."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154870/security_civil_liberties_experts_question_datamining.html

The Pentagon pays a private company to compile data on teenagers it can recruit to the military. The Homeland Security Department buys consumer information to help screen people at borders and detect immigration fraud.

As federal agencies delve into the vast commercial market for consumer information, such as buying habits and financial records, they are tapping into data that would be difficult for the government to accumulate but that has become a booming business for private companies.

*************snip**********

Even critics say data mining can be effective in targeted circumstances, such as gathering information about known suspects. But the government's wide interest in the technology disturbs privacy advocates, who say the vast commercial data industry provides a ready-made window into private lives that the government would be unable to legally assemble on its own.

Jim Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said risks include errors in the data, drawing incorrect inferences from the information and "the chilling effect that comes when a citizenry feels itself under scrutiny."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/14/AR2006061402063_2.html

Using data mining it would b child's play to compile a list of gun owners.

[tucsonlib]

59. I Wee Bit Paranoid, Are We?

"I know people who believed "I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away" who felt betrayed when they found out that promise did not cover popular semiautomatic firearms covered by the infamous, useless assault weapons ban."

And did any of those "people you know" have their guns "taken away"? Of course not. There's a difference between restricting the sale of certain weapons and knocking down the door of someone's house to confiscate their guns. Or are you unable to comprehend this?

I feel so much safer knowing that jody is on constant guard against that "rogue government" that'll be storming our shores any day now, grrrabbin' all our guns. Though why they would bother to go to all that trouble is beyond me. Even jody can't explain it.

[X_Digger]

60. Not so paranoid..

ABC World News broadcast

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7794527529226066500&ei=TSdRSdTzD4SQqALq5tjyCw

[SteveM]

67. Think "Katrina." Think "Compass." Think "You Tube." (nt)

[Indy Lurker]

15. you've got it backwards

The people of Cheyenne do not see a need to register or regulate it's handguns or their gun owners.

[iverglas]

17. are the people of Cheyenne all so selfish as that?

"No need" to take measures that could prevent firearms from being trafficked out of their jurisdiction into neighbourhoods where they are used to rob and kill people, and used by drug dealers to carry on their activities ...

I'd hate to think that my neighbours were that selfish, myself.

[JonQ]

19. I suppose upholding individual freedoms

is selfish. When you get right down to it all rights apply to individuals. So groups like the ACLU are extremely selfish in that they're working to protect individual rights (so their own among others) and I'm selfish by wanting all our rights to count because I know if they don't that may affect me, my family, friends, neighbors etc.

Yep, the constitution is a damned selfish document. It only cares about individual rights, not the collectives (federal governments) rights!

[iverglas]

22. do you?

Your choice, if you want to suppose moronic things.

[Indy Lurker]

24. I don't know anyone in Cheyenne

btw Cheyenne and Chicago are about 950 miles apart.

Traditionally, jurisdictions in the US craft laws for the people within their boundaries, not for those living 900 miles away.

I'm not sure anyone in Cheyenne has ever proposed mandatory training + registration.

Perhaps if there was some data to support the theory that firearms are being trafficked into Chicago from Cheyenne, the people of Cheyenne might show some interest.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Indy Lurker]

27. How am I playing the fool?

In post #3 you seem to be supporting new gun laws for Cheyenne, or at least the idea that new laws could work when you said:

"I can't think of any reason why mandatory training + registration wouldn't work in Cheyenne, for starters, myself."

I simply see no way for such laws to be adopted.

Why would the good people of Cheyenne be expected to craft their laws based on the perceived needs of folks in Chicago?


This would be like Canada banning Medical Marijuana to curb gang violence in the US.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Indy Lurker]

33. Perceived Benefit

There is no evidence that changing firearms laws in Cheyenne will improve conditions in Chicago.


How is Canada banning Medical Marijuana different from Cheyenne changing gun laws?

In both cases, a jurisdiction would be altering it's laws for the perceived benefit of another.

[iverglas]

34. I give up

How is Canada banning Medical Marijuana different from Cheyenne changing gun laws?
In both cases, a jurisdiction would be altering it's laws for the perceived benefit of another.

And the benefit, "perceived" or otherwise, in that case would be ...?


There is no evidence that changing firearms laws in Cheyenne will improve conditions in Chicago.

Yes, and we all know that when Obama said "Cheyenne", he meant Cheyenne.

At least those of us practised in the art of disingenuousness "know" it.

[Indy Lurker]

41. reduce crime associated with a banned item

Cheyenne, and most of the US has no problems with the use or misuse of handguns. A majority of problems associated with the misuse of handguns occurs in very urban areas.

You seem to be supporting the restriction of handguns in places such as Cheyenne, not because of problems with handguns in places like Cheyenne, but because handguns are being trafficked into places such as Chicago where there is a problem with gangs and guns.



Similarly, Canada, and other places where it is legal do not have an issue of misuse of Medical Marijuana. But there are places where the illegal trafficking of Marijuana is associated with gang violence and crime.

Handguns that are illegal in Chicago and contribute to Chicago crime were trafficking from a place where they are legal, but are not causing a problem like Cheyenne.

Marijuana that is illegal in Chicago and contributes to Chicago crime is trafficked from a place where it is legal, but is not causing a problem like Canada.


If it is reasonable for Cheyenne to restrict handguns for the perceived benefit of reducing crime in Chicago, would it not also be reasonable for Canada to restrict Marijuana for the perceived benefit of reducing crime in Chicago.

[iverglas]

42. whee, how long did that take to think up??

reduce crime associated with a banned item


Yeesh.

When was medical marijuana last used to hold up a convenience store? murder an estranged wife? enforce a drug debt?

Yeesh. Yeesh.

"Associated with". Quite the little meaningless phrase you've got yourself there, ain't it?


You seem to be supporting the restriction of handguns in places such as Cheyenne, not because of problems with handguns in places like Cheyenne, but because handguns are being trafficked into places such as Chicago where there is a problem with gangs and guns.

You seem to have got it, except for the fact that you're still pretending that "Cheyenne" in this discussion means Cheyenne.

Nonetheless, the obvious fact is that if every jurisdiction in the USofA imposed restrictions on the transfer of firearms that involved a permanent record of such transfers, and Cheyenne did not, you can bet your bippy that handguns would be getting trafficked from Cheyenne to Chicago.


Marijuana that is illegal in Chicago and contributes to Chicago crime is trafficked from a place where it is legal, but is not causing a problem like Canada.

Okay, well, going with what I think that is supposed to me -- when did we stop talking about MEDICAL marijuana, which is not trafficked anywhere?

The plain fact is, my friend, that ALL personal marijuana possession would have been decriminalized in Canada some years ago were it not for the pressure exerted and threats made specifically by the government of the USofA. Perhaps you actually did not know this.

There is no benefit for the US in Canada prohibiting marijuana possession, since there is no benefit for the US in prohibiting marijuana possession within its own borders, but that didn't prevent the threats being made.

[Indy Lurker]

44. How do you know Medical Marijuana is not trafficked

How do you know Canadian Medical Marijuana is not involved in Chicago gang wars?

[iverglas]

45. how do *you* know

that pigs don't fly?

Sorry. You do your own research, and you offer me some grounds for suggesting that medical marijuana is trafficked into the US from Canada, and then we'll talk.

[Indy Lurker]

47. I can't, and I don't think that it is.

But then again, I feel the same way about guns from Cheyenne ending up in Chicago.

Short of some research showing that gun from Cheyenne are ending up in Chicago, I have no reason to believe it, or believe that Cheyenne should change it's laws to help correct a "perceived" problem of trafficking.

[AtheistCrusader]

46. Wait, did you just make Iverglas's point for her?

Ow my head.

[iverglas]

48. eek

and I didn't even notice !!

[Name removed]

38. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

36. Does Chicago have a big problem with guns being trafficked in from Cheyenne?

I would think the criminals would get them from somewhere closer.

David

[JonQ]

18. But if they were suffering from "a rash of murderous burglaries"

you, and others would cite that as a reason to ban guns. Don't think we don't notice the catch-22: high crime = too many guns, ban them. Low crime = why do you need guns then? Ban them. Exactly average amount of crime = too many guns are causing too many crimes, but you still don't need to defend yourself really, so ban them.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JonQ]

23. Nope, I'm not letting you play that game again

you are pro-banning guns. You claimed people in cheyenne don't need guns because of the low crime rate. On other ballots you've claimed a high crime rate is a good reason to ban guns. You like to make comments and pretend they disappear the moment they are no longer convenient, I guess hoping you won't be held to your words.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

39. let's just make it nice and clear

you are pro-banning guns

Your statement is false, and I have reason to believe that you think it is true, since you would have no grounds for thinking it is true.

[iverglas]

54. eek

Bad proofreading.

That should read:

Your statement is false, and I have NO reason to believe that you think it is true, since you would have no grounds for thinking it is true.

[JonQ]

61. Yep

you're trying it again. Dull.

[iverglas]

40. I can't even think

why I might have thought it worth replying to this ...

Oh. This, I suppose:

you, and others would cite that as a reason to ban guns

Another one of those false statements made without even the slightest of grounds for believing it was true.

[pilsengirl]

6. Handgun ban in Chicago? Really?

I guess that explains why I have to call 911 on a regular basis because there are shots fired in my alley.

[iverglas]

7. do you think?

That's a rather odd conclusion ...

I guess the ban on speeding explains why so many speeding tickets are issued on the highways, too.

[pilsengirl]

9. I'm just saying

you would never know the law even exists when you see 14-year-olds running down the street shooting at each other in the middle of the afternoon.

[Howzit]

13. I guess if you are willing to shoot someone when that is against the law, then

you might be willing to own a gun despite the law.

[iverglas]

14. willing is one thing

Able is always the other.

Able to find someone to transfer a firearm to you -- generally a little more difficult if there are records of ownership of the firearm from the time of first sale, eh?

[Statistical]

49. What about the aproximately 100 million unregistered firearms in the United States

There are about 100 million "street guns" which have no accurate registration. That just includes the number of weapons where registration is INTENTIONALLY INCORRECT.
There are many more maybe 50% of the 300 million firearms in the US that are not currently registered to their current location. Some states don't even register weapons.

Approximately 800K firearms are stolen every year. A strict registration system would make guns registered to someone else very valuable. I guess if each stolen gun was used in a single murder we could limit murders to 800,000 per year!

Nearly 40,000 tons of illegal drugs enter the united states every year (they are illegal BTW). How many guns fit in one ton? If unregistered weapons are valuable wouldn't smugglers include some guns in their runs? If we can't keep 40,000 tons of drugs out of this country how will we prevent guns? If we can prevent guns let the DEA know maybe they can use that "technology" to stop drugs.

So there will still remain a supply of million and millions of "illegal guns" and the law abiding are the only ones who will register their weapons.

Did you know the Supreme Court ruled that a criminal registering a firearm is a form of self incrimination? So even if a criminal was stupid enough to register their firearm that information can't be used against them.

[iverglas]

50. Ah, the journey of a thousand miles

What was it Bobby Kennedy (or whoever he was plagiarizing) said about dreaming about how things could be and asking "why not"?


If unregistered weapons are valuable wouldn't smugglers include some guns in their runs? If we can't keep 40,000 tons of drugs out of this country how will we prevent guns?

Oh dear, if only the USofA could do anything about international firearms trafficking ...

Gosh. I wonder whether joining the efforts underway by the rest of the civilized world, and exerting diplomatic/economic pressure on rogue gun-trafficking states, and offering police expertise and assistance, might help out there.


Approximately 800K firearms are stolen every year. A strict registration system would make guns registered to someone else very valuable. I guess if each stolen gun was used in a single murder we could limit murders to 800,000 per year!

Well, I guess I have no idea what point you're making, but I guess that if registration were accompanied by safe/secure storage laws (such as exist in most of the civilized world), there'd be a little more incentive not to allow one's guns to get stolen.

A strict registration system would make guns registered to someone else very valuable.

Hardly, by the way. It would be a tool for solving the crime by which the firearm was acquired in the first place.

[Statistical]

51. Like international efforts to stop the drug trade.

Like international efforts to stop the drug trade.
Which last time I checked is worth about $300 Billion per year.

Once again if we can't stop 40,000 tons of illegal drug, and couple million illegal residents from entering the country each year why would guns be different?

What makes you think that if we haven't disrupted either of those flows guns will suddenly be impacted?
How much will it cost? Would that money (since all budgets are finite) be better spent trying to solve crime?

Why do you think reducing the gun supply will even reduce crime?
Gun supply (both legal AND illegal) has grown over last two decades yet violent crime rate has fallen substantially.

1991
Murder Rate: 9.8 per 100K
Violent Crime: 758 per 100K
# guns ~290 mil (115,873 per 100K)

2007
Murder Rate: 5.6 per 100K
Violent Crime: 467 per 100K
# guns ~360 mil (119,205 per 100k)

There is no evidence that reducing gun supply will reduce crime. There are already about ~100 million illegal guns. If you cut that to a "mere" 50 million without allowing the supply to rise by theft, import, or manufacture that would be nearly impossible but even then it would be 36 illegal gun for every violent crime committed.

[iverglas]

52. and the $64,000 question

Once again if we can't stop 40,000 tons of illegal drug, and couple million illegal residents from entering the country each year why would guns be different?

Where are the guns coming from? How are they produced? Who produces them? Who traffics in them?

Guns and drugs, much like guns and butter, are different.


Why do you think reducing the gun supply will even reduce crime?
Gun supply (both legal AND illegal) has grown over last two decades yet violent crime rate has fallen substantially.

Actually, assuming you are talking about the US, it's currently rising. Catch up.

What made you think I was talking only about crime, and not suicides, for instance? Or just about reducing crime, and not reducing the risk of serious harm in the course of crime?

How about reducing drug trafficking and all the social ills associated with it by reducing access to firearms by one side of that old "war on drugs"? The one thing that drug traffickers/dealers need, as much as they need drugs, is guns. With the guns, they could even get along without the drugs, and just revert to, or open up, markets for various other illicit products/activities. Organized crime really doesn't care what it does to make a profit, you know.


There is no evidence that reducing gun supply will reduce crime.

Nah. All that evidence of lower homicide rates, including lower robbery-homicide and suicide-homicide rates, in countries with less access to firearms, that's just evidence of nothing.


Canada:

http://www.suicideinfo.ca/csp/assets/alert48.pdf

Of the 503 separate homicide incidents reported to police in 1999, Statistics Canada* reports that 8% (n=40) were murder-suicides. These incidents resulted in the deaths of 52 homicide victims, where the accused, 93% male, also killed themselves.

United States:

http://www.sondralondon.com/attract/suicide/index.htm
(and if you don't like that source, secondary in this case, feel free to find your own; it seems there are no official statistics as there are in Canada)

The Violence Policy Center did a study in 2002, during a six-month period in which 662 people died in murder-suicides in the United States. That averages out to about two such killings per day. More died from murder associated with suicide (369) than from suicide itself (293). Three-fourths of the murder-suicides involved “intimate partner” situations, and of these, 94 percent involved male attacks on women.

Canada: 52 homicide victims in 40 murder-suicide incidents in 1999
United States: 369x2 = 738 homicide victims in what seems to be 586 (293x2) murder-suicides in 2002
(I submit that this would be an undercount, since it was likely compiled from media reports.)

Canada's population at the time was about 1/10 of the US population.
Canada's homicide via murder-suicide rate was 1/14 of the US rate.

It will be a rare homicide-suicide that does not involve a firearm.

And yes, there are other factors. Homicide-suicide by an elderly husband in poor health, or whose wife is in poor health, is likely much less common in a country with a universal health insurance plan.

Ah, a little more:

http://www.helpstartshere.org/Default.aspx?PageID=1248

The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) is a recently developed state-based surveillance system that includes data from 17 states as of 2007. Now for the first time, a national data base exists that reveals the numbers of homicides that end in suicide. The goal is to collect data on homicide for all 50 states. Results so far reveal that over 90% of the perpetrators of murder-suicide are male. About one third of these male perpetuated homicides end in suicide. (Data available at www.nvdrs.com.)

These results are consistent with those of the Violence Policy Center (VPC). The VPC bases their findings on an Internet search of media accounts of deaths by murder-suicide. VPC reports that a total of 591 murder-suicide deaths took place nationwide in the six months between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2005.

As reported by the Violence Policy Center (2005), the pattern of the murder-suicide is predictable: the pattern involves a male perpetrator, female victim, a decision by the woman to leave the man, and a gun. A handgun was used in 92% of the incidents. The offender was 6.3 years older on average than the victim. Texas had the highest number of cases; the typical Florida pattern involved an elderly male caregiver overwhelmed by his inability to care for an infirmed wife.

Handguns are used in about half of homicides overall in the US.


It always seems to me that "crime" is the bugaboo of middle-class white men -- it's what might happen to them. They are not going to be murdered by their parent or their intimate (or estranged) partner, or killed by a stray bullet in their neighbourhood. It's women and children and members of minority groups and the poor who need to worry about those things.

Middle-class white men, they worry about their rights. Their rights.

[Irreverend IX]

62. Where are the guns coming from? How are they produced?

I've seen claims that most guns used in the drug trade in the Americas are diverted from the legitimate US market. Indeed, few guns are actually manufactured by criminal syndicates in the Americas. But if the US passes draconian anti-gun legislation and manages to somehow stop any more legally-owned guns from getting into criminal hands, the use of guns by drug cartels won't stop. It would likely get worse.

The reason that criminals don't manufacture guns now is that it's cheaper and easier to divert them from the US civilian market. But if that ceases to be the case, I doubt they would have much trouble setting up facilities to churn out AK-47s, submachine guns and other weapons. If you doubt that, take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9xf62PKC5M

You don't need factories with giant mills and stamping machines to make guns. If poor Pakistani tribes can make working automatic rifles with the simple tools available to them, I'm sure the Mexican gangs that manufacture meth by the hundreds of pounds will be able to figure it out too. And if that did happen, I suspect fully-automatic weapons would become more prevalent among criminals. A black market of guns that are diverted from the US civilian market won't include many full-autos because there are extremely few of them available to US civilians, but a gang will have no compunctions about manufacturing automatic weapons.

[SteveM]

66. The gun-controllers don't want YOU to have guns...

...because they can't control the crim who has guns. So they rely on that 'ol policy failure prohibitionism, establish some wort of moral high ground, and walk away from any meaningful solutions to crime. They gots to have their culture war fix. And to think, they call themselves "progressive."

[slackmaster]

53. There is no good reason for any of us to tolerate people who don't support basic civil rights

:nuke:

[bossy22]

55. not surprising

what will be interesting to see is what obama says if and when a supreme court case regarding 2nd amendment incorporation comes about

[Statistical]

56. I agree. Very interesting.

It will happen only a matter of time. Likely it will go all the way to SCOTUS since they left the question open.

Any guesses where it will originate. If I was a betting man I would say Chicago.

[bossy22]

57. same

chicago will probably be the likely place...Bob levy (the gentleman that has been orchistrating all these cases) chooses certain localities for specific reasons. He chose D.C. because it was a federal enclave (meaning that if a 2nd amendment case was to be heard by the supreme court, they couldnt skirt the individual/collective rights arguement). Chicago is the most likely choice because its ban is almost identical to D.C.'s ban...making it hard for any court to find it constitutional without using the arguement that the 2nd amendment isnt incorporated.


It will put obama in a peculiar position. He supported the D.C. law but recognized that the 2nd amendment did confer an individual right. He could not come out and say "i believe in second amendment incorporation but believe the chicago law is constitutional".

[jody]

58. I agree because presidents can't vote "present". n/t