Gun Control and Regulations

Since the subject came up in the US politics thread and tropers suggested creating a new thread about this topic specifically and not guns in general, here it is.

Given how we were talking about kids and guns, I'll reiterate my point: they shouldn't be handling anything until about 21. Proper teaching is a good enough approach. The desire to do so feels like a part of the cultural problems of the US.

Edited by Grafite on Feb 4th 2019 at 12:11:15 PM

I'm not sure why 21. Or why 21 is used as an age limit in general so often, but that's a different question.

> they shouldn't be handling abything until age 21.

You need to drill firearm safety into them from a young age,if they're expected to handle firearms in their dally life they need to know risks involved,waiting until they're older makes the lessons harder

@Ultimatum: Well, yeah, if they're joining the police force or army, where guns are handled in everyday work, then that is the appropriate time to personally test them for yourself and I do hope they provide gun training and safety.

But in other cases, until the age of 21, even 18 would be good enough for me, gun training should be learned through teaching and unloaded weapons, not practice.

You can't teach them properly without them actually using the guns,theory doesn't cut it here,they need use the guns so they have some experience of actually using one

By that logic we should be putting children behind the wheel to teach them how to drive early in life.

Which admittedly, might not be a bad idea.

What is so important to be teached in childhood that can't later be learned when legally acquring your own gun? You can't trust kids not to want to try it out for themselves later when an adult is not around, leading to accidents like one I personally know and many, many others.

That also seems like a terrible idea to me.

Edited by Grafite on Nov 9th 2018 at 4:14:04 PM

Impressing some basic gun safety on children is probably a good idea, especially if they might have access to them. Note though that gun safety for children is less tactical training and more letting them know that guns are dangerous.

Everyone should know the basic rules of gun safety though, it’s crazy how many people get their hands on a gun and immediately put their finger on the trigger or point it at someone.

Edited by archonspeaks on Nov 9th 2018 at 8:23:40 AM

Which is weird since some of those rules are pretty easy to remember:

1) Treat every gun as if it's loaded. Take the time to double check.

2) Never point a gun at anything you don't want dead.

3) Gravity is a thing. If you fire a bullet into the air, it will fall down somewhere and it won't be gentle.

4) Doors and walls and such are kind of shit at blocking bullets.

Edited by M84 on Nov 10th 2018 at 12:26:53 AM

It’s not perfect, by any means, but I do think Masschuetts gun laws are reasonably sensible. Here’s the basic process from Wikipedia:

Here’s the full page. It’s not perfect, and could probably use a few tweaks, but I think, in general, it makes sense.

Edited by megaeliz on Nov 9th 2018 at 12:06:01 PM

As far as countries go, where should US policy makers be looking for best practices? What places do gun control right? And can their laws work in the...."unique" cultural and constitutional context that is American gun politics?

Applying the gun laws of the (generally) bluer states to the others feels like the best path to achieve better control, at least in the United States, as background checks, red flag laws and carry permits go a long way.

Remember that gadget on the gun in Skyfall where it wouldn't fire unless the authorized user held it? We need those, in regards to stolen firearms.

Edited by RainingMetal on Nov 9th 2018 at 1:53:06 PM

> As far as countries go, where should US policy makers be looking for best practices?

Saw this on John Oliver but Australia had a mass shooting and they introduced gun control regulations and shocker,it brought down homicide rates and meant were less mass shootings

Regarding stolen or illegal third party selling of firearms, since those are a huge problem with crime, how about something like this:

• You have to register them upon initial acquisition and re-register them on a yearly basis, just like with cars.
• If your firearm is lost or stolen, it has to be reported within a certain window, like 3 days or a week.
  • If it is found that you neglected to report within the window, you get penalized.
  • If your stolen firearm is used to commit a crime outside that window and it was unreported, you should be penalized.
• If it comes time to re-register your firearm and it is found to be no longer in your possession because it was stolen or sold outside the proper channels, you should be penalized.
• If you're ever found with an unregistered firearm in your possession, that should lead to a hefty fine, revoking your license, and/or jail time.

Edited by danime91 on Nov 9th 2018 at 11:58:54 AM

Regarding a point which came up in the last discussion regarding "all guns are made for war"...I repeat: No, they aren't. Guns in general might have been originally created for war purpose, but there are huge differences between weapons for sport shooting (which are build to make a tiny hole in a tiny target as precise as possible), hunting (usually riffles built for a precise shot so that whatever you hunt is dead before it realizes what hit it), and weapons for the battlefield (where even sniper weapons are designed to ensure that the soldier doesn't run of ammunition too fast, and a lot of guns are supposed to fire as many shots as fast as possible). Normally I would say that the weapons the police use are a different category, too, but, well, we are talking about the US here, so I guess they have assault weapons and war like scenes on the street. In every other country the guns the police uses have to be easy to carry and there is preferable a non-lethal option. Oh, and then there are the so called collectibles, meaning old weapons - you can solve this by having a law that you can have them, but you have to make them unusable.

So, yes, I do think that you could per law make a difference between weapons for those kind of purposes. The idea that the NRA will find a way to get around any attempt to do so is completely self-defeating.

Oh, and regarding place to look for ideas, how about Germany? Many people don't know this, but Germany has one of the highest gun-ownership rates in the EU (due to a long hunting, sport shooting and collecting tradition) as well as a pretty high number of illegal weapons within the country (because if you have so many borders, it is impossible to completely control everything, the Russian mafia alone brings a lot of weapons into the country). It has also one of the lowest dead-by-gun rate and our police barely even shoots their guns.

Now, this is partly a cultural matter - meaning, in Germany guns are NOT cool and people who are obsessed with guns outside of the acceptable hunting/sport shooting context will be seen as crazy. Nobody over here would just walk around with a weapon in the city (and doing so wouldn't be permitted anyway). But Germany also has strict gun control laws, and while they are not as strict as I would like to in certain areas, taking a good look might be a start.

And while the US is at it, they might want to change the narrative surrounding guns in the media a little bit. That might help. You don't get less mass shootings if you tell every crazy out there that owning a gun is good for his self-confidence.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 9th 2018 at 1:36:03 AM

It’s probably a reply better suited for the gun or military thread, but this whole section is utterly incorrect and betrays a lack of knowledge when it comes to firearms.

Different types of firearms have been adopted for different purposes, but quite literally every variety of firearm we know today was originally designed for armed combat. In essence, every firearm is meant for exactly one thing, and that’s to kill humans.

Sport shooting isn’t always done with low-caliber rifles. Olympic shooting is, but the most popular types of “sport” shooting all use conventional handguns and rifles in normal calibers. “Hunting weapons” is a category so massive and diverse you really can’t makw a single generalization about it, almost every type of weapon has been adapted for hunting in some way. Finally, the last part about military weapons all being rapid fire is utter nonsense, and the statement about military snipers even more so. Full auto fire is something the military actually discourages for most applications, and military sniper rifles are no different than civilian hunting rifles.

At the end of the day, firearms have only one purpose and that’s to kill people. You can try and debate around that fact all you want, but there’s no escaping it.

Regulating by feature or type is a futile endeavor because it requires a too technical approach to be successful, and that approach can be easily worked around. Permitting the very act of ownership is the only viable solution.

I’ll point out that Germany is actually less restrictive than the US when it comes to the types of weapons you can own, but restricts the act of ownership much more heavily.

Edited by archonspeaks on Nov 9th 2018 at 1:41:57 AM

I know...this is a point which gets discussed from time to time in Germany because a lot of people think that the type of gun should be more restricted, too. But there ARE different permits for which kind of guns you are allowed to own. Meaning not everyone who has a gun permit has a gun permit which would allow the purchase of the more dangerous weapons.

And honestly, is it really a concept that hard to understand? There is no reason why anyone would need a weapon which can fire 30 rounds within seconds for "Personal use" or "protection". NONE! Just get those weapons off the market and the next mass shooter will most likely kill less people because he will use a different weapon.

You know that amok runs in Germany DO happen, right? Most of the time they have way less victims though, because a knife just doesn't quite as much damage as a gun. And a gun which only allows, say, eight shots instead of 30 at once will give 22 potential victims time to flee or hide.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 9th 2018 at 1:59:23 AM

I think you can licence guns by category, but you have to do it via pretty broad categories, none of this assault weapon nonsense. So similar to how you get different vehicle licences you could get a handgun licence, a shotgun licence, a semi-automatic rifle licence and a automatic rifle licence. Any licence can also have an add-on for concealed carry.

You already have licensing for automatic weapons in the US, it’s not hard to divide shotguns, handguns and semi-automatic rifles.

The big advantage with licensing is that you can do away with background checks at purchase (just check the licence), still allow private sales (just require a licence check and title transfer) and you don’t need to worry a ton about tracking individual weapon purchases.

Actually I would argue that whatever sort of regulations you have, the only civilians who should require access to automatic weapons are those who work in film and television. And any licenses of that nature should be registered to highly regulated businesses rather than individuals.

I think all guns should have a GPS tracking chip inside them, much like the ones inside ankle monitor bracelets. If the chip runs low on power, the gun emits a loud alarm, so charging it is mandatory. The chip also sends a signal to a database if the gun is fired, and the person owning the gun needs to call in the gunshot afterwards to report why it was fired. Damaging or removing the chip is illegal and warrants jail time. Letting the chip run out of battery is worth a fine, and the punishment becomes more and more severe the longer the gun chip goes without power.

Of course, this would also come along with gun safety training and a gun license, so law enforcement has a database of all the guns owned by everyone, where those guns are, and who owns them.

That's just impractical in all regards—the only reason it should immediately raise alarms is if it's fired in a general area you would expect guns to not be fired. For instance, settled environments nowhere near a shooting range.

As for "all guns are designed to kill people": no, there's quite a few that weren't designed to kill people due to people not needing that amount of overkill. Thinking of things intended to shoot large game. And for "all guns are meant for war", the host of guns that are just impractical...

The reason why guns shouldn’t be restricted by fire rate or cosmetic features is not because people should be allowed to own guns like that, but because there’s no way to write effective legislation for those characteristics.

I think the desire for those kinds of regulations stems from a lack of knowledge on how guns actually work. They’re highly technical devices, and getting bogged down in the details is an endeavor doomed to failure. Something like what Silas is proposing, basically broad category permits, would probably be the most effective.

As far as GPS tracking, that seems a bit unnecessary, as well as potentially illegal in the US. Strict regulation at the point of sale would more or less solve the issues that proposal tries to solve.

Edited by archonspeaks on Nov 9th 2018 at 3:45:02 AM

Yeah, shooting ranges and designated hunting areas would disable that gunshot notification electronically.

Sorry, but what is so complicated about "this fire rate shouldn't be freely available"? Not to mention that other countries DO have legislative like this. What makes the US so special that it won't work there?

A tracking system seems to be overkill. At most, maybe a tracking chip which can be used to find a weapon if it gets stolen, but that would need to be installed in a way that it is impossible or at least extremely difficult to just remove said chip.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 9th 2018 at 3:47:58 AM