Since I don't want to be banned again, I'll do this the simple way. Bump.

Grove street is very close to several low income projects, and I saw this on the news, this was some Drug/gang BS.
Gun Laws dont work on Criminals, since they dont follow the law.

The one in Atlanta..well, I will not press the issue, but that school is dead in the middle of gangland. Again, you wont get their guns with a gun law.

The memphis one appears to ahve been a hunter who was a real Fucktard, and it appears he was using a modern Rifle during 'primitive season' AKA as poaching. Hope they throw his stupid ass in jail if THAT is true. You never fire TOWARDS a road, unless you got a LOT of distance between you and said road, and lots of trees. and even then, try to avoid it.

I cant comment on the AZ one

And now for some other stories of how gusn SAVED lives

http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/georgia/armed-veteran-in-wheelchair-thwarts-home-invasion/nT6hf/

http://intellectualconservative.com/index.php/when-kids-and-guns-mix Or how about these?

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/01/19/gun-appreciation-story-2-for-today-georgia-college-student-saves-himself-ten-friends-by-shooting-at-masked-attackers-killling-one/

maybe this one?

See my point Bo Sox, for every ONE of yours, I can post 20 a day.

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2013/01/school-shooting-in-tennessee-that.html

how about this one? I remember this one, becauseit was close to home.

The school shooting that DID NOT happen because of a ARMED Guard. Wont hear about this one on the bleeping bias news.

"See my point Bo Sox, for every ONE of yours, I can post 20 a day."

You missed the point. I posted one for each of the last four days. Go find four for the last four days and I may concede.

"Gun Laws dont work on Criminals, since they dont follow the law."

Amazing, ain't it, how if we started a gun registry, there wouldn't be nearly as many illegal gun possessors out there and there wouldn't be nearly as many irresponsible gun owners out there yet the NRA keeps on bashing this idea, clearly a viable compromise that both sides ought to be happy with.

"Amazing, ain't it, how if we started a gun registry, there wouldn't be nearly as many illegal gun possessors out there and there wouldn't be nearly as many irresponsible gun owners out there"

What on earth gives you that idea? You think that would be the law that people would suddenly decide to obey?

Yeah. The gun sellers would obey. Either that or they get shut down. It wouldn't be immediate but the NRA isn't going to let anything immediate happen; we both know that.

Get serious about it. If a person gets caught with a gun, confiscate the gun and amputate BOTH index fingers. Problem solved, and GREAT reality TV opportunities.

Semck, had the gun registry been established in the Carter era when it was first proposed, we wouldn't have the illegal gun sale problems we have today.

Whatever helps you sleep man.

Yeah, the idea should help you sleep too.

I sleep great!

Let's not have any laws, criminals don't obey laws.

...Are you being satirical or serious with that, bo_sox?

While I agree a rational, sit-down argument will never sway the NRA (and to be fair, why should it, they're a lobby and a well-paid one and powerful one at that, and they don't get their pay and power by being compromising or moderate, they're a constituent group through and through) do you really want to descend to that level?

On another note, though, I do want to ask, as it's brought up again and again in these gun discussions--

The related notions that
A. Criminals will break the law, so why bother having gun laws, and, very much related,
B. There will always be gun deaths, so why try and limit guns?

This, combined with the idea that the 2nd Amendment protects any and all arms, from the reasonable to the bazooka-level-absurd, demonstrates a sort of black-and-white thinking that frankly doesn't seem very nuanced or critical to me, I'm afraid...

Yes, criminals will break the law--that doesn't mean laws can't lessen crime or that we shouldn't have laws.

Yes, there will always be gun deaths--that doesn't mean that we can't try and reduce the number of gun deaths...saying that gun control will not eliminate gun violence is absolutely RIGHT...but to say it's not worth doing if it has the potential to lower that number, as has been the case in the Northeastern US and the UK simply because it won't eliminate ALL gun death seems absurd (and YES I KNOW that oft-trotted out "the UK has more violent crime overall, though" factoid, but again, I fail to see how this is a black-and-white, one-or-the-other arrangement...can't we take what works of the UK system--assuming for the moment we could find a way to do so Constitutionally--and adapt that to our existing laws so as to reap the benefits of their gun control laws while avoiding the violent crime spike? Isn't that the essence of so many great ideas, fusing two good things together...like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, chocolate plus peanut butter and BAM! you have an even better thing on your hands!) :)

So, WHY the one-or-the-other, black-and-white attitude?

(Another point I've heard and want to address, the oft-cited "But *I* am a responsible gun owner and wouldn't do this sort of thing" argument...

We don't make our laws because of you, Responsible Gun Owners, the same way we don't make our punishments and laws against murder for all the people here who will never murder...

The fact of the matter is, what your 2nd-grade teacher often told you after that one dick in the class caused everyone to pay the price, ie, sometimes a few bad apples spoils the whole lot and everyone suffers for it, is true--

99 out of 100 gun owners are perfectly responsible, good, honest people, I believe that completely, no arguments here, and they could probably own all sorts of weapons for sport and defense and stay perfectly on the side of both the law and morality, no problem--

It's gun owner #100 that ruins it for you all, because #100 causes so much grief and pain that the impulse to lessen the amount of #100s outweighs the benign nature of the other 99 of you...

Simply put--

I believe you all when you say you can own an AR-15 peacefully, you 99 good gun owners...

But gun owner #100 has spoiled it for you, and if I'm forced to deny a privilege to 99 of you to counteract #100 and stop a James Holmes going on a 70+ person shooting spree...sorry, but weighing those 70+ lives hurt by #100 vs. the pleasure you 99 good gun owners might derive...it's no contest--I'll act to prevent #100 and save the 70+ preemptively, and you can blame #100 for that.)

You tell me Obi... they have money and they have corrupt politics. It may be a shitty way to go about it, but they do it anyway. How can you beat money? How can you beat 100 representatives who are afraid they won't be reelected if they don't support the NRA? Yeah, that's called corrupt, and you can't beat corrupt by patting it on the back and talking reason with it.

I love how the gun control side paints the gun rights side as "irrational", and "unreasonable", especially when the gun control side has no facts to back up its arguments. The cities and states with the most gun control also have the most violence.

Your strongest argument is literally "Some guy with a *gasp* semi-automatic weapon (without having the first idea what a semi-automatic weapon is) shot 20 first graders! Clearly, we need to ban semi-automatic weapons and anyone who disagrees has no problem with *kids* getting shot!"

I have a novel idea. Let's invest more in mental health and try to defuse these ticking time bombs. Let's replace all current federal laws with a graduated licensing/purchasing system. Let's progressively tighten background checks for more serious weapons, for example an instant background check for a revolver and an extensive background check for a semi-automatic rifle. Let's mandate some sort of "safe storage" rule that says that guns must be stored or carried responsibly. Let's ban "gun-free zones", because they are an invitation to gun crime and they are blatantly discriminatory and unconstitutional.

@ obiwanobiwan

These crazies are not buying their own guns, with the exception of the Colorado shooter, who fell through the cracks. More often than not, they get their hands on someone else's gun. Your numbers are off as well. 150 million gun owners (most with semi-automatic weapons) didn't kill anyone today.

Ban assault rifles. As for criminals, Id bet on a deer hunter with a rifle over a crackhead with a machine gun any day.

Over 75% of crimes are related to handguns, not assault rifles. You just hear about assault rifles because the media is sensationalist in that way. We need more legislation than that. It doesn't have to involve a ban.

This may be true, but there isn't much good reason for non military/police to have the assault rifles, so I say ban them, and arrest people caught with them. At least it is a start. Give me the good reason to have an assault rifle besides fighting others with assault rifles.

There is none. I'm simply saying that that won't solve more than 2-3% of the crimes. It'll solve a portion of the massacres. Yeah, it's a start, but it's not an end.

To that I agree. Too bad you cant control the ammo supply better. Red flag anyone buying too much without sufficient explanation. You only need so much (at one time) to protect yourself.

That's part of the registry. You can track the places where the illegal guns and munitions are sold because they sell a hundred a day. Places with proper licensing have their own reasons to sell, obviously. Places that don't are illegal one way or another.

Really? You can track that guy in the back alley selling out of the trunk of his 1983 Cadillac Eldorado?

"This may be true, but there isn't much good reason for non military/police to have the assault rifles, so I say ban them, and arrest people caught with them. At least it is a start. Give me the good reason to have an assault rifle besides fighting others with assault rifles."

During the LA Riots, the LAPD completely abandoned south central. Shop owners had to go out and buy illegal 'assault' weapons to fight off heavily armed gang members/looters. Some shop owners even died in shootouts while the police were standing around locked and loaded, miles away, scarfing down donuts and watching the city burn to the ground. Had the shop owners not defended themselves and their stores, their shops without a doubt would've been looted and burned to the ground. They would have lost everything.

Ironically, the government response was to track down these people - who the same government had abandoned in their hour of need - and arrest them for gun "crimes".

Tolstoy + infinity!

Modern semi-automatic rifles are *very* useful in cases of widespread civil disorder, such as the 1992 LA Riots, because as Tolstoy said the government is often unable or unwilling to provide security in those situations.

In any case, so-called "assault weapons" are simply semi-automatic hunting rifles with more features that only marginally increase or do not increase the lethality of the gun, such as flash suppressors, bayonet lugs, detachable magazines, pistol grips, folding/collapsible stocks etc. These weapons make the guns look "military-style" or "scary" but in reality they are only dressed up hunting or varmint rifles.

As bo_sox48 pointed out, most gun violence involves handguns.

"Really? You can track that guy in the back alley selling out of the trunk of his 1983 Cadillac Eldorado?"

Yeah. Pretty easy. Who'd he buy the guns from? A gun store or salesman of some kind. You have no need to buy 50 guns in a year.

Maybe he stole them. Duh!

Blackmarket goods aren't bought over the counter then sold. They usually have "fallen off the back of a truck" and laundering them is as easy as laundering money, easier in fact. He really know little about the real.world and the crime.syndicates do you? Watch Goodfellas sometime to get a real.perspective (it is a true story) on guns amd drugs and the way organized crime.operates.

+1 to Goodfellas. Third best crime movie ever, behind Scarface and American Gangster, of course. Godfather gets honorable mention but it's too damned long.

Draugnar is right. There are 310 million guns in America, many of which are A) semi-automatic and B) unregistered. Besides, guns are tracked by their serial number, and it's not hard to file off the serial number.

Another +1 to the '83 Eldorado reference

"Maybe he stole them. Duh!"

Unless he made the guns himself, they have to originate somewhere. If he made the guns himself, I fault the buyers, not the sellers.

You could also join the NRA and change their policies...

Bo, gun shipments gun hijacked all the time and then the guns get their SNs filed and acid washed then re-etched with bogus numbers so even the best crime labs can't read the original numbers. The rifling gets redrilled and the hammers and parts swapped around and realigned so prior ballistics are useless. Then they change hands a half dozen times through criminals who don't dare rat each other out or they won't get out of prison alive. Spend some time in the real world. Talk to a cop who deals with illegal weapons (like my brother) and learn a thing or two. You won't be so glib amd naive and think you can solve the problem with your simplistic solution if you do.

If criminals can learn enough chemistry and restricted resources to manufacture methamphetamine, it stands to reason that they would also be able to acquire the materials and tooling to manufacture firearms.