On A Serious Note...Follow

Over the past couple of days everyone's been posting things about the Tech shooting. Each time I log into Myspace or the like, that's what 90% of the bulletins are about, but one of them caught my eye. The guy was ranting about how it's our right to bear arms for personal defense, but Glocks (reported to be the weapon used at said shooting) are overpowered for personal defense, etc. etc... you all know where this goes.

Also, apparently it's legal to buy Ouzis in Florida? O.o

The point of his argument was a way to stop this kind of thing from happening. Obviously it's stupid to believe outlawing the legal sell of these types of weapons would help, at all. It'd be about a worthless of a law as possible, due to our nifty Blackmarket. If you want it, you can get your hands on it. Period.

So, after dismissing that idea, I couldn't think of any possible idea that would help prevent such shootings? I mean how the hell could you? Make the punishment for illegal arms sells/arms related crimes = death, making it insanely harder to get your hands on a high powered weapon? I'm sure it would severely decrease shootings in America, but wouldn't affect the sociopaths AFTER got ahold of a gun, seeing as how they plan on dying/killing themself shortly after anyways. Also such harsh laws would never be accepted with todays pansyass PC outlook on everything.

If something as simple as that WERE implemented though, kids would just make homemade bombs with household supplies. Can't outlaw bleach (or whatever the hell's used to make them, talking out the **** there) >.<

Mass screening of American citizens to find out who needs to be locked away/helped? (heh.. yeah)

Is the world just this screwed up that there's absolutely no way to stop the decline of sanity, and we just need to accept this kind of sh'it as it comes? Most of you are pretty demented ****** so I figured you'd have interesting views on it.

Edited, Apr 20th 2007 2:13pm by Kaain

Anyone who buys a gun has to serve (or haved served) in the United States Armed Forces.

Yes, but it would dry up the black market. Not today, not tomorrow, but eventually.

It'll never happen, though.

Obviously, why would you think that making guns unavailable to the general public would reduce gun deaths, how stupid

I keep seeing people saying they'd just get them on the black market. Uhm no.

MOST people don't have access to things like that, particularly lonely geeks with no friends. You may think it's easy but try to go out and buy a handgun in Canada where we have gun control. Sure it's possible, but it's not as easy as you'd think it is and you have to know people. Secondly if they can't be purchased in the country they would have to be imported to be sold in the black market (most of the guns in Canada come from the US). This would severely limit the number of guns available to those who do have access as well as increase the cost of obtaining them. If you have to track down an illegal merchant to pay 5k for a gun it cuts out a lot of the phsychotics (how many people that have 5k lying around are unhappy enough to go around shooting people?). Ammunition would also be much more difficult to obtain.

Basically it would create a whole new layer of difficulty that would deter and in a lot of cases make it impossible for people to obtain concealable combat oriented weapons.

On a side note: I know a guy that went to Florida bought an Uzi and mailed it (as in regular post) to his home in Guiana. The fact that he could do this is just wrong.

Edited, Apr 20th 2007 3:47pm by Yodabunny

True.. I didn't factor in that basically a whole department could refocus their efforts. Maybe that would drastically reduce this kind of thing.

Too bad the ridiculously simple original idea will never happen in a million years. =/

Edited, Apr 20th 2007 2:58pm by Kaain

Its legal to buy automatic weapons in most states (except Commiefornia), but you have to go through a sh*t ton of paperwork and screening to get a class III NFA.

Then they came for the retsina...

I'ma get socratic on your ***.

You mean like Lee Harvey Oswald, Christopher Whitman, Leonard Lake and Timothy McVeigh?

Good idea.

Hah. Reminds me of an old boss I had back when I worked at a convenience store. He looked at the statistics for bounced checks, realized that we recieved very few bad checks, and thus concluded that there was no real need for us to take the time during the purchase to run the check through the approval process.

Predictably, the number of bad checks we recieved skyrocketed in the next few months. Exactly as several of us had predicted (and common sense would suggest).


This is a similar issue. The argument that since *today* most guns used in crime are purchased legally that if we simply stopped selling guns that this wouldn't change is just as silly as my old bosses assumption. When you change the field, you change everything else as well. You'd simply see an increase in black market gun sales. You'd see an increase in said weapons being imported into the US. Right now, they aren't because people follow the path of least resistance. Make them illegal, and they'll follow the new path of least resistance.

With the difference being that instead of just having gun crime, we'd have gun crime and an even more rich organized criminal element within our society. Oh. And now truely only the criminals would be able to own guns, making the impact of the gun violence *worse*.


Honestly, if you really want to cut down on overall gun violence in the US, the number one best approach is to legalize most recreational drugs. Especially cocaine, meth, and marijuana (the three most often smuggled either internally or internationally). While our attention tends to be drawn to the lone killer taking out a couple dozen vitims in a killing spree, that type of crime is dwarfed by the number of gun related deaths caused by gang violence in this country. Gangs get their money from drugs. They get their guns from the same pipelines they get their drugs from (most often). As someone pointed out in another thread, most guns used in crime start out being sold legally, but are then resold *illegally* to a third party.

Remove the profitability of the drug trade, and you affect the issue from both ends. The profitability of smuggling and selling guns is really pretty low pound for pound. Right now, you can toss a bag or two of guns into a shipment of coke, meth, or pot and the guns are just an extra bonus in comparison to the profits from the drugs. Take the drugs out of the equation and most criminals simply wont be able to afford to truck guns around and sell them out of the back of their car in the ghetto (not to mention fewer people "on the street" would be able to afford them).


I just really think approaching this from a gun control issue is ultimately barking up the wrong tree. While you'll curtail the occasional spree killer (maybe, they can be pretty resourceful at getting whatever weapons they need for their spree), you'll do little to curtail the largest source of gun violence (and arguably make it worse), and will most significantly curtail the legal law-abiding citizens rights in the process.

Are you saying people who serve in the US Military are like that?