Gun Control Debate

[Sunsilver]

Let's hope so, but I've learned not to hold my breath...

Hard, irrefutable facts and figures comparing shooting in the U.S. with shootings in other countries seem to have so little effect on the gun lobby that it's hard to have hope anymore.

[River]

The NRA's coming apart at the seams, which might be why politicians are starting to talk sense.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Exactly, River.

Sent from my LG G6 using Tapatalk

[Frelga]

Seems there was another close call this weekend.

'Tragedy Averted': Texas Grandma Praised For Stopping Alleged Planned Mass Shooting

Williams later told police officers that he was staying in a hotel, and according to the complaint, this is what they found when they searched it: "an AK-47 rifle, seventeen magazines loaded with 7.62 ammunition, a black trench coat, multiple knives, black tactical pants, a black t-shirt that said 'Let 'Em Come', and black tactical gloves with the fingers cut off."

When officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives looked into how he purchased the weapon, they found an alleged false statement in his documents. According to prosecutors, Williams did not state his accurate and current address on an ATF form.

[yovargas]

Here's a fun graph showing Reps moving further to the right in the past 10 years (I'd guess in response to Obama).

Capture.JPG (39.31 KiB) Viewed 9941 times

[Sunsilver]

Gee, wonder what ELSE might have caused this...

[Sunsilver]

This may be mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but it bears repeating.

One of the first things Trump did when he came to power was veto a bill banning the mentally ill from owing guns.

The NRA managed to get a bill passed that prevents the CDC from doing research on gun ownership as related to gun deaths.

I saw a clip on FB this morning that was filmed during the 2016 campaign. Obama said current laws allow people who have been flagged by the FBI as being ISIS sympathizers to own guns.

Is that nuts, or what???

[Voronwë the Faithful]

But as has already been mentioned, since 2016, the NRA has been self-emploding, so its grip on politicians (which used to cover most of the Democrats as well as the Republicans, though in recent years has been concentrated on the GOP side) might be loosening.

[Sunsilver]

Yes, and I've heard they are nearly bankrupt due to the drop in support.

[RoseMorninStar]

A good article I thought would fit in here. No Link between Mental Illness and gun violence

[narya]

While we argue about how many high volume magazines should be considered a constitutional right to purchase, and if we should do background checks on people who buy more than 6 semi-automatics, and if we should be arming teachers, there are 23,000 people per year in America quietly sinking to such despair about their own lives that they kill themselves, each with a single bullet. If these people had used other means, they might still be alive, they might be receiving help and getting out of depression and going on to live and love and be loved. But guns - ubiquitous and seductive - are just too lethal. We have way too many guns.

https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000510/ ... comparison

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... -australia

[Dave_LF]

In related news (and in further proof that we're both post-truth and post-irony), the NRCC has demanded that a Democrat's post listing the top Trump donors in Texas be taken down because it "incites violence."

https://www.axios.com/joaquin-castro-tw ... ef683.html

[Voronwë the Faithful]

More pebbles.

Republicans Fear ‘Extinction in the Suburbs’ Over Gun Control

[Alatar]

Peak Irony

https://www.vg247.com/2019/08/09/walmar ... oval-guns/

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Peak idiocy, more like.

[Dave_LF]

I don't think we've seen the peak of either

[yovargas]

Peak Irony

https://www.vg247.com/2019/08/09/walmar ... oval-guns/

There are apparently conflicting reports about this and Walmart seems to be saying they did not issue any such directive. It seems like perhaps some individual store managers have taken it upon themselves to do this, not Walmart itself.

[Frelga]

I heard on the radio that it was a temporary policy to protect the feelings of the victims, who might be traumatized by the violent imagery while being perfectly fine with the reminder that guns continue to be easily available to future shooters. (Although I hope Walmart doesn't sell AKMs.) It looks like a corporate spin gone bad, TBH.

Here's an interesting historical perspective on the time a gun control law was successfully implemented in the US.

They were killers with submachine guns. Then the president went after their weapons.

Nobody expected “the underworld to be going around giving their fingerprints and getting permits to carry these weapons,” Cummings said. But if they were caught with a gun that wasn’t registered, they could be charged with tax evasion, just as Chicago mobster Al Capone had been. “I want to be in a position, when I find such a person, to convict him because he has not complied,” the attorney general said.

This probably made a lot of difference.

The NRA at the time represented “hundreds of thousands” of gun owners but not gun manufacturers

[elengil]

So this happened

[River]

Today, Colt announced it will cease manufacturing AR-15s for civilian use because the market is flooded.

Colt will suspend production of AR-15 rifles for civilian sales, saying there's an "adequate supply" of the high-powered weapons already in the market, the famed gun manufacturer said Thursday.

The gun-maker, based in West Hartford, Connecticut, said its decision is purely market-driven and made no mention of any public pressure over the AR-15's use in several mass shootings in the United States.

"The fact of the matter is that over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity," Colt President and CEO Dennis Veilleux said in a statement.

"Given this level of manufacturing capacity, we believe there is adequate supply for modern sporting rifles for the foreseeable future."

Veilleux said his company will continue to make and sell AR-15s for "our warfighters and law enforcement personnel" who "continue to demand Colt rifles and we are fortunate enough to have been awarded significant military and law enforcement contracts."