US House of Representatives passes bill loosening gun restrictions - Polidicks

[QUOTE=evilweazel;52955798]Basically, yeah. Live free or die[/QUOTE] Tbh at least let me finish my degree first before you do this so I can leave. [QUOTE=ilikecorn;52955796]That entirely depends on your interpretation. In my mind it allows for very few restrictions, specifically it does not: Allow for bans of magazine capacity, nor does it allow for bans on feature or type of weapon. If you want to get technical it doesn't allow for banning of "machine guns or destructive devices", but SCOTUS has ruled on that, and I'd generally accept that ruling if the machine gun registry was open. SCOTUS has already ruled against things like "mando psych checks" and "mando licensing", so things are pretty much the way I'd interpret it.[/QUOTE] It's really hard to figure out what the 2nd truly allows because a lot of it is pretty nebulous and just set by the supreme court, who have have gone back and forth a few times. And hell on licensing even heller said it would have been permissible had it been administered differently iirc.

[QUOTE=evilweazel;52955810]If I'm going to take it seriously, I guess it's what I'd want in my ideal America, where the issues I believe cause the large portion of gun crime are solved. [B]Poverty, Mental Health, the usual suspects.[/B] I realize it's probably not the greatest idea to be implemented today, and I'm not sure I'd be super comfortable having LEOs or myself responding to calls involving PKMs and the like all the time. But, I think it's something I'd knock more and more restrictions off of as the situation improves, were I the Supreme Dictator of the 5th Drumpfreich.[/QUOTE] To have these at a level where gun proliferation will not increase violent crime and successful suicides is basically utopian.

[QUOTE=Gbps;52955809]Okay, I understand your argument. Not sure if I totally agree, but I get you. A gun can be pulled on anything. Guns get pulled in road rage incidents, for example. I don't entirely believe that the average human, especially a granny, can be expected and trusted to have that level of quick thinking to determine if escalation is necessary to end someone's life in a situation like that. When the granny pulls the trigger, a single citizen has tried, convicted, and sentenced a person to the death penalty in a single finger movement. That's the way I see it.[/QUOTE] That's totally fair and this question should be the real meat of the debate in my opinion. It's a tricky, tricky situation. I can tell you now if there was a reliable, portable, fully non-lethal solution I would be behind eliminating concealed-carry today. There just really isn't.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;52955824]That's totally fair and this question should be the real meat of the debate in my opinion. It's a tricky, tricky situation. I can tell you now if there was a reliable, portable, fully non-lethal solution I would be behind eliminating concealed-carry today. There just really isn't.[/QUOTE] Yep. Incredibly tricky, sadly :\ I don't have a good answer either. I don't think anyone does. But, for now, I'll hold the belief that, if working towards eliminating concealed-carry is a goal, then increasing its proliferation of it is not the solution.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52955819]To have these at a level where gun proliferation will not increase violent crime and successful suicides is basically utopian.[/QUOTE] I'm not looking for total elimination of gun violence or violent crime, just a large reduction, which I think addressing those would solve, mostly in the way of gang violence, or undiagnosed people snapping. I'm 100% fine with my theoretical society being a little less secure in exchange for more freedom.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52955819]To have these at a level where gun proliferation will not increase violent crime and successful suicides is basically utopian.[/QUOTE] A good case study for a country with extensive firearms proliferation and no real social concerns associated with it is Switzerland. Switzerland has 25% gun ownership and yes, they [I]are[/I] allowed to keep ammunition in their homes (I see people claim otherwise often). Switzerland has a pretty low homicide rate (.50 per 100,000 - compare to 4.9 per 100,000 in the US in 2013) with the majority of its homicides being conducted with knives. That disparity is probably because Switzerland has fewer handguns than rifles and rifles are harder to transport in the open illegally. Switzerland does have a slightly higher suicide rate than average, but most of its suicides are in men above the age of 70. I don't see any data on the methods used but I would guess that yes, firearms are prominent, if not the majority, in these cases.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;52955815]And I want that too, but you're effectively saying by saying "fewer and fewer restrictions" that one day you hope to get rid of the NICS and background check systems, because those cost money, and that bill is given to you in the cost of the gun. [/QUOTE] In an ideal world, I would want NICS and background checks to be specifically barred from being put on to either the seller or buyer cost-wise, who I would want to be able to get as many as they want for free. Ideally, it would be funded by some money being poorly utilized in the tax system somewhere, of which there's plenty. Probably the ATF if it was up to me, because fuck the ATF, mostly. I don't mind spending a little more money to make sure mine, your, and future generations have access to the same rights that my ancestors and myself have and had. I want the next generation of America to have more rights, not less.

[QUOTE=evilweazel;52955832]I'm not looking for total elimination of gun violence or violent crime, just a large reduction, which I think addressing those would solve, mostly in the way of gang violence, or undiagnosed people snapping. I'm 100% fine with my theoretical society being a little less secure in exchange for more freedom.[/QUOTE] Freedom is such a difficult word to debate around. Is a society that is free in the libertarian sense really going to produce a [I]free[/I] society? I would say most people would disagree. And by a free society, I mean one where people are free enough to enjoy the aspects of the society without fear of violent injury taking that away from them. It's a tough topic right now, because it's incredibly difficult to argue "[I]against freedom[/I]", but freedom means so many different things. Take a hyperbolic society where everyone walks around with whatever military equipment they want. Explosives, rifles, combat gear-- you name it. If everyone is too scared of everyone else to participate, then I would say that's not a free society, despite there being no restrictions placed on them at all.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;52955834]A good case study for a country with extensive firearms proliferation and no real social concerns associated with it is Switzerland. Switzerland has 25% gun ownership and yes, they [I]are[/I] allowed to keep ammunition in their homes (I see people claim otherwise often). Switzerland has a pretty low homicide rate (.50 per 100,000 - compare to 4.9 per 100,000 in the US in 2013) with the majority of its homicides being conducted with knives. That disparity is probably because Switzerland has fewer handguns than rifles and rifles are harder to transport in the open illegally. Switzerland does have a slightly higher suicide rate than average, but most of its suicides are in men above the age of 70. I don't see any data on the methods used but I would guess that yes, firearms are prominent, if not the majority, in these cases.[/QUOTE] Albeit, Switzerland is fairly small, but it is pretty much a good example of what I'd point to when it comes to gun proliferation. Because even with relatively lax laws compared to other EU countries, they just don't have high rates of ownership compared to the US. (Fairly average for EU iirc, though the swiss don't keep official statistics) The thing about ammo is that when Swiss men join the militia, they take their guns home. However, that doesn't necessarily mean they're able to have their own ammo at home. They have to apply for that specifically IIRC, otherwise it's kept at ranges and storages. And also when they leave the militia (at 32 I think) they have to apply to keep that gun too.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52955863]Albeit, Switzerland is fairly small, but it is pretty much a good example of what I'd point to when it comes to gun proliferation. Because even with relatively lax laws compared to other EU countries, they just don't have high rates of ownership compared to the US. The thing about ammo is that when Swiss men join the militia, they take their guns home. However, that doesn't necessarily mean they're able to have their own ammo at home. They have to apply for that specifically IIRC, otherwise it's kept at ranges and storages. And also when they leave the militia (at 32 I think) they have to apply to keep that gun too.[/QUOTE] They can buy their own ammunition, they just can't take ammunition that is the property of the state home with them for private use without permission. Switzerland is pretty small, but more to the point, it lacks the issues that drive wide scale violence in the US. 25% gun ownership is not insignificant - the US is at something like 43% and that's an all time high whereas our violence rates are dropping all the time - and I would say that the difference in ownership rates alone cannot possibly make up for the disparity in homicide rates. Don't mistake this as an argument that "more guns = less crime", I'm only arguing they aren't directly linked. Adding more guns to an already violent situation obviously isn't going to help, but taking them away from the people who follow the law in the first place isn't a good solution either. Also keep in mind Switzerland's guns are in large part the sorts of "evil assault weapons" characterized as being responsible for violence in the US - and I think they are actual assault rifles, e.g. select-fire with full-auto capability in Switzerland while ours are mostly restricted to semi-automatic (with very very rare exceptions on an [I]individual gun[/I] basis - as in, per serial number, not per type)

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;52955869]They can buy their own ammunition, they just can't take ammunition that is the property of the state home with them for private use without permission. Switzerland is pretty small, but more to the point, it lacks the issues that drive wide scale violence in the US. 25% gun ownership is not insignificant - the US is at something like 43% and that's an all time high whereas our violence rates are dropping all the time - and I would say that the difference in ownership rates alone cannot possibly make up for the disparity in homicide rates. Don't mistake this as an argument that "more guns = less crime", I'm only arguing they aren't directly linked. Adding more guns to an already violent situation obviously isn't going to help, but taking them away from the people who follow the law in the first place isn't a good solution either. Also keep in mind Switzerland's guns are in large part the sorts of "evil assault weapons" characterized as being responsible for violence in the US - and I think they are actual assault rifles, e.g. select-fire with full-auto capability in Switzerland while ours are mostly restricted to semi-automatic (with very very rare exceptions on an [I]individual gun[/I] basis - as in, per serial number, not per type)[/QUOTE]That's not gun ownership, that's guns per 100 residents. Switzerland is at 25 per 100 people, the US at 101 per 100 people. Switzerland is lower than Germany, Austria, Canada, France, and Norway for examples (all about/just above 30.) US is falling over time in registered gun ownership per household (at 35% now,) but going up when it comes to guns per 100 people. The stats don't exist for Switzerland I don't think. So yeah, that makes quite a bit significantly less. Although yeah seems you're right, state ammo stays locked out, and to buy ammo you have to submit a bunch of information but you can still get it. The army rifle is [URL="https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/20031028/index.html#a11"]apparently converted to semi-auto[/URL] however if you apply to keep it/have it "released", and full-autos seem mostly banned according to google.

[QUOTE=evilweazel;52955853]In an ideal world, I would want NICS and background checks to be specifically barred from being put on to either the seller or buyer cost-wise, who I would want to be able to get as many as they want for free. Ideally, it would be funded by some money being poorly utilized in the tax system somewhere, of which there's plenty. Probably the ATF if it was up to me, because fuck the ATF, mostly. I don't mind spending a little more money to make sure mine, your, and future generations have access to the same rights that my ancestors and myself have and had. I want the next generation of America to have more rights, not less.[/QUOTE] Your ancestors had to pay tax stamps for their guns just like we still do...

[QUOTE=proboardslol;52955426]Which is why I think that weapons should be limited to non semi-automatic only.[/QUOTE] So ban semi-autos but not full autos?

[QUOTE=Talon 733;52955972]So ban semi-autos but not full autos?[/QUOTE] Based on the rest of his post, I think he meant that he wants only guns like bolt action rifles, single-action revolvers, and break action shotguns etc. to be legal.

This bill will basically be the death of may-issue CCW. Several states will issue non-resident permits on a shall-issue basis, New Hampshire is one of them. So if you live in, say, New York City, where a concealed-carry permit is basically impossible to obtain unless you're stupid rich, you can now just get a New Hampshire non-resident carry and New York has to recognize it. Same with California and Hawaii, both of which are practically no-issue states thanks to the ability of a sheriff to arbitrarily choose if he wants to issue a permit or not, and all the sheriffs in those states just refusing to issue them.

[QUOTE=DaCommie1;52956135]This bill will basically be the death of may-issue CCW. Several states will issue non-resident permits on a shall-issue basis, New Hampshire is one of them. So if you live in, say, New York City, where a concealed-carry permit is basically impossible to obtain unless you're stupid rich, you can now just get a New Hampshire non-resident carry and New York has to recognize it. Same with California and Hawaii, both of which are practically no-issue states thanks to the ability of a sheriff to arbitrarily choose if he wants to issue a permit or not, and all the sheriffs in those states just refusing to issue them.[/QUOTE] Unfortunately, not the case with this law. You have to live in the same state as the one that issues the permit for it to be recognized. [quote](a) Notwithstanding any provision of the law of any State or political subdivision thereof (except as provided in subsection (b)) and subject only to the requirements of this section, a person who is not prohibited by Federal law from possessing, transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm, who is carrying a valid identification document containing a photograph of the person, and who is carrying a valid license or permit which is issued pursuant to the law of a State and [b]which permits the person to carry a concealed firearm or is entitled to carry a concealed firearm [u]in the State in which the person resides[/u][/b], may possess or carry a concealed handgun (other than a machinegun or destructive device) that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, in any State that—[/quote]

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52955890] US is falling over time in registered gun ownership per household (at 35% now,) but going up when it comes to guns per 100 people. The stats don't exist for Switzerland I don't think. [/quote] That's self reported gun ownership. If a guy claiming to be doing surveys knocks at your door asking if you own a gun many people will tell them to fuck off. [quote]Although yeah seems you're right, state ammo stays locked out, and to buy ammo you have to submit a bunch of information but you can still get it. The army rifle is [URL="https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/20031028/index.html#a11"]apparently converted to semi-auto[/URL] however if you apply to keep it/have it "released", and full-autos seem mostly banned according to google.[/QUOTE] So not much different than the US where full-autos are nearly banned.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;52955834]A good case study for a country with extensive firearms proliferation and no real social concerns associated with it is Switzerland. Switzerland has 25% gun ownership and yes, they [I]are[/I] allowed to keep ammunition in their homes (I see people claim otherwise often). Switzerland has a pretty low homicide rate (.50 per 100,000 - compare to 4.9 per 100,000 in the US in 2013) with the majority of its homicides being conducted with knives. That disparity is probably because Switzerland has fewer handguns than rifles and rifles are harder to transport in the open illegally. Switzerland does have a slightly higher suicide rate than average, but most of its suicides are in men above the age of 70. I don't see any data on the methods used but I would guess that yes, firearms are prominent, if not the majority, in these cases.[/QUOTE] The only real problem with this is that you can't compare the Switzerland to the US accurately because of the widespread cultural, social and ethnic diversity that Switzerland largely lacks. Those three factors contribute greatly to societal tensions which lead to crime related to said concepts, this means largely gang or ethnic violence in most cases for the US, but yeah. It's a good comparison until you start really looking into how similar the two nations really are. The US is very unique culturally and socially, it's a very hard system to draw parallels for because of this. The closest thing may actually be EU as a whole to US equivalency to meet the proper equivalence, but that of course has its own share of problems too.

[quote]So not much different than the US where full-autos are nearly banned.[/quote] Yeah, and the point is that the lack of proliferation is positive for Switzerland. [QUOTE=download;52956215]That's self reported gun ownership. If a guy claiming to be doing surveys knocks at your door asking if you own a gun many people will tell them to fuck off.[/QUOTE]Is there any data or evidence behind this vague anti-statistics wankery? Different polls have different results, but a decline is consistently present. The GSS also don't just show up and randomly ask people to answer questions

[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;52956392]The only real problem with this is that you can't compare the Switzerland to the US accurately because of the widespread cultural, social and ethnic diversity that Switzerland largely lacks. Those three factors contribute greatly to societal tensions which lead to crime related to said concepts, this means largely gang or ethnic violence in most cases for the US, but yeah. It's a good comparison until you start really looking into how similar the two nations really are. The US is very unique culturally and socially, it's a very hard system to draw parallels for because of this. The closest thing may actually be EU as a whole to US equivalency to meet the proper equivalence, but that of course has its own share of problems too.[/QUOTE] The object of the argument is to demonstrate that merely having lax gun laws and a wide distribution of firearms does not cause the violence we have in the US - you don't need to eliminate firearms from the mix to have a very safe and prosperous country.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52956405]Yeah, and the point is that the lack of proliferation is positive for Switzerland.[/quote] The point is that both in the US and Switzerland full-autos are hard to obtain legally. You appeared to be insinuating that full-autos are easy to obtain in the US which they are not. [quote]Is there any data or evidence behind this vague anti-statistics wankery?[/quote] It's a simple statement that if you have a person come door-knocking or call you on the phone, and ask if you have something valuable in your home, that is a target of theft, is a tool to protect yourself and your family and has been the target of government seizures, many people are not going to answer truthfully. This is further complicated by increase in concern in recent years for the aforementioned. [quote]Different polls have different results, but a decline is consistently present.[/QUOTE] And they all suffer from the same above problem.

[QUOTE=download;52956492]The point is that both in the US and Switzerland full-autos are hard to obtain legally. You appeared to be insinuating that full-autos are easy to obtain in the US which they are not.[/QUOTE]no? maybe you should read what i was responding to [quote]It's a simple statement that if you have a person come door-knocking or call you on the phone, and ask if you have something valuable in your home, that is a target of theft, is a tool to protect yourself and your family and has been the target of government seizures, many people are not going to answer truthfully. And they all suffer from the same above problem.[/quote] We're talking statistics not prax. Social influence and whatnot exist but that doesn't in itself mean that every survey is unusable.

[QUOTE=Kigen;52956188]Unfortunately, not the case with this law. You have to live in the same state as the one that issues the permit for it to be recognized.[/QUOTE] Fuck. There goes my hopes of carrying when I visit Michigan.

[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;52955743]I'd like to point out that all of you in here going "all anti gun people are just hiding the fact they want a complete ban and to take my guns away" are basically saying the same shit as if I came in here saying "all gun owners are just dormant spree killers waiting for a trigger" you and I both know that's a retarded line of thinking and has no real basis outside of being a completely delusional, paranoid nut case.[/QUOTE] All anti-gun people? Of course not. The anti-gun Congressmen who continually push for new legislation on demonstrably ineffective measures? Absolutely. You explain to me why they're so dead-set on measures like assault weapon bans and magazine capacity restrictions, proposals that do nothing to address the overwhelming majority of firearm deaths, and which even the Department of Justice concluded were completely ineffective after the [I]last[/I] time we had those laws on the books at a federal level. You explain to me why they keep holding up Australia as a model, where hundred-year-old hunting rifles were declared too dangerous and subject to mandatory confiscation, if the goal isn't mass disarmament. You explain to me why they funded CDC research which advocated a public health campaign to dissuade gun ownership altogether, which directly led to the Dickey Amendment. I am not some 2nd-amendment-clutching lunatic raving about how I gotta keep muh guns to fight the gubmint- but it doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to conclude that when Democrats keep pushing legislation that they know [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/16/assault-weapons-bans-wont-reduce-crime-but-will-help-lead-to-handgun-bans/?utm_term=.a031187ed2aa"]is symbolic at best[/URL] while senior leaders [URL="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sen-dianne-feinstein-suggests-national-buyback-of-guns/article/2516648"]keep looking wistfully at Australia[/URL] as a model, that their stated goals are less than fully honest. Here's my simple acid test: Are they proposing restrictions on handguns, the weapons overwhelmingly used in crime, representing 97% of firearm homicides? Are they proposing dedicating additional resources to preventing straw purchase, the #1 source of firearms used in crime? Are they proposing measures to assist the FBI in cracking down on unscrupulous FFLs, the #2 source? The answer's a resounding 'no' to all three. If they're not doing anything to address the biggest factors in gun crime, I don't believe for one second that an honest desire to fix the problem is their goal.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;52956438]The object of the argument is to demonstrate that merely having lax gun laws and a wide distribution of firearms does not cause the violence we have in the US - you don't need to eliminate firearms from the mix to have a very safe and prosperous country.[/QUOTE] That's fair.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52955819]To have these at a level where gun proliferation will not increase violent crime and successful suicides is basically utopian.[/QUOTE] Ok well if everyone wants to keep ignoring [del]Sweden[/del] (fucking autocorrect) Switzerland as an example: New Hampshire has one of the lowest murders per capita in the country, and we got rid of the need to have a permit for concealed carry recently. Also you should check out all the guns we have here, machine guns included. I wouldn’t exactly call it Utopia, but no one’s really getting gunned down over here.

[QUOTE=AlbertWesker;52959064]Ok well if everyone wants to keep ignoring Sweden as an example: New Hampshire has one of the lowest murders per capita in the country, and we got rid of the need to have a permit for concealed carry recently. Also you should check out all the guns we have here, machine guns included. I wouldn’t exactly call it Utopia, but no one’s really getting gunned down over here.[/QUOTE] What about Sweden? 21 per 100 people, and 6.5% of the population is licensed to possess one or more. This isn't exactly "guns everywhere yet no gun homicide!" And what about New Hampshire? It's ranked pretty low for the US too in gun ownership, and has the highest median income of every state and the lowest poverty rate. And don't try to zing by saying that I'm neglecting those as factors, I acknowledge that they have an effect as well by decreasing the general crime rate.

What quite a few like to point out is there is almost no correlation between gun ownership percentages and crime rates. There are plenty of examples of this fact. [url]http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf[/url]

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52960070]What about Sweden? 21 per 100 people, and 6.5% of the population is licensed to possess one or more. This isn't exactly "guns everywhere yet no gun homicide!" And what about New Hampshire? It's ranked pretty low for the US too in gun ownership, and has the highest median income of every state and the lowest poverty rate. And don't try to zing by saying that I'm neglecting those as factors, I acknowledge that they have an effect as well by decreasing the general crime rate.[/QUOTE] Meant to say Switzerland because phone typing. Also source on the low gun ownership in New Hampshire please? I find that extremely hard to believe given the general culture here, the very lax firearms regulations, and the fact that Sig Sauer has their factory and a specialized gun store based in Exeter. Also I know for a fact New Hampshire has the most machine guns legally registered in the country per capita. [del]Also earlier you were trying to pass off an estimation of 25% of people owning guns in Switzerland as a low amount. 1 in 4 people having access to firearms is anything but low.[/del] Oops I misread that part, my bad.

[QUOTE=AlbertWesker;52960293]Meant to say Switzerland because phone typing. Also source on the low gun ownership in New Hampshire please? I find that extremely hard to believe given the laws we have. Also earlier you were trying to pass off an estimation of 25% of people owning guns in Switzerland as a low amount. 1 in 4 people having access to firearms is anything but low.[/QUOTE] That's not an estimation of owners. That's the amount of guns in circulation. If we used the same number for the US, 101 out of a 100 people would own guns. [URL]https://bearingarms.com/erika-h/2017/09/15/whats-the-gun-ownership-rate-in-your-state/[/URL] Although, rates vary depending on the source, I haven't found any that reported it being in the top half of the country. We often don't have precise statistics for these things, but we can see trends and do some comparisons.