Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban

[Aaron]

Begging your pardon, but do you care to elaborate on that?

For starters, unless your intruder is using a single-shot weapon, then you have one chance only to get the guy with your taser (tasers have one shot and then its melee time). Tasers are also off or on, get hit with a round from a firearm and your at least going to bleed and likely be encouraged to get out, as soon as you turn the taser off, the guy can get back up. How long would someone be willing to keep shocking the guy until the law gets there?

[Terralthra]

I don't see that at all. He's implying that they'll always be avaliable on the black market and that home invasion is actually common enough that its worth keeping a firearm around to defend your turf if it happens, but I don't see him saying its impossible to ban guns...

Well, he's saying that even if you ban guns entirely, the threat of home invasion by a gun-wielding criminal is so high that it renders any non-gun defensive measure worthless. I find it somewhat specious to say that no amount of regulation and enforcement can significantly reduce the threat or frequency of gun-wielding home invasion.

Hell, how common is it now? I see this spectre raised frequently, of defending the home with your second amendment firearm...what's the overall incidence of firearm-equipped breaking and entering? Is this really a pragmatic likelihood for the average person, that they will be faced with a gun-wielding burglar?

[General Zod]

Well, he's saying that even if you ban guns entirely, the threat of home invasion by a gun-wielding criminal is so high that it renders any non-gun defensive measure worthless. I find it somewhat specious to say that no amount of regulation and enforcement can significantly reduce the threat or frequency of gun-wielding home invasion.

Hell, how common is it now? I see this spectre raised frequently, of defending the home with your second amendment firearm...what's the overall incidence of firearm-equipped breaking and entering? Is this really a pragmatic likelihood for the average person, that they will be faced with a gun-wielding burglar?

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict_c.htm#weapon

In 2005, 24% of the incidents of violent crime, a weapon was present.

Offenders had or used a weapon in 48% of all robberies, compared with 22% of all aggravated assaults and 7% of all rapes/sexual assaults in 2005.

Homicides are most often committed with guns, especially handguns. In 2005, 55% of homicides were committed with handguns, 16% with other guns, 14% with knives, 5% with blunt objects, and 11% with other weapons

[Terralthra]

Well, he's saying that even if you ban guns entirely, the threat of home invasion by a gun-wielding criminal is so high that it renders any non-gun defensive measure worthless. I find it somewhat specious to say that no amount of regulation and enforcement can significantly reduce the threat or frequency of gun-wielding home invasion.

Hell, how common is it now? I see this spectre raised frequently, of defending the home with your second amendment firearm...what's the overall incidence of firearm-equipped breaking and entering? Is this really a pragmatic likelihood for the average person, that they will be faced with a gun-wielding burglar?

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict_c.htm#weapon

In 2005, 24% of the incidents of violent crime, a weapon was present.

Offenders had or used a weapon in 48% of all robberies, compared with 22% of all aggravated assaults and 7% of all rapes/sexual assaults in 2005.

Homicides are most often committed with guns, especially handguns. In 2005, 55% of homicides were committed with handguns, 16% with other guns, 14% with knives, 5% with blunt objects, and 11% with other weapons

That doesn't answer my question. It provides excellent support for the idea that banning guns would drastically reduce violent crime, though.

My question is that people are defending gun ownership based on assuming the criminals will own guns and invade their homes, and we should be able to defend ourselves with guns in return. In two parts, I am asking for statistics supporting the hypothesis that a pistol-packing burglar will invade my home with such pragmatic likelihood that I need a gun to defend myself as is. Secondly, the idea appears to be that this is still a likely scenario after we ban firearms!

Without numbers attached to either case, neither is a true policy argument; each is an appeal to emotion, specifically fear.

[General Zod]

My question is that people are defending gun ownership based on assuming the criminals will own guns and invade their homes, and we should be able to defend ourselves with guns in return. In two parts, I am asking for statistics supporting the hypothesis that a pistol-packing burglar will invade my home with such pragmatic likelihood that I need a gun to defend myself as is. Secondly, the idea appears to be that this is still a likely scenario after we ban firearms!

It doesn't especially matter if the criminals invading the home have guns or not. Unless your suggestion is that people who are invaded should actually flee their homes, then having a gun makes sense simply based on the difficulty of physically subduing an attacker. For many people this is not an option, such as the handicapped or elderly, and for most it makes things far more dangerous than they would if they had the option of using a gun as a defense measure otherwise.

[Terralthra]

It doesn't especially matter if the criminals invading the home have guns or not. Unless your suggestion is that people who are invaded should actually flee their homes, then having a gun makes sense simply based on the difficulty of physically subduing an attacker. For many people this is not an option, such as the handicapped or elderly, and for most it makes things far more dangerous than they would if they had the option of using a gun as a defense measure otherwise.

So, clearly, the solution is to ban guns altogether. It's not like people need to shoot each other, anyways...

Use Tazers for home defense, if you must.

Unless you're Snake Eyes, or a government agent who can legally use a taser-firing shotgun, you will be shot several times before you're close enough to use that taser on a gun-wielding criminal.

There are other weapons to use for home defense. Less lethal ones. When that argument was made earlier, Sidewinder said that we had to have guns, because the criminals will have them.

I'm not going to let this go in a circle. If tazers are insufficient for home defense, please provide evidence for the incidence of gun-wielding breaking and entering, and evidence that this incidence will be unaffected by banning guns, we can approach this from a sensible policy perspective involving numbers, benefits, and drawbacks.

[General Zod]

There are other weapons to use for home defense. Less lethal ones. When that argument was made earlier, Sidewinder said that we had to have guns, because the criminals will have them.

I'm not going to let this go in a circle. If tazers are insufficient for home defense, please provide evidence for the incidence of gun-wielding breaking and entering, and evidence that this incidence will be unaffected by banning guns, we can approach this from a sensible policy perspective involving numbers, benefits, and drawbacks.

It's possible they might not have them, sure. But what kind of idiot is willing to risk their life on a maybe when there's a criminal in your home who's already demonstrated he has no qualms breaking into your personal property? Quite frankly that's more than a sufficient demonstration of intent on harm on his behalf, and less than lethal weapons will for the most part be insufficient for anyone who isn't The Terminator.

I certainly can't bring myself to care a whole lot when someone caught breaking and entering winds up getting their stupid ass shot by the home owner, so I don't see what the objection is to somebody owning firearms in this instance so long as they have proper training in how to handle them.

[Julhelm]

There are other weapons to use for home defense. Less lethal ones. When that argument was made earlier, Sidewinder said that we had to have guns, because the criminals will have them.

I'm not going to let this go in a circle. If tazers are insufficient for home defense, please provide evidence for the incidence of gun-wielding breaking and entering, and evidence that this incidence will be unaffected by banning guns, we can approach this from a sensible policy perspective involving numbers, benefits, and drawbacks.

Why the fuck would you want to handicap citizens who already obey the law by restricting them to "less lethal" (ie; much harder to use) weapons? What constitutes "less lethal" weapons? Pepperspray? Tazers? Good luck using those on a criminal wielding guns.

[Terralthra]

Why the fuck would you want to handicap citizens who already obey the law by restricting them to "less lethal" (ie; much harder to use) weapons? What constitutes "less lethal" weapons? Pepperspray? Tazers? Good luck using those on a criminal wielding guns.

And we're right back to the same nonsense. Criminals have guns now because they're easy to get! They're legal to manufacture, import, buy, and retail. Assuming that criminals are still going to have guns if they're banned is silly. That's the point I've been trying to make for 10 posts now, which has clearly flown right over your head.

It's possible they might not have them, sure. But what kind of idiot is willing to risk their life on a maybe when there's a criminal in your home who's already demonstrated he has no qualms breaking into your personal property? Quite frankly that's more than a sufficient demonstration of intent on harm on his behalf, and less than lethal weapons will for the most part be insufficient for anyone who isn't The Terminator.

I certainly can't bring myself to care a whole lot when someone caught breaking and entering winds up getting their stupid ass shot by the home owner, so I don't see what the objection is to somebody owning firearms in this instance so long as they have proper training in how to handle them.

Assuming that someone who will break an inanimate object will also have no qualms about killing you is a slippery slope fallacy. And the objection to somebody owning firearms is that making firearms legal to sell and easy to buy is what puts them in the criminals' hands too.

[General Zod]

Assuming that someone who will break an inanimate object will also have no qualms about killing you is a slippery slope fallacy. And the objection to somebody owning firearms is that making firearms legal to sell and easy to buy is what puts them in the criminals' hands too.

What kind of moron takes a risk that someone who breaks into their home just might not hurt them if they wind up finding out the owner's there? In any kind of city with a high crime rate that's practically suicide.

Quite frankly making firearms illegal isn't going to prevent criminals from committing crimes, that's a ridiculous assumption. What it will do is cripple the home owner's options of self defense, and if the criminal happens to be twice their size or on some type of PCP they're fucked without some type of gun to protect themselves whether the criminal has a firearm or not.

[Dark Flame]

And we're right back to the same nonsense. Criminals have guns now because they're easy to get! They're legal to manufacture, import, buy, and retail. Assuming that criminals are still going to have guns if they're banned is silly. That's the point I've been trying to make for 10 posts now, which has clearly flown right over your head.

There's also the fact that criminals *gasp* break the law and will *gasp* illegally import guns if they want them! They can be illegally imported, illegally bought from importers, perhaps illegally manufactured, and not to mention the millions of guns already in the United States, registered or not. Those guns don't just disappear. They would have to be collected by the government and disposed of. Even after these collections happen, some people will still have hidden guns, especially criminals who obtained their weapons illegally in the first place.

[Jade Falcon]

Regarding the original AWB, wasn't there meant to be an instance during the 90's where there were two rifles on a table and Clinton or some other high ranker in the Government was asked to pick out the 'deadlier' weapon.

One was traditional looking, walnut stock and wooden furniture, basically an older style firearm whereas the other had black plastic furniture, a magazine and other features. The second one was picked out and both weapons were mechanically the same.

I've seen pictures of two extremes with shotguns, I think it was a Mossberg model with the wooden stock and pump action. There was a 'jazzed up' version with black furniture and a pistol grip and a second pistol grip on the pump action, yet both weapons had the same rate of fire, ammo capacity and calibre.

[Julhelm]

[quote="Terralthra"]And we're right back to the same nonsense. Criminals have guns now because they're easy to get! They're legal to manufacture, import, buy, and retail. Assuming that criminals are still going to have guns if they're banned is silly. That's the point I've been trying to make for 10 posts now, which has clearly flown right over your head.
quote]
Hey fuckface - first off I'm not american: I'm from Sweden, where guns are actually regulated and rather difficult for the average citizen to obtain legally, yet the criminals always seem to have one handy to stick up your nose as they rob you, which has happened to me more than once. So how about you provide evidnence that the ratio of guns among criminals would somehow correlate to the ratio of guns among lawabiding folks?

[Coyote]

What is an assault weapon anyway? In the military, it's a select-fire rifle that fires an intermediate-power cartridge. In Washington DC, it's apparently defined the same way Justice Potter Stewart described pornography: "I can't define, but I know what it is when I see it."

The technical, dictionary definition is indeed a select-fire rifle capable of single-shot or full-auto/multi-shot capability. That is why I use the term 'assault-style' rifles rather than assault rifles.

I wish I could pin the blame on that misdirection on the gun grab crowd, but it was in fact a very poor choice of words used by gun marketers to sell weapons that looked like military weapons, but are incapable of full-auto fire. The gun-ban crowd took the term and ran with it, and every time they showed something about 'assault rifles' on the news, they accompanied it with video of people blazing away with full-auto weapons, leading to the myth that an ordinary person could buy a "machinegun" (another mis-use of a technical term) and scaring the hell out of people into passing bans for weapons that were based more on appearance than performance.

[Sidewinder]

There are other weapons to use for home defense. Less lethal ones. When that argument was made earlier, Sidewinder said that we had to have guns, because the criminals will have them.

No, my point was if you think a taser is a better self-defense weapon than a gun, i.e., if you think using a "less lethal" weapon with range comparable to a fucking KNIFE will protect you better than something with a 50-meter effective range (for well-trained marksmen), you're either insane or idiotic.

As for ambushes, if you find yourself in a situation where a criminal attacks before you can draw and aim a handgun, I strongly doubt a taser will be useful, as its mass is comparable to a handgun (you can't draw a taser faster than you can draw a handgun), but its range is shorter.

Don't even think about pepper spray for home defense; not only does it have shorter range than many tasers (not that you can use them or PepperBall projectiles, which are often law enforcement only), but using them in an enclosed environment, e.g., your bedroom, means you will also be affected. If you're asthmatic, you might kill yourself trying to defend yourself.

Then there's people who go camping or whatever in the wilderness, where they might have run into a bear by accident, i.e., they won't have time to unsling a rifle. Do you really think those people are better off with tasers and pepper sprays?

[General Zod]

Hey fuckface - first off I'm not american: I'm from Sweden, where guns are actually regulated and rather difficult for the average citizen to obtain legally, yet the criminals always seem to have one handy to stick up your nose as they rob you, which has happened to me more than once. So how about you provide evidnence that the ratio of guns among criminals would somehow correlate to the ratio of guns among lawabiding folks?

Even if it did, a gun ban wouldn't address the problem of high crime rates like Terralthra seems to be under the impression of; it's a lot like putting a bandaid on a sucking chest wound. As anyone who bothered paying the slightest iota of attention to DC's history would know, their violent crime rates actually increased after the handgun ban was enacted.

[Coyote]

Why the fuck would you want to handicap citizens who already obey the law by restricting them to "less lethal" (ie; much harder to use) weapons? What constitutes "less lethal" weapons? Pepperspray? Tazers? Good luck using those on a criminal wielding guns.

And we're right back to the same nonsense. Criminals have guns now because they're easy to get! They're legal to manufacture, import, buy, and retail. Assuming that criminals are still going to have guns if they're banned is silly. That's the point I've been trying to make for 10 posts now, which has clearly flown right over your head.

But very few criminals buy their crime guns in a dealer store with the Background Check and forms filled out with a record of the sale. That's like saying that bank robbers buy their getaway vehicles at the car dealer, and clamping down on car dealers will prevent bank robbery.

Most "non-lethal" alternatives are harder to use, not guaranteed to work on people who are drunk or stoned, and frequently don't have any means of follow-up. A taser has one shot. Pepper spray doesn't work on every one. And as mentioned, even if you hit someone with a non-lethal variant, as soon as the non-lethal effect wear off, they're up again and all you've done is delay and make them really, really angry. Of course I suppose you could tase or spray someone, and then while they're down, whale on them with a baseball bat, but now you're the criminal, perpetrating battery.

Assuming that someone who will break an inanimate object will also have no qualms about killing you is a slippery slope fallacy.

A conflict-avoidant criminal will break into an unoccupied home. A criminal with no qualms about killing or hurting will break into an occupied home. It is a very logical assumption to make that a person knowingly attacking an occupied residence is likely willing to cause injury, rape, or death.

[SirNitram]

Link

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will join House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in opposing any effort to revive the 1994 assault-weapons ban, putting them on the opposite side of the Obama administration.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the Nevada Democrat will preserve his traditional pro-gun rights voting record.


"Sen. Reid would oppose an effort [to] reinstate the ban if the Senate were to vote on it in the future," Manley told The Hill in an e-mail late Thursday night.

It was not immediately clear whether Reid would block the bill from the Senate, but his opposition casts serious doubt on its chances. Also, Manley noted that Reid voted against the ban in 1994 and again when it expired in 2004.

Reid's stance joins him with Pelosi, who told reporters Thursday that the administration had not checked with her before Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters the administration would attempt to reinstate the ban. Pelosi gave a flat “no” when asked if she had spoken to Holder or any other administration officials about the issue.

“On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference. “I think it's clear the Bush administration didn’t do that.”

Outside of the dig at the recent Republican president, that phrase is the stock line of those who don’t want to pass new gun control laws, such as the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Holder said during a press conference Wednesday in Phoenix that Obama had made reinstating the ban one of his campaign promises.

"There are obviously a number of things that are — that have been taking up a substantial amount of his time, and so I’m not sure exactly what the sequencing will be," Holder said. "It is something, however, that we still think would be an appropriate thing to do."

The news caught Capitol Hill by surprise, immediately pitting Democrats and Republicans against each other and even exposing deep divides among Democrats. A number of House Democrats lost their seats after being targeted by the NRA for voting for the 1994 ban.

Short version: Congress says work with the laws in existance.

[Glocksman]

I'm not surprised.
While Pelosi may personally favor a new AWB, she certainly isn't willing to risk a 'blue dog' revolt in order to push one through.
Frankly I would expect my Democratic Congressman to vote against any new gun laws simply because he made a point of trumpeting his NRA 'A' grade during his campaign against the Republican incumbent.

Reid is facing a potentially tough re-election fight and Nevada is a very 'gun friendly' state, so I didn't really expect him to sign on to this either.

IMHO, Holder sent this up as a trial balloon and the Congressional leadership just shot it down.

[Kitsune]

One item with Pepperballs is that I would like to be able to purchase them myself but called one of the companies which manufacture them and that I would have to get my company to sign of them. I could not just buy them as a self defense item.

[His Divine Shadow]

It's totally impossible in Finland to get pepper spray, mace, tazers or telescoping batons unless you are a cop or in private security. People can however get guns for hunting and sport. Reason being guns have sporting and hunting applications, all these others are purely self defence products and it's against the law to arm or prepare yourself in any way with any object for purposes of self defence. If you carry a stick of wood with the intent of using it to defend yourself, you're breaking the law. There also duty to retreat in the law.

[Flash]

But very few criminals buy their crime guns in a dealer store with the Background Check and forms filled out with a record of the sale. That's like saying that bank robbers buy their getaway vehicles at the car dealer, and clamping down on car dealers will prevent bank robbery.

You're right, very few criminals buy their guns from the local gun store. So where do they get them? That's a tough question....

Oh yeah.

They steal them.

This is the most recent data i've found so far (paper was published in 2001).

Percent of State inmates
possessing a firearm
Source of gun 1997 1991
Total 100.0% 100.0%
Purchased from -- 13.9 20.8
Retail store 8.3 14.7
Pawnshop 3.8 4.2
Flea market 1.0 1.3
Gun show 0.7 0.6
Friends or family 39.6 33.8
Street/illegal source 39.2 40.8

(Sorry about the messy formatting, meant to be a table, but I don't know how to get it to show properly)

Now, if these guns weren't available in the first place, where would they have got them from? Can't steal what's not there to be stolen...

[Coyote]

Now, if these guns weren't available in the first place, where would they have got them from? Can't steal what's not there to be stolen...

It would be more logical to require legal gun owners to lock up their weapons, and level harsh penalties at those who careless leave their guns out where they can be stolen. A wall-bolted safe, for example, could show the police that you made a good faith effort to secure guns from theft. If you leave a gun unsecured, and it gets stolen and used in a crime, you should get some sort of punishment for negligence. A fine, maybe 30 days in jail, or community service in an orange jumpsuit where everyone can see. Maybe even pay reparations to the person who was the victim of the crime your stolen gun helped facilitate. Three such acts of negligence and your gun rights can be up for judicial review and possible revocation.

That would be far better than just randomly invoking restrictions/punishment on all the people who are safe and responsible.

[His Divine Shadow]

Thats how it is in Sweden for instance, they require a safe thats meets a certain certification, it has to be atleast 150kg empty or it has to be bolted to the wall or floor. Guns aren't stolen there that often thanks to this. Still criminals do get guns easily anyway, they just flow into the country cars and whatnot from other EU countries (many people use this as an anti-EU argument), usually originating somewhere in east europe or such. And one time in the 90s criminals hit an army depot and stole assault rifles, since then the Army has stepped up guard of their depots.

[Kanastrous]

In fact I've always hoped for a one-strike policy for people who leave weapons unsecured to be stolen.

Really, isn't one act of flagrant potentially lethal carelessness and irresponsibility enough? Why take a chance on granting someone two more opportunities to put an illegal deadly weapon into circulation?

This by the way would apply to two friends of mine, one of whom permitted an unsecured revolver and the other several unsecured rifles to be stolen out of their homes.