Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban

[Alyeska]

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.

Should people be liable for leaving cars unlocked? Leaving a gun about is not lethal carelessness. And how does one get a safe when dealing with rentals and especially apartments?

[General Zod]

And how does one get a safe when dealing with rentals and especially apartments?

The same as any other piece of furniture? Or by ordering online?

[Flagg]

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.

And how does one get a safe when dealing with rentals and especially apartments?

Go to Wal-Mart where they sell them? Most safes aren't wall or floor mounted, and you can buy planty of small ones that can easily fit handguns and ammunition.

[Flash]

Leaving a gun about is not lethal carelessness.

Holy shit, you actually believe that? Amazing

And how does one get a safe when dealing with rentals and especially apartments?

Well, you could get a safe that doesn't require being built into the foundations, like one from the site that Zod linked to. Or, and I know this is a mind boggling idea but bear with me here, DON'T KEEP A FUCKING GUN IN THE HOUSE. Problem solved.

[Alyeska]

Holy shit, you actually believe that? Amazing

I have several firearms, and I don't have a safe. I would need two full sized safes just to house my weapons. I do not have the room for that as I live in an apartment.

Well, you could get a safe that doesn't require being built into the foundations, like one from the site that Zod linked to. Or, and I know this is a mind boggling idea but bear with me here, DON'T KEEP A FUCKING GUN IN THE HOUSE. Problem solved.

Not keeping a gun in the house defeats the purpose of having one for self defense.

Am I liable for knives that thieves might steal from me? My car? Am I liable for being charged with child porn because someone accessed my wireless access point?

[Alyeska]

Go to Wal-Mart where they sell them? Most safes aren't wall or floor mounted, and you can buy planty of small ones that can easily fit handguns and ammunition.

I have 10 rifles and shotguns. Holding those in a safe is not an easy proposition and it would take up a great deal of room.

[General Zod]

Go to Wal-Mart where they sell them? Most safes aren't wall or floor mounted, and you can buy planty of small ones that can easily fit handguns and ammunition.

I have 10 rifles and shotguns. Holding those in a safe is not an easy proposition and it would take up a great deal of room.

So it's not irresponsible to leave them lying about. . .because you didn't adequately plan ahead? Huh?

[Alyeska]

Go to Wal-Mart where they sell them? Most safes aren't wall or floor mounted, and you can buy planty of small ones that can easily fit handguns and ammunition.

I have 10 rifles and shotguns. Holding those in a safe is not an easy proposition and it would take up a great deal of room.

So it's not irresponsible to leave them lying about. . .because you didn't adequately plan ahead? Huh?

I lock my apartment and keep them out of sight. And yet you would say I am liable if they get stolen. I just pointed out several other things that can get stolen from just about anyone and asked what the fundamental difference is. Why are you liable for the guns but not other things that are also lethal and/or also as likely to get stolen and used for illegal purposes? A knife is easily deadly. A car is very deadly if so desired. Access to a wireless access point can allow a multitude of crimes to be committed. But I am liable for someone else stealing my guns if I don't lock them up in a safe inside my locked apartment. I am liable for someone stealing them.

Yeah, I don't agree with that.

[Flash]

Go to Wal-Mart where they sell them? Most safes aren't wall or floor mounted, and you can buy planty of small ones that can easily fit handguns and ammunition.

I have 10 rifles and shotguns. Holding those in a safe is not an easy proposition and it would take up a great deal of room.

Then maybe you are keeping too many guns in your apartment. They're certainly NOT all for self defense - one gun could do that job.

And frankly, you should be liable if they get stolen the same way that hospital staff are liable f controlled medicine is stolen because someone didn't lock the cabinet. As the owner of dangerous items, you have a duty of care to others. It is YOUR responsibility to ensure that adequate measures are taken to prevent these weapons causing harm to others.

[Alyeska]

Go to Wal-Mart where they sell them? Most safes aren't wall or floor mounted, and you can buy planty of small ones that can easily fit handguns and ammunition.

I have 10 rifles and shotguns. Holding those in a safe is not an easy proposition and it would take up a great deal of room.

Then maybe you are keeping too many guns in your apartment. They're certainly NOT all for self defense - one gun could do that job.

And frankly, you should be liable if they get stolen the same way that hospital staff are liable f controlled medicine is stolen because someone didn't lock the cabinet. As the owner of dangerous items, you have a duty of care to others. It is YOUR responsibility to ensure that adequate measures are taken to prevent these weapons causing harm to others.

And so I should be held liable when someone steals my car? Its a potentially very dangerous device.

I lock my apartment and keep the weapons out of sight. I consider that adequate measures.

[Kanastrous]

Should people be liable for leaving cars unlocked?

If there's an accessible firearm inside, absolutely.

Leaving a gun about is not lethal carelessness.

Leaving a deadly weapon lying around unsecured and untended for the picking-up doesn't impress you as lethal carelessness? Okay; I don't see why we can't have different definitions of the term.*

And how does one get a safe when dealing with rentals and especially apartments?

The way that I dealt with it was the purchase of a two barrel-lock 7-gauge steel rifle locker. Sized to fit in a closet and accept five rifles or shotguns plus three to four handguns, about two hundred pounds, anchored to wall studs in the back and not the sort of thing that your average thief would pilfer, at least without recourse to a refrigerator dolly and/or cutting torch. Without exception I lived in upstairs apartments with gated entrances, meaning that getting the locker to the street would be an awkward noisy +/- 45-minute operation requiring specific tools.

Of course the umpty-wow dB motion-detecting siren inside was intended to add to the difficulty of said pilferage, should anyone decide to try.


* strictly speaking, I guess it's potentially lethal carelessness. Which impresses me as just about equally foolish and irresponsible.

[Singular Intellect]

It seems to me people are missing Alyeska's point here; what's the big difference between having your car stolen, a kitchen knife stolen or one of you guns stolen? All of the above are potentially extremely lethal weapons.

Do we hold owners accountable if their car is stolen and it kills someone? Do we hold owners accountable if someone steals their kitchen knife and stabs someone with it?

If you answer 'no' to the above questions, then explain why someone should be held accountable if their gun is stolen, especially if they take precautions like securing their guns out of sight and in their locked home.

[K. A. Pital]

Do we hold owners accountable if their car is stolen and it kills someone? Do we hold owners accountable if someone steals their kitchen knife and stabs someone with it?

Car and kitchen knife are less potent murder weapons, and less delicately desgned for murder.

Consider if someone steals an APC from a military base and goes on a killing spree. Do we hold the owners accountable? Fuck yes. Whoever allowed the machine to be stolen due to being unguarded is likely to face a court martial.

[Kanastrous]

It seems to me people are missing Alyeska's point here; what's the big difference between having your car stolen, a kitchen knife stolen or one of you guns stolen? All of the above are potentially extremely lethal weapons.

Visualize the lethal potential of an object as, say, a glowing light. Knives, cars, baseball bats, drinking glasses, small bits of wire, stereo speakers, etc all have lethal potential that you could describe as fuzzy pools of light in various intensities, like what you'd throw with a soft fresnel. To extend the metaphor, a modern firearm is coherent light. Does handling and securing an industrial laser demand more care and responsibility, than handling a photo flood? Sure it does.

Yes, all sorts of mundane objects have lethal potential. But firearms are the engineering expression of concentrated lethality at fingertip-pressure disposal. That means that there is additional responsibility concerning storage and securing of firearms.

Do we hold owners accountable if their car is stolen and it kills someone?

I suggest that there is a hierarchy of obligations when it comes to securing potentially dangerous implements, and that securing purpose-designed long-rage killing devices like firearms ranks higher in that hierarchy than securing a personal vehicle.

Do we hold owners accountable if someone steals their kitchen knife and stabs someone with it?

See above. I suggest that securing a kitchen knife ranks lower on the hierarchy because a kitchen knife is a shorter-range and likely to be a less-lethal weapon.

If you answer 'no' to the above questions, then explain why someone should be held accountable if their gun is stolen, especially if they take precautions like securing their guns out of sight and in their locked home.

'Out of sight' and 'in their locked home' don't impress me as precautions. I have toothpaste that's stored out of sight in my locked home. I believe that lethal ranged weapons are responsibly kept better secured, than my toothpaste.

As I suggested above, the focused lethality of a firearm puts it near the top of the list when it comes to prioritizing how shit gets secured. And then there's the fact that securing a firearm is usually not onerously difficult or expensive: considering the potentially fatal misuse of this instrument purpose-designed for blowing holes in things at a distance, it seems prudent to invest the small effort in keeping it properly stored.

*edit*

Car and kitchen knife are less potent murder weapons, and less delicately designed for murder.

'Less delicately designed for murder.' That's good. Wish I'd thought of that.

[Akkleptos]

Especially since the article basically implies that gun control in America would be passed because of Mexican violence. To many Americans, that'd be like lowering the speed limit to 50 miles an hour because a guy in Canada got hit by a speeder (I know it's not an apt comparison, but the idea that "we suffer because another country has problems" will be the lens through which it is viewed).

Hmmm, okay, people in the US are -by law- permitted to get pretty much whatever guns they can afford, but some control over what goes south of the border should also be exerted. How this could be done effectively I don't know, but the fact that Mexican druglords get most of their guns from the US is beyond argument. And increased violence in Mexico surely affects US interests in both sides of the border.

Yes, all sorts of mundane objects have lethal potential. But firearms are the engineering expression of concentrated lethality at fingertip-pressure disposal. That means that there is additional responsibility concerning storage and securing of firearms.

'Out of sight' and 'in their locked home' don't impress me as precautions. I have toothpaste that's stored out of sight in my locked home. I believe that lethal ranged weapons are responsibly kept better secured, than my toothpaste.

Priceless. Just priceless. Why didn't you post those on a certain other thread pertaining children and the use of firearms?

[Kanastrous]

Priceless. Just priceless. Why didn't you post those on a certain other thread pertaining children and the use of firearms?

Am I going to regret asking for a link to the certain other thread?

What can I tell you; I own firearms and I am conscious of a responsibility to keep them well-secured.

[Akkleptos]

Priceless. Just priceless. Why didn't you post those on a certain other thread pertaining children and the use of firearms?

Am I going to regret asking for a link to the certain other thread?

What can I tell you; I own firearms and I am conscious of a responsibility to keep them well-secured.

That's the sensible thing to do, indeed. As for you regretting my posting the link to that other thread (in N&P also) well, that's entirely up to you, though I'd bet you would find it quite amusing. It gets to the fun part at about page 3.

Clicky.

Oh, and I meant to praise the clarity in your aforementioned posts.

[Akkleptos]

Also, as per the OP (Obama's decision to revive the restriction on assault weapons sales), and the weapon smuggling into Mexico: (link)

Mexico: U.S. Must Stop Gun Trade At Border
MEXICO CITY (AP) ― Mexico blames the U.S. for arming the world's most powerful drug cartels, a complaint supported on Friday by a U.S. government report that found nearly all of Mexico's escalating drug killings involved weapons from north of the border.

President Felipe Calderon and his top prosecutor told The Associated Press on Thursday that Mexican police and soldiers are dangerously outgunned because U.S. authorities are failing to stop the smuggling of high-powered weapons into Mexico.

Calderon has complained for two years that the U.S. isn't carrying its weight in the cross-border drug war, despite the fact that American drug users fuel the problem. "We need to stop the flow of guns and weapons towards Mexico," President Calderon told AP. "Let me express to you that we've seized in this two years more than 25,000 weapons and guns, and more than 90 percent of them came from United States, and I'm talking from missiles launchers to machine guns and grenades."

President Barack Obama's administration is beginning to respond: On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised to enforce a long-ignored ban on importing assault weapons, many of which are re-sold illegally and smuggled into Mexico to resupply the cartels. Calderon applauded Holder's announcement saying it was the first time in many years that the American government was starting to show more commitment.

[His Divine Shadow]

I have a safe that cost me 450 euros, it can hold 15 rifles. I live in a rental apartment, it's not that hard.

[Dahak]

Should people be liable for leaving cars unlocked? Leaving a gun about is not lethal carelessness. And how does one get a safe when dealing with rentals and especially apartments?

You might be surprised, but there are countries that do this. Leaving your car unlocked here will get you a fine. And should this lead to the car being stolen and something happen with it, you might be liable in parts for what happened to/with it (but your insurance will certainly laugh in your face).

[Flash]

And so I should be held liable when someone steals my car? Its a potentially very dangerous device.

I lock my apartment and keep the weapons out of sight. I consider that adequate measures.

I don't consider that adequate, and the laws in most sane countries wouldn't either. As I said above, you have a duty of care to others to ensure that your weapons are not stolen. The car is probably locked, if it is a remotely recent model it also probably has an alarm and an engine immobiliser. That is sufficient to deter most thieves. You are taking all reasonable precautions to ensure it is not stolen.

"But a car is dangerous! A criminal could steal it and use it to run people over!" No shit. The difference here is that a car is not designed to kill things, and let's be honest here, most criminals aren't going to steal a car so they can run someone over. A gun is a deadly weapon by design. If someone steals it, you can be pretty sure that they are planning to use it in a crime, quite possibly with the intent to injure or kill someone. I don't think it's unreasonable AT ALL to require that deadly weapons be stored far more securely than a car.

Now, let's consider that your apartment is broken into, while you're not home. Chances are the thieves will discover some, if not all of your guns. Congratulations, you've just armed up to 10 criminals, and odds are those guns will be used in a crime. If you had taken ADEQUATE precautions (such as a safe, and it's been pointed out repeatedly that you can get ones that suit your living situation), then even if the weapons are discovered it's that much harder for them to be stolen. So yes, I consider you bear some responsibility in this situation.

[ray245]

Moreover, not everyone is disciplined enough to use or store guns wisely. OK, you want to use a gun for self-defense? Fine, but how do you ensure that in the crossfire, there will be minimum loss of innocent lives? Are you liable to be jailed for killing an innocent while defending yourself in a crossfire? Hell yes, just as liable as the criminal you are shooting at.

People who are authorised to use guns in a disciplined and safe manner like the Police forces requires a decent amount of training to begin with. People who are trained to know, when to use firearms, and when not to use them.

Training that ensure that to some extend, people will have proper self-control and responsibility when it comes to firearms. If everyone wants to own a gun, perhaps they should go through the same amount of training a police officer have IRT to the use of guns?

Moreover, the idea that everyone should be able to defend themselves with a gun without any sort of training will only undermine the importance of Police enforcement. Why should we spend so much money on the training of police officer to ensure that they will know when to use a gun, and to ensure minimum civilian causalities? After all, if we assume that the general public is responsible enough to use a gun for self-defense without a sizable amount of training, then we can assume that police officers are responsible enough to use guns in a responsible manner without training as well.

Also, in regards to the Car argument, may I remind everyone that to drive a car legally, we at the very least has to ensure a person pass a driving test? A driving test that is not designed to test the driving skill of a driver, but to test if he or she is responsible enough to drive a Car responsibly.

P.S. Coyote, if you want, I can address your argument and rebuttal in another thread about gun control here. I'm not sure if necro-ing that thread is a good idea.

[K. A. Pital]

If someone steals it, you can be pretty sure that they are planning to use it in a crime, quite possibly with the intent to injure or kill someone.

Guess where stolen US handguns go? That's right - in the criminal pool of weapons complicit in around 70% of gun murders. I don't know why people take the issue of gun storage so easily. That's just reckless and neglient.

[Coyote]

It seems to me people are missing Alyeska's point here; what's the big difference between having your car stolen, a kitchen knife stolen or one of you guns stolen? All of the above are potentially extremely lethal weapons.

Do we hold owners accountable if their car is stolen and it kills someone? Do we hold owners accountable if someone steals their kitchen knife and stabs someone with it?

If you answer 'no' to the above questions, then explain why someone should be held accountable if their gun is stolen, especially if they take precautions like securing their guns out of sight and in their locked home.

Oh, I certainly feel that there is more inherent responsibility about the gun. When a car is stolen, it's usually to go somewhere or to be chopped up and sold as parts for drug money, or joyriding, or at most used as a disposable getaway car for a robbery. These things inconvenience a lot of people but assuming no one is harmed (just property and money lost) we have insurance.

But if a gun is stolen, there is a good chance it will be used in a crime. I've never argued against the idea that "guns are designed to kill people", of course they are. They'd be pretty damn useless if they weren't designed to kill people*

The inherent danger of a gun implies that there is more responsibility asked of the owner to secure and store. Law or not, I as a human being would feel like shit if someone stole one of my guns and used it to kill someone in a crime-- especially when I could have done something simple to prevent it. It takes two seconds to turn a key on a safe. It's worth it.



*Or, in the case of military rifles, they are actually intended to inflict serious wounds. Some weapons are also designed specifically for target shooting competitions and would be horrible for crime or self defense use; and some guns are designed specifically for hunting large game, although they would be potentially usable to kill people as well, just not very efficiently. There are also guns such as the .50-caliber sniper rifles that are best used for destroying materiel rather than people, since a single .50-cal round on a person is seriously overkill and there are much more efficient weapons for snipers to use. But all this is technicality to this discussion.

[Coyote]

Especially since the article basically implies that gun control in America would be passed because of Mexican violence. To many Americans, that'd be like lowering the speed limit to 50 miles an hour because a guy in Canada got hit by a speeder (I know it's not an apt comparison, but the idea that "we suffer because another country has problems" will be the lens through which it is viewed).

Hmmm, okay, people in the US are -by law- permitted to get pretty much whatever guns they can afford, but some control over what goes south of the border should also be exerted. How this could be done effectively I don't know, but the fact that Mexican druglords get most of their guns from the US is beyond argument. And increased violence in Mexico surely affects US interests in both sides of the border.

Not really "whatever guns they can afford" since there are many people who could, if they wanted to, afford a fully-automatic weapon if such were easily available. They're about the price of a motorcycle, but you have to jump through a lot of hoops to buy one, including all sorts of FBI background checks and so on. Most people aren't interested (even gun owners) because it's actually not that important to have a full-auto weapon. They're actually very wasteful and inefficient except in large numbers, which is why the military finds them helpful. But I digress.

I'd really like to know exactly what kinds of guns are, indeed, being smuggled into Mexico from the US. I see pictures on the news of M-16 and AK-47 look-alikes, but I also see video of weapons being fired on full-automatic. That leads me to believe one of three things:

These were legal 'assault-style' rifles that were illegally (and dangerously) converted to full-auto.
These were full-auto capable weapons stolen from military or police stores.
These were full-auto weapons smuggled in from a third country because it is easy to cross the US/Mexico border.

The possibility that these were legally purchased full-autos is very unlikely because there is so much in-depth background investigation and monitoring done on the handful of full-auto liscencees in America (there's maybe all of 2,000 or so people with full-auto liscences, and the FBI can come into their homes at any time to do an inventory and check serial numbers) that it would be highly unlikely.

It is possible that guns are smuggled in from, say, China, or other countries (there was recently news about a couple thousand US weapons lost in Afghanistan, for example, al-Quaeda may be selling them for cash and to help destabilize the US region in general) and then brought across the porous border. I don't know how possible that is; it seems more likely that Mexican cartels would just smuggle them into Mexico directly, but maybe the cartels that control the ports are in competition with the cartels that control the interior, desert towns who draw from US sources.

But the types of weapons generally sold over the counter in the USA would be of fairly limited usefulness to the sorts of fighting and enforcement that cartels would seek. I'll be honest with you all, I wonder about the veracity of the whole story, or the scope of it, because it seems to me that it would be far easier and cheaper for the Mexican cartels to bribe or steal Mexican Army and Police weapons that are already full-auto and stored "right next door". That the Mexican police in many of these small towns are entirely under the control of the cartels is likely, and it would not be a stretch to assume that they have people in the military as well.