Private arms being used against democracy and freedom?

[Darth Wong]

You're just a walking, talking stereotype of the dumbshit American conservative, aren't you?

Except for that I've supported Obama ever since Richardson dropped out of the presidential nomination campaign, support gay marriage, support the decriminalization of marijuana, lowering penalties for simple possession of other illegal drugs (among other nonviolent crimes), and ending the militarization of police departments.

How does that change anything? So you're OK with gays and drugs, and you don't like McCain; big deal. You're still one of those Reagan-style supply-side "fuck the downtrodden" types.

[SirNitram]

Are you talking about
Bloomberg's stings?

I was relatively sure it was Ghouliani. I'll find the exacts when the meds wear down a bit, if that's okay.

[Rye]

I wonder how much the murder rate would be cut by if you removed the heterosexual male population? Probably a great deal more than just picking on the blacks.

By approximately 45.8%.

What makes you say that?

The data for 2004 concerning the murders for which the offenders were known showed that 91.7 percent of the offenders were adults and 8.3 percent were juveniles. A breakdown of the data by gender showed that 90.1 percent of the offenders were male and 9.9 percent were female.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Homicide rates by race

56.4% of homicides by firearm, 52.2% of total homicides, and only 12.4% of the population. Most of this is intraracial violence. The War on Drugs has effectively destroyed an entire segment of America's citizens by trapping them into poverty-laden cycles of violence.

Concession accepted.

Do me a favor: Write your representatives and Senators to end the Drug War. Contribute to SSDP, GLAAD, etc.; protest the Drug War (hell, find a $cientology Raid or War Protest and piggyback your issues onto them!) Put action behind your words!

Except for that I've supported Obama ever since Richardson dropped out of the presidential nomination campaign, support gay marriage, support the decriminalization of marijuana, lowering penalties for simple possession of other illegal drugs (among other nonviolent crimes), and ending the militarization of police departments.

Oh good. Irrelevant, but still good.

Again, ACTUALIZE YOUR POLITICAL POTENTIAL. See above.

[Stuart]

Mind you, even the original American Revolutionary story is mythologized to a heavy degree. We're often told about how the brave American militias rose up to defeat the occupying British army. (snip) There's a reason why people say that the British Empire simply gave up on America because it wasn't worth it, not because the Americans were actually doing really well.

There's a very good summary of the internal politics that took place on teh British side in N.A.M. Rodger's "Command of the OCeans". Stripped to its essentials, the British possessions in the Americans were considered to be a single entity. Of thate ntity, the sugar-producing West Indies were producing fabulous amounts of wealth while the North American Colonies were running at a severe net loss. However, being one entity, the department as a whole had to be self-supporting so the West Indies was subsidizing the colonies. It was the West Indies sugar barons who were demanding the increases in taxation on the colonies in order to reduce that level of subsidy. When the revolution broke out, the West Indies sugar magnates saw this as a Godsend that would relieve them of a liability and they opposed any efforts by Britain to recover said colonies. They were influential, both directly as a result of the money they provided and indirectly by bribery, in crippling the British efforts. It was their efforts that were decisive in bringing about British inability to cursh the revolt. Beside them, the French intervention was insignificant (and took place so late that the issue had been decided by the time it became anything else) and the revolutionnary army was inconsequential to the point of invisibility.

In modern terms, the American Revolution was actually a corporation downsizing by the spin-off of an unprofitable subsidiary.

There's also the fact that lack of gun control tends to lead to higher murder rates, and higher murder rates lead to people being more willing to turn away their freedoms and give more power to law enforcement agencies that promise to keep them safe.

Your "facts" aren't facts. The real facts are that, in the United States the reverse is the case; states with the least gun control laws have the lowest crime rates and those states that relax gun control (by permitting concealed carry for example) see an immediate reduction in crime rates (See More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws by John R Lott). On a worldwide basis, the issue is less clear. There are examples of high gun ownership/high crime, high gun ownership/low crime, low gun ownership/high crime and low gun ownership/low crime cases. In the broad scheme of things, its impossible to make a reasoned case either way. However, for the U.S. the evidence is clear, gun ownership reduces the crime rate.

Your other suggestion is absurd. An examination of history shows that it is disarming the population that is intended to enforce dependancy on a central government - which is why every authoritarian makes disarming is population a first priority. The U.S. Constitutional provisions on the right for private citizens to own weapons is specifically a defense against a centralized and tyrannical government although it does have many other merits as well. Furthermore, there are historical cases of centralized and authoritarian governments deliberately inducing a high level of threat to their now-disarmed populations in ordre to increase their dependance on the state. Tsarist Russia was a classic example of this; Grazhdanin Stat can probably give you more complete details but the gist of the system was that there were roving bands of "bandits" run by the state who would destropy one village in order to enforce control over others by defending them from... uihhh ... themselves.

Something like half the illegally obtained guns/guns used in crimes are sold from 10% or so of the vendors. So, not too many years ago, a mayor has the brilliant plan of using sting ops to identify the ten percent and put them out of business until they comply. The gun lobby immediately ran crying to the legislature, demanding this vile behavior be made illegal, and there be no penalties for violately the laws about selling guns.

Not just the gun lobby, the FBI, BAFTE, the State Governments and even the ACLU were up in arms (pun intended) about Bloomberg's follies. They were illegal, unconstitutional and as you say, vile. They destroyed several major cases that were being run by BATFE and the FBI (not to mention OCCB) and represented nothing more thah an attempt by New York to extend its gun laws to other states by blackmail and coercion. They were nothing to be proud of, about the only good thing that can be said for them was that they showed what a fascist thug can do when he has a tame judge in his pocket.

Ah, exactly the thing I was wondering about -how US criminals get an easy grip on stealing arms: being in cahoots with certain arms dealers expains a lot. After all, I guess they don't just randomly steal guns - they have informants as to which guns to steal and where.

The basic statistic quoted is wrong (it was spewed out by Bloomberg's publicity machine but was imemdiately shown to be false - see America's First Freedom). Only a tiny handful of guns used in crimes come from illegal straw purchases. What most such purchases are is an attempt by law-abiding citisens who have been denied the ability to defend themselves by people like Bloomberg trying to get such means by any way they can. The problem in the United States is that there is a vast pool of illegal weaponry that floats around between various criminal users - I understand that most guns found after crimes have a history of several crimes by varying users. That pool is being constantly replenished by illegal imports - good example, twenty years ago, the use of pistols like the PM Makarov and the PA-63 were virtually unknown. Now, they are commonplace.

However, your basic comment is correct, when guns are stolen its usually because criminals are tipped off to the availability of a large number of such weapons. However, those tip-offs usually come from inside the State authority, not from the dealers. It's logical really, where a register of gun owners exists, its maintained by low-grade, low-paid civil servants for whom a number of hundred-dollar bills is a valuable inducement. That's why registering guns is a very bad idea

[K. A. Pital]

The problem in the United States is that there is a vast pool of illegal weaponry that floats around between various criminal users

Handguns which are 70% of murders, they are like 70% stolen.

There is a correlation between legal circulation and illegal circulation - the later draws from the former obviously.

That pool is being constantly replenished by illegal imports - good example, twenty years ago, the use of pistols like the PM Makarov and the PA-63 were virtually unknown. Now, they are commonplace.

Imports are not a significant part of murder weapons; most murder weapons are US-made and are stolen from legal circulation.

An examination of history shows that it is disarming the population that is intended to enforce dependancy on a central government - which is why every authoritarian makes disarming is population a first priority

What? Nazi Germany had guns but that didn't stop them... and in the USSR, after the Great Patriotic War, a large percent of households had arms and they weren't disarmed despite authoritarian power.

I guess that's not a general rule; a case-by-case mostly.

[Glocksman]

That pool is being constantly replenished by illegal imports - twenty years ago, the use of pistols like the PM Makarov and the PA-63 were virtually unknown. Now, they are commonplace.

Not a good example.
Makarovs and PA-63's are legally imported and inexpensive, which probably accounts for their showing up in increasing numbers.
Off topic, Romanian made Tokarevs and Czech CZ-82's are now on the C&R list and cost about $200 or so.

My next C&R purchase will probably be a CZ-82, as it'd make a nice companion to my CZ-52.

A good example of illegally imported weapons would be fully automatic weapons used in crime.
The vast majority of full autos in criminal use are either illegal imports or illegally converted semi autos.
Very few are stolen from civilians simply because their owners tend to secure them due to the very high cost of pre-86 transferable full autos.

[Edi]

When talking about gun control, what you really need to do is separate handguns from long guns and deal with them as separate issues, because of the differences between them. Until then, you're not going to get anywhere. If you take a look at Finland, we actually have more guns per capita than the US does, I think. But the great majority of those are long guns: Various hunting rifles and shotguns for the most part. Handguns are far rarer. It is quite incidentally also a lot harder to get a permit for a hand gun than a shotgun or rifle, because the conceivable uses a private citizen could put a handgun are far fewer than the uses for a long gun.

One more interesting idea I recently heard from an American friend of mine was outlawing all semiautomatic weapons for private citizens, but I'd qualify that with outlawing semiautomatic handguns since you can actually have a case for possessing semiautomatic long guns in rural areas (pest control etc). That's still going to leave a lot of handguns floating around, but if all you have is a six-shot revolver, you won't be putting nearly as much lead in the air as you would with a semiautomatic. Longer load times too. Not that this would be feasible, but it's an idea that I think has some merit.

In the US context, the opposition to fascist central government is a load of complete bullshit because it requires far greater societal changes before that problem becomes manifest.

[brianeyci]

Of all the arguments pro-gun control, I agree with Glocksman. Saying that legal guns are a source for illegal guns is about the worst possible argument to make, because legal gun owners are damn good at taking care of their guns, especially rare guns like fully automatic weapons, or expensive guns or long guns (especially long rifles.) Prohibition didn't work for beer, so I don't understand how it can work for guns. Prohibition isn't even working on the War on Drugs, although that doesn't mean I want more drugs on the street. I don't want more guns on the street, but I am not going to say prohibition works in America.

Gun ban people want less guns, especially handguns, in the hands of hoodlums, but they don't want to admit the real problem. Go into a ghetto and offer high school students after school programs and role models, sports, things to do, and most of all offer them protection so they won't feel a need to join a gang. But the easy solution is just to pass a law banning this or that kind of gun: about as stupid as the "tough on crime" crap where you raise mandatory sentences hoping for less crime. The logic is inescapable: if someone is prepared to break the law with a gun to commit a crime, he wouldn't have given a shit about breaking the law to get a gun in the first place. He would have found a way: it's not like guns are atomic weapons. There are just too many guns floating around like Stuart said, and there's no way to go back.

[Glocksman]

Legally owned guns are a source for crime weapons, but not in the way most people would think.
In most US states, sales of handguns between private individuals are not regulated and are not subject to the conditions (NICS check, etc.) that a dealer sale is.

Right now in my local paper, there are 2 classified ads from people selling handguns.
If I had the cash, I could just go and buy the guns as easily as buying a used lawnmower.

[Glocksman]

Clarification: It's illegal for even a private person to knowingly sell a gun to a convicted felon or other prohibited person.
But how would a private seller know the would be buyer is prohibited if the sale doesn't have to be transacted through a dealer with NICS access?

[K. A. Pital]

There are just too many guns floating around like Stuart said, and there's no way to go back.

That's the issue. If US people are unwilling to cease the circulation of handguns, it's all in vain.

Banning handgun circulation nationwide will actually have an effect in several years, because the illegal gun pool has to be constantly replenished by either stolen, or, like Glocksman said, simply privately sold guns.

If that does not happen, murder-used handguns will decrease in numbers since guns are subject to tear and wear and require maintenance and replacement.

In a year or so, if legal circulation is stopped, and most handguns in private posession are given over, the criminal gun pool WILL be drained. In case people do not give existing handguns over... they'll wear out in some more years, but inevitably will.

Gun bans will work. And self-assembled and self-maintained guns do NOT have the efficiency of a stock made gun. So "they'll brew guns like they brew alcohol" doesn't work here at all.

Of course, if Americans love their handguns too much (long guns are a minor source of murders, and are NOT the preferred murder weapon, Edi is correct that handgun prevalence is important)... nothing will happen. Which is the most likely case.

[SirNitram]

Clarification: It's illegal for even a private person to knowingly sell a gun to a convicted felon or other prohibited person.
But how would a private seller know the would be buyer is prohibited if the sale doesn't have to be transacted through a dealer with NICS access?

Wouldn't it be a rather direct solution to simply require such sales to go through a dealer with NICS access? A hassle, yes, but not one that's ridiculously burdensome to reduce the gun crime rate.

[Glocksman]

Clarification: It's illegal for even a private person to knowingly sell a gun to a convicted felon or other prohibited person.
But how would a private seller know the would be buyer is prohibited if the sale doesn't have to be transacted through a dealer with NICS access?

Wouldn't it be a rather direct solution to simply require such sales to go through a dealer with NICS access? A hassle, yes, but not one that's ridiculously burdensome to reduce the gun crime rate.

Some states do require this, and personally I have no problem with it as long as the dealer's fee is kept reasonable ($10-$20 or so).
Even though it's not required in my state, I do use a dealer to transfer handguns in order to cover my own ass if something would happen.
The one I use charges $15 for his service.

[Thanas]

What? Nazi Germany had guns but that didn't stop them...

Stas, that statement is incorrect. In fact, it only applies to hunting rifles and tools, for which you needed a hunting license first. Basically, it was the rich elite and landowners who got one, since in order for a hunting license one needed to actually own the land to hunt on. Hunting clubs were formed, but that's about it.

The general populace did not have access to weapons per se. In fact, in 1920, a law was passed that expressively prohibited a civilian to own any weapons. In 1921 another law was introduced, which allowed for the ownership of deadly weapons (mind you, not military-grade weapons) of civilians, if they could show to be reliable, law abiding etc. It was very strictly regulated, and gun ownership rates were actually very, very low.

After the Nazis got the control in 1933, they aimed on the "wehrhaftmachung" of the german people and relaxed those laws, however, at no point did the state stop the gun control and there was no widespread gun ownership.

[Sriad]

Jadeite, I want you to sit down and carefully consider what you just implied about black people by the first part of your statement.

Homicide rates by race

56.4% of homicides by firearm, 52.2% of total homicides, and only 12.4% of the population. Most of this is intraracial violence. The War on Drugs has effectively destroyed an entire segment of America's citizens by trapping them into poverty-laden cycles of violence.

Yes, we know the statistics. People are getting mad because you said "Get rid of the blacks, lulz" instead of "Dismantling the war on drugs and de-privatize the for-profit prison industry, using the savings and new sources of tax revenue for law enforcement boosts and improved education, could ease the suffering of our inner-city brethren and indeed, many American families below 300% of the poverty line."

You're just a walking, talking stereotype of the dumbshit American conservative, aren't you?

Except for that I've supported Obama ever since Richardson dropped out of the presidential nomination campaign, support gay marriage, support the decriminalization of marijuana, lowering penalties for simple possession of other illegal drugs (among other nonviolent crimes), and ending the militarization of police departments.

I wonder how much the murder rate would be cut by if you removed the heterosexual male population? Probably a great deal more than just picking on the blacks.

By approximately 45.8%.

Or eighty eight percent, from your sources. For your own safety, back slowly away from the thread.

[Stuart]

Banning handgun circulation nationwide will actually have an effect in several years, because the illegal gun pool has to be constantly replenished by either stolen, or, like Glocksman said, simply privately sold guns. If that does not happen, murder-used handguns will decrease in numbers since guns are subject to tear and wear and require maintenance and replacement.

The problem is that demonstrably does not happen. We've had a complete ban on machine gun imports for twenty years now and the illegal supply of automatic weapons has nopt been affected. The legal supply has, the price of full-auto wea[pons has gone up but criminals can still get them. The decreasing pool argument has been throughly discredited because the effect is not to reduce supply but simply to shift sourcing. Cut off the theft/private sales supply line and the bad guys will shift from those sources to illegal imports (gun running is big business down south). South of the border, the law is very weak and corrupt, bad guys can get all the guns they need down there. Or they can steal them from National Guard/Army depots or simply make them themselves. It's not hard for a modern light machine shop to make a modern equivalent of the Sten gun or PPS-43. As the price goes up, so do the number of people prepared to take chances to fill that demand. As a number of people have pointed out, we can't stop drugs, why should we be able to stop guns?

In a year or so, if legal circulation is stopped, and most handguns in private posession are given over, the criminal gun pool WILL be drained. In case people do not give existing handguns over... they'll wear out in some more years, but inevitably will.

In a year or so! You have got to be kidding. Its been twenty years on automatic weapons and no signs of the pool imploding. For non-auto weapons given the huge pool of illegal weapons that presently exists and teh ability to replenish it by theft oif militaryw eapons, imports and abck-street production, it will take a century or (probably far) more to drain the pool. So, we'll have a defenseless population being terrorized by a armed criminal population for a centuiry ina id of a policy that probably won;t work anyway.

Sorry, that doesn't make any kind of sense, especially since we know that going the other way and having an armed law-abiding population produces an immediate reduction in crime rates

Gun bans will work. And self-assembled and self-maintained guns do NOT have the efficiency of a stock made gun. So "they'll brew guns like they brew alcohol" doesn't work here at all.

Of course, if Americans love their handguns too much (long guns are a minor source of murders, and are NOT the preferred murder weapon, Edi is correct that handgun prevalence is important)... nothing will happen. Which is the most likely case.[/quote]

[K. A. Pital]

The problem is that demonstrably does not happen

Demonstrably? Look, automatic weapons are a very small fraction of murder weapons. When you are banning some type of weapon, it has to be very widespread as a murder tool - that would be handguns. I'm pretty sure that replacing 70% of gun supply - millions of handguns - which comes from the inside of US with imports is a far harder feat than simply replacing the small amount of auto weapons.

And sorry, if the US is so corrupt criminals can use Army supply chain as a means of TOTALLY REPLACING their handgun pool, the US is fucked up in more ways than a First World country should be, and frankly indeed anything aimed at gun control here is pointless. I just thought it's not the case, but thank you for enlightning me on the amount of corruption.

If this is NOT so, you can't just replace millions of handguns - especially if the civilians no longer have any of them too, and can't privately sell them to their buddy criminals.

It's not hard for a modern light machine shop to make a modern equivalent of the Sten gun or PPS-43.

Why make Sten or PPS? Once again, we're talking about hand guns - murder weapon #1. Other weapons are an insignificant murder percent.

Sorry, that doesn't make any kind of sense, especially since we know that going the other way and having an armed law-abiding population produces an immediate reduction in crime rates

"Law-abiding" is the key here. If the population is law-abiding, it hardly matters what rates of gun dissemination among the population you have. If it is not, things go the other way round.

And I agree that America is a special case - people are too gun-loving to really get rid of those weapons. Which is the only reason gun measures fail.

In many nations people do not have guns and are fine. In the US, transitioning to a gunless society will just take too much work to be worth it, probably.

[K. A. Pital]

If actually talking about prevalent murder weapons like handguns, why not look to, well, here for example?

The issue is hanguns (1) and private goons selling handguns to bad guys (2). If merely restricting the number of sales had a positive effect, surely a far wider ban on the most common, US-stemming weapon - the handgun - will have an effect too.

Replacing the handguns which are so widespread with imports doesn't seem to be feasible, unlike stuff like auto and semiauto weapons which anyway are just like what, 1% of the criminal-preferred weapons, and don't matter at all in that case?

[Beowulf]

Stuart was talking about stealing Mexican Army weaponry. Given the porous nature of the southern border, it's a feasible smuggling route.

[K. A. Pital]

Stuart was talking about stealing Mexican Army weaponry.

Aren't you building a huge fence over the whole border?

[Beowulf]

Stuart was talking about stealing Mexican Army weaponry.

Aren't you building a huge fence over the whole border?

It's a virtual fence, for what that's worth.

[K. A. Pital]

It's a virtual fence, for what that's worth.

Well sucks. Still, I really doubt that you could replace a 65 million handgun pool easily with Mexico smuggled guns. That would require millions of handguns trafficked through the border. When there are millions of handguns in circulation, getting them is ridiculously easy and costs of that are very low. Where there are only a few thousand, it is harder for criminals to use them, constantly maintain and replace them. Automatic weapons are an irrelevant source of criminal gun pool, most of it is handguns.

There are more long guns in the US than handguns, but they are not used for murder that much since it's harder to transport them around, to store, maintain, etc. in case you're a criminal.

Opportunity costs matter and rising the costs of taking criminal possession of a handgun will lead to changes.

[irishmick79]

It's a virtual fence, for what that's worth.

Well sucks. Still, I really doubt that you could replace a 65 million handgun pool easily with Mexico smuggled guns. That would require millions of handguns trafficked through the border. When there are millions of handguns in circulation, getting them is ridiculously easy and costs of that are very low. Where there are only a few thousand, it is harder for criminals to use them, constantly maintain and replace them. Automatic weapons are an irrelevant source of criminal gun pool, most of it is handguns.

There are more long guns in the US than handguns, but they are not used for murder that much since it's harder to transport them around, to store, maintain, etc. in case you're a criminal.

Opportunity costs matter and rising the costs of taking criminal possession of a handgun will lead to changes.

Frankly, to get a handgun ban passed, you'd have to breack the back of the NRA and eliminate or significantly change the language of the 2nd amendment. The proponents of gun controls simply do not have the political clout to stop the NRA from lobbying the hell out of congress and getting any kind of handgun restrictions killed. Congress for its part hasn't shown the willingness to really push the issue.

I agree that handgun bans are probably the best way to control the problem, but the political reality is that there is no way to get them passed. Existing handgun bans are getting challenged in the courts the instant they appear, and with the conservative tilt of the system might be overturned as unconstitutional.

And yes, if you can get hundreds of thousands of people across the US-Mexican border in a year, then you can certainly set up networks to smuggle millions of guns in as well. The US has saturated a lot of countries in latin america with millions of dollars worth of small arms, and some of that definitely does come back across the border with some of the major drug operations.

[His Divine Shadow]

When talking about gun control, what you really need to do is separate handguns from long guns and deal with them as separate issues, because of the differences between them. Until then, you're not going to get anywhere. If you take a look at Finland, we actually have more guns per capita than the US does, I think. But the great majority of those are long guns: Various hunting rifles and shotguns for the most part. Handguns are far rarer. It is quite incidentally also a lot harder to get a permit for a hand gun than a shotgun or rifle, because the conceivable uses a private citizen could put a handgun are far fewer than the uses for a long gun.

I wouldn't say they are that rare, out of 1.6 million registered guns, an estimated 290,000 are handguns. Nor would I say they are very hard to get a license for. I had one gun, a .22LR bolt, then I got a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, then a .45ACP one, never a problem, then a pump shotgun, then a lever action .22lr rifle, and now a semiauto .22LR is coming up and then i am looking at a .357 revolver. A friend of mine got one of those new MP5 replicas in .22LR just now as well and he only had a 9mm beretta as his first and only gun.

I think you don't really accomplish anything by banning stuff like this outright. Take Finland, Switzerland and even countries like France and germany that have tens of millions of long guns and hand guns combined, 65 of all 80 million small arms in europe are privately owned.

We all manage to have these freedoms preserved more or less without the accompanying violence. Why? Because of our welfare states, in europe you are rarely going to be so poor that you will turn to crime, which is much more common in america. So if only american gun lovers got behind that and started building a welfare state, they could keep their 2nd amendment and easy to get guns combined with european levels of violence in a decade or so. So strike a blow for gun rights, support better welfare and universal health care, see the murder rate drop like a stone and the brady campaign implode.